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Are you Peter or Paul?

Are you Peter or Paul?

  • Peter

    Votes: 6 66.7%
  • Paul

    Votes: 3 33.3%

  • Total voters
    9

prohobo

Member
Joined
May 15, 2014
Messages
145
Reaction score
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Location
where ever I hang my hat
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Other
If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul's support. In the case of politics, you can always count on Paul's vote.


I believe Spock was correct when he laid dying in the Wrath of Kahn and uttered: "The needs of the many, outweigh...the needs of the few, or in this case the one."

twokhd1064.jpg


However, my interpretation is far different from those that believe Spock to mean we can take from the few to reward OUR "many". Who is this group that consider themselves the "many"?

We consistently burden the many for the benefits of the few, a union, old people, poor people, gay people, minority people, this people or that people. Everyone has their hand out and perhaps for a justifiable reason, but is one's hand worth more than the others? Who is to say one should benefit at the expense of the many? The many should mean ALL of us - not just a selected group that feels THEY need something.

The problem is to some extent politicians suffer from "constituency syndrome", ok I made up that word - but I think you get the point. In order to garner the votes, they need to give the particular constituency a favor (needs of the few votes out weight the needs of the many).

Our government continues to rob from Peter to give to Paul, just to garner a little more of Paul's support - or in this case vote. Frankly, I believe these politicians could careless WHAT or WHY they are robbing Peter and myopically focused on Paul's vote.

When I hear people championing all kinds of causes, many of them at the expense of others, I can't help but think of them as Paul. Certainly many of their causes can be justified, at least in their minds. These Paul's usually take the moral high ground, while logic, reason, economics, and math are disregarded. Those that bring logic, math, and reason to the table as quickly labeled a cold-hearten Peter. Morality justifications trumps reasoning and often times taken to the extreme as Paul utter's, "If stealing from Peter means saving a life, we should steal all we can!"

As economic depression sets in, regardless of the cause, we see some Peter's actually become Pauls. Pauls become dependent, reliant, and even demand that the State be their caretaker, regardless of Peter's expense. Eventually Paul no longer needs justification, he is ENTITLED. For the government to continue to feed Paul's appetite, it must engorge the Nanny State's Teats with more stolen milk from Peter. To do so we must begin to villainize Peter to justify the continual robbing; "Peter is materialistic, Peter doesn't care about you, Peter values money over people, Peter is greedy, Peter is evil, etc... "

We all know how this ends. Yet we continue to play the charade and every day more Paul's rise up as more Peter's are beaten down - all based on ideological blindness that is justified on some moral high ground.

Are you Peter or are you Paul? I don't expect everyone to answer honestly.
 
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Considering I've worked since age-16, have never once received anything from the state except a tax refund, I'm definitely Peter being robbed to pay Paul. But...I'd rather have a few points pulled out of my paycheck than see a bunch of Pauls starving on the street. I've been to places with no social safety net. It's ugly what happens there.

Here, if you see people on the street. They are quite often the fallen who are there because they are addicted to something. If you see people on the street in the wretched places on the planet, it's because they never had anything.

It still sucks to have things taken from us and given to others without being asked, or having input on what happens to the fruits of our labor.
 
Hah! I thought this was going to be a religious discussion! :lamo
 
peter had robbed someone to get rich too...modern lords ............
 
Considering I've worked since age-16, have never once received anything from the state except a tax refund, I'm definitely Peter being robbed to pay Paul. But...I'd rather have a few points pulled out of my paycheck than see a bunch of Pauls starving on the street. I've been to places with no social safety net. It's ugly what happens there.

Here, if you see people on the street. They are quite often the fallen who are there because they are addicted to something. If you see people on the street in the wretched places on the planet, it's because they never had anything.

It still sucks to have things taken from us and given to others without being asked, or having input on what happens to the fruits of our labor.

Agreed...

But what about retired school teachers, or veterans, what about minorities, what about the old people, or the hard working union member, we can't forget about the orphans, what about the those born with handicaps, then of course there are the whales and the trees.

I am not trying to dismiss the importants or value of any ONE of these groups, but what makes any one of these groups more deserving than the other.
Politicians suffer from "constituency syndrome" in which they serve one or a few of these groups as the expense of the many. Perhaps you should DONATE your time and money to whom YOU want to help, because there are SO many that need to suckle at the gorging teats of the nanny state, that Peter will have no more milk to rob!
 
Contrary to what self-righteous people like to think, we're all somewhere in between. No one is getting robbed, and no one is lazily living off of the work of others. Instead, we're all trying to collaborate to survive together and live decent lives. There's no nanny state. No one is refusing to contribute and being a parasite on anyone else. There is no Peter, and there is no Paul.
 
Hah! I thought this was going to be a religious discussion! :lamo

That's okay.
I thought it was about a 60's folk-singing group.
 
That's okay.
I thought it was about a 60's folk-singing group.

I was thinking that we were going to discuss whether we considered ourselves crazy, or strong-willed and hard-headed. I was going to have a tough time deciding on that one. :lol:
 
I was thinking that we were going to discuss whether we considered ourselves crazy, or strong-willed and hard-headed. I was going to have a tough time deciding on that one. :lol:

Easy call for me.
All three....in varying degrees.
I only go crazy when people call me strong-willed and hard-headed.
 
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Modern lords?

of course.how do you think rich people get richer and richer ? they steal from the others like the feudal lords of the middle age.working too much doesnt make you a member of rothschild family..
 
Contrary to what self-righteous people like to think, we're all somewhere in between. No one is getting robbed, and no one is lazily living off of the work of others. Instead, we're all trying to collaborate to survive together and live decent lives. There's no nanny state. No one is refusing to contribute and being a parasite on anyone else. There is no Peter, and there is no Paul.

disagree. some are parasites some are producers.
 
I am Ringo.

Or, more properly, Barry Wom.

 
Peter suffers not to pay a tiny fraction of his annual gain to help those who struggle.

Far more goes to serve Peter's interest here and around the world.

Call me Ismail..... :peace
 
If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul's support. In the case of politics, you can always count on Paul's vote.


I believe Spock was correct when he laid dying in the Wrath of Kahn and uttered: "The needs of the many, outweigh...the needs of the few, or in this case the one."

View attachment 67166562


However, my interpretation is far different from those that believe Spock to mean we can take from the few to reward OUR "many". Who is this group that consider themselves the "many"?

We consistently burden the many for the benefits of the few, a union, old people, poor people, gay people, minority people, this people or that people. Everyone has their hand out and perhaps for a justifiable reason, but is one's hand worth more than the others? Who is to say one should benefit at the expense of the many? The many should mean ALL of us - not just a selected group that feels THEY need something.

The problem is to some extent politicians suffer from "constituency syndrome", ok I made up that word - but I think you get the point. In order to garner the votes, they need to give the particular constituency a favor (needs of the few votes out weight the needs of the many).

Our government continues to rob from Peter to give to Paul, just to garner a little more of Paul's support - or in this case vote. Frankly, I believe these politicians could careless WHAT or WHY they are robbing Peter and myopically focused on Paul's vote.

When I hear people championing all kinds of causes, many of them at the expense of others, I can't help but think of them as Paul. Certainly many of their causes can be justified, at least in their minds. These Paul's usually take the moral high ground, while logic, reason, economics, and math are disregarded. Those that bring logic, math, and reason to the table as quickly labeled a cold-hearten Peter. Morality justifications trumps reasoning and often times taken to the extreme as Paul utter's, "If stealing from Peter means saving a life, we should steal all we can!"

As economic depression sets in, regardless of the cause, we see some Peter's actually become Pauls. Pauls become dependent, reliant, and even demand that the State be their caretaker, regardless of Peter's expense. Eventually Paul no longer needs justification, he is ENTITLED. For the government to continue to feed Paul's appetite, it must engorge the Nanny State's Teats with more stolen milk from Peter. To do so we must begin to villainize Peter to justify the continual robbing; "Peter is materialistic, Peter doesn't care about you, Peter values money over people, Peter is greedy, Peter is evil, etc... "

We all know how this ends. Yet we continue to play the charade and every day more Paul's rise up as more Peter's are beaten down - all based on ideological blindness that is justified on some moral high ground.

Are you Peter or are you Paul? I don't expect everyone to answer honestly.

Neither

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of course.how do you think rich people get richer and richer ? they steal from the others like the feudal lords of the middle age.working too much doesnt make you a member of rothschild family..
Oh, that's what you meant. It's been like that since.....ever.
 
Peter suffers not to pay a tiny fraction of his annual gain to help those who struggle.

Far more goes to serve Peter's interest here and around the world.

Call me Ismail..... :peace

That's why I don't mind paying. I have no kids, but I pay a small salary in property taxes so other kids can go to the best school in the area. Small price to pay for stable if not rising home prices. That sort of thing.
 
I'm middle aged, so I pay more than my "fair share", but it wasn't always this way and it probably won't stay this way. If you take the amount of money that the government spends and divide it by the number of people, that's each person's fair share. When I was 18, the amount of taxes that I paid was well below that and now I pay far more than that. I'm not really sure how it will balance out when I die.
 
How did we ever get to the point where someone actually believes that the unemployed of society wants to willingly subsist at poverty levels?

One third stay home, don't work, eat and drink like Royalty, getting free everything, driving nice cars, living in wonderful homes because they don't want to earn a living.

While the other two thirds, slaves all day, living no better than the evil lazies they support with their hard earned tax dollars.

It's scary to think that our political leaders, so desperate for votes have literally gotten people to repeat this nonsense.

It couldn't possibly be that the economy is so rotten because of corporations laying people off and cutting positions to increase profits, where if the gov't didn't provide some basic means, we'd have rampant crime, riots and starvation? We began a Recession 6 years ago that would've rivaled the Great Depression, if not for the gov't bailing out the very, greedy bankers/corporations that created the problem.

Are there some people abusing the system and non motivated, because of literally making almost as much off gov't assistance as working, of course. There will always be people who abuse the system, and some groups are using it more than others, but I doubt the majority of them want to be there, and are living at the same level as those with better health, opportunities, education, employment and careers.
 
I like being robbed by the government because it makes me less likely to be robbed by an individual. Poverty breeds crime, welfare alleviates poverty. It's not a perfect system, but I don't think there's any better.
 
I'm Peul.

Who the heck are Peter and Paul anyway?
 
Considering I've worked since age-16, have never once received anything from the state except a tax refund, I'm definitely Peter being robbed to pay Paul. But...I'd rather have a few points pulled out of my paycheck than see a bunch of Pauls starving on the street. I've been to places with no social safety net. It's ugly what happens there.

Here, if you see people on the street. They are quite often the fallen who are there because they are addicted to something. If you see people on the street in the wretched places on the planet, it's because they never had anything.

It still sucks to have things taken from us and given to others without being asked, or having input on what happens to the fruits of our labor.

If your heart was truly in it, you wouldn't need the state to take the money from you. You'd do it on your own, like I do and give to charity. So save us the feigned appearance of charity that is totally phoney.
 
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