I’m guessing a lot of people get the impression that I like fighting or “trolling” as some say. I write about sometimes touchy topics and I have become less and less hesitant to jump on a Facebook conversation I disagree with. Even in face-to-face conversations, I’m not known to hold back my thoughts or tiptoe around someone else’s feelings. But the truth is, I hate fighting. I get very nervous any time I post something political, like to the point where my stomach gets the same feeling you get when you drive your car over a small hill. I cringe when I see a Facebook or Twitter alert. I always assume someone is calling me a name or trying to prove me wrong. On the occasion that someone is responding positively to something I said, I start “relief sweating.” Relief sweating is when you relax enough to start sweating after being wound up so tight your body couldn’t even sweat like a normal nervous person.
I often find myself asking if there’s any point to social media debate. Does anyone’s mind ever get changed? Sometimes I get a positive text or a message from someone regarding something I said on social media and that’s nice but I’m guessing I reaffirmed their belief, I didn’t change it. Someone has to post something astoundingly misinformed for me to comment.
Below is an example of a real conversation I had on Facebook with someone whose ideology is essentially communism, (a political theory that is responsible for the death of 94 million people in the 20th century)…Perhaps my next post should explain what communism is and why it’s dangerous..
To protect this person’s identity let’s just call him Garb. Here’s how it started:
Garb: Speaking SOLELY as a citizen who doesn’t have a lot of money and doesn’t make a lot of money, I MIGHT be A teeny tiny microscopic amount okay with our stupid-in-every-sense-of-the-word President (who is supposed to be a PUBLIC SERVANT) cutting SOME social programs IF AND ONLY IF the saved money actually went to the people whose benefits were cut. Otherwise it’s so so clearly obvious that he’s just a rich asshole who is just giving more money to other rich people by taking away expenditures on those who need help. Why, in ANY SENSE, would it ever be okay to GIVE to those who have and TAKE from those who have not?
Me: Why, in ANY SENSE would it ever be okay to TAKE from those who have fairly earned their money and GIVE to those who have not? Also, you’re essentially saying here that it’s OK to cut social programs as long as you start another one…so what would be the point in cutting the original one? That rich asshole isn’t “giving money” to anyone when/if he cuts a program, he’s letting taxpayers keep more of the money THEY earned. Big difference. The government never gives money to those who pay income taxes (roughly 55% of the population) they just decide how much of your OWN money you get to keep if you are in that 55%.
Ok, so maybe it was obnoxious for me to use the all capped words like he did but I couldn’t help it. The conversation went on and on. I won’t copy and paste everything here but instead will try to address the points, accusations and claims this person made that are common amongst the extreme left.
Why do you think every poor person is lazy? I know you think that because otherwise you would have no problem with them getting help out of “your pocket.”
Right away he has lost the argument because instead of debating my ideas he resorts to attacking my character. He says I think poor people lazy. So because I like keeping the money I earn I think poor people are lazy? This is what leftists do. They paint anyone who has different solutions than them as evil.
Without social programs then what? People just “work harder, want it more?” Don’t you think they would be where they want to be if they didn’t need help? Nobody likes spinning their tires. So you think it’s better to let people be homeless and live on the streets and starve and crowd up homeless shelters if they don’t make the cut?
This also makes an emotional argument against those who would like to see social welfare programs cut back. Virtually every American, conservative or otherwise, believes there should be a social safety net. Where conservatives and liberals separate is the magnitude of said, social net. There are currently 15 categories of welfare and that number is always increasing. I don’t want to cut all safety nets, I simply think we could be more efficient and effective with social welfare.
If you already have everything you NEED (wants are not essential and should NOT be included in any discussion over right or wrong, especially when people’s lives and health are at stake) then taking away a little more isn’t gonna put you below being able to live.
This statement is a scary one because it’s where he starts to dabble in communism. Over and over again throughout the debate he claimed luxuries shouldn’t exist. Food and shelter should be the only things that matter. It’s really quite obvious why this is faulty logic. Who decides what each person’s NEEDS are? Technically I don’t need a car, so should I give that up? I don’t really need a dog either so I guess he should be taken away from me too. And my phone, I don’t need that either. Do you see the slippery slope you go down when you start deciding what people’s needs are and taking (taxing) accordingly?
Hope these people have fun buying their extra car with their extra tax money or their extra vacation while homeless Johnny McPoorPerson loses his health insurance and food stamps just so people who ALREADY HAVE MONEY AND DON’T NEED HELP can use their money to make themselves happy while others are using their money to survive.
How do you get people out of poverty? You give them jobs. How are more jobs created? Increased demand for goods and services which leads to increased supply of goods and services. People buying “extra” cars, houses, vacations etc. are those goods and services that employ more people. He says rich people are using their money to make themselves happy while others are using their money to survive…how would the poor have any money at all if people weren’t buying goods and services?
He also says rich people are buying extra things with their “extra tax money.” The only body that can have extra tax money is the government. Individuals cannot have extra tax money. That’s just their money. That’s like calling the money you saved buying discounted tennis shoes your “extra shoe money.” No, that’s just your money you can now save or spend on something else.
So what I actually (obviously) meant was raising taxes doesn’t force anyone to lose anything which is essential for survival.
Raising taxes does cause people to lose things. Now my taxes are higher so I am not going to hire a maid. Or now my taxes are higher so we’ll take fewer vacations. People lose their jobs over higher taxes. In the debate, I used the yacht industry and the luxury tax as an example because he and I are from the same county and in this county, yachts are made. When it came to the yacht industry in Westport, a luxury tax was introduced, people didn’t buy as many yachts and normal folks lost their jobs.
I also told this individual that if he was struggling to get out of poverty I would help him in any way that I could. I told him he could DM me and we could work on it. Well he did DM me but not to explain how he was struggling to reach his career goals but to further complain about how he is disadvantaged. This unfortunately, is reflective of a lot of people on the left. They don’t want to work hard, they don’t want better opportunity, they just want your money and they want it now.
I already know that having yachts and other bullshit luxuries won’t make me happy. For those lost in that pursuit of happiness, I feel so deeply sorry. But the only things anyone “needs,” are a place to live, a job, and food. Anything else is superfluous and is just a scam in essence.
Here he shows he missed my point about yachts. I don’t believe yachts are the key to happiness but they are a luxury item that lead to more wealth and prosperity for the thousands of people employed in the boating industry. Rich people create jobs which is good. People from all walks of life are employed to build yachts and other luxury items.
What’s funny is that this guy worked in a luxury apparel store so he benefited from rich people buying things they don’t need. He also worked for Dominos and you know what else people don’t need? Pizza. You know what else people don’t need? Any restaurants at all. Almost every dollar this guy has ever earned is a result of people buying things they don’t need.
Why do so many people view rich people as evil simply because they are rich? And by rich I really mean anyone who lives above the poverty line and pays federal income taxes. These people fly planes, they buy candy bars, they take vacations, they attend concerts, all the while employing more and more people. But none of these items are necessities so according to Garb they shouldn’t exist?
After pointing out all the benefits to the yacht industry this was Garb’s response and I quote “I don’t know any of that, because I don’t have any interest in yachts and don’t spend a lot of time scrolling through numbers or statistics.”
Really let that sink in. He doesn’t spend time looking at statistics. Yet here he is, preaching to the world that he knows what’s best whilst two people who do pay attention to such things are pointing out the facts but we’re just evil and greedy.
The only thing that’s important to all humans is survival. Personal liberty and freedom are only important to happiness. Morals come before any happiness, otherwise there’s nothing left; just a bunch of self-centered assholes clawing their way to the top to get that yacht, when several people by whom they pass every day, are clawing for food to survive.
Things that aren’t necessary for survival create jobs, which then help others survive. Having survival as the goal and completely discounting the pursuit of happiness seems like a truly counterproductive philosophy. Who wants to survive if you can never be happy? I mean, seriously what is the point to surviving if that’s all we’re doing? Everyone can go work at the suicide crisis center I guess.
If that money (he’s referring to money spent on any luxury good from yachts to craft beer) was spent on taxes there would be government jobs to replace those jobs based in providing luxury things.
So let’s create a scenario in which his dreams come true. Tax money goes to fund “necessary” jobs instead of “luxury” jobs.
If 10,000 people donate $50 to build a hospital that’s $500,000. Not enough to build an emergency room, let alone a whole hospital. But a “rich asshole” who wants to see his name on a building can donate $5,000,000 or $10,000,000 and you’re good to go. And often times it goes beyond the name on a building, rich people follow their true passions and use the business acumen that made them rich to begin with to truly further their cause. Example: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Centers. Carnegie Hall. Ted Turner’s Bison project. Etc.
Let’s say everyone had a government job (“GOVERNMENT JOBS = JOBS”) and, for the sake of the example you started with a $1 trillion payroll and everyone paid 20% in income taxes, here is how it would go:
Year 1: $1,000,000,000,000 paid out, $200,000,000,000 tax revenue
Year 2: $200,000,000,000 paid out, $40,000,000,000 tax revenue, 80% unemployment
Year 3: $40,000,000,000 paid out, $8,000,000,000 tax revenue, 96% unemployment
Year 4: $8,000,000,000 paid out, $1,600,000,000 tax revenue 99.2% unemployment
Admittedly this is an oversimplification, there would be other moving parts in the equation. Some facets would actually make the situation collapse sooner (the government spending on anything other than payroll) and others would make it last longer (government’s ability to print money). The point is all government is a closed loop. It is a perpetual motion machine – and there is no such thing. Energy, or in the case of government, capital, gets used up and has to come from outside.
Rising insurance costs are because insurance companies are privatized, so they make a profit off of selling the closest thing you can get to an assurance of good health. An assurance of good health sounds pretty necessary to survival to me. So of course they are going to raise premiums at every opportunity because corporations make money. Over time costs rise, so they must raise their prices to keep up with the cost of the yachts and mansions they need to buy.
Again, 100% absolutely false. He has no idea what he is talking about. He doesn’t understand what privatized means, he doesn’t know what capitalism is, he doesn’t understand what influences insurance premiums. This guy is an idiot. I hate to call names but there’s just no other way to describe him.
Insurance is one of the most highly regulated industries in the country, not just at the federal level but at the state level as well. Insurance companies do not operate in a free and open market like Garb states. Obamacare showed us what happens when government tries to make a market behave in a certain way. As former Treasury Department and Office of Management and Budget staffer J.T. Young said, “By applying subsidies to one or both sides of the economic equation, its enforced market cannot exist without continued government subsidies in the short-term, and becomes unsustainable in the long-term as politics compounds subsidies’ distortion.”
This guy seems to think that insurance companies raise premiums whenever they feel like they’re due for a new house.This blind ignorance and elementary understanding of how markets work is unfortunately not rare. Here are articles published by Forbes, the Cato Institute, and the Foundation for Economic Education explaining why socialized medicine is a bad idea. There has also been a movement to push Direct Primary Care which would be mostly cashed based. You can read more about that here.
Furthermore, we’ve tried socialized medicine in the U.S. It’s called the V.A. and it’s a trainwreck.
Motivation these days is all based around the false ideal that having it all will make you happy. Its bullshit and it’s a scam which capitalism is based firmly in.
He doesn’t know what free market capitalism is.
Same thing with education costs; if universities were government-ran, instead of the current shithole where a small % of people make a profit off of getting millions of young adults into huge debt, EVEN THOUGH EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE EDUCATED
He capitalized that last statement, not me.
Many universities are government run. Millions of young adults still manage to get into huge debt by attending them. In fact almost three times as many students attend government run schools compared to private ones. Very few universities are operated on a for profit basis; in 2013 only 12% of students attended for-profit schools. They have been under pressure by both federal and state governments to produce employable graduates and their ability to access federal financial aid for their students has been sharply curtailed, so that number is probably lower now. These are institutions like DeVry or Phoenix University.
And everyone needs to be educated? It would be good if everyone knew how to read/write and do basic arithmetic for sure. However, I would prefer people had a basic grasp of our history and how/why our society is organized. But does the guy who is a backhoe operator need a college degree? Does a plumber? Does a line worker in a factory? Does a waiter? As a society we spend roughly $145,000 per kid getting them from kindergarten through high school. Shouldn’t they be able to function in society for that amount? Isn’t college a choice, not a necessity?
I share this experience because it touched on a lot of the false narratives leftists spread regarding anyone who disagrees with them. I.e. they hate poor people, they hate change, they’re greedy, they don’t care if there’s suffering in the world…All of it so clearly false. Literally in the middle of this Facebook debate I had to leave because I was volunteering.
I offered to help this person and instead of messaging me so we could figure out how to better his financial situation, he messaged me only to continue fighting me. A quick look at charitable giving in the United States and around the world shows that conservative americans are the most generous people on earth. Is it so crazy that these same people want to make sure the money they give is going to a worthy and efficient cause?
This interaction was also an example of how it’s close to impossible to have an honest discussion with leftist fanatics because they immediately resort to name calling. Again and again this person questioned my feelings or motives instead of discussing objective truths. He also posted on Facebook outside the conversation essentially stating that I am greedy for wanting to save up and build my dream home.
We all know good people who lean conservative. If you know a good person who is conservative, perhaps instead of calling them names you should sit down and ask them why they’re conservative. The goal of any debate should be to find the truth, not “win” the argument. Calling the guy who owns the auto mechanic shop greedy for wanting to keep the money he fairly earned isn’t going to convince him to vote Democrat next time around.
When it comes to Facebook fights, stick to the facts, don’t use emotion backed reasoning and ask questions instead of calling names. And remember, a lot of the time the argument isn’t actually to convince the person you’re debating but for the silent observer scrolling through their feed.
