I showed some of the conversation we were having to a freind of mine and appreciated his response:

I respect your boy Rekz’ vision and motivation, unfortunately I don’t agree with his solutions. What he is advocating is that hard-working folk such as myself (or you for that matter) (who’s parents were immigrants and came to this country without a nickel and worked for everything they have), that busted my ass at every single level of schooling, didn’t get in trouble, worked numerous jobs, paid for school, studied hard, got a career, worked 7 days per week, 16 hours per day to advance and to get to where I am today, should split it with my poor buddies who slacked off, did drugs, failed in school, blah blah blah. The way I see it, a true capitalistic society is a meritocracy, just about everyone has the opportunity to succeed and if you work hard and deserve it, you will move up the ladder (of course there are exceptions like the truly disabled who I am ok with receiving government funded assistance).



Some of his ideas are classic liberalistic robin hood theory (quite frankly I don’t think that today’s bright young democrats believe in such extreme left wing ideas b/c they know having studied history and economics that they sound much better in theory than in real world practice). Again, I appreciate the end goal and I respect his desire to help people but what he fails to realize (and the reason I am not a democrat) is that his ways of achieving it does not work -- (10x cap on exec salaries etc)?? Does he think that anyone will ever become entrepreneurial? That anyone would ever take a risk (I sure has hell wouldn’t have left my job, gone into massive debt, risked the future of my wife and children to start a company that today gainfully employs over 40 people). That people would invent new technologies? That our society would continue to thrive? Human nature simply does not work like that – I don’t mean to oversimplify, but this is exactly why the USSR fell apart. Its been proven all throughout history that purely socialistic concepts don’t work. Again, great in theory, terrible disasters in practice.



Again, I respect his vision and motivation, but I don’t think he has ever studied economics (or definitely doesn’t understand it if he thinks being Republican means you are only for the wealthy). I am simply a capitalist and believe that true capitalism is the only cure for what ails the poor. Supply Side economic theory is not to make the rich richer it is to make everyone richer (Democrats are completely disingenuous at every election when they talk about the tax cuts only benefiting the wealthiest 1% - What they fail to mention is that 95% of what they call the wealthiest 1% are actually small businesses, which is exactly what drives and keeps the economy healthy – If small businesses are not healthy and prosperous, the economy will not be healthy and prosperous, and obviously this leads to unemployment, lower wages etc). Entitlement programs actually hurt the economy b/c the money is not going to good use (it’s the old give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats forever), it is not an investment in infrastructure that will pay off long term, it’s simply money thrown down the drain. I think any economist worth his salt will tell you that a strong economy must be built off of supply side principles and not Keynesian principles.

I am rambling just to ramble, b/c what truly irritates me is that somewhere along the line being a Republican became a bad word amongst people that don’t understand or aren’t truly educated about economic theory. Are their racist and elitist republicans? Of course there are, but there are just as many that are democrats. I make the point that Erik makes below all of the friggin time, I am just as good a person as my Democrat friends, and I want the same exact goals as they do (help the poor succeed etc – I am an active member of 3 charities) but I just believe there is a better way to reach the solution. Unfortunately, conservatism doesn’t sound as good in the 10-second sound byte at election time as liberalism does b/c it takes a more sophisticated understanding of economics than your buddy Rekz has.

And that is why most people vote for justice and fair play. Its in their interest and their children's interest.