Equality

[QuebecOverCanada]

10 hours ago, Marocc said:

It is a value.

Your question demonstrates the issue with western societies in general. Because society being value-free has become the main value for them, they cannot — and do not truly desire to — create equality in their societies.

Equality isn't a value, it is a comparative status that means that something is equal for one and the other. Equality isn't a goal in itself, it is just something that exists because some quantities may be equal. Fairness is different. Let's say for example I make $55/h, because I'm a plumber. Is it unfair for the cashier making $15/h? It sure is unequal because we don't make the same income, but is it unfair?

[Marocc]

11 minutes ago, Goddess said:

Ah, there it is.  I was wondering what this thread was really about.  It's not about "equality" at all.  It's a condemnation of Western values.

It can be both at the same time.

1 hour ago, scribblet said:

I never mentioned money, so don't fabricate things.   As for this, you are not making sense, only in your mind have I been hypocritical but you are free to believe whatever makes you happy.

You won't deny it nor will you admit it. So I take it, you are ashamed to admit that you put more responsibility on others than you do on yourself.

[Goddess]

9 minutes ago, Marocc said:

It can be both at the same time.

Maybe be upfront about that in your title, then.  If you want to start a thread to condemn the Western value of "equality", then just be honest about it.

Because people are replying to it as a discussion of "equality" and you are responding to replies with condemnation of Western values and false personal attacks.

Edited April 8, 2020 by Goddess

[scribblet]

1 hour ago, Marocc said:

It can be both at the same time.

You won't deny it nor will you admit it. So I take it, you are ashamed to admit that you put more responsibility on others than you do on yourself.

That's bullsh.t

[Right To Left]

4 hours ago, Argus said:

There is no other kind of equality which can be achieved in a functional society. Equality of opportunity allows for people to rise on their own skill, effort and merit. The other sort of 'equality' is the equality of results, which allow the incompetent, the lazy, and the stupid to rise to levels beyond their capabilities, to rise above those with more ability, drive and skills. No society can sustain that in any great amounts for any great length of time.

Let's get beyond the dry political theory: do you or do you not believe it's okay for a "functional society" to tolerate homelessness or should there be a floor in the economic pyramid that nobody will fall through for whatever reasons?

On the flipside, should the economic rules be changed back that have allowed the rich to become superrich....stock options and buybacks used to inflate share values far beyond any price per share ratio could justify? Should ridiculously low investment tax standards be changed to mirror taxes on earned income? 

[Argus]

9 minutes ago, Right To Left said:

Let's get beyond the dry political theory: do you or do you not believe it's okay for a "functional society" to tolerate homelessness or should there be a floor in the economic pyramid that nobody will fall through for whatever reasons?

We already have a floor. The reason we have homelessness is because the Left won't let us do anything about it. We can't force these people off the streets, we can't force them into treatment for addictions, cuz 'rights'.

9 minutes ago, Right To Left said:

On the flipside, should the economic rules be changed back that have allowed the rich to become superrich....stock options and buybacks used to inflate share values far beyond any price per share ratio could justify? Should ridiculously low investment tax standards be changed to mirror taxes on earned income? 

I've long said that the main problems started in the seventies when the tax on dividends and capital gains were dropped to such a low tax rate. That's not the only reason, of course. But it's A major reason. I'd like to see a sliding scale of taxation on such things (given so many people have no pensions and are saving the only way they can, through the stock market). Certainly if you're making half a million bucks a year through dividends or capital gains, or both combined, you ought to be taxed at the same rate as income. I'd give you 100k at the present rate. Above that your tax rate increases.

[Goddess]

21 minutes ago, Right To Left said:

do you or do you not believe it's okay for a "functional society" to tolerate homelessness or should there be a floor in the economic pyramid that nobody will fall through for whatever reasons?

This is anecdotal but I have a friend who works with the homeless community.  One of the frustrating parts of her job has been working with an individual to get them off the street, set them up with a place to live and a small source of income, only to find a few months later - they go back to the streets and panhandling.  For some - that is all they know, that is what they are comfortable with.  For others, it is their choice to live that way.

Again, it boils down to individual choice of what they want to do with opportunities, and not the lack of opportunity or that they are being intentionally held back.

[Tdot]

5 hours ago, QuebecOverCanada said:

Equality isn't a value, it is a comparative status that means that something is equal for one and the other...

IMHO it can in fact be a, value, if the society has tied an empirical number to equality in some aspect of the society. For example the price of a subdivision's replica homes in a certain zip code, cannot use any Homeowner's Race, as a reason to devalue the cost of a home. Such a realtor, will instead be expected to use the same exact 'comparative statuses, which mean homes are equal to one another.' when selling those homes ... Because Equality is exactly a goal, in itself, wherever it is intended to fairly ensure when some quantities are to be equal.

Fairness, is no different. Whenever any uneven quantities or statuses or awards or anything else are determined to be equitably distributed ---in the minds of all parties involved--- then that is the denotative meaning of fairness.

 

Edited April 8, 2020 by Tdot

[Right To Left]

1 hour ago, Argus said:

We already have a floor. The reason we have homelessness is because the Left won't let us do anything about it. We can't force these people off the streets, we can't force them into treatment for addictions, cuz 'rights'.

 

The "floor" as I recall used to be that, even someone who was likely having some sort of psychological breakdown and couldn't function effectively because of depression, anxiety disorder or some other combination (agoraphobia), and couldn't work for whatever reasons, would still be provided enough money to have a room or a small apartment and enough food to live on. I can tell you point of fact, that this is not the case anymore! And social services and overtaxed volunteer groups face a quandary already dealing with more and more people who can work and are still not able to earn enough to keep themselves from ending up out on the streets because of today's high rents and absurdly valued houses....though that might be changing very soon now...who knows!  

Quote

I've long said that the main problems started in the seventies when the tax on dividends and capital gains were dropped to such a low tax rate. That's not the only reason, of course. But it's A major reason. I'd like to see a sliding scale of taxation on such things (given so many people have no pensions and are saving the only way they can, through the stock market). Certainly if you're making half a million bucks a year through dividends or capital gains, or both combined, you ought to be taxed at the same rate as income. I'd give you 100k at the present rate. Above that your tax rate increases.

Mostly agreed here! Taxes on investment income needs to match earned income more closely after decades of whining and threatened blackmail by business interests left the most common sources of income for the rich mostly untaxed. This also might change next year, depending on how all this shakes out in the Covid aftermath  of the world's central banks creating Trillions in dollars out of thin air. 

A simple understanding of banking and money/debt creation tells us that new loans and all instant money are borrowed from the future. Will the future provide enough in economic growth to absorb all of the new money created? Open answer to that question!

[Right To Left]

1 hour ago, Goddess said:

This is anecdotal but I have a friend who works with the homeless community.  One of the frustrating parts of her job has been working with an individual to get them off the street, set them up with a place to live and a small source of income, only to find a few months later - they go back to the streets and panhandling.  For some - that is all they know, that is what they are comfortable with.  For others, it is their choice to live that way.

Again, it boils down to individual choice of what they want to do with opportunities, and not the lack of opportunity or that they are being intentionally held back.

Any city I'm aware of: how much money do they have to raise to "get them off the street" today?  I covered this in a previous post, but if what I've seen growing in the US over the past five years is our future also, it's third world with huge numbers of low class working people unable to afford a home.

[Right To Left]

21 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

There's nothing wrong with giving your children the wealth you earned throughout your life.  Who do you think should get it?  Government?  Strangers like you & I who didn't earn it?  If their parents did well and worked hard to give their children opportunities, what's wrong with that?

 

You don't think inheritance should be taxed?

[Argus]

1 hour ago, Right To Left said:

The "floor" as I recall used to be that, even someone who was likely having some sort of psychological breakdown and couldn't function effectively because of depression, anxiety disorder or some other combination (agoraphobia), and couldn't work for whatever reasons, would still be provided enough money to have a room or a small apartment and enough food to live on.

None of these people are on the streets because welfare doesn't pay enough for a room. And they might at least find a place in the shelters if the shelters weren't jammed full of refugees the Left insists on bringing into the country by the tens of thousands, and if public housing wasn't jam packed with the refugees the Left brought into Canada last year and the year before and the year before and the year before...

1 hour ago, Right To Left said:

And social services and overtaxed volunteer groups face a quandary already dealing with more and more people who can work and are still not able to earn enough to keep themselves from ending up out on the streets because of today's high rents and absurdly valued houses..

Because of the high immigration levels the Left is absolutely fanatical about maintaining and increasing (rising to 390k this year), and the hundreds of thousands of foreign students coming into the country every year, and the hundreds of thousands of TFWs - along with the 50,000 refuges. All of them seeking cheap accommodation.

Besides, the market would build more homes if it weren't for policies like rent control and the red tape and regulations which make it such a long, complex and expensive effort to build housing of any kind.

 

[Argus]

3 hours ago, Tdot said:

Fairness, is no different. Whenever any uneven quantities or statuses or awards or anything else are determined to be equitably distributed ---in the minds of all parties involved--- then that is the denotative meaning of fairness.

You will never get agreement from ALL parties involved. Ever.

[Moonlight Graham]

1 hour ago, Right To Left said:

You don't think inheritance should be taxed?

I'm not sure, maybe, it can be taxed like any other form of income.  But not taxed by 80%.

[eyeball]

On 4/7/2020 at 5:47 AM, Marocc said:

Equality is not about specific legal codes. It's about a state of mind.

Creating a society where people are equal requires a change in attitudes.

What can Canadians offer in support of equality, aside from money?

Well, politicians and senior bureaucrats should offer to subject themselves to an amount of surveillance equal to what they have in mind for anyone else. 

[eyeball]

On 4/7/2020 at 1:32 PM, Moonlight Graham said:

It depends what kind of equality you want.  Equality of opportunity, or equality of outcome?

In Canada people have the freedom to do and be whatever they want, as long as it doesn't interfere with other people's rights.

How about equality opportunity of input?  Like the opportunity to influence a politician for example.  Everyone gets apportioned an equal amount of time with a politician behind a closed door.

5  minutes would probably be more than enough for most people and I doubt that would leave much time for interfering in other lobbyists rights or privileges.

[Tdot]

5 hours ago, Argus said:

You will never get agreement from ALL parties involved. Ever.

Oh yes, of course you can get all parties to agree.  It's happens very often each day.  

 

That's how agreements get signed ---even in criminal and civil court cases.

[Marocc]

8 hours ago, Right To Left said:

how much money do they have to raise to "get them off the street" today? 

Not much if the wealthy are generous.

1 hour ago, eyeball said:

Well, politicians and senior bureaucrats should offer to subject themselves to an amount of surveillance equal to what they have in mind for anyone else. 

Wouldn't that be a security problem?

6 hours ago, Argus said:

And they might at least find a place in the shelters if the shelters weren't jammed full of refugees

That's poor planning. They should be at seperate places.

10 hours ago, Goddess said:

set them up with a place to live and a small source of income

Small source of income? Is that, a job?

people who have nothing and whose mental well-being may be poor, should receive support in building themselves a life. They should be able to receive treatment for illnesses, pursue education and to choose a career they want and are able to pursue.

[Tdot]

On April 7, 2020 at 11:20 PM, Marocc said:

It is a value.

Your question demonstrates the issue with western societies in general. ... they cannot — and do not truly desire to — create equality in their societies.

So true.  Even worse, is how western societies brag about it/having no desire to establish Equality. 

I think it's called White Privilege.

Everyone living in North America knows there is no such element as Equality within any Capitalistic Democracy, on Earth, as our White Privilege allows us to play Equality's pretend game by calling ourselves Liberal Democrats ---pretending to reach for something (since 1960) that we all know, is not really there.

[Marocc]

On 4/8/2020 at 5:26 AM, Moonlight Graham said:

Now their child makes 6 figures.  That's equality.

No, that's capitalism.

[Argus]

9 hours ago, Tdot said:

Oh yes, of course you can get all parties to agree.  It's happens very often each day.  

That's how agreements get signed ---even in criminal and civil court cases.

No. You get agreements signed when people are forced to compromise, and when they see some benefit to themselves in an agreement.
That certainly isn't the case here. The better off would say they already pay enough in taxes to support the poor. The poor would say they want more.
And the fact is that poverty is a comparative thing. The poor in Canada are massively wealthy compared to poor in India or China. But they compare themselves to the well-off, adn they always will. Which means they will always be dissatisfied with their lot.

Unless, of course, everyone has exactly the same. And every society which has tried that has failed massively.

[Argus]

8 hours ago, Marocc said:

people who have nothing and whose mental well-being may be poor, should receive support in building themselves a life. They should be able to receive treatment for illnesses, pursue education and to choose a career they want and are able to pursue.

That mostly does happen in the West. It's usually only in places like the Muslim world that they are left to rot.

[Argus]

5 hours ago, Tdot said:

So true.  Even worse, is how western societies brag about it/having no desire to establish Equality. 

Western societies have gone further than any societies on earth or in history at creating equality; equality between genders, between races, between religions and how they are treated by government, even between the rich and the poor. Today, in non-western countries, the rich have absolute power over the poor and middle class. They can do whatever they want. Racism is rampant, sexism is almost beyond measure, and religious discrimination is embedded in law and firmly supported by the broader societies.

Non-western, non-Capitalist countries are, universally, shitholes.

 

[Marocc]

33 minutes ago, Argus said:

That mostly does happen in the West. It's usually only in places like the Muslim world that they are left to rot.

I was referring to the example you gave. You say the individual X was given a place to stay and a small income, but it is not clear what kind of support X received in practice. Are you implying X was definitely offered the chance to educate themselves, to aim for a particular profession and to receive medical care despite them not having much money?

[Moonlight Graham]

4 hours ago, Marocc said:

No, that's capitalism.

It's freedom. Freedom to succeed or freedom to not, based on your own choices.  That's equality of opportunity.

Equality of outcome isn't good, because there is no reward for making good choices and no punishment for making bad choices.

People feel sorry for the poor, instead of encouraging them to improve their life choices. People resent the rich, instead of admiring them for making good choices.