A film from the Pare Lorentz Center and FDR Library:
This film, produced by the Pare Lorentz Center at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, commemorates the 75th Anniversary of Social Security. The film asks the question: Is it still Our Plain Duty?
Big question. Do we have an obligation to continue Social Security, especially now that everyone has a pension from their employer, no one has any difficulty getting access to health care, there are no homeless people in the streets, and no older Americans live and die in poverty?
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
George,
Indeed, free men are a poison to the tyrant.
The idiocy of some men – who believe unless they are slaves, they cannot cooperate.
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Ed,
It is not voluntary, Ed.
Why don’t you take your thieving and leave? That’s teh better answer!
Your jejune argument:
“If you don’t like a man stealing your couch, you can always abandon your house!”
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George, I’m surprised the owner of the trademark hasn’t written in to complain. Some people give indiscriminate poisons bad names.
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But you did say a lot of bad things about another voluntary organization, the United States of America, which functions under a compact call the Constitution.
If you don’t like it, which you obviously don’t, you can leave. If you choose to stay and keep the benefits that flow to you from the compact, you have a moral duty to support it. You call this agreement “theft.” Very well. Leave. Don’t subject yourself to such issues.
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Black Flag chose his name well – poison. The poisonous idea that every man is an island; that all our successes are from personal virtue and that death is the only misfortune to which the one who believes it is not immune.
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Ed,
No, you have to get it right.
Government is legitimized violence, and criminal.
Government steals, but their victims don’t argue about it primarily because they don’t know any better.
Didn’t say a thing about Scouts, but as a voluntary organization, if you don’t like them, you can leave.
the only one you have.
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Sure. Government is theft. Boy Scouts are criminals and liars. Your mother is . . .
Well, it was absurd from the get go, and insulting, too.
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James,
I had to laugh when I re-read this.
Let me get this straight.
I am against government theft and taxes, so you have me cheer for the government of John and his tax collector.
You are for government theft and taxation, but cheer for Robin Hood.
You are getting to be more of a confused individual than Ed!!! :)
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James,
“I” do not “let” anyone steal.
I do argue against theft no matter who is the thief – the size of their wallet does not change this fact.
I do not use fantasy and fairy tales to determine my moral choices.
Because you are totally clueless about economics, and replace it with utterly crackpot theories, you will come up with the most bizarre ideas about such things.
A man earns his own money.
He trades his time, talent and property for that money. All of those things are his, thus, the money he receives in trade is all his, too.
You do not have his talent – you have your own to do with it as you please.
You do not have his time – you have your own time to do with it as you please.
You do not have his property – you have your own property to do with it as you please.
You justifying thievery on a grand scale because you believe you have insufficient talent, wasted your time, and lost all your property does not make your thievery any less immoral and evil.
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Ellie
Why would I do that?
I take care of my own parents – why wouldn’t I?
But why should I take care of yours? Because your are totally incapable of doing such?
So, if you are incapable of doing such, why should I listen to your blubber on how you can spend my money better than me, when you demonstrate you are incapable with your own money to begin with
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James
There is far more to it than merely $30B; if it was that easy, it would have been done by now.
But it is not.
Hunger is not a matter of a lack of resources.
It is a problem of government and access.
Governments interfere with such distribution as food is among the most powerful weapons governments have over their citizens
Who is this “we” you and Ed keep referring to?
If you want to do it, go for it!
But explain why what you want must mean everyone wants to do that – other people think other things are more important then what you think is more important.
Because you have ego-centric world view – you think because you think this is a good, anyone who thinks different must be bad
Then off you go to North Korea, where Dear Leader takes care of everyone!
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James,
First, the internet was not created by the government.
The first network was invented by BELL.
DARPA created a project – an experiment – to test communications infrastructures invented and designed by others to see if it could manage distributed command and control structures in case of nuclear war.
Thus your claim here is akin to saying the government invented flying simply because they used airplanes as war weapons.
After the experiment, DARPA was going to close it down and only then did the “internet” as you know it begin. It was taken over by volunteers who then setup the first “root” servers.
With the World Wide Web -invented by Sir Timothy John “Tim” Berners-Lee, a Brit working as a MIT professor in 1989 – this is the “internet”.
Further, if the thief by his action eliminates any and all alternative sources for a good or service, it is no sin to accept such goods and services if that is your need or desire.
However, one does not champion such an arrangement because you would understand that it is destructive economically as well as destructive to social order – hence unsustainable over the long term
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Ed,
You believe, unless you steal money, poverty will rage.
Thus, you argue for more thievery … until there is no more money to steal.
Then, you will see serious poverty, Ed, for the people who have learned to depend on the thief for their daily bread will find -suddenly- it is not provided, and worse, they will have forgotten how wealth and prosperity was created in the first place.
When the man who saves and invests is called the devil, it is the harbinger of doom for society.
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Ellie,
Somehow, I knew you would.
Those that benefit from the looting rarely complain about it.
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Ellie
Nope, not true at all.
You paid in a little, with the expectation to get a lot more back.
Where did you think the balance was coming from? The money tree?
No, not you directly – but you most certainly cheered the thief as he took it, though.
You gave the thief your approval to steal in your name – if one agrees to the thief, and one benefits from the thief, would you think you are -a bit- like a thief?
Please do, and society will prosper.
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Well I’m quite sure that Black Flag will be more then willing to live by his own example.
Of course that would mean he’d have to leave this blog and get off the internet as the internet was created by the government….
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Something happened to my prior post. Gawd, I hate WordPress. Never mind. It was clever. But nevermind.
Jim
PS: Now send me my money, Ellie! >:(
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Ellie says,
>>I suppose I could live in a cardboard box under a bridge and send the money back. To whom should I direct my check?<>Disregard what I said. I’m keeping this month’s check.<<
D'oh! Foiled again! Darn the luck…
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Black let me buy you a clue.
It’s estimated that to end hunger world wide would take about $30 billion a year.
Which is a lot of money.
That’s how much the world spends on its various militaries every 8 days.
The United States is the richest and most powerful country on the planet in which two people made $50 billion dollars each in one year.
And you’re sitting there pretending that we can’t take care of actual problems in this country?
Sorry, if you want to live in a country where the government does absolutely nothing kindly move to Somalia. Because to be blunt your moral depravity, your cluelessness and your soullessness doesn’t really belong here.
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James suggests “Of course I’m sure you’re willing to let your own grandparents or your own parents wallow in poverty.”
Hey, everybody dies.
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To quote:
No matter how much money you steal from others, under whatever cloak you wish to engage in the theft, you will never get enough to satisfy everyone, let alone cure all the ills of humanity.
Then you should quit letting the rich steal from us.
Let me guess..when you watch any Robin Hood movie you’re cheering for the Sheriff and Prince John?
Sorry, dimwit, since no rich person makes their money all on their own..taxing them is in no way shape or form theft.
And considering before social security 90% of the country’s senior citizens were in poverty and now its less then a third of that I’d say we can do quite a bit of good.
Of course I’m sure you’re willing to let your own grandparents or your own parents wallow in poverty.
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So, on that basis you think we should let poverty rage, and that no one has any duty to his nation to make life tolerable for other citizens?
Awfully Scroogey of you, BF.
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Silly me, I forgot you were just a troll. Disregard what I said. I’m keeping this month’s check.
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Oh my goodness! And here I was under the impression that I had paid into the Social Security fund through my payroll taxes and that I was fortunate enough to be able to receive funds back to live on. I didn’t realize I was stealing! Gosh, I suppose I could live in a cardboard box under a bridge and send the money back. To whom should I direct my check? Let me know quick, and tell you what, as soon as I send it back, I’ll stick my head in the oven and die because we all will die and I might as well do it sooner than later, so I can stop “stealing” from you.
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Ed,
There is no such obligation to begin with, thus, none to offer for its continuation.
No matter how much money you steal from others, under whatever cloak you wish to engage in the theft, you will never get enough to satisfy everyone, let alone cure all the ills of humanity.
People will die, Ed.
You will die.
I will die.
And not a darn penny of stolen loot will change that.
Thus, the question is not how much money can you steal under your fantasy of Robin Hood.
The question is one of morality.
Theft, no matter the purpose or the means, is immoral.
Self-responsibility, no matter the challenges, is the morality that must be seized.
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