Tom, I’m basically happy with the way things are going, I see potential problems and possible disasters, but usually there’s someone very unhappy like you in the background pulling the strings to help bring them along. In either case, there’s not much I can do it about it, either to make it happen or stop it from happening.

I know these things you continuously bring up are really important to you, but they are not to me. I am a Zen Existentialist, remember? I deal in a personal universe that is dominated by weighty issues like “I hope my kidney stones don’t come back” or “I hope this hurricane season spares us.” In a way, that’s a very Republican attitude, you should understand it quite well. In a nutshell, I sympathize with your problems, but I had nothing to do with them, they are not my fault. And the only thing I am willing to do to help solve them is to pay a bit more in taxes, because I feel that is my patriotic duty. Which, by the way, seems to be the one thing you absolutely refuse to do.

I just work here, just like you.
There is nothing I can do or say that will make you feel any better, even if I agreed with you completely.

And a huge percentage of our population, approaching a majority, pay little or no income taxes. The numbers bear that out, too.

If you think this is a feature, not a bug, and apparently you do, go for it.

Repeating the term “economic bully” over and over again will only impress people who don’t actually think about it.

The vast majority of the people who pay little or no taxes are not “children, the old, the sick, and the infirm.”

Just for fun, go look at our federal budget, and tally up how much of it is caring just for the old. Then you can also tally up medical care for the poor, and all the other social programs. Start here.

Not enough yet, apparently. There are still people out there who have more than others do.

As for your high rhetoric on human obligations, I don’t recall Christ showing up at the rich man’s door with a Roman soldier on either side of him, demanding money for the poor or the rich guy would get tossed in prison.

The ideology of forced wealth redistribution, the demolition of the wealthy to care for the poor, has killed every society that has consistently applied it. That’s not just history, that’s happening right on the front pages.

If you make the assumption that the purpose of human society is to provide the greatest good for the greatest number, and to minimize pain and suffering as much as possible for as many as possible, you arrive at a very different conclusion.

Following the premise of the original article, children, the old, the sick and infirm, and anyone not directly engaged in productive and accumulative activity, deserves to be punished for their failure to be economic bullies.

The only difference between economic bullies and the other kind is that economic bullies can afford to hire others to do their fighting for them.

And you don’t have to be an economic victim or a physical weakling to believe that every human being has an obligation to every other human being. The purpose of human society is not to make sure everyone has the same access to resources. It is to guarantee that that no one is denied an access to the bare minimum of resources.

If the rich and their wannabees can’t grok that, they are free to go on strike, go off to their Galt’s Gulch, and shrug their asses off all they want.

Even so, I gather from various posts here that the general attitude is that we haven’t looted anywhere near enough from the evil rich yet.

I’d be interested in a more precise definition of “economic bully.” Make a particular note of who’s holding the guns and filling their pockets with somebody else’s money.

I can guarantee you I could locate a lot more serious proposals for taxing the wealthy at 100 percent then I could find for your ludicrous idea. But check for yourself.

Until, of course, it catches up with them. Then they squeal like little piggies about how they have been unfairly abused.