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I hate this type of argument because it completely circumvent the point. The point isn't that if you're rich that means you've stolen something from the poor.

by efuquen 12y ago

I hate this type of argument because it completely circumvent the point. The point isn't that if you're rich that means you've stolen something from the poor. It's the belief that the way our civil society is organized is broken, and plenty of riots have occurred for that reason in the past. The idea is that increased concentrations of wealth to an increasingly smaller percentage of people leads to a less innovative and content populace. And that we should be trying to avoid those trends, it's says something about what and who we value as a society. So stop bringing up the strawman of "rich people are evil" when the article wasn't even trying to making that point. Can we have a discussion about income inequality without that bogus line of thinking?

dandare 12y ago
Gosh, strawman is such popular word these days .. hey, at least look around you before you start speaking about what others believe. Here, right in this forum: "Unjust wages", "business is benefiting from work of others", "the filthy rich", "top 1% have made the rules to their favor", "economic output of the planet", "if they claim to own it then you can't freely use it anymore", "People don't get rich in a vacuum", "they get rich because of the thousand of workers in their offices and factories" ... these people are saying black on white that the rich stole something from them. On the other hand this is the first I witness someone to cry strawman to pull a strawman, how creative!
- efuquen 12y ago
  Were you commenting on the article or some specific comments here? I'm not sure, but I thought your comment was talking about the article ... If you want to take issues with someone specific views, then do so, but don't make a generalization like you did on a viewpoint that wasn't really even stated by the original post. And posting some out of context quotes give me very little go on, the discussions you can have about this should involve a little more nuance than random text bites from user comments that come from people from all sorts of backgrounds and political leanings. My general point, which seems to have been completely ignored in favor of attacking my use of the word 'strawman', is that discussing income inequality doesn't have to devolve into an us vs them argument, that it has a lot more to do with what sort of society we wish to foster and build. But you seem content in holding on to the former view.

by efuquen 12y ago

dandare 12y ago

Gosh, strawman is such popular word these days .. hey, at least look around you before you start speaking about what others believe. Here, right in this forum: "Unjust wages", "business is benefiting from work of others", "the filthy rich", "top 1% have made the rules to their favor", "economic output of the planet", "if they claim to own it then you can't freely use it anymore", "People don't get rich in a vacuum", "they get rich because of the thousand of workers in their offices and factories" ... these people are saying black on white that the rich stole something from them. On the other hand this is the first I witness someone to cry strawman to pull a strawman, how creative!

efuquen 12y ago
Were you commenting on the article or some specific comments here? I'm not sure, but I thought your comment was talking about the article ... If you want to take issues with someone specific views, then do so, but don't make a generalization like you did on a viewpoint that wasn't really even stated by the original post. And posting some out of context quotes give me very little go on, the discussions you can have about this should involve a little more nuance than random text bites from user comments that come from people from all sorts of backgrounds and political leanings. My general point, which seems to have been completely ignored in favor of attacking my use of the word 'strawman', is that discussing income inequality doesn't have to devolve into an us vs them argument, that it has a lot more to do with what sort of society we wish to foster and build. But you seem content in holding on to the former view.