Here is the second in a series of questions. First, I threw up a question for Liberal Democrats (UNSOLVED MYSTERIES: QUESTION 1). Now we have an approximation of the same question for Conservative Republicans. The point is to phrase the question the way a Liberal Democrat would phrase the question. Why? The idea is to encourage those who read this blog to examine their assumptions about their own beliefs and the beliefs of others.
Ever hear that old saw about walking in someone else’s shoes. Here is the source.
Pray, don’t find fault with the man that limps,
Or stumbles along the road.
Unless you have worn the moccasins he wears,
Or stumbled beneath the same load.
Continued =>: https://www.aaanativearts.com/walk-mile-in-his-moccasins
We have a couple of candidates for question 2.
First, the candidate proposed by artaxes.
Question 2A
How can you say that capitalism works when less than 1 percent have 90% percent of the wealth and when there are so many poor or working poor?
artaxes question is similar to what I would have written. What would I have done differently? I would have emphasized what Liberal Democrats think of as the selfishness of Conservatives.
Because it is selfish for 1 percent to own 90 percent of the wealth, don’t we have to redistribute the wealth? Are you so selfish you cannot share?
Note that to inspire envy a Conservative does not have to be in that 1 percent. To inspire envy in another, we just have to be a bit better off. That is why, odd though it may seem, the rich are often able to use the poor in a coalition against the middle class.
Did either artaxes or I get it right? We tried, but I don’t think either of us succeeded in seeing the issue from the perspective of a Liberal Democrat. Contemplate what sklyjd proposed.
Question 2B
When is it obvious to you that your political leaders repeat conspiracies from social media and often use them as a basis to attack political opponents and gain popularity.
https://citizentom.com/2022/08/21/unsolved-mysteries-question-1/#comment-103639
Seriously consider what skljd’s question implies. Envy may be part of what motivates Liberal Democrat, but it doesn’t by itself explain the willingness of people to entrust so much power to what Conservatives view as the wealthy, grasping “elites” who lead the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is much more complex than a simple coalition of the rich and the poor combined against the middle class. Apparently, Liberal Democrats view their leaders quite differently from the way Conservatives view them. Why?
Note that anyone is welcome and encourage to comment. That includes posing answers, adding a bit of sarcasm, and/or suggesting questions. If you consider yourself neither a Liberal Democrat nor a Conservative Republican, you are still welcome to provide the “moderate” viewpoint. In addition, anyone is welcome to suggest how they would phrase question 1 for a “moderate.” While we are at it, we may as well gore everyone’s ox.
What will Question 3 be? This one is going to be really difficult to put together. How would a moderate phrase question 1? Would a self-professed moderate please step up and help us?
Citizen Tom 
Reblogged this on boudica.us.
Thanks for the reblog!
Um…. Question #2 has now sub-questions and added questions. and mindless questions…. I think I am going to disqualify myself from this exercise. Feed upon each other as you wish, folks. You guys are way over my paygrade (and I will be the first to admit it doesn’t take much to be over my paygrade).
Doug
I am seventy. The mere fact you disagree doesn’t impress me. Now if you could explain I might impressed. As it you are just blowing smoke.
Tom If we discern your following statements as clues to the why of politics in a Democrat Republic appear different but are basically the same.
“That is why, odd though it may seem, the rich are often abl
e to use the poor in a coalition against the middle class.”
“Democrats view their leaders quite differently from the way Conservatives view them. Why?”
Why,
Both political parties must play the same game of of being the “good guy’s” perception to both obtain or maintain what is needed to either obtain or remain in power and control over what King Solomon prayer.
Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and ear who is able to govern this your great people? “Described as “so great on power.
Problem is both parties need money donations which are most obtained by wealthy donator’s, or special interests’ groups to protect their wealth or personal judgements of what is good or evil for both themselves and their posterity.
So as your above clue is the Conservatives play to the middle class and the Liberals to the poor to obtain or remain in power to control.
And most voters will support the party that they trust will better represent or protect their, mainly earthly possessions.
I had to smile though when I read that the Arizona Senator forced the Democrats to change their game to tax the 1 percenter in the recent Bill titled Inflation Reduction Act that the Liberals are now lauding over.
In other words, most voters on either party vote based on a perception of who will best protect their possessions and politicians must protect the interests of their campaign donators I they want to obtain or remain in power.
In my opinion, the wisest way to obtain money needed to run a Democrat Republic is to implement death taxes. This gives incentives to both the rich and poor to both obtain wealth to buy possessions and spend their wealth while thy are alive so as to stimulate the economy.
And while they are alive, they won’t care about controlling politicians to guard their wealth while they are alive and complain what will happen to their possessions when they die.
Any if they don’t spend the money while thy are alive, my guess is they will spend it and invigorate the economy instead of knowing it will wind up being used by government.
The result is the more they spend the more taxes will be collected from sales and /or income taxes instead of printing money to produce inflation or National Debt which will result in the future everyone, rich poor, or middle class to be the reduced so everybody and to buy more possessions.
Regards and goodwill blogging.
Scatterwisdom
Interesting and thoughtful justification for the death tax.
Most ideas are bad ideas. Is this one a bad idea? Well, even good ideas have problems. I think a big problem with this idea is that it is especially destructive to small businesses.
The death tax won’t discourage the wealthy from saving and investing. Politicians, rich politicians, will provide loopholes, but it will discourage people who cannot afford lawyers.
If all our government does is protect our rights, it doesn’t need much money. To grow the economy, we need to encourage investment. Investment is like the seed corn for the future. That includes individual savings, not just corporate reinvestment.
Taxation is not supposed to be a social engineering tool or as a tool for punishing the rich. It is supposed to be the way WE ALL fund the government to protect our rights, and EVERYONE should have skin in the game.
Tom,
Death Taxes would change the present methods of investment from a game of gambling rewards basics which savvy investors engage in presently in the USA, instead of investment basics.
In other words, instead of producing a staple product or service, the current or present methods of investment can disappear in an instant in the USA future, same as an investment bubble.
A subject which requires a book to explain instead of a blog post.
Regards and goodwill blogging
Don’t see how. If you want folks to invest for the long-term, then you want them to see the possibility of passing on their wealth to their children.
Tom,
I agree in investing to benefit family members.
The problem is to question if it is wise or foolish to leave an inheritance to a family member that may create an incentive to tempt them into the evil instead of the good of acquiring wealth.
For example, in proverb 22:2
Bible hub commentary
“The rich and poor meet together: the LORD is the maker of them all.”
If we discern the bible commentaries of how we wealth can sperate the common interests and create divisions between rich and poor, it can be related to the present USA politics.
https://biblehub.com/commentaries/proverbs/22-2.htm
Add that religion is on the wane in the USA to teach us Christianity that we are all brothers and sisters in common and to use our wealth to aid the poor in real need of bare essentials of life, and the future does not look as promising, in my opinion.
Death taxes is one way to bring about change Ito make us realize this Ecclesiastes statement about what may occur with all their wealth when they die.
“For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. (Ecclesiastes 2:21)”
“Add this proverb t is not good to eat too much honey, nor is it honorable to search out matters that are too deep. (Proverb 25:27)”
As I stated, these are just of few wisdom verses and if we add all the New Testament verses about the evils of wealth instead of the good that could be obtained for Christian beliefs,
then add what I stated about stable investments instead of gambling investments., too much to write on an explanation Aon a blog post.
Regards and goodwill blogging.
Scatterwisdom
Our government exists to protect our rights. Those rights include deciding how we spend the money we earn.
The death tax is just a form of meddling. Do we have a problem that results from passing on our wealth to our children? Where is the proof. The Bible doesn’t discourage it. It encourages storing up our treasures in heaven.
Chris Plante at WMAL (https://www.wmal.com/chris-plante/) pointed this one out today.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/how-to-fix-news-media/
Relevant to this post? Maybe. What we believe makes a difference. What we believe depends upon what we were taught and what we know. Are the mass media and our education system informing us properly.
That Washington Post opinion piece complains (somewhat accurately, I think) about the news media. What about our education system?
Amanda Ripley the author of the Washington Post op-ed complained not about the news, but about propaganda written specifically to demoralize the reader.
All of her news sources publish propaganda purposed to get under the skin of the “news” consumer. Ironically, she got bamboozled by her fellow leftist “journalists.”
Along with the routine targeting of political enemies, systematically attacking the mental-emotional wellbeing of 10’s of millions of people is a crime against humanity.
Leftist media outlets hide their criminality behind a dilapidated legal system and the 1st Amendment. This has got to stop. Those people need to be tried, convicted and then thrown down a deep, dark hole for the rest of their lives.
I don’t doubt that many news reporters set out to do their jobs unethically, but I think you are forgetting that to a great extent we learn how to be good and to avoid evil. Wisdom is learned.
As you know, our education system is a mess, I can how guess how bad a job our schools do teaching journalism, but it fairly obvious that our school are teaching much that is just plain evil.
Isaiah put it this way.
I have little doubt God will curse a bunch of teachers and professors for teaching that evil is good, and good is evil.
Regarding question 2A concerning capitalism, the premise of the question is false. Therefore, any conclusions will be absurd.
The United States stopped being a capitalist nation after FDR instituted the New Deal in the 1930’s which transformed the federal government into a tyranny. In a tyranny the top 1% are filthy rich, most of the rest of the population is dirt poor.
Therefore, the critique of capitalism posed in question 2A is actually a critique of tyranny.
Agreed.