4 ms·

Not exactly the sign of a healthy economy when the government has to make up for the lack of economic opportunities by taking my taxes and giving them to poor p

Not exactly the sign of a healthy economy when the government has to make up for the lack of economic opportunities by taking my taxes and giving them to poor people, is it? I am more interested in why they publish these articles? Who are they trying to sell these ideas to, exactly? Certainly not the poor.

blunte 6y ago
They write these pieces for the same audience who watches Fox News and listens to Sean Hannity. This helps keep their base supporters (or supporters of people and policies they align with) speaking the same language and believing the same things they have been told to believe for decades. "Poor people are poor because they are lazy or stupid." "Rich people are rich because they worked very hard and built great things." "Taxing the rich to pay the poor will destroy our economy." etc. etc. It is an important component of disinformation campaigns to reinforce the primary ideas periodically, because the audience is regularly encountering situations which disprove these lies. If the message isn't reinforced, the people will begin to question and doubt.
dash2 6y ago
Are you saying that any government redistribution is unhealthy? That seems a little extreme.
- danaris 6y ago
  I read it more as "it's unhealthy when, in the absence of government redistribution, some people are starving on the streets while others are making more money than God." Which I would think is an even bigger indictment of what we've got now, since we already have a moderate amount of government redistribution, but still have people starving in the streets and others making more money than God.
  - dash2 6y ago
    To expect nobody to starve in the absence of government redistribution, you'd have to be quite optimistic about private charity or voluntary community provision. For example, some people are born severely disabled. Others can't hold a job down. Not everybody saves enough for retirement. Etc.

blunte 6y ago

They write these pieces for the same audience who watches Fox News and listens to Sean Hannity. This helps keep their base supporters (or supporters of people and policies they align with) speaking the same language and believing the same things they have been told to believe for decades. "Poor people are poor because they are lazy or stupid." "Rich people are rich because they worked very hard and built great things." "Taxing the rich to pay the poor will destroy our economy." etc. etc. It is an important component of disinformation campaigns to reinforce the primary ideas periodically, because the audience is regularly encountering situations which disprove these lies. If the message isn't reinforced, the people will begin to question and doubt.

dash2 6y ago

Are you saying that any government redistribution is unhealthy? That seems a little extreme.

danaris 6y ago
I read it more as "it's unhealthy when, in the absence of government redistribution, some people are starving on the streets while others are making more money than God." Which I would think is an even bigger indictment of what we've got now, since we already have a moderate amount of government redistribution, but still have people starving in the streets and others making more money than God.
- dash2 6y ago
  To expect nobody to starve in the absence of government redistribution, you'd have to be quite optimistic about private charity or voluntary community provision. For example, some people are born severely disabled. Others can't hold a job down. Not everybody saves enough for retirement. Etc.