Originally posted by: teclis1023
I'm not sure why you keep responding to me as if I wrote the post
I'm not (now), I'm speaking to you for your comments and as a defender of the post.
but I'm still unconvinced that it's a political propaganda analogy. There's no doubt that comparing rent and tax will result in a large remainder, but in that case, we'd never be able to use analogies in any situation, for fear of discrepancies.
I'm sorry I'm not finding a gentler way to say this, but apparently I need to do a little lesson on analogies. There are good analogies and bad analogies.
(First, I use the word loosely, without distinguishing it from ''simile', etc.)
Let's say I made an analogy between Vietnam and Iraq - comparing things they have in common, such as being 'voluntary' wars, with pretenses arguably being created to justify them, a significant and increasing level of public opposition, etc. That could be called a 'good' analogy done that way.
On the other hand, if I compared, say, world war 2 with the war on drgus, and said that because we massively mobilized the nation around WWII and chose to send many tens of thousands of Americans to be killed, we should use the same tactics in the war on drugs, that might be called a 'bad' analogy, because it massively overextends the fact they both have 'war' in the title - and ignores the huge differences in the nature of the issues, what tactics work, the differences in the need for various types of violence, etc.
Now, when I criticize the analogy for being 'bad' for reasons like the latter example above, you say:
"we'd never be able to use analogies in any situation, for fear of discrepancies".
Incorrect. There are bad analogies between Vietnam and the Iraq war, if you choose the wrong areas. Analogies can be 'good' by sticking to the right area to compare, rather than venturing into the inappropriate areas where they analogy 'doesn't hold up'. If I based the analogy on 'the morale issues among the soldiers who didn't want to be there', there might be some truth, but I'd be ignoring the difference between the draft in Vietnam and the all-vounteer force in Iraq, which might make the analogy invalid.
The fact that the 'bad' analogy could be made doesn't mean you can't make a good analogy. Whether it's 'good' or 'bad' is for debate.
But perhaps you should re-read what I've actually posted. I think that taxing a specific class of people at such a high rate is unjust and immoral. It's not because I foster any great love for the ultra-rich, but that doesn't mean it's fair to unload an entire nation's burden onto them simply because they have full pocket books.
You sound 'more reasonable' than most arguing that side of the issue, but your argument IMO is based on a straw man that that's what the liberal position is. It's not.
Again, sorry not to say this more gently, but I think it's ignroance on your part that leads you to invent the obvious 'motive' for the liberal policy, since you don't understand the real basis for the position - and the invented motive just happens to be a weak one, as we see constantly in arguments from ill-informed Republicans about 'jealousy', as they have to make crap up to replace the things they are ignorant about.
Other than that, you don't sound unreasonable, and we're closer on the policy that most on 'your side'.
I think we absolutely do need to balance the tax system, create stronger social programs and find a way to minimize socio-economic inequity, but that doesn't mean we should take the short-cut of simply unloading it onto one class of people.
That sounds reasonable; but again, missing in your comments is the history of how the wealthy have swung the pendulum far in their direction; and any fact-based argument about 'what tax distribution increases productivity well' We have wealth concentration increasing the last 25 years at about the highestrates in our history - and you pick now to worry about the rich getting the short end of the stick, when their incomes increase several hundred percent while most get zero, after inflation.