Missing Muse

Received a letter from a libertarian friend of mine

This story was forwarded around by a New Hampshire state rep. I can only say that I was disgusted:

Today on my way into the Red Arrow Diner, there was a Bum outside pan handling…I chose not to give the guy any money, but this young woman dropped some change into his styrofoam cup. He thanked her and then said,  ”Vote for Barak Obama, others like me  need the money.” I laughed as loudly and obnoxiously as I could. 

However, once inside the Red Arrow, seat at the counter, my server came over and placed a cup of coffee in front of me.  She had on one of those “Obama 08” pins.  

I had a great lunch…a Bacon Cheeseburger, Onion Rings and a nice piece of pie.  When she brought me the slip, I diligently paid the $11.43 bill, but made a notation on the back:

   Political Participation is awesome!. Since you are an Obama supporter I have decided to start “redistributing the wealth” early. I will be giving the tip I normally would leave for you, to the bum outside panhandling.

When she read the note, she gave a me a pissed off look and a hell of a scowl…
I went outside, gave the bum 3 bucks and told him to thank the gal inside with the Obama button because it was apparent that  he could use the money more than she. The Bum was grateful and thanked me with a rotten-toothed grin. 
While the Bum was grateful  for money that he did not earn,  the server girl who supports Obama,  was twice as pissed off that I gave her tip to the bum, because I thought he could use it more.

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in when Barak Obama talks about it, but harder to swallow in practice. 

Here was my first response:

I disagree with this in about 1000 ways. Guy should be shot in the face.

That’s actually my knee jerk NON-angry response. After some thought here is my boiling mad response:

Reality:

Rich people make most of their money off of capital gains. ONLY rich people really ever make any money off of capital gains. Capital gains tax is absurdly low. Obama wants to raise capital gains and LOWER taxes for everyone else. This will only affect people who can comfortably afford a brand new 911 Turbo.

Rich people should, at the least, pay an equal percentage of taxes as poor people, if not more. Right now they are effectively paying less because they don’t make their money off of regular income.

You do not make a lot of money without the support of society, Warren Buffet has said this many times. Unless you put a very strong effort into the maintenance of the infrastructure, health care, and most especially education, the quality of society will decline greatly within a generation. Rich people like to forget that they depend on the roads, airplanes, sewer workers, teachers, and all the other less wealthy to create the environment in which the wealthy can thrive.

By securing the foundations of society through ensuring quality of life and opportunity, we can make sure that future generations will all enjoy what this country has afforded us.

The libertarian movement is an admirable one. It is people fighting for the ideals with the tenacity of the original founding fathers and it keeps people on their toes. Unfortunately, it is a very short-sighted mindset and doesn’t take into account the realities of how a large societal ecosystem actually works, particularly in the modern day and age.

Obama greatly respects those ideals but understands that it is a fallacy to think that an ownership society will ever work. The constant “popping” of economic bubbles since the beginning of time is only one example of unregulated greed ruining the lives of millions of people time after time. In an ownership society the wealthy will only separate even more from the other classes until we are back in the gilded age. Study it.

Obama isn’t only “the least of two evils,” he’s actually a good choice. Not voting for him, by either voting for McCain, voting for someone else, or not voting at all, isn’t just short-sighted. It’s tantamount to irresponsibility about the future of the country and a dereliction of the duty of intelligent, kind people to ensure that we will have a great country in the future.

And that’s all I have to say about that. Continue your regularly scheduled idealist delusions. ;)

(Any time I go to the Red Arrow in the future I will give that girl 6 dollars for putting up with small government asshole NHites like the guy in the story).