<Hold it Tom.....
Where's your sense of balance?
Who picks the oranges for your orange juice?
Who takes away your garbage?
Everybody has a place in this society and it is the job of every taxpaying citizen to put in a little extra for the social programs for these people who work the low level tasks FOR you...ones you would never do yourself, and ones that you would miss if there was no-one there to do them.

Theoretically, people are getting paid for doing these jobs. Where is it written that low-paying jobs must be "topped off" by social programs? If they are not getting paid enough to live on, you might ask why. The liberal answer of course, is that they are being "exploited" by evil bosses in between bouts of binging and purging on fried babies. The market answer is that there is no incentive to pay them more when social programs are going to pick up the bill anyway.

For your information, growing oranges in this country is heavily subsidized already. Massive tariffs on imported orange products, up to 60 percent for product coming from Brazil, adds about 30 cents a gallon to the price of orange juice for the poor welfare mom, who is paying to protect the jobs of Florida voters. Hell, its not like SHE needs the money. Unravelling the dog's breakfast of the government-agriculture complex would take more time and energy that I have. Suffice it to say that you are paying a lot more for food--an essential of life--than you have to. The government is counting on you not noticing this, while they count on the firm support of American agricultural interests (mostly large corporations, not family farms) for protecting them from overseas competition.

And for your information, I pay the city, and the company they exclusively contract with, a lot of money to have my garbage hauled. If they want to pay their haulers more, they should charge me more. Funneling the money through the state or Federal government so that a small trickle can come back to the garbage haulers is not the way to get the job done. Of course, since garbage hauling is a government monopoly here, I don't have much choice but to pay, so what's the problem?

The fact that you don't consider YOURSELF a part of "society" sets off alarm bells in MY brain!

I was referring specifically to the use of the word "society" by leftists. A small test: when a liberal talks about doing something wonderful for "society" with some program or other (welfare, education, free college, health care, food stamps, subsidized this-or-that, you name it), what are the chances that I, an upper-middle-class taxpayer, adjusted year 2000 gross income $130,000), am going to see one single bent nickel of that action? What are the chances that almost half my income will be tapped off to pay for others getting these goodies?

I didn't think so. Get my point? The "society" that the liberals are talking about doesn't include me.

Like Colin Powell and his "white brother" Richard Armitage??

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.

Sounds like you have a major personal chip on you shoulder Tom.



Quit complaining.



Sure. When they get their goddam hand out of my pocket.

But if I were you, I'd be a little wary of your 401K plan, and any attempts by the Bush adminsitration to tamper (gamble) in the stock market with your Social Security.

My 401K is doing fine, thanks. My Social Security retirement money is currently socked away in government IOUs (T-bills), backed by no productivity, but only the power to loot taxpayers. Why this is a vast improvement over having some of it in stocks, which are actually invested in wealth-creating concerns, is something I don't quite follow.

Oh yeah. I forgot. Private retirement plans don't give politicians the power over us that Social Security does.