Ted,
However, I do not believe its healthy for a wealthy society such as ours to have children go to bed hungry, or in serious need of medical attention.
I think you must have listened to one too many Democrat speeches.
Even if that 5% have 50% of the wealth?
What does that have to do with anything? We have income taxes, a number of different sets for that matter. The government can tell person A that he does not have to contribute a penny to pay for the cost of the government. The government can tell his neighbor to pay 100%. Person A is asked to pay 0%, Person B is asked to pay 35%.
I wouldn't have a problem with a law saying that everyone pays the equal amount amount, or equal percentage. You would have the same law applying to all people.
Our tax system is regressive one.......its fairer than many other systems that exist in developed nations. I understand that conservatives feel there is very little need for gov't and consequently, there should be very little taxes......but they are wrong on both counts IMO.
I think the "need" for government comes from an increasing decoupling of the cost of running of the government with the obligation to pay. The trend is that most people don't carry the burden of paying the cost, so they keep coming up with all these "needs"
There are some people who have to chose between sending a check to the IRS and having their kids cavities fixed, but the number of these people caught in the middle is decreasing, since more and more people are getting a free ride.
When you say my party......I assume that you mean the Dems. Is that a Freudian slip or do you repeatedly forget that I am an independent and belong to no party?
I think it was a Feudian slip, since your formal "independence" gets lost in the substance of your posts, and a spontaneous reaction to them just makes its way to my posts.
BTW what was brought to an end was not communism but a right wing dictatorship playing under the guise of communism.
Good one. Bad = right wing. Very "independent" observation.
I have said repeatedly the real battle is between the Arabs and Israel........and the Palestinians are the pawns. And the German refugees forced back into Germany is not the same as the Palestinians forced into refugee camps. At least, the Germans understood they were faulted for being the bad guys in a war, and must take what is dished out; but the Palestinians were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Up to 1948, yes. But since they became the aggressors, and the price of those aggressions is that West Bank, Gaza, Golan Hights are now occuppied territories. Israel has not done what the allies have done, which is to throw out the Germans at gunpoint from many areas where they lived for generations. Being on the wrong side of aggressive wars (together with Israel's Arab neighbors) should exact the same price, if you agree that expulsion of defeated Germans was the right price for them to pay.
if there were no Arafat et al and no terror attacks, would the independent state of Palestine be in existence by now?
Maybe the more correct question should be, would West Bank and Gaza be ocuppied by Israel, or be independent (or part of Jordan / Egypt if there was no Arafat and no terrorism. I think the answer is yes. If Israel was not threatened by inhabitants of those terrirories, there is no reason to occupy them. Israel gets along very well with Jordan, ok with Egypt, now that they are no longer threat, and does not feel the need to occupy a buffer zone.
It is the Arab aggression, and subsequent occupation of West Bank and Gaza that brought Israel into those areas, and another result is that now, since these areas are under some Israel control, the can of warms (that the settlers are) has been opened.
That's assuming that everything started with the first suicide bombing. What the truth is that the whole thing started when the first Zionists settled in the Palestinian region in the very early part of the 20th century. By the twenties, the two sides were already in a state of conflict. As more Zionists settled into the area, the Jews developed an edge that became a win when the Brits agreed to let them create Israel.
Why not go back to Adam and Eve, or Abraham. I don't think it is very constructive. Ther is nothing that the current citizens of Israel can do (short of a collective suicide) that would undo the creation of Israel.
If you look at the situation today, and do it realistically, Israel is there, it is a constant in this equation, not a variable. They are not going to admit a single Palestinian to come back to Israel from abroad (after all that has happened over time, and is happening as we speak.
So the settlement could be an independent Wet Bank and Gaza, free of Israel's occupation. Palestinians could have had it years ago. The reason they don't have it is because this is not enough for them. They started the current wave of terror because Palestinians want more. The unleashing of the killers is a calculated move.
Since then, the Palestinian position has weakened considerably. Let also not forget what Sharon means to the Palestinians......he is the Butcher. He is a slap in their collective face.
They asked for him they got him. It was entirely with the power of Palestinian leadership to keep Sharon away, and keep Barak.
So how come the Israelis elected him over Netanyahu? They share the same politics, are both hard liners.......Netanyahu is the one more articulate, more charismatic, the one more prime ministerial etc. Yet they chose Sharon even as they knew their own tribunal had found him guilty in the early 80's. Why? Netanyahu would have been as hard on the Palestinians. Why Sharon? He is a jigger of salt in the Palestinians' wounds. How could the Israelis not know that?
The exact reason why Sharon and not Netanyahu is because Netanyahu lost election, and resigned his seat in the parliament. I don't know if his move was permanent or just to take some time off for one term, what happened is that the Palestinians unleashed the wave of terror, and instead of responding, Barak turned the other cheek, while he continued the "peace process". The citizens of Israel got so outraged by the wave of terror that the Barak government disintegrated, and new elections were called. The sequence of events was so fast that Netanyahu was caught without a seat in the parliament, therefore ineligible to run for Prime Minister. Sharon was. And he was not only eligible, his stance was proven to be correct in that Palestinians and Arafat can't be trusted.
Joe |
