I'm actually interested to see what topics I'm the grumpy old man about when I'm 80. Currently I'm almost as socially progressive as you can get, but I'm sure by the time I'm 80 the world will have moved far passed me. I'm sure I'll be looked upon as a horrible person for eating meat and driving a big V8 engine.
And that's fine. Social Security isn't for any individual retiree. It's to take care of our elderly population as a whole. My blue state pays a shit ton of federal taxes that go to pay for programs in red states. We pay into the federal government a lot more than we get in return. And that's fine, because taxes are to provide services as a whole to help create a stable and secure society.
No one is bragging or claiming to be more virtuous. The point was you don't pay taxes to see individual benefit. You pay them to help fund a stable society.
I knew the score on that game when I hired employees. Just answering a poster who was trying to imply I was somehow in the wrong per my post.
They'll never see it that way. They earned there's as you said. Walked 12 miles barefooted to school each day, worked two 7 day a week jobs to put themselves through college, survived on 2 hours a sleep. The Paddock is littered with real American success stories and lots of "bootstrapping." Let the Paddock run things for awhile.
I said:
As in, "stop bitching if you pay more in than you get in return. It happens and it's how it's supposed to work."
If you can read and write and understand economics you should be able to take that money and invest in your own nest egg and retirement plan. You do not need a government to take from all and distribute pennies back on the dollar to the masses.
It irks me to no end to ask someone for help. I'd rather do 20 times the work than to ask for help. Gov is not my daddy. I was raised to take pride in taking care of yourself and that it brought shame and a loss of self respect to ask for help. It seems to me that most D politicians (and a lot of R) want people beholden to them.
And what makes us sad and what doesn't is one of the fundamental differences between you and I.
It takes a weaker man to not have enough pride to take care of himself and his family.
Then 99.999% are weak because everyone needs help in life. No one does it alone. Except you I guess.
If only there weren’t hundreds of examples of your posting style you may could pull off the I’m smarter than you game you play.
I have accepted help, I just don't like it. My wife has a house in town that was damaged by a tornado. There were numerous trees down in her yard. I'm almost 75 and we spent a day and a half on her front yard with a chainsaw making a path so we could just get in her front door and inspect the inside of the house. While we were on the roof tarping, a group from Samaritan's Purse came by and finished cutting up the downed trees in the front and back yard. We left to go to Lowes for supplies and while we were gone, they finished tarping the roof. We didn't ask for help. They just started doing it and we were grateful.
That is the America I love. Helping people who do not ask for help and not expecting a dime for their help. God has a reward for people like that. No amount of government can give the love and blessings a person volunteering can give.
I didn't say it secures a stable retirement. It helps people who have saved themself achieve a stable retirement and it helps people who have not live at least a dignified life where they don't have to beg on the street corner. Slaving away until you die sounds horrible. I think as a society we should at least give people a few years at the end of their life where they don't have to work 40+ hours to just survive.
