I just got finished reading a 4chan (I know, I know) thread about "the 53%", which prompted me to read most of the thread as well as have to google the concept. As I understand it, the argument is about the idea, of course, of 'freeloading fucking libtards" (??) who don't pay income taxes vs. those that do. As a fucking libtard who does pay income tax, I feel sorely left out of this. ;)


That said I actually support the idea of democratic socialism, as I believe capitalism is inherently flawed. It not only supports and encourages economic classes (and large discrepencies between them, to be more to the point), but the expectation is for infinite growth. Aside from encouraging inflation of the money used (which I guess is something that would be impossible to stop in any society, really) it expects infinite growth from finite resources, which is...well, it sounds rather impossible to me. I don't exactly have a background in economics and I'd love to learn more about the subject, but as I see it, paying more in taxes (in a way that is bracketed to my own personal income) so that I can get more out of my government (healthcare, retirement, etc) just makes sense. Does this mean I'd be willing to come to terms with the fact that my own tax money could, in theory, be going to these 'freeloaders'? Yes, actually, that's a risk I'm willing to make, because I believe the majority of people wouldn't really be able to abuse a system like that. (In the US, minimum wage is hard enough to live on; I can hardly imagine living off of disability/SSI/unemployment for an extended length of time.)

At work, one of my good friends works just about 40 hour weeks and has a son who doesn't live with her because she can't quite support him on her own. She gets food stamps because of how little her paychecks are - is she a freeloader? I don't think so. Maybe getting a degree would have helped her, maybe it wouldn't have. Maybe she'll get promoted or find a better job someday. But for the moment, I know she actually does need the help of foodstamps while living on her own, and I'm glad she was able to get them. I know that there are some people who abuse the system, but it is honestly very hard even for qualified people to get financial aid from the government, so I can't see the small percent that sneak through with bad intentions actually pose a riskful drain on the resources of other Americans.



Ugh. Anyway. I actually opened up this page to mention how I'm trying once more to learn some Portugese, since working so much at Dunk's has me listening to it from co-workers constantly. xD Since two of them actually don't even speak English very well (one, nearly not at all)I feel bad and want to learn some. It'd actually come in handy for me at work, and I love languages anyway.~ (I'm more fond of French and Norwegian than, well, languages that sound like Portugese/Spanish/Italian, but I'm willing to give it a try. u______u) This is probably going to be my only opportunity of being in a workplace where the dominant language is almost not English, so I figure it's my best chance ever at actually becoming even somewhat-conversational in another language. ;0; My French has been suffering so much from being out of school and knowing no francophones, so...