Wow! Take a couple of days off and you get behind!

First to clear up a few things....

McCartyism was a very bi-partisan affair. He had pretty broad support throughout the country and no politician from either party really wanted to challenge him. He lost his ass when he went after Ike's administration and the Army. But in the meantime the episode provided a clear example of the government overreaching and challenging the rights of the citizens.

To say that segregation was not the result of 'Big Government' because it mostly (but not exclusively....Washington DC was a segregated city) went on at the state level is a bit dishonest. The states are part of the government too.

There are many things that the government (at all levels) can and should do, providing police protection, fire departments, building and maintaining roads and schools, and guarding the coast and toting the mail. The government can and should foster economic developement in depressed areas.

But then we come to the question of direct transfer payments by the government....redistribution of wealth. If I decide that I have more money than I need and I decide to give some of it to the poor, that is charity and it is a wonderful thing.....if a self appointed activist for the poor decides I have more than I need and puts a gun to my head, in the form of the IRS, and takes what he feels is my over abundance and redistributes it....that is theft.

I see a lot of talk about soaking the rich, and making the corporations pay and so forth....let me clue you in on a secret of the universe--"Shit flows downhill".

The rich don't get hurt by high tax rates....the middle class does. The rich can hide their money, they can afford huge numbers of accountants and lawyers to protect their assets. Failing all else, they can afford to purchase whatever government functionaries they need, to escape burdensome regulation.

The people that really get screwed are the working middle class....the guy that spends 60 hrs a week swinging a hammer or running a saw and then discovers he is suddenly in that 28% tax bracket.

Corporations do not pay taxes. No corporation has a printing press to make money. Taxes and expenses that corporations are required to pay, are paid by the consumer....and the corporate employee. When you make it expensive to do business, the corporation starts looking for ways to save money. They start by cutting employee benefits (like health insurance and pensions), then they start laying off employees.

They also have the option of packing their toys and moving their operation to some third world shit hole where they can get a hard day's work for 25 cents and a bowl of rice. The people in the US that made 14 or fifteen dollars an hour working at the factory are now making minimum wage flipping burgers.

And you will note that the price of the product never goes down when a corporation moves overseas. The money saved on labor costs and so forth is now available for advertising. The best example of this I can think of is Nike.

"Well, it IS possible to stay in business without making a profit. I did it for a long, long, long time -- singing folksongs. It was amazing to head East and do a tour up and down the East Coast and get home a month and a half later, if I was lucky that trip, fifty bucks ahead. ;-)"

No wonder you can't afford to go to the doctor and can't provide a pension for yourself. If you aren't willing to take the responsibility of providing for your future I will be damned if I will.