Forbidden Donut

no one is equal. some people are just better than others.

This is a very difficult question to answer. If you include race and religion (and presumably gender) as things you shouldn't have to struggle past in order to have equality, then is it right to include socio-economic status? Is it okay to include lack of education? Or mental faculties?

I think that people shouldn't have to struggle harder because of coincidence. Just because they were born a certain way or in a certain place, shouldn't make it harder for them to succeed. (with the exception of mental retardation, though I think there should be assistance given to those people as well.) If I'm poor because I have a single parent who is poor, then I'm not afforded all the same opportunities as somebody else might. I could work hard and get out of that situation but it would require much more effort than somebody who grew up like I did, in a nice little suburban neighborhood in a good school district. However, if I'm poor because I have spent the last 4 years of my life boozing up and living in a box, then perhaps I've had my chance and now it's not about giving me equal chance at a life as it is mitigating the harm I do to myself. Just a simple example of the kinds of things that make this a hard question to answer. In fact I'd say it's so difficult to answer, that when asked, most people have a knee jerk response that dramatically over simplifies things, and paints it with too broad a stroke.

Another example, Rush Limbaugh is a free man with a syndicated radio talk show. This family is in jail.

He is free-er than they are, even though he committed the same crime. And he gets to make a bunch of money and have a bunch of influence. ergo, we are not equal with Rush Limbaugh.

In my mind, equality is pretty easy to define: everyone is treated the same.

That means, it doesn't matter whether you're black or white, a genius or a retard, straight or gay, etc. -- you are treated no better or worse than everyone else.

Because of this interpretation of the word, my opinions are quite different than Andrew's. I don't believe it is a sign of "equality" if we the government gives special treatment to anyone. In fact, I believe it is quite the opposite. I think it is an equal affront to the idea of "equality" to give special treatment to the poor as it is to give special treatment to the rich, and ultimately I think both of these circumstances are a detriment to a free nation.

Not what I said. What I said was we aren't "treated the same" no matter how much money we have.

But yeah keep on misrepresenting my ideals, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again and then wonder why I get frustrated.

I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to take a shot at you or intentionally misrepresenting you, I was just drawing the comparison between my own view and what I honestly thought yours was. Perhaps either I wasn't being clear enough in my distinction, or I don't understand your ideal. I'll try to elaborate, but if I'm still incorrect, please correct me:

I believe any policy that treats any individual or group of individuals differently than any other individual or group of individuals is inherently promoting inequality. I don't so much care "why" the premise for such a policy exists so much as the fact that it does. An example to support this principle: I oppose affirmative action because it gives favor to minorities over equally qualified white people. I completely understand the premise behind the policy and think the intentions are entirely admirable, but its existence is a sign that we accept inequality so long as enough people think it is OK.

I am under the impression that your definition of equality spans beyond the "what" and into the "why". I am specifically referring to this quote:

I think we differ not so far as you believe. You (and you can also feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) believe that equality is, very simply, treating everybody the same. I believe that this is 100% the correct definition of equality, but is equally vague and unhelpful when applied to practical problems. The quote you cited above was an attempt to relate the issue as too complicated for a simple answer like that to be very helpful, no matter how on the ball it is.

Your definition may be (and is) correct. However apply "treating everyone the same" to the situation I outlined and (I think at least) things get very tricky very quickly.

The Limbaugh example is the best I've thought of as an illustration of why I think that in order to meet the requirement of "treating everyone the same" we need to either eliminate the influence that money has on how one is treated, or we need to do something about the amount of influence people have to even things up.

Am I making sense yet?
(I've been trying to articulate this, while facing opposition, for a week or so now. And apparently I haven't been doing a very good job of it)

I believe I understand you correctly. I can't really discuss the Rush Limbaugh thing though because I really know far too little about the circumstances of either the family or Limbaugh.

Edit: After a very quick bit of research, I think the differences between the two cases are far too great to draw any real parallel in terms of equality in favor of the rich. The family was actually selling drugs and had a growing operation and stockpile of pot -- hardly comparable to Limbaugh's personal misuse. While the charge of "doctor shopping" was brought against him, it never panned out in court. High profile convictions are a prosecutor's dream, so if they were willing to settle, it was probably because the evidence against doctor shopping was minimal; I'm not surprised since the very idea of doctor shopping is fairly subjective, so I would assume it would take a ton of evidence to support it.

How about this one? The guy was on parole and they don't say what for, but I'd be willing to bet it's a drug related charge, and odds would be in my favor. Limbaugh got off Scott-free and was allowed to stop carrying his mistake around almost instantly. Did he even have to go to rehab? I don't remember.

The point would still remain that the guy was a pill-head and he got back into his position of power with little to-do whatsoever. But yeah, lack of research on my part, sorry about that. I also think its worth asking who his lawyers were, and how much those services cost. I'd expect to be grilled about the doctors in order to get a plea agreement out. I'd also be curious to see how many other people get to "settle" on drug charges... I think usually they force a plea agreement where you give up your dealers, or you just go to jail, or get fined (a complication if you're poor).

Well, the only big difference I can see there is that the man was caught on two occasions for drug possession and that he pleaded guilty. In Rush's case, he didn't actually do drugs illegally (being addicted to pain killers isn't illegal), and plead not-guilty to the one charge that was brought against him. While pleading "guilty" generally brings you a light sentence (27 days in this guy's case), it is pretty much the most damning evidence you could ever bringing against yourself.

I'm just playing devil's advocate at this point.

no doubt. But in the spirit of the game:

It's not illegal to be addicted to illegal drugs, just to possess them. Why then is it illegal to possess some drugs and not others? What is the difference between say, Oxy and say... Heroin? They are fundamentally the same in the way they interact with your brain. One is something you have to pay a lot for that has a medical use (like the ones proposed and continually shot down for marijuana), the other is relatively cheap, more effective and not abused by people of means. Illicit drug laws have always been a case of racism and classism. Another example of money running this country. /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

In all seriousness however, (and on point for that matter), I could probably find case after case of some poor schmuck getting reamed over something small, and case after case of somebody of means getting off with a slap on the wrists and a "get back to work". Perhaps Limbaugh wasn't the best example.
This guy?

Well, the only big difference I can see there is that the first guy was caught twice in nine months. I don't know what his first punishment was, but I doubt it was very much since his second punishment was less than a month.

And I believe Rush obtained his drugs legally. The charge that was brought against him (doctor shopping) wasn't technically a drug offense.

I know you and I ultimately have the same stance on drugs. I think they should all be legalized, and I think the war on drugs is not only a waste of time and money but a detriment to a free society.

Would you agree that it's a class war run by the wealthy in this country? Cause that's a bit more extreme of a position, and it happens to be the one I hold.

edit: not necessarily a willful running of the war either, just that the policies benefit people of means and are detrimental to everybody else. If I OWN the jail, I'm in fat city. If I'm paying for, or living in the jail... not so much. If I have the money, I can get fucked up on pills legally, because pharmaceutical companies have one of the most powerful (wealthy) lobbies in the country. If I develop a heroin addiction I'm the scum of the earth. That sort of class war.

followup thought:
You expressed a cynical viewpoint earlier. Something along the lines of "everybody's only really looking out for themselves". I don't want to mis-state your position, but I think that was the gist. If everybody is going to act in their own self interest, and some people have more resources to engage in this, then they will actively be lobbying (effectively) for the ability to make MORE money and get MORE power. No? And this isn't necessarily an attempt to undermine the lower class, but because the lower class has a much quieter voice (all they can say is "we won't vote for you") the actions and policies enacted to help the wealthy inherently harm the poor. Over time the poor's power to enact change is effectively eliminated and the country is run completely by wealthy special interests that still stomp the nuts of the lower classes. As a social construct this seems just a few steps above feudalism to me, and it frightens me more than 1984. There is a real prospect, in my thinking, of another 50 to 100 years of slow degradation of the lower class followed by complete subservience and immobility of the poor. The alternative at that point would be a French Revolution style coup.

I do believe that the war on drugs primarily hurts the poor. Well, actually, I think it primarily hurts the fundamental framework of this country, but in terms of human consequences, the poor take the brunt of it.

Just to clarify before I response, I didn't exactly mean that "everyone is looking out for themselves" so much as "there will always be a great number of people with their own self interests in mind." I'm sure there are lots of people out there that have trained themselves to, at least, act in a selfless way. Nonetheless, your point point remains, so I will continue.

I could not possibly agree with you more. That's pretty much the reason I do not support your political approach. This is the general breakdown:

First, the universal truths:

1. There will always be the very rich.
2. There will always be the very poor.
3. The population scale will always tip quite substantially toward the poor.
4. Everyone is inherently self-interested; most people are actively self-interested.

Given those truths, this is how the rich take power from the people in a democracy:

1. The poor, outnumbering the rich by a large margin, decide it is just to tax the great wealth of the rich to benefit themselves.
2. The poor, who are by principle the greatest voice of a democratic society, start to think about how the government could serve them better. The rich have so much money, and it doesn't really hurt them in any significant [or even noticeable] way to be taxed more so that the poor can benefit from government-funded programs.
3. The poor institute programs, funded by the rich, to help out themselves and their fellow poor people. To name a few:
- Welfare
- Department of Education
- Social Security
- Medicare
4. The poor, being very surprised that they are in fact still poor, seek other aspects of society to blame for keeping them down.
5. The poor see rampant alcohol abuse that is sucking up money, killing people, and leading to immoral behavior that god must be punishing them for (by keeping them poor, of course), so they pass legislation to put a stop to that sort of behavior.
6. The poor, seeing the horrible things that arose after passing such legislation, at first blame the problems on corrupt politicians and police (who are self interested, remember), but reluctantly get rid of the legislation after their efforts to stop corruption fail.
7. The poor, seeing rampant drug abuse on the street that is sucking up money, killing people, and leading to immoral behavior that god must be punishing them for, pass legislation to stop drug use. No need to elaborate on this one.
8. The poor are entirely invested in their government. The government provides their health care, their education, subsidizes their rent, manages their retirement funds, and is involved in pretty much every aspect of their lives that you can think of.
9. Yet the poor are still poor, so they lash out at the only people left: The rich are getting richer every day while the poor seem to be getting poorer, so clearly they are taking advantage of the poor.
9. The poor use their remaining power over the government to pass systematic and extensive regulations and controls over the businesses that are owned by the rich in an attempt to redirect the flow of money away from the rich and to the poor. Afterall, the rich are rich enough, and the poor are poor!
10. Every aspect of the American life is now in the hands of a few politicians in Washington. Those politicians, like most other Americans, are self-interested.
11. Rather than having to abide by the natural, strict competition of a free market, the rich can funnel large sums of cash straight into Washington. With their monetary influence alone, they manipulate the regulations and controls to their benefit. They make it more difficult for new ideas and new competition to emerge, and their profits far outweigh their government investment.
12. The poor, who were only trying to help themselves out, relinquished control of their own lives and country to the few on capital hill in the name of the common good (mmmm communism), and the rich get to pull all of the strings.

Regulation, while it sounds wonderful, puts more control into the hands of the federal government. Short of seizing all of the assets of the rich (and finding some miraculous way to dispose of or distribute it), you will never get the rich out of Washington. No amount of regulation is going to make it impossible for a fresh bag of money to drop on the doorstep of someone in power, so any regulation you put in place will ultimately hurt the poor by giving the rich more power over them.

Ah Ha! Now I see why we agree on so much, yet fundamentally disagree. You believe the poor have control of our government because it's a democracy. But I believe that the rich have control because it's a representative democracy and it's really easy to keep people happy and uninformed.

7. The poor, seeing rampant drug abuse on the street that is sucking up money, killing people, and leading to immoral behavior that god must be punishing them for, pass legislation to stop drug use. No need to elaborate on this one.

That's just simply untrue. Suggesting that drug laws were passed at the behest of the poor? Pot's illegal for the reasons in my signature. 3 very wealth people. Not millions of poor people. Those 3 people even had the power to alter public perception of drugs through propaganda which may give the appearance of the poor leading the drive, but we also went to a war that we wouldn't have agreed to if we had accurate information.

I do however think that by putting so much power in the hands of the government the poor are acting against their own interests, since their only power is their numerical advantage. But there have been active campaigns of misinformation to convince them to keep it up.

Any regulation will ultimately hurt the poor? What about:
Any lobbyist organization is only permitted to give, to any political figure or organization, a maximum of $2,300.00 in contributions, gifts, or services.
Or:
The members of the board of a corporation are culpable for any crimes committed by the corporation.

There are regulations that would actually reduce the power of the wealthy in Washington, but they will never happen because the voice of the poor isn't loud enough without them.

Read the 2nd and 3rd comments. They are infotastic and save me a bit of trouble painting the picture.

I don't think the power is in the hands of the people at all. I think the power should be in the hands of the people and it was in the hands of the people at one time, but they relinquished that power to the rich in an attempt to turn the system in their (the poor's) favor.

7. By being completely ambiguous and nondescript, I opened myself up to that. I concede that the war on drugs was perpetuated mostly by a select few, but that doesn't change my point. Whether the poor made the decision themselves or were coerced through lies and propaganda, they believed drugs to be a detriment to themselves, so they completed the campaign to have them banned. This type of propaganda was possible because of the great influence the rich already had on Washington at that point. When you control the government, and the government controls the people, then the people will ultimately do whatever you want.

Halting donations at $2300 leads to Lobbyists finding other ways to siphon money into Washington (like by donating huge sums of cash to organizations that politician's have interest in), but means the average person who may want to donate more than $2300 cannot. It's like DRM -- it only ends up hurting the legitimate person.

As for the corporate board bit, I should clarify: Individual regulations are not the problem. There are many good regulations, I'm sure. But you can't fight human nature! If you give power to the government to enforce one form of regulation, then the same amount of power can be used to enforce other types of regulation that may not have such positive affects. The poor still hold the vote, but the rich hold the power. Your explanation of the cause of the war on drugs is the perfect example of that.

So do we just let the poor rot away? At this point it's in the best interest of the wealthy to throw money at poor people so they don't see a violent revolution in the next 50 years, or run out of laborers. There is already a very real problem with the income and wealth gap. Failure to address this problem because of a valiant ideal of what government should be can only result in the failure of this great experiment as a whole, I think.

Attempting to address the problem without actually fixing the underlying problem (big government) is definitely going to result in the failure of this great experiment.

But the underlying problem can't be fixed without addressing the disparity of influence between the classes.

/tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />
Chicken, meet egg. Egg, this is chicken.

The likelihood of a violent revolution in this country is probably close to nil. Armed revolutions in modern day countries are close to unheard of. 200 years ago, it was a different story. The difference between military technology and civilian technology was minimal. This has changed in the last 100 years, with military technology far outpacing what normal citizens are able to do, as well as the restrictions on civilians ability to own firearms only getting more and more stringent.

Couple that with possibly the most well trained, equipped and disciplined army the world has ever seen and you make that possibility even less likely. Revolutions often work because the military steps aside or splits over the cause. Again, not something I see happening here.

Lastly, I think the majority of the country is way too apathetic to ever attempt any type of revolution. They would rather sit at home drinking then risk their own lives in any kind of venture. People refuse to take responsibility for their own actions anymore, only want to have everything handed to them, and frankly are often selfish and stupid in regards to making decisions that could better their lives.

The days of armed revolutions are over. The only thing that could feasibly see any type of real change in this country is a massive degradation in the infrastructure and functionality of this country as a result of something like a massive countrywide attack. The reality is, we're going to see the same basic structure of government as the country declines on a world scale because it can't compete any more.

I'm not talking about overthrowing the government. I'm talking about killing all the rich people.

By doing so the poor people who looted the money would most likely struggle to keep all the gold for themselves, furthering their violence and showing that all (generalization) humans, regardless of economic or socio-political class, are self-interested and greedy.

Which, in the end, will put us right back where we are today.

That's the idea anyway. Won't stop the poor people from killing them though.

"Hey guys! If you kill me you will only be continuing the cycle!" That worked great for Marie Antoinette, til she lost her head. Then things just went to hell in a handbasket.

And France never recovered /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

You beat me to it, Andrew. I was going to say something about "Let them eat cake". To be prompt, I'm going to have to check these forums more frequently.

Interestingly, this is one of the more misunderstood statements in history. It's taken to be a spiteful rebuke of the plights of the poor in France during a time of economic hardship in which the royalty of the country was enjoying the same luxuries they had for centuries. Most historians point out that cake and bread in France were roughly equivalent items but that cake was much cheaper to make and therefore buy. With this in mind her reaction to the plight of the poor was not necessarily meant to be mean-spirited but could, perhaps, been meant as an earnest suggestion.

But they chopped the bitch's head off so we'll never know for sure.

I always thought that it was supposed to be a kind gesture until I read some comments recently. It made sense to me as a kind gesture, but no good deed goes unpunished.

Ha! Armed revolutions a thing of the past; what a naive thing to say. I bet they said the same thing 200 years ago. Nothing changes. No amount of technology will ever change the fact that when a human being is pushed far enough, they will kill to get their way. When 300 million people are pushed too far, the most modern technology on this earth would not be able to stop them from running over a military of a few hundred thousand. You can believe humanity has grown out of armed revolution all you want, but that doesn't make it so. Armed revolts don't happen in reaction to or as a result of technology; they happen because human nature always prevails.

I don't know if I agree with Andrew's 50 year scenario, but I definitely think armed revolt will happen in this country sooner or later. And when it does, there will be plenty of foreign powers willing to subsidize the effort, and our almighty army will be cut straight down the center.

Ok, yes, it may happen again. But like I said, it won't happen without some sort of massive catastrophic event leading up to. And no, I don't think this current economic problem is it.

Maybe it'll be from big scary Iran then. But if you concede that it COULD happen, then it's just a matter of time.

Andrew, you are annoying.

Ironic, coming from you. /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

Only when he talks politics.

that isn't the defining precursor of a revolt at all. all that is needed for a revolt is a leader who can convince people his cause will be worth dying for. no massive catastrophic event needed. nope.

That may have been true a while ago. Today I don't think so. One, because of impossibilities of any type of revolt to succeed, and two because the country is apathetic. People aren't willing to give up their plasma tv and week at the beach to enact change. They'd rather put the burden on other people to change things.

Christ.

What little faith you have in biology! Humans can't change their natural way in 200 years. Technology doesn't override biology.

It has always been incredibly improbable that revolts could succeed. That hasn't changed either. That's hardly called an impossibility, and it is hardly grounds to ignore the possibility.

Didn't Hitler stir things up in Germany quite a bit? I may not have been around to see it, but I don't think that was 200 years ago, and I think one of the main reasons he was able to succeed is that Germany was in something of a depression.

Vote change in 2008?

We study history in school for a reason, the same issues and themes from the past are still going on today. If I wanted to stretch things a bit, I could compare the war on terror to the crusades.

He did that entirely through political means, though. It was more of an unarmed subversion rather than an armed revolt.

And no you couldn't! Even the Crusades had a reasonable end-goal in mind.

Haha, good line.

I'm say that a revolt wouldn't succeed, as much as I would say that an armed revolt wouldn't start in the first place without some major event triggering it. A recession, or even a depression wouldn't be that event. The entire degradation of society might, but however bleak people's outlook for the US may be, I don't see that happening either.

you should've made that distinction about 3 posts ago. but i still think you're wrong.

There are a grand total of 2,284,698 military personnel in America's armed forces. Total. Of that, there are 144,000 in Iraq, 31,100 in Afghanistan, 56,200 in Germany (yes we have more forces in Germany than in Afghanistan), 33,122 in Japan, 26,339 in South Korea.

We have, leftover after all our overseas obligations, 883,430 personnel on active duty in the continental United States. In LA alone, there are about 200,000 gang members estimated. These people manage to own automatic weapons, shot guns, pistols, and plenty of ammo.


CAAAAAAN YOOOOOOOOU DIG IT!

people are lazy and complacent

People's complacency is a function of their perceived quality of life. People are getting unhappier lately.

not that unhappy

and gas prices are down so everything's fine!!

Wait until you need to cannot take out loans to go to school /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

fixed?

Unless China opens its banks to us again I predict a lengthy credit freeze in a few years...

fixed /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />