2026 Mid-Term Elections

[Toni]

I was pretty clear about my reasons for believing we need to take the wealthy especially the uber wealthy more.

Yes -- you appear to perceive them as your enemy so you'd like the government to treat them as its enemy.

Wow! Taxing someone is treating them as an enemy. There's your whole attitude in a nutshell.

And you criticize other for ad homs.

Oh for the love of god! I didn't say taxing someone is treating them as an enemy! I said taxing someone not to raise revenue but in order to hurt them -- to tax them so heavily you kill their incentive to produce more wealth and thereby reduce revenue -- is treating them as an enemy. Sanders-style 100% tax brackets and Toni-style billionaire elimination treat the uber-wealthy as an enemy. This isn't rocket science.

Yea, this is my problem for where this thread has been heading. I’m all for what can we do to help people lift themselves up. I’m all for economic development; helping people; and then paying for it with taxes. I’m all for a progressive tax system. I do well now, after many years of busting my ass. I’m okay with paying more now. But to tax the crap out of a guy because we don’t like him? Or punish him for success? Take his assets away and give to someone else is fair? What liberal value is this?

That’s not what I’m suggesting. Neither Bezos not Musk seem like decent human beings to me but that has nothing to do with my position that they do not pay their fair share in taxes and that they carry far too much influence in politics for anyone to have.

I don’t aspire to great wealth abd I sure did not pursue it in my career ( or marriage for that matter). I don’t care how much stuff anybody has, or what they drive or how many houses they own ( although I think that it is at least not very smart politically given the housing shortage) or how many yachts or dare I write: private islands they own. But you all get that a bunch of rich perverts felt perfectly entitled to rape and abuse and perhaps even murder children fur shits Abd giggles, right? Because they could? And because they were rich and powerful police and the FBI …looked the other way.

I absolutely DO care that too many people, including a bunch posting here think that these ultra wealthy people really don’t need to play by the same rules we do, that somehow, they ARE more important t than a 12 or 14 year old girl. Or boy. That throwing sore petty cash at the actual human being you just raised is just compensation.

I absolutely DO care that a handful of people can and have purchased lawmakers and a Supreme Court and a POTUS. I would be as outraged if they leveraged every ounce of that power and influence to bend all three branches to conform to my personal beliefs about how things should run.

I care because it is absolutely wrong. It is absolutely anti-democracy and absolutely flies in the face of what this country stands for. Or is supposed to stand for. It is supposed to be We the people not Five rich guys.

I’ve said before and I will repeat: we are allowing too much power to be concentrated into too few hands. Too much monopoly in media of all kinds. Too much monopoly altogether.

You all get that we are not actually people to Musk, don’t you? We are like ants in his ant farm and he can pull out his magnifying glass and fry us all any time he wants to.

That is absolutely wrong. And woukd be just as wrong no matter who was holding that magnifying glass.

Lots of people here pride themselves on their atheism. What a canard. A whole bunch of you worship the uber wealthy Abd don’t see why they should be treated like anybody else.

 

[laughing dog]

I was pretty clear about my reasons for believing we need to take the wealthy especially the uber wealthy more.

Yes -- you appear to perceive them as your enemy so you'd like the government to treat them as its enemy.

Wow! Taxing someone is treating them as an enemy. There's your whole attitude in a nutshell.

And you criticize other for ad homs.

Oh for the love of god! I didn't say taxing someone is treating them as an enemy! I said taxing someone not to raise revenue but in order to hurt them -- to tax them so heavily you kill their incentive to produce more wealth and thereby reduce revenue -- is treating them as an enemy. Sanders-style 100% tax brackets and Toni-style billionaire elimination treat the uber-wealthy as an enemy. This isn't rocket science.

Yea, this is my problem for where this thread has been heading. I’m all for what can we do to help people lift themselves up. I’m all for economic development; helping people; and then paying for it with taxes. I’m all for a progressive tax system. I do well now, after many years of busting my ass. I’m okay with paying more now. But to tax the crap out of a guy because we don’t like him? Or punish him for success? Take his assets away and give to someone else is fair? What liberal value is this?

It’s not a liberal value, It’s a straw man straight out of the conservatives playbook.

 

[WAB]

There are uber wealthy people who are shit, and there are uber wealthy who do good and even great things. The idea that being super rich is equal to being a ruthless, inhumane monster is stupid.

And I say this as a person with a total wealth of eight dollars, plus a bag or two of clothing and necessary items, living with his sister and awaiting his first meager Social Security payment.

And who here worships the super rich?

 

[Elixir]

Ah, so every single democratic republic that has ever existed was incompatible with the principles of a democratic republic.

No, but there are really no effective democracies where half the country’s population of hundreds of millions of people hold less combined wealth than the wealthiest 57-350 individuals. (From perplexity - I asked it several ways and the sources varied but all were similar.)

I don’t think you can let a handful of unelected people control/own most of every thing in a country of hundreds of millions, and really call it democracy.

 

[Elixir]

And who here worships the super rich?

I do. How can you not?
These people never sleep. They are on their plane, calling their pals on their plane! How cool is that?!
They’re probably planning a deception that will convey some Bolivian mineral rights to a paper entity in the Caymans while they’re interviewing a young actress to play the hooker who seduces George Soros in their new TV Swiftboating Summer Serial Special. The super rich are awesome. That’s why they deserve to be so super rich.

 

[WAB]

And who here worships the super rich?

I do. How can you not?
These people never sleep. They are on their plane, calling their pals on their plane! How cool is that?!
They’re probably planning a deception that will convey some Bolivian mineral rights to a paper entity in the Caymans while they’re interviewing a young actress to play the hooker who seduces George Soros in their new TV Swiftboating Summer Serial Special. The super rich are awesome. That’s why they deserve to be so super rich.

Nm

 

[Elixir]

Go ahead and be a dick

sorry!

But anyway, Toni, who here worships the super rich?

I don’t worship them, just their fabulous wealth.
-sorry again

 

[Bomb#20]

Question 2: Do leftists have any arguments that are not, ultimately, ad hominem?

Do rightists have any arguments that are not, ultimately, slippery slope?

Don't recall seeing any rightists in this thread, but in case there are any, a plague on both your houses.

 

[WAB]

Go ahead and be a dick

sorry!

But anyway, Toni, who here worships the super rich?

I don’t worship them, just their fabulous wealth.
-sorry again

Sorry for the dick comment. It's not like me.

To me, you are fabulously wealthy. The guy buying rounds down at the local tavern is fabulously wealthy.

 

[Elixir]

To me, you are fabulously wealthy.

To me, I am fabulously wealthy. Embarrassingly wealthy. Probably thousands of times wealthier than I ever set out to become. And for me, I’m excessively wealthy. Except for medical contingencies

To a truly rich person, Wab and Elixir are interchangeable and indiscernible from each other. We are not power players in their game, so to the super rich we are pawns.
In business i did get caught up in the competition, felt terrible about losing a deal, felt great about taking a contract away from a competitor, but could never have thrived on that energy at a really large scale, so I’m not a player in the professional life game of owning shit.

 

[Bomb#20]

In a democracy when the people want a government service they're supposed to vote to tax themselves to pay for it. What's turning our country into a kleptocracy is our culture of getting services by voting to tax someone else to pay for it.

... That's not what is happening. It's an incredibly stupid thing to say while the Right is actively working to cut back services to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy and big corp. If you cannot see that I cannot help you.

So now being allowed to keep more of your own money than somebody wishes you were allowed to keep is defined as stealing, is it?

 

[Derec]

They’re probably planning a deception that will convey some Bolivian mineral rights to a paper entity in the Caymans while they’re interviewing a young actress to play the hooker who seduces George Soros in their new TV Swiftboating Summer Serial Special.

Plot twist: the billionaire interviewing the actress is George Soros himself.

 

[Bomb#20]

... If that definition were correct, then if you have a rare tissue type and consequently some oligarch in a country where it's legal offers you a million dollars for your kidney, it would mean you have a million dollars of income even if you don't sell it to him and that million dollars serves as the foundation for assigning your tax burden. ...

The definition came from the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School. I'll take their "brain damaged idiocy" over some stranger on the internet with absolutely no proof of actual training in the subject.

"some stranger on the internet with absolutely no proof of actual training in the subject". Sweet. You know that's an ad hominem argument, don't you? The prosecution rests.

 

[Bomb#20]

... If the higher the income, the more political power, really were incompatible with a democratic republic, then every single democratic republic that has ever existed was incompatible with a democratic republic.

I apologize, I forgot I was dealing with the terminally pedantic.

The higher the income, the more political power, especially at the billionaire level and above. Which, IMO is incompatible with the principles of a democratic republic.

Ah, so every single democratic republic that has ever existed was incompatible with the principles of a democratic republic. Got it. So why should we think your personal conception of the Platonic Form of the Democratic Republic is a better expert on what the principles of a democratic republic are than actual real-life democratic republics? Opposition parties have always depended for their survival on rich people deploying their wealth as a counterweight to the power of the Leviathan.

Instead of you killing brain cells to put words in the mouths of others, why not stop and mull over what others write?

I lost you. What words am I supposed to have put in whose mouth? I didn't say you said anything about Platonic Forms, if that's what you're talking about. I simply pointed out what readers would need to think in order to buy your unsupported claim.

For example, if every single democratic republic that has ever existed was incompatible with the principles of a democratic republic, so what?

So if every single democratic republic that has ever existed was incompatible with whichever principles you label "the principles of a democratic republic", why the bejesus should anyone accept your assertion that the principles you slapped that label onto were in point of fact the actual principles of a democratic republic? Why shouldn't they instead suspect that you might have put the label on the wrong principles? What evidence do you have that you correctly identified the principles of a democratic republic?

 

[southernhybrid]

When is this stupid thread going to actually be about the midterms instead of mindlessly arguing about how much we should tax the rich and whether or not Walmart or Amazon pay their employees enough?

But, btw, Walmart here in my relatively low cost area, starting pay is about 15 bucks an hour and the one young man I know who works there loves his job. Meanwhile the women who work at the ALF where I volunteer make 10 dollars an hour. It's a small, locally owned facility. I think caring for frail, older adults who often suffer from cognitive decline is a much more stressful, difficult job compared to working in retail. Just saying. One thing that is drastically over due is raising the minimum wage, but are any politicians running in the midterms even talking about that? The minimum wage is still 7.25 an hour and although I doubt anyone is working for that low pay, but shouldn't that be a midterm issue? ( just trying to get this thread back on the topic if that's possible. )

Let me add one more unrelated thing. Many small businesses sell their products on Amazon, including Evolvefish.com. if you're not familiar with it, it's a small atheist owned online business that sells pins, car decals, t-shirts etc. primarily related to secularism. I've bought things from them, but now when I buy something from them, I do it via Amazon because I'm a prime member and shipping is free. I also like Amazon for two other reasons. They sell things that are impossible to find anywhere else and I get digital dollars often if I agree to allow for a later shipping date. My kindle is full of books that I've paid little or nothing for, that I've purchased from Amazon, including some books on Atheism. Bezos may be an asshole, but I like Amazon for many reasons, including the fact that it was the only place we could find the parts needed to repair our gas logs this past winter, among other things. Not that this has a damn thing to do with the midterm elections, but since this thread is all over the place, I thought I'd add my two cents.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I was pretty clear about my reasons for believing we need to take the wealthy especially the uber wealthy more.

Yes -- you appear to perceive them as your enemy so you'd like the government to treat them as its enemy.

Wow! Taxing someone is treating them as an enemy. There's your whole attitude in a nutshell.

And you criticize other for ad homs.

Oh for the love of god! I didn't say taxing someone is treating them as an enemy! I said taxing someone not to raise revenue but in order to hurt them -- to tax them so heavily you kill their incentive to produce more wealth and thereby reduce revenue -- is treating them as an enemy. Sanders-style 100% tax brackets and Toni-style billionaire elimination treat the uber-wealthy as an enemy. This isn't rocket science.

Yea, this is my problem for where this thread has been heading. I’m all for what can we do to help people lift themselves up. I’m all for economic development; helping people; and then paying for it with taxes. I’m all for a progressive tax system. I do well now, after many years of busting my ass. I’m okay with paying more now. But to tax the crap out of a guy because we don’t like him? Or punish him for success? Take his assets away and give to someone else is fair? What liberal value is this?

For all this talk about deficits, debts, and taxation, we've seen Bomb and the right-wing perform remarkably is failing to develop a viable tax policy. They bitched about spending for decades, but we all know how that went. And now we could get rid of Social Security (not the tax) and still not break even on the deficit.

'Taxing the billionaires' doesn't get us to the point of solvency, though managing their taxation needs to be addressed. However, whining about the bottom 50% not paying income tax isn't discovering an untapped resource that fixes the problem.

We are 40 years into failed right-wing tax policy and it failed because it was intended to do just that.

 

[ZiprHead]

In a democracy when the people want a government service they're supposed to vote to tax themselves to pay for it. What's turning our country into a kleptocracy is our culture of getting services by voting to tax someone else to pay for it.

... That's not what is happening. It's an incredibly stupid thing to say while the Right is actively working to cut back services to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy and big corp. If you cannot see that I cannot help you.

So now being allowed to keep more of your own money than somebody wishes you were allowed to keep is defined as stealing, is it?

Not worth bothering for another of your stupid analogies.

 

[Toni]

There are uber wealthy people who are shit, and there are uber wealthy who do good and even great things. The idea that being super rich is equal to being a ruthless, inhumane monster is stupid.

And I say this as a person with a total wealth of eight dollars, plus a bag or two of clothing and necessary items, living with his sister and awaiting his first meager Social Security payment.

And who here worships the super rich?

I think that the uber wealthy who do more good than harm are extremely rare among the uber wealthy.

There are uber wealthy people who are shit, and there are uber wealthy who do good and even great things. The idea that being super rich is equal to being a ruthless, inhumane monster is stupid.

And I say this as a person with a total wealth of eight dollars, plus a bag or two of clothing and necessary items, living with his sister and awaiting his first meager Social Security payment.

And who here worships the super rich?

Those who don't think the uber rich should pay their fair share of taxes, that they give enough already. Even though sometimes that enough is less than what a worker at a nursing home pays. Or effectively nothing.

It's like going to a nice restaurant with a bunch of your buddies and when the bill comes, the guy who ordered appetizers and surf and turf and dessert and expensive wine wants to split the check evenly with those who ordered a salad. And people saying yeah, that's fair. It's not fair just as it's not fair or right to expect the rich guy to always pick up the check for the whole table.

 

[ZiprHead]

... If that definition were correct, then if you have a rare tissue type and consequently some oligarch in a country where it's legal offers you a million dollars for your kidney, it would mean you have a million dollars of income even if you don't sell it to him and that million dollars serves as the foundation for assigning your tax burden. ...

The definition came from the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School. I'll take their "brain damaged idiocy" over some stranger on the internet with absolutely no proof of actual training in the subject.

"some stranger on the internet with absolutely no proof of actual training in the subject". Sweet. You know that's an ad hominem argument, don't you? The prosecution rests.

When you questioned the qualifications of the people that created the definition you made qualifications part of the subject.

It's an actual description of you to us all here. Most all of us are the same. No one knows your qualifications or why we should accept that Cornell is putting out brain damaged idiocy from you. You are nothing more than words on a screen.

I also see more selective editing on your part. You probably realized your statement made you look quite foolish so you didn't want to repeat it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The point and benefit of government is redistribution of wealth, in the form of (broad) infrastructure and mandatory insurances; That is, the provision of services to those who need them, paid for by those who can afford to pay for them.

Well, according to Thomas Jefferson the point and benefit of government is to secure certain unalienable Rights such as Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. So what makes your declaration of what government is for any less of an ideological promotional myth than his was?

The actual point of government is to secure powerful people's power and make their enjoyment of it less effort.

The US formed in an attempt to let those with skin in the game, have the capacity to have a say in how Government is run.

Also, if we must invoke Jefferson,, Jefferson would note that systems should be allowed to develop over time, much like how a coat when you are a child isn't effective at keeping you warm when you are an adult.

250 years has passed since the Declaration. A great deal had happened. Slavery is gone. Serfdom is gone. How we look at the employer / employee relationship shifted dramatically. The concept of government's role has shifted a bit as well. A lot of these shifts came after an incredible amount of suffering, hunger, and death.

The question becomes, what do you value most?