Is it moral for our governments to impose poverty on us?
Is it moral for our governments to impose poverty on us?
Taxation determines what poverty levels will exist within it’s demographic form. It controls the graph shown below. Governments control taxation and thus control poverty levels directly.
Imagine if you will, the real truth of that taxation, if used correctly, to move the wealth shown in this graph wherever it wants to, with minimal effect on the whole. The fact is, experts say that such a reality would be a win win for everyone.
https://www.upworthy.com/9-out-of-10-americans-are-completely-wrong-about-this-mind-blowing-fact-2
Not how little of a change would be needed to reach the ideal.
Wise and moral people throughout history, as well as most religious movements, put poverty as the number one enemy to man’s first priority, which is security.
For perhaps the first time in history, we have the wealth where we could end poverty quite easily, --- just with our collective loose change.
It would seem to me that governments are not acting ethically and should be chastised.
I guess that George Carlin, a wise person, was correct in what he said of what Americans cannot feel in their anal orifices. I apply the same condition to the vast majority of the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-14SllPPLxY
If true that we are being willfully ignorant, and do not even care about each other to insure we live in a moral environment, then our owners have succeeded in cowering man’s moral nature to a state of subservience. We have given up our freedom. If we ever had any.
We have all accepted to be slaves. Shame on us all.
We do not live in a Democracy. We live in a Hypocrisy.
We can easily rid ourselves of poverty.
Should we?
Morality says yes.
Will we do the right thing?
Not till hell freezes over.
Regards
DL
Taxation determines what poverty levels will exist within it’s demographic form. It controls the graph shown below. Governments control taxation and thus control poverty levels directly.
Imagine if you will, the real truth of that taxation, if used correctly, to move the wealth shown in this graph wherever it wants to, with minimal effect on the whole. The fact is, experts say that such a reality would be a win win for everyone.
https://www.upworthy.com/9-out-of-10-americans-are-completely-wrong-about-this-mind-blowing-fact-2
Not how little of a change would be needed to reach the ideal.
Wise and moral people throughout history, as well as most religious movements, put poverty as the number one enemy to man’s first priority, which is security.
For perhaps the first time in history, we have the wealth where we could end poverty quite easily, --- just with our collective loose change.
It would seem to me that governments are not acting ethically and should be chastised.
I guess that George Carlin, a wise person, was correct in what he said of what Americans cannot feel in their anal orifices. I apply the same condition to the vast majority of the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-14SllPPLxY
If true that we are being willfully ignorant, and do not even care about each other to insure we live in a moral environment, then our owners have succeeded in cowering man’s moral nature to a state of subservience. We have given up our freedom. If we ever had any.
We have all accepted to be slaves. Shame on us all.
We do not live in a Democracy. We live in a Hypocrisy.
We can easily rid ourselves of poverty.
Should we?
Morality says yes.
Will we do the right thing?
Not till hell freezes over.
Regards
DL
Comments (43)
The REAL cause of poverty is the arbitrary setting of the measures of income and of asset possession, which have nothing to do with anything, but with some think-tanks arbitrary (i.e. individualistic, relativistic, indefendable (by morals, by logic or by economic impact)) decision of what constitutes "poverty".
If you set the indicators of "poverty" low enough, then you can eradicate poverty on the entire globe in one fell swoop overnight.
Who is "us"? Is the entire population poor?
Well we arent specifying those measures of poverty. Obviously if someone uses the word poverty to describe something that isnt poverty, we are free to exclude their standard when having a real discussion about poverty. So, given a sensible standard of what poverty is (you can pick) what would your opinion be?
This is what I am disputing. Standards of poverty are not absolute, but relative, and hence, arbitrary. I can't deal making absolute judgments based on arbitrary evidence.
You do it.
So to you there is no sensible way of defining poverty, not even for the purposes of conversation?
Arbitrary is different than relative, something can be relative but still make sense. Arbitrary implies no thought put in, obviously if you refuse to put any thought into it you will have something arbitrary so...put some thought into it.
Also, nobody asked you for an absolute judgement. Just a sensible one.
There are two ways of creating a definition: by consensus, or by declaration.
In language we create definition by consensus.
In science and in philosophy we create it by declaration.
If you declare a definition, then two separate definitions will be potentially different. Because they are ARBITRARY.
If you deal with different definitions, you get nowhere.
Poverty in the sense the article deals with it is defined. Not by consensus, but by arbitrary declaration.
Therefore there is no common ground. No axiomatic structure to start from.
Discussing poverty in terms of economic measures would be like discussing which is more important: sacrificing some benefit for ethical purposes or sacrificing benefits to create something aesthetic.
If you ask me one more question to elaborate on this, I don't know what I will do. It is not a hard concept: poverty is not defined in any sort of way, but arbitrarily. Therefore you can't discuss it as a quality that has an absolute value. Just like wealth is relative, so is poverty. It makes lots of sense to say "I am richer than you, you are poorer than me," etc., (hypothetically speaking, of course), but it's a RANKING system, not an absolute value system. Once you draw a line what is poor, you are upsetting the lingual definition, and if you don't draw a line, it stays relative.
Hence, I suggest that poverty can be eradicated the way I suggested.
Then you, DingoJones, come to me with these questions, "yeah, but, yeah, but", but there is no "but". Poverty is a term of signifying rank based on a discrete difference, poverty is not a term of state.
Period.
This is patently false. People can put a lot, and I mean a LOT of thought into arbitrary decisions. Your claim is not valid.
This is a nosequiteur. You are stating here that arbitrary does not make sense. You are illogical there. You state that relative makes sense because it is not arbitrary.
The two in this sense that you put forth is not argument against mine. Both arbitrary and relative make sense. What nakes no sense is to base a DECISION or JUDGMENT on arbitrary claims or definitions.
I hereby call you out , DingoJones: are you known now, or have been known on PhilosophyNow website as Logik, or Timekeeper, or Skepdick? Yes or no.
I could have used a better word than “thought”, but it seemed precise enough considering what the word arbitrary means (not reason based, or based on whimsy) but then I didnt know you had a chip on your shoulder about defining words and some dude you got a gripe with on some other site. To answer your question, no Im not that guy. Maybe you should leave your baggage out of discussions with strangers.
Anyway, you go ahead and blah blah blah your last word here, I dont feel a pressing desire to play the phantoms in your paranoid fantasy. Good day sir!
Povetry stats are typically made using a relative measure, of being some percent of the median income. Yet there is the measure of absolute povetry, you know. And you can have an indicator for income is below a necessary level to maintain basic needs, basic living standards (food, shelter, housing).
Then there is also the term extreme povetry: Extreme poverty is typically defined as a state in which a person lacks access to all, or several, of the goods needed for meeting basic needs.
And I think the World Bank has used the 1$ per day income as an stat for quite some time. Now it's 1,9$. Actually the stat is one of the very happy stats about our time:
Special thanks to China and India for giving up socialism!
Quoting ssu
And you are saying this is not an arbitrarily thought-up definition of poverty. You are saying this is not the brain child of some think-tank who had been tasked to define what extreme poverty is. You are saying this is an absolute measure of poverty. You are saying therefore
that it's universal, and can't be changed, because it's absolute.
Then you turn around and say that this definition is "typical". That is, not absolute.
If you yourself are saying it's not absolute, why are you trying to convince others that it's absolute?
I think your error fundamentally is that you mixed up "the measure of absolute poverty is defined" with "the measure of relative poverty is defined with absolute values".
The figures you quoted, therefore, are not measures of absolute poverty. They are absolute measures of poverty.
There is a difference between "absolute measure of a relative property" and "measure of an absolute property." IQ is an absolute measure of a relative property; cm or miles are measures of an absolute property.
There are many reasons and they are irrelevant to what we collectively do about it.
The ease of eliminating it is what I am focused on.
Note how little of our wealth has to go from the extreme right of the graph to the left.
Regards
DL
Yes, especially if you add in the huge and immoral profit taking on the right of the graph.
Regards
DL
If you consider that graph to show an immoral situation, then yes, we are all indeed poorer both morally and financially.
Do you see the graph as showing a moral demographic shape?
I do not.
Regards
DL
You say "that" graph. Which graph?
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
"Add in"? The graph already contains its entire domain and range of the graph. I had not even once suggested to truncate the graph. What are you talking about?
And how do you add in something to a graph that is not represented by its axes in terms of "kind" or "functionality"? it is about poverty, not about actions. "profit taking" is an action, not a property of poverty. The properties of poverty, as I understand it, is the income amount per period, and assets at a given point in time. Actions are not a part of it.
Please explain. To me this statement is not intuitive.
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
I have never once envisioned what shape a moral demographic shape looks like. Can you insert a picture which shows that shape?
From the O.P.
https://www.upworthy.com/9-out-of-10-americans-are-completely-wrong-about-this-mind-blowing-fact-2
Quoting god must be atheist
Options in the presentation and graph show some options to help you decide what the moral graph might look like. Make up your mind and note how little wealth gas to move to make it moral to yourself.
Regards
DL
Meaning?
I think I was clear.
It is to you to decide if it is moral or not for a rich country to use the tax system to maintain poverty levels or not.
Regards
DL
P.s. Where you spelled "gas" for "has", I hadn't been able to sub it with the correct word. It was nonsensical, that's why I asked for an explanation. It was totally clear after I realized my mistake stemming from your mistake (of a simple misspelling).
I had tried ot sub "industry" "diligence" "efficiency" even "gasoline" for gas and none worked.
All legislation begins with a person pushing the idea. That is all I or you can do.
Someone we convince might like what we think, and if the person has political power, he might grab the idea and run with it.
That is all I can hope for in outing ideas in these places.
Apologies on the spelling/typing error. If the system misses it, they sometimes get past me.
Regards
DL
Then two or more different pushes may touch the parliamentary representatives, and therefore it is very conceivable that I still don't have the power of getting my wish enacted by parliament.
Agreed, depending on what the oligarchs want.
Even if you had a politician in your back pocket, he would have to break the trend shown in this link.
https://www.upworthy.com/20-years-of-data-reveals-that-congress-doesnt-care-what-you-think?c=upw1&u=94acbbeb6bbd6d664157009a896e71b014efbf27
Regards
DL
We live in a kleptocracy, or a plutocracy, or an oligarchy masquerading as a democracy. We (the western industrialized countries) can rid ourselves of poverty. Yes, we should. But we almost certainly will not.
Your anarchist or libertarian focus, whatever it is, causes you to focus on [i]The Government[/I] as the chief author of all that is bad. The government, Marx said, is a committee to organize the affairs of the wealthy. The bourgeoisie (wealthy people) have been in possession of the U. S. Government since the Mayflower Compact of 1620 (exaggeration for effect). The government has assisted the bourgeoisie in getting and keeping as much wealth as possible, except for a few fairly brief periods of time when the wealthy had to hand over more, but never so much that they weren't very rich any more.
The business of America is run by the businesses of America. Business is not run by the government. The businesses decide how much to pay people, and as a rule pay them the lowest possible wage that the market will bear. That doesn't mean that everybody is getting minimum wages, but it does mean that a lot of people (big portions of the working population) are getting a lot less than they could be getting.
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
Sort of. But much more effective is organizing very large numbers of people to push ideas, and take concrete action if their pushing is ignored. What sort of concrete action? Well, the minimum is voting the recalcitrant sons of bitches out of office. Then there is union organizing on a massive scale; there is civil disobedience; there are mass demonstrations, boycotts, work stoppages -- let your imagination go!
Maybe the poor's fate in the New America will end up in a civil war between the rich. (Race immaterial, but chances are they will be mostly White).
After that, about a hundred years later, will come the civil war to liberate the religious from the church. That will be fought between atheists.
After that will come a hundred years later the war to release the stupid from the handcuffs of education. That will be fought by Mensans.
After that will come a hundred years later the civil war in America, to liberate the masses from their fat. That will be fought by Anorexic Amazons.
After that, a hundred years later, will come the war that aims to eradicate ugly people. That will be fought by photomodels and body builders.
My focus here is the immorality of the governments, the oligarch's lackeys, as you seem to know, so I reject your labels.
Quoting Bitter Crank
All good ideas that have been tried to some extent before.
The rich are quite good at ridding out our little temper tantrums and the public has an attention span of almost 0 and they change focus at the next oligarch created headline.
It will take masses of people, as you know, but the trick is to trigger their moral indignation and as you can see by the religions they follow, the rank and file do not have a moral sense to be indignant about.
The immoral fools are idol worshiping vile gods and that makes it easy for them to not recognize their vile oligarch owned political system.
Regards
DL
Any government aims at what individuals can't do: immortality.
They learn from their predecessor's mistakes. The crowd control gets tighter, and more skilled, less noticable, yet more gripping and more thorough.
The only thing that can kill governments and/or systems are revolutions. But as you say, DL, whatever your name is, the ones in power Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop They, like you said, DL, also count on our zero attention span, gullability, and easily excitable public fear that can be whipped into a frenzie of panic at any time they wish to.
Nah, suicide is easier to stage.
I think the immorality of governments is informed by the immorality of its people. It always comes back to the people for me. Money in politics? Why is that a problem? Because people respond to repetitive ads and flashy posters and whatever they read on social media and the other things money can buy.
Why do our politicians lie? We want them to, the guy telling the truth makes us uncomfortable, people would rather vote for someone they hope isnt lying rather than the guy they know is telling the truth. Also, we lie. We lie all the time, to our friends when we don’t feel like going out, to our loved ones to spare their feelings, our boss when we are late or calling in sick to have a day off...spouses, children, coworkers, friends, ourselves...lies everywhere. We surprised when our politicians turn out to be liars? Guess what? The lying politicians make the same excuses and justifications we all do when we tell lies.
Why would a government be corrupt? Because its core is corrupt.
An oligarchy can’t buy a country unless its for sale, and the ignorant, distracted, gullible dummy population at large is like a great big “For Sale!” sign for anyone so inclined.
They don't need to hide behind needles between the toes. A bullet through the head (faster, cheaper, better) and the coroner's report will still say, as you said, "cardiac arrest", or maybe if they are in a comic mood, "failure to thrive".
When you can buy the best in con men or are a con man, things can be made to be easy when lies come from bought and paid for experts.
Remember the tobacco industries frauds. Watch the documentary --- What the Health--- and see fraud taken to the point, again, to where the government is knowingly killing it's people.
Proof of that is in the stats that show Americans are dying younger while in the rest of the world, they are dying older.
Regards
DL
Slave owners just have no ----- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCVR_ajL_Eo
Regards
DL
This says it all.
Note how the U.S. is dropping in the world stats on intelligence, even as they continue to drop the standards of excellence that American children already are to dumbed down to reach.
Regards
DL
You are fixated on "the government". The government wasn't growing tobacco, making it into cigarettes, cigars, snuff, or chewing tobacco. They weren't promoting it by using every trick in the book. Who was doing that? R. J. Reynolds, Phillip Morris, British American Tobacco, Lorillard, et al were doing all that. Who was profiting from tobacco sales? The stockholders of the tobacco companies.
I used to smoke--I pretty much liked smoking--(Marlboro) and was the government putting a gun to my head to do that? No. I decided I wanted to smoke (as an adult, yet -- two years out of college, fully aware of the surgeon general's report. Did the government make me quit (25 years ago)? No. I chose to quit.
There is a lot of ragging on the masses of "stupid people" going on here. Who here is not part of the masses?
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
You can reject whatever labels you want. But... if you focus on the evils of "the government" to the exclusion of all else, that puts you in the camp of the libertarians. Or the camp of "everyone is too stupid to see how right I am" or the terminal conspiratorialist camp. Take your pick.
You seem to be peeved that there are no people, organizations, governments, corporations, or anything else with sterling moral credentials. Why would there be? We all have feet of clay. We are not gods.
That would depend on how you define god.
Modern Gnostic Christians name our god "I am", and yes, we do mean ourselves.
You are your controller. I am mine. You represent and present whatever mind picture you have of your God or ideal human, and so do I.
The name "I Am" you might see as meaning something like, --- I think I have grown up thanks to having forced my apotheosis through Gnosis and meditation.
In Gnostic Christianity, we follow the Christian tradition that Christians have forgotten that they are to do. That is, become brethren to Jesus.
That is why some say that the only good Christian is a Gnostic Christian.
Here is the real way to salvation that Jesus taught.
Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Allan Watts explain those quotes in detail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alRNbesfXXw&feature=player_embedded
Joseph Campbell shows the same esoteric ecumenist idea in this link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGx4IlppSgU
The bible just plainly says to put away the things of children. The supernatural and literal reading of myths.
Regards
DL
Hubris Alert clang clang clang clang clang
Regardless, we can argue about the great unfairness of the taxation system, how corporations are permitted too much control of capital, and whatever. The cause of poverty is none of that. Perhaps some tinkering (or even overhauling) would result in more wealth to more people, but the poor aren't poor because of a rigged system. Some folks aren't going to be able to catch, throw, or run very well even if the field were perfectly level.
No reading comprehension. Oh well.
Regards
DL
I'm all in favor of NOT taking myths literally. Corinthians 13:11... When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
I'm also all in favor of people growing up and being 'men' (responsible adult humans).
I haven't read much about gnosticism -- probably because of the Calvin / Luther dominance on my earlier Protestant thinking. I probably won't become a gnostic in the few years I have left. One can only think about so many things in a day.
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
Yeah yeah, I'm just one more too-stupid-for-words brain dead slouch. But really, taking on the title of a god is kind of hubristic.
It is following the tradition that Jesus and all gurus and mystics taught.
Regards
DL
That's just the problem. And also with a cheaper and easier way of staging suicide, as suggested by @DingoJones.
Faster, cheaper and easier is not always the most feasible,when the Union of Assassins (Local 453) demands that higher cost methods be applied, in order to financially protect the members of the Guild. Their demand is reasonable: the high cost of assassin training for the students, in terms of text books, lab material, and tuition fees, can't be offset if employers can hire dilettante yahoos who will push you in the subway tracks for below unionized wages.
It's a closed shop. the Guild of Assassins. Add to that, if you don't give in to their demands, you can be easily replaced... the obituary will simply say, due to a sudden unexpected illness.
Well, alright -- needles between the toes, accidental attack by a dozen rare Australian spiders (in Central Park in the winter), decapitation by a weirdly malfunctioning Cuisinart food processor, or exsanguination at the opera.
If you put the question in such simple words, there can, I believe, only be one answer: No.
Quoting Gnostic Christian Bishop
It is not only taxation as such. It is also the economic policy.
Quoting DingoJones
Well, whose poverty? The poverty of third world countries? The poverty of the poor in rich countries?
Quoting god must be atheist
Not necessarily arbitrary. Standards of poverty can change over time and are always relative, that much is true, I believe. Someone who is regarded as poor in our days may have been considered wealthy in past centuries.
But this does not mean that every definition of poverty is arbitrary. For example, I could say that someone who has an income that is not sufficient to buy enough food in order not to starve and to rent a place to have elementry shelter is definitely poor, whatever else may be considered poor under whatever definition. Such an assertion would not be arbitrary for at least two reasons: First, I think I can safely say that the majority of people in the Western world would agree with me. And secondly, in the welfare states of the Western world, it is taken for granted that everyone should have the sufficient financial means in order not to starve.