Ideas v. People: Sketch 3

To this editorial by Warren Buffet, a trusted friend suggested that Buffet is arguing for socially-justified armed robbery.

The ultra-rich only have that money because they exploit a cycle of poverty that allows them to underpay people like me, keeping us helpless and subservient and paralyzed. That’s at least as immoral as the government collecting taxes. I don’t have a choice in either situation, unless I want to rot in a cell (not paying taxes) or in a ditch (not laboring). So, if I have to choose between two kinds of robbery, one which hurts a tiny portion of the population (who, frankly, will still be getting fat and happy anyway), and one that hurts a huge percent of the population…

If the government isn’t going to assure a decent standard of living and at-least-somewhat-equitable opportunity for every American (something that will require armed robbery), then there shouldn’t be a government at all, we should give this land back to the people from whom we stole it, and go back to Europe or whatever sewer we crawled out of. The only possible way we can justify the continued existence of the United States government, and the “United States” as a concept, is to use the considerable resources and ingenuity at our disposal to alleviate the suffering of ourselves and our neighbors. The fact that we are unwilling to do that (gridlocking ourselves with demagoguery, apathy, avarice, masturbatory materialism and petty, partisan mine’s-bigger contests) makes a case for packing up and calling it a day, or at the very least changing our name to The United States of Fuckpoorpeople