Republican Freeper myths: #1-Rich people are better and work harder

[EstimatedProphet]

So...
For Christmas I got a DVD of Lewis Black's standup from Comedy Central. Really funny stuff. One of them was his special from Last spring called "Taxed Beyond Belief", where his act centers around him being a college professor explaining tax law.
As part of the special, Black interviewed people about their tax questions, and would then "answer" them. What luck that they interviewed a Freeper woman who in her own words is "unfortunately in the high tax bracket"...she actually had the nerve to say that rich people are being "penalized" with high taxes because they are "brighter smarter and more talented".
Criminy. Is it any wonder I hate Repugs?
1) Complaining how unfortunate it is to be in a high tax bracket because you're rich is ridiculous. The alternative is to be poor. Feel free to change if the taxes are such a burden.
2) By Freeper logic, the more money people make is DIRECTLY related to their intelligence, hard work, and talent. So...why is * rich? After all, he inherited everything. Guess he must have worked really hard to have HW as his dad. Also, by this logic, since I am due a 2-4% cost of living raise sometime soon, I guess I will be 2-4% smarter, more hard working, and more talented.
What kind of brain damage does it take to believe this kind of nonsense? It's patently not true on the surface. It's getting to the point that I can't even believe Freepers are members of my species...

[Sandpiper]

1. Yeah just look at George W. Bush

Everything he's accomplished in life is because he was better and more hard-working than the average person...

No...wait a second

Everything he's gotten in life is because his last name is Bush.

*Yawn*

Next argument

lol

[Wapsie B]

2. That's the repug position in a nutshell.

The more $$ you have the more value you have to society. You're a much better person than a common laborer.

Read Ayn Rand. She spellis it out.

[Sandpiper]

7. The difference between Rand and the Wingnuts

Is that Rand was an avowed atheist. The wingnuts attempt to square their love of wealth with christian theology.

[blurp]

17. Close, but

The more $$ you have the more value you have to society. You're a much better person than a common laborer.

Read Ayn Rand. She spellis it out.

As someone else pointed out, Rand was an atheist, so this makes her unpopular with many on the right.

She probably would disagree slightly with what you said above. She might say that the more money you have, the more value you had had to members of society.

That is, they valued you because of what you did for them and so gave you the money.

[Jacobin]

3. Kinda like my twerp trust fund baby acquaintances ?

That's funny.

They are worse than useless. They whine a lot

[Generic Other]

4. Good Lord! There's a Texas size cowpie hovering over the White House!

Bush is rich because he's a stupid lazyass with no sense of ethics.


on edit: Oh, and his mother has a rolodex file of addresses of wealthy connections he can bum money off of.

[ikojo]

5. Calvinists believed that if you were rich it

meant that you were favored by God. This belief is embedded, like many journalists in Iraq, in the American psyche.

http://www.inequality.org/luttwak2.html

Three Rules of Calvinism

Rule Number One states that earned wealth is no impediment to virtue. That this rule contradicts the reported remarks of Jesus has been ignored. Likewise, the underlying Calvinist doctrine, which states that wealth is actually a sign of divine favor for the predestined, has long been forgotten. Yet this rule induces Americans to view the desire to become rich as most praiseworthy, and success in doing so as a moral achievement as well, for earned wealth is seen as the result of both sacrificial exertion in earning money, and self-denying restraint in spending it. Far from being viewed as self-seeking materialists, those who accumulate wealth are respected in rough proportion to the amount, so long as it is the fruit of their own individual efforts. As for the super-winners who earn the most fabulous amounts, they are greatly admired, more so than all other Americans, including the most famous war heroes. Dwight Eisenhower, President of the United States and before that the Supreme Commander who had risked the D-Day landings and led the Allies to victory over Germany, was much admired, but was quite typical in his own deep admiration for the wealthy businessmen he first encountered in his White House days.

[maggrwaggr]

6. I would welcome them to Santa Monica

where I live, where the rich spend all day with their asses in the air doing down-dog, getting botox and laser vaginal rejuvenation.

Meanwhile the Mexicans work their asses off gardening, cleaning, taking care of the babies, etc. etc. etc.

[Generic Other]

10. Laser what? Tell me you are kidding...

I don't suppose the Calvinists have made mush headway in So. California!

[Cleita]

15. Yes and we all know how rich the Mexican naitonals are getting.

FYI. When I moved into Santa Monica in 1959 it was a working class community with some rich people living in the canyon. The neighborhood I moved into was working class, black, white and Mexican/American. It was a nice place to live for about ten years and then it changed after they built the freeway.

My husband and I left in 1990 because the division between haves and have nots had become palpable and most of the middle class was gone.

[guitar man]

8. Typical RW elitism

If this were a "Meritocracy", * would be cleaning out toilets at the local gas station,until they fired him for not showing up for work.


If hard work and talent were enough to become wealthy,I would be a rich,rich man. No,it takes more. A large percentage of the wealthy got there by sheer luck. Either the lucky sperm club,or were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.


I believe that is the reason the suggestion of luck or "good fortune" or conversely,the mention of "those less fortunate" provokes such a visceral reaction from them. They know it's true.

[ComerPerro]

13. Those aren't the only two ways that people become wealthy

You are forgetting the very large percentage of the wealthy who made their money by lying, cheating, stealing, and selling out their friends and families.

[BeFree]

9. Rich depend more on the state..

...because the state has really helped them get, and keep, their riches.

If not for the highways and the military, if not for the police and schools, there would be no rich people. They would be robbed blind, or couldn't move their wares to the market, or have educated employees.

These rich fools stand high upon the solid security the state provides and decry their allegiance to it and their utter dependence upon it.

[blurp]

16. Was it really the state that did it?

If you take a look at the Forbes 400, many seem to be self-made, and many are the immediate children of self-made men and women, mostly without government help.

Take a look at my favorite, rich Democrat, Warren Buffett. He started busting butt when he was just a paper boy, running multiple routes. He's now the second richest man in America.

And what about people like Oprah?

These rich fools stand high upon the solid security the state provides and decry their allegiance to it and their utter dependence upon it.

Hey, they are at least made to pay for that security.

[Southsideirish]

11. Like Limbaugh, "born on 3rd base - think they hit a homer" (n/t)

[Southsideirish]

12. Make that a "triple"(n/t)

[Nikia]

14. No

Most low level jobs with perhaps a couple of exceptions require hard work. Some jobs that pay well require a lot of brain power and hard work. Some do not. Some midlevel office jobs require very little actual work. Getting good paying jobs, which may require little work, usually requires knowing the right people. If you do not know the right people and are the hardest smartest worker, you will probably not get rich especially if you have people jealous of your talents trying to purposly keep you down.

[zls44]

18. I love his response

"Whenever I hear one of these rich people talk, one thought goes through my mind...go F*CK YOURSELF, A*SHOLE!"

So good.