Friday, December 23, 2011

Occupy London Creates Kangaroo Court to Hold Trials of the 1%

Verum Serum

quote:
“The opening of Occupy London’s fourth occupation will see the movement conducting ‘trials of the 1%’ in the abandoned magistrates court building which has lain empty since 1996, despite its prime location and Grade II listing.”
Comment:

Do they really believe that the 1% steal from the 99%?  It can be a seductive argument.  One man gets rich from the many.  You can then blame the rich man and take his wealth and give it to the "99%".  This is claimed to be justice.  But, I'm not convinced that it is.  One man's success does not require another man's failure- as a matter of principle, it doesn't.  It could, in a particular case, but not in the general.  Not as a rule. For example, a thief profits from his victim.  But is everyone who has something a thief?  It does not follow. Something has to be created before it can be stolen.  The creator is not a thief.  The creation of wealth is not, by definition, a theft of anything from anybody.

Then you segue from the Occupy stuff to this payroll tax cut controversy.  Why only two months?  I think it is so that the Democrats can bring up the millionaires tax again in order to pay for it.  They tried this on this last go round, but it failed.  In order to try it again, especially in an election year, they needed a means to do it.  That means is by way of the 2 month extension as opposed to a yearly one.  The point is that it is the same as the Kangaroo Court.  The millionaires aren't paying their fair share, so it is said.  Their wealth is prima facie evidence of guilt, so they must pay.

The seductive argument is that, in order to get a tax cut, you take from someone else.  The premise is that this is justice.  The seduction is that is ruins the connection between something that is earned and replaces it with a corrupt practice which is hardly any different than theft.

When I was but 15 years old, my father became disabled, and got disability benefits from Social Security.  Less than a year later, he was dead.  But while he was alive, I gave my opinion that it was welfare.  He took offense at that because he said that he paid into that for all his working years.  Which was true.  I didn't understand it that way at the time, perhaps due to my youth.  But the connection seems undeniable to me now.  These days, with what the Democrats are doing with the payroll tax cut, they are severing that connection.  What has been earned up to now, is being financed not by earned income, but by stolen goods.  The theft is being justified upon the basis of justice which is not been established.  Just because somebody has something doesn't mean that they stole it!  They are reducing something from an earned benefit to something that is akin to welfare as I incorrectly understood it to be in my father's case.

One more thing, which I read this more in Barnhardt's site.  Something struck me there as well.  It is about the First Beatitude.  
Jesus isn’t saying that poor people are by definition morally superior to rich people. Not at all. What He is saying is that a person who is detached from their wealth and is willing to “push their chips all-in”, to use a poker metaphor, is truly blessed. So, given this, ANYONE within the wealth spectrum, rich or poor, can possess this virtue.
As I wrote before, money isn't the root of all evil.  It is only a medium of exchange.  It is what you do with the thing, not the thing itself, that makes it good or evil.

If the system is failing, it is because the people are being seduced by a false sense of injustice. Truth has to be at the core of justice, without it, it is impossible to achieve. Those who make such accusations so be required to prove them, then come up with a remedy. A 1% v 99% argument is indeed a kangaroo court, which means that it is unjust from the get go.

People are not to be judged guilty by virtue of being who they are. If that ain't prejudice and bias, there's no such thing.

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