Thanks for your response. I ended up coming up with a bunch of random thoughts so I'll just list them out here: I don't consider "socialism" to necessarily be a bad thing. I have no desire to live in a place where people aren't rewarded for hard work or exceptional skill, but I don't have a problem living in a society where the wealthy pay a little extra and the poor get a little extra. Whatever works best is what I'm for, whether it's socialist or not. I disagree that the guy making $300K will never be happy paying more. It's not like the proposed tax rates are anything new. We haven't had revolt yet despite having a progressive tax system for a long time. I don't assume that the person with the Benz cares about the person who needs medicine. Society decides what their morals are as a group. We have a democracy where we decide on who we want to represent us and implement our moral code. In many cases that moral code is as simple as providing everybody with the freedom to practice their own beliefs. In other cases that moral code includes helping those who are less fortunate. The majority of Americans are not on government assistance, and yet we continue to elect leaders who fund those programs. If everybody was being selfish, are progressive tax system would be lowest for the middle class and there would be no programs for people worse off than that. You say you might be more open to giving the government more money if you had more trust that they would use it efficiently. I agree. Of course, we're both going to be giving the government less for the foreseeable future so I guess it doesn't matter. Are you sure this country wasn't built on socialism and income redistribution? If you're referring to the policies proposed by the current administration (lowering the deficit and returning to 1990's level taxes) then I'm not sure that's accurate. If you're not talking about that, then what is the relevance? Honest question, how does history bear out the claim that every democracy has a lifespan? Isn't the U.S. the model of the modern democracy and hasn't it lived pretty darn long already? Luckily we don't have an under-privileged majority. I'd prefer a majority of the middle class. Interestingly Obama ran on a platform of strengthening the middle class, which is probably one of the reasons I gravitated towards his candidacy. In fact, if your argument is correct, it would make sense to support his policies if you thought they would strengthen the middle class. I'm not sure that a greater concentration of wealth among the richest people of a country is a recipe for a strong society either. We'll see. My guess is that it will turn out ok and people will still be debating whether these changes were a success or not two, five and ten years from now.
