* Just one more thing about "Spreading the wealth"

[FlyingSquirrel]

I haven't posted about it but many have. This may be a repeat of what someone's said, I don't know.

But it seems like those who are misrepresenting Obama's position view this like, say, a poker table.

The chip leader CAN lose, but the more chips he/she has and the fewer chips everyone else has, the less likely they are to win. At a certain point, it becomes a statistical impossibility. But that's the free market, baby. Everyone went in with the same rules and had the same chance to win. Now Obama wants to come in and take away some of the chips from the chip leader, who won fair and square, and spread 'em back around to the rest of the players. What a spoil sport!

The problem, obviously, is that this is NOT a valid analogy. Everyone doesn't come in with the same amount of money to begin with - many are born into great wealth and many are born into great poverty. You think the person born into poverty really has the same chance? Sure, there are examples - but they are the very rare exception, just like the guy with a short stack of chips who somehow comes back to win it all.

Then there's the rules. First off, nobody likes a cheat. When you're playing poker in the big time, there are cameras and eyes everywhere. Pretty hard to cheat. Kinda like, oh, regulation. And they do try to give the underdog a bit of a chance at the smaller tables by limiting the amount you can raise - so the chip leader can't keep making big bets he can afford to lose while nobody else can do the same without going bankrupt if they lose a single round. Most importantly, no matter what table you're on or how much money you have, you still have to play the game by the same rules. You can't say, "Well I've got the most - now I want to change the rules to protect myself and make sure nobody else wins some of it."

I get so FURIOUS with the editorial cartoons turning this into such a simplified and absurd representation of what Obama said. I get even MORE furious with the fact that this is lapped up unquestioningly by those same 24% who still approve of W.

Finally, there's the conclusion these people seem to reach in their minds. Namely, that we who support the idea of "spreading the wealth around" really want to radically alter the entire system of Capitalism, and if we had our way there would be no rich people at all and everyone would end up with the exact same number of chips.

That's not what most of us want at all. Here's what we want.

We want, first and foremost, the same dignity and consideration as human beings. If we're sitting on a short stack at the table and have a heart attack, we'd like someone to get the paddles out or give us CPR till the medics come - the same consideration that you'd give the chip leader - without someone asking whether we can afford it first or just assuming we can't and leaving us lying on the floor while the game continues. And we'd like it very much if, when we survive that heart attack, we still have the same life to come back to - instead of having to move into our children's house or out on the street because the medical treatment bankrupted us.

Second, we'd like an acknowledgement that we didn't all start out with the same money or education; we didn't all start out playing by the same rules; and it is therefore reasonable to level the playing field a little bit - not radically, not eliminating the entire system of capitalism, not spreading the wealth all evenly around to everyone - just giving the underdog a little better chance of actually staying in the game.

We don't really want to be Joe the Plumber and have McCain slap us on the back and say, "You're rich, Joe, congrats! You got yours, now let the rest get theirs!" Nope. We don't want 7 or 8 houses and servants and all that. Most of us would be content with a single house that the bank can't take away if we get sick, good health care, a job that pays well enough that we don't have to get a second one, and retirement that can't go down the tubes if our company decides it doesn't want to pay out the pensions or our 401k's don't lose most of their value when some of the rich guys decided to make their own rules and get rid of the regulators.

We don't mind the rich guys. We would certainly not mind being rich ourselves, but we don't covet their wealth. We don't want a yacht. We don't want a private airplane. We just want enough money to live comfortably according to our own definition of living comfortably; and we know damn well that we could ALL have that in this country -- the richest country in the world -- while those rich people still had plenty to live their lifestyles as well.

And if we hit the big time and actually DID become rich - we wouldn't mind paying higher taxes on that wealth to let the rest of the people who were still eking out a living to have a better chance.

Because we're HUMAN. Unlike those who are helping to run this shameful campaign against Obama.

:grr:

[FlyingSquirrel]

1. Now I'm off to work like a good slave.