I invited this abuse so I'll try to deal with each of you in turn.
You are seriously going to chagrin a person working, saving their OWN money, investing, continually learning, and working to make themselves better and more marketable from enjoying the fruits of their labor in a manner that they see fit simply because there are poor people in the world? Wow.
While your use of the word "chagrin" is a little nonstandard, I think I understand. And yes, I'm totally going to do that.
You capitalized OWN money, but I fundamentally disagree with this assertion. If you have profited from living in a stable industrialized nation, then your wealth is not your own. Your education was publicly funded, your services are publicly funded, the infrastructure you utilize was publicly funded, your markets are publicly regulated, your national defense is publicly supplied. You are the product of a social contract which has given you enormous privlileges, which has made your success possible in a way that you alone could never have accomplished. So I have no problem at all with that same social contract which has made you personally so wealthy also trying to minimize the suffering of those people who have not been able to benefit it from the way you have.
Capitalism enriches a minority of the population at the expense of the rest. Just like Pharaohs lived lives of luxury because of their thousands of slaves, you and I live live lives of luxury because of the people who live in third world poverty. Their land provides our resources. Their labor makes our consumer goods. I live in a fancy house and they sleep in the dirt, and it's certainly not because I work harder than they do. So your assertion that you are wealthy because you are somehow superior to them rings very false to me. You are wealthy because you were fortunate to be born into a position of privilege.
And if you're not superior to them, why would you be entitled to basic human rights that they are not? Why is your life expectancy 30 years longer, is that because you broke the cycle of poverty in your family? Why do you have clean water to drink, and a functional power grid? Why were you educated on the taxpayer's dime, while they are still illiterate as adults? You're seriously going to tell me that their impoverished circumstances are because they aren't as motivated and hard working as you?
give all your money, time and effort to those less fortunate, go for it, but don't judge people who chose not to do so.
Why not? Passing personal judgment on shitty people is just about the only thing I CAN do. I can't change their behavior, but I sure as hell can shake my head in disgust at their self righteous vanity and their cruel indifference.
You don't agree? That's cool too, then you get to judge them differently than I do. What you do NOT get to do is tell me what I get to do. So you can just back that BS right up out of my face, thanks. I'll judge the world as I see fit, and I expect you to do the same.
Me, I see with my family and less fortunate friends a lot of their problem is SHITTY CHOICES and piss poor planning!
Do you think everyone with problems has made shitty choices? For example, I have a relative who was born with Down's Syndrome. He will never have a regular job, or live independently. He will never owe taxes, or raise a family. He will always be a "burden" on society, and I'm totally fine with my tax dollars being used to support people like him. Did he make shitty choices by being born with an extra chromosome?
If you won't condemn him to die in a gutter, then what about a person who is born to a drug-addicted single mom? No support at home, not enough food to eat, no guidance or supervision as a child, turns to dealing to feed himself, and ends up in lockup. He was born to bad circumstances too.
In between those two examples are a thousand other cases of people born with less luck than you and me. Maybe some of them deserve to freeze to death this winter, in your estimation, but I would argue that every human life has value and should be protected, regardless of the circumstances of birth. I'm not willing to turn away from a human being who is suffering and in need, when I have the means to help them while barely inconveniencing myself, instead of buying myself a giant diamond solitaire and then shoving it up my ass just because it fulfills some childish wealth fantasy. People who blow money on stupid shit for themselves are shoving diamonds up their asses.
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