Sick

One of Republicans' most trusty canards is that liberals are nothing more than modern-day Robin Hoods, keen to steal from the rich and give to the poor. The less honest among them make it sound like we've got a nefarious plan to don ski masks and rob working people (rich or poor) at gunpoint, then shove the cash into Ronald Reagan piñatas and take them to the projects to let welfare queens and thugs who turned down scholarships to Yale for a life of gangbanging bash them open with copies of The Communist Manifesto.

The reason this particular bit of scaremongering is so effective is because there's some truth to it. Most progressives are interested in providing a strong and comprehensive social safety net, which requires higher taxes than not providing one would. Conservatives complain that it's an attempt to legislate a social conscience, which no individual is required by law to have, and I'm actually sympathetic to that complaint in theory, but, in reality, a healthy society is predicated on a robust collective interest in providing for all its members—and because we can't count on decency to ensure it, the law must.

And the truth is, I just don't feel all that bad about saying, "You're goddamned right I want to legislate a social conscience" when I read stuff like this:

The richest 2 per cent of adults own more than half the world’s wealth, according to the most comprehensive study of personal assets.

...The richest 10 per cent of adults accounted for 85 per cent of assets. The bottom 50 per cent of the world’s adults owned barely 1 per cent of global wealth.

That's sick. And not only do we not provide nearly enough aid to the rest of the world, we can't even be bothered to make sure that we feed people within our own fucking borders.

I need to go scream.