Tom posted "This is an odd mindset, but common in liberals. Income is redistributed when it is taken from the people who have earned it and given to those who haven't. In America, only the government and muggers can do this."

Let's go over the definition of the term "earned it". Maybe it's time we redefined that term to mean people that produce something instead of people that sit on their fat asses moving funds from one money market to another. The people that are doing the back-breaking work in this land seem to be commanding the least amount of the wealth. Now of course none of this is new but before we get smug about keeping what's each of us earn, let's throw a little humility into the pot for that lower class that keeps us all going.

I am not one of them. I'm somewhere in the middle pulling my paycheck not from directly putting food on someone's table, building houses, or pouring steel from hot cauldrons, but from typing computer code on a workstation day in and day out. Now my own ingenuity and work ethic have put me in this position. I've earned respect in my profession and have been rewarded well. I have good benefits, multiple weeks of vacation, a solid retirement to look forward to, and my children will be well educated and prepared for life. But not once in a day do I feel that my good fortune at having the genetics to give me an analytical brain, somehow puts me above the people that will never do more in life than wait on tables. I've been there on the way up, not knowing if the bills will get paid, if you'll eat more than Ramen noodles for the week, and being aware that one good illness or injury will put you in bankruptcy.

For me to believe that as human beings we have some obligation to give back to those people that are struggling a bit does not make me a radical liberal or a communist. I would hope it makes me a citizen of the community I was fortunate enough to live in. I don't want to give guarantees to people. I simply want our country to be one in which, if you work hard and act responsibly, that you are not going to starve or be sent to debtor's prison when things go bad. I don't want our elderly living out of cardboard boxes on street corners. A check into history will show that to be the case before Social Security came into being.

On the flip side, I don't want labor unions closing down responsible businesses because of unreasonable demands. I've seen personally labor unions go corrupt and it's as nasty a sight watching them as it is a country turn to fascism.

All in all people it's about balance.

Art