"Social Saftey Net"

[DrEast]

Is there a logical difference between the concept behind the term "Social Safety Net" and the concept behind the term "to each according to their need"? I don't believe so... both refer to keeping people from being too badly off through government intervention. So where's the generally accepted, safe sound-byte equivalent to "from each according to their ability," the less popular part of the communist guideline for proper rule? The concept is buried in talks of wealth inequalities and progressive taxation, but where's the snazzy three-word equivalent so that we can reconstruct the classic line in modern terms?

[Autoptic]

We own you.

[Henry]

Is there a logical difference between the concept behind the term "Social Safety Net" and the concept behind the term "to each according to their need"?

What "social safety net"? The niggardly unemployment benefits the government provides? Welfare? Or that program that keeps the old folks from living in chicken coops?

When the government actively creates unemployment to destroy upward wage pressures, it probably has a responsibility to take care of those people they put out on their duff.

[DrEast]

What "social safety net"? The niggardly unemployment benefits the government provides? Welfare? Or that program that keeps the old folks from living in chicken coops?

When the government actively creates unemployment to destroy upward wage pressures, it probably has a responsibility to take care of those people they put out on their duff.

Well, I'm not referring to reality here, just rhetoric. The term "social safety net" has been tossed around quite a bit this election cycle, which made me think of the old Marxist line.

[Monte314]

How about, "To each according to their industry".

[meanlittlechimp]

What about the corporate safety net? The bailouts of Freddie Mac and Fannie May, Long Term Capital, S&L scandal bailout, Bear Sterns, (and pretty soon the auto industry) dwarfs anything spent on old people or single mothers.

Why do right wingers obsess over the small numbers thrown at the little guy, when corporate welfare and bailouts FAR outweigh anything spent on social programs. Bailing out corporations is more of a socialist policy than anything you could name regarding welfare.

Social program spending pales in comparison to the massive debt incurred to finance wars we can't afford, yet the right wants to harp on poor people getting handouts... but not when we break the bank, to bomb people who did nothing to us.

I'm not a proponent of the welfare system, but the numbers are inconsequential relative to other expenditures and a pretty myopic thing to get your panties in a bunch about.

[acyckowski]

Why do right wingers obsess over the small numbers thrown at the little guy, when corporate welfare and bailouts FAR outweigh anything spent on social programs. Bailing out corporations is more of a socialist policy than anything you could name regarding welfare.

Social program spending pales in comparison to the massive debt incurred to finance wars we can't afford, yet the right wants to harp on poor people getting handouts... but not when we break the bank, to bomb people who did nothing to us.

Not counting social security, eh?

Not all of us on the right pick and choose our standards. Freddie and Fannie were bad ideas from inception, and should be allowed to fail. Companies that offered high-risk loans at low-risk costs should pay for their mistake through the nose...bailing them out disadvantages companies who took a more conservative approach. Those corporations that played it smart have earned their increase in profits and market share caused by their competitors' ruin. If left to its own devices, the economy would adjust and recover....when government steps in, it adds costs without adding value.

On the other hand, I refuse to romanticize the "little guy." I spent my teenage years in food service industry, and encountered innumerable little guys who 1) weren't worth the minimum wage they were paid, and 2) blew it all on cigarettes, booze, and drugs. The janitor who demands $25 an hour and only pushes his broom for 50 minutes isn't my idea of a sympathetic figure, either.





acyckowski added to this post, 2 minutes and 51 seconds later...

Oh, shoot. Sorry. Answer to OP: No, there is no logical distinction between the two, the former is a euphemism for the latter, used because it is more palatable than "Marxism."

[meanlittlechimp]

On the other hand, I refuse to romanticize the "little guy." I spent my teenage years in food service industry, and encountered innumerable little guys who 1) weren't worth the minimum wage they were paid, and 2) blew it all on cigarettes, booze, and drugs. The janitor who demands $25 an hour and only pushes his broom for 50 minutes isn't my idea of a sympathetic figure, either.


That must mean everyone who makes low wages are all worthless delinquents? Because you worked in a restaurant before?

I've worked at several fortune 500 companies over the years, and a lot of them spent their money on high priced cocaine, expensive hydroponic weed and top shelf scotch; many of them weren't worth their salaries either.

Yeah, bailouts are irrational and bad for the economy for the most part, but that always fall below the radar when right wingers always bitch about the free ride poor people are getting, when the actual spend levels are far below other expenditures (like military spending, interest on the national debt incurred by same spending and corporate bailouts).

Education and certain other social programs increase the value and skills of our workforce which further strengthens the economy. The GI bill had a profound impact on productivity in the US, and created a much higher degree of social mobility. The White House thinks 3 trillion to invade Iraq is a worthwhile spend, but vetoed (giving the soldiers who served) a similar GI bill which is a tiny fraction of the overall cost of the war.

The same right wing idealogues were trying to stop the creation of public schools as well, because they thought it was pointless to educating the waves of poor immigrants. Some probably thought, they would probably have just wasted their education on tobacco and booze. This country would have been a lot worse of, if the right didn't lose that battle.

[DrEast]

The same right wing idealogues were trying to stop the creation of public schools as well, because they thought it was pointless to educating the waves of poor immigrants. Some probably thought, they would probably have just wasted their education on tobacco and booze. This country would have been a lot worse of, if the right didn't lose that battle.

They lost? Have you been in a public school recently? They're machines for turning out little propagandized bureaucrats, except they can't even get that right. Their sole purpose has been to teach students to fill out forms, and they're lucky if they can manage to get them to read them.

The right, or at least the power elite, may have lost the education battle, but when it comes to the war for the minds of the youth, it's winning, and winning hard.

[acyckowski]

That must mean everyone who makes low wages are all worthless delinquents? Because you worked in a restaurant before?

I've worked at several fortune 500 companies over the years, and a lot of them spent their money on high priced cocaine, expensive hydroponic weed and top shelf scotch; many of them weren't worth their salaries either.

No, not at all. But neither will I accept that poverty implies moral superiority, or use humble origins as an excuse for poor choices.

I find it more than a little disingenuous when the left gets sanctimonious about the plight of the "little guy," and scapegoats the "greedy corporation" who employs him, and then:


-Take 15% off the top of his paycheck because they think he's too stupid to manage his own retirement.
-Over the course of a year, they further take a bite out of anything he makes above poverty.
-If he's lucky enough to have a pension plan or a 401k, they take a share of the profits from the companies he's invested in.
-They tax him when he buys a car to get to work and buys gas to put in his car.
-They tax him for the privilege of buying a house. They tax him for continuing to own it. When he sells it, they tax him if he happens to make money on it.
-If he has a phone, or electricity, or water and sewer, they tax him for those luxuries as well.
-If he tries to stretch what little he has left buy purchasing from a low-cost retail chain like Wal-Mart, they tax him on his purchase and then go after Wal-Mart for implementing measures to keep costs low.
-If he's got too much left over when he dies, they tax that too.


For all that, they provide him:

-Roads which are always in disrepair
-A school system which can't teach his kids to read or do the math required to balance a checkbook
-Federal oversight agencies that
1) don't make sure food and drugs are safe
2) don't make his workplace safe
3) don't keep his air clean.



The right has its tax-and-spend hypocrites, to be sure, but on the left it's considered ideologically sound to routinely f@#k the little guy and call it love.

[DrEast]

The right has its tax-and-spend hypocrites, to be sure, but on the left it's considered ideologically sound to routinely f@#k the little guy and call it love.

Why are we even making left-and-right distinctions? I literally can not tell the difference between what Dems and what Repubs want to do for this country. I know the differences in what they're SAYING, but even that's so short-sighted it's an insult to the intelligence. But neither of them in any way correlate what's coming out of their mouths with what they actually want to do, or actually do, once they're in office.

[rahdam]

My initial instinct is that there is no modern phrase for the quotation referencing ability because it seems to infer personal responsibility. People today want to get as much as they can out of the governement according to need, but they don't seem to want to contribute in any meaningful way. Perhaps that is why there is no equivalent?

[Autoptic]

part 1"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury."
part 2 "From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."

1 I agree with. Yes, I'm ignoring that it's not really a democracy and such.
2 I'm not sure about an actual dictatorship anymore probably a group not one person, and the collapse might be off set by modern methods of what conspiracy or disconnected but parallel awareness of actual intelligent controllers on high that actually exists.

[meanlittlechimp]

They lost? Have you been in a public school recently? They're machines for turning out little propagandized bureaucrats, except they can't even get that right. Their sole purpose has been to teach students to fill out forms, and they're lucky if they can manage to get them to read them.

The right, or at least the power elite, may have lost the education battle, but when it comes to the war for the minds of the youth, it's winning, and winning hard.

Sure our school systems, need massive improvement; but what I'm referring too, is it's mere existence.

My point was that without public education, the United States would have not risen to it's level of prosperity. There was a big stink when poor Irish, Italian, Jewish immigrants etc, got free schooling from the state (which is essentially a socialist policy). As late as 1850, almost half of the British, could not sign there name on a contract (they had to use an X) because literacy wasn't deemed necessary for the peasants.

The establishment of a public school system was not done without a massive fight that the right, eventually lost.

The same people against public education (where only the wealthy were literate); tended to be the same folks against the abolition of slavery, the right for women to vote, and a host of other things, we take for granted today.

[Colette]

Well, I'm not referring to reality here, just rhetoric. The term "social safety net" has been tossed around quite a bit this election cycle, which made me think of the old Marxist line.

Let me answer your question with another question (unhelpful though it may seem, it may help shed some light on the eventual answer to this question).

If it is accepted that the role of government is to take according to means, and give according to need, who then determines what that level of need is?

Do I as the citizen put my hand up and say "I'm needy, and I need [x amount] to meet my needs", or does the government have to assess and determine my level of need and respond accordingly?

I suppose the point I'm making here is that one person's perceived need may be well within another's personal coping threshold. Sickness benefits are a great example of this.

[DrEast]

The same people against public education (where only the wealthy were literate); tended to be the same folks against the abolition of slavery, the right for women to vote, and a host of other things, we take for granted today.

Fine sentiment, but not particularly backed up historically. Protestantism demanded literacy in its adherents, and as such protestants were commonly setting up schools to teach literacy for the purposes of proselytizing. The literacy rate in these commonly available free schools was considerably higher than the public school's success rate today.

Seriously: Public education is a sham. Read your Fichte and your Dewey. The point of public education isn't the benefit of the student, but the benefit of the State, to churn out good little citizens who believe fully in the social compact, the power of the State to do good, and the essential stability of society. This is to their detriment.

[reb]

Dr. East,

re: your original post...this would be my modern 'rework' of lenin/marx slogan:

'take it if you can; keep it if you're able'

this may be more a reflection of 'what is' than the old communist manifesto....gee, sounds like a jungle out there...
reb

[DrEast]

Dr. East,

re: your original post...this would be my modern 'rework' of lenin/marx slogan:

'take it if you can; keep it if you're able'

this may be more a reflection of 'what is' than the old communist manifesto....gee, sounds like a jungle out there...
reb

"The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must." -Thucydides, who predates Marx by... a very long time.

[Tocsin]

So where's the generally accepted, safe sound-byte equivalent to "from each according to their ability," the less popular part of the communist guideline for proper rule? The concept is buried in talks of wealth inequalities and progressive taxation, but where's the snazzy three-word equivalent so that we can reconstruct the classic line in modern terms?

The snazzy new three word sound-byte for state welfare is "government rescue plan" (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) and it is being proposed by (snicker, snicker) "CONSERVATIVES."

[meanlittlechimp]

Seriously: Public education is a sham. Read your Fichte and your Dewey. The point of public education isn't the benefit of the student, but the benefit of the State, to churn out good little citizens who believe fully in the social compact, the power of the State to do good, and the essential stability of society. This is to their detriment.

Again I agree the public educational system, is ineptly run, relative to other industrialized nations. But are you saying the entire educational system should privatized and only the people who can afford it should receive access?

Are you referring to voucher programs (because that's also state run and paid for by the state) or other things that could improve the system; or are you referring to the abolition of free schooling period?

The illiterate, poor, immigrants washing up on shores in the 19th century; should have just went to church to learn how to read? Without the creation of public school system, a middle class could have never arisen.

[DrEast]

Again I agree the public educational system, is ineptly run, relative to other industrialized nations. But are you saying the entire educational system should privatized and only the people who can afford it should receive access?

Are you referring to voucher programs (because that's also state run and paid for by the state) or other things that could improve the system; or are you referring to the abolition of free schooling period?

The illiterate, poor, immigrants washing up on shores in the 19th century; should have just went to church to learn how to read? Without the creation of public school system, a middle class could have never arisen.

And with the creation of the public school system we have a middle class that believes itself enslaved to the State.

Abolish taxpayer funded schooling, period, is my advocacy. Allow groups that want to propagandize the youth to do so by teaching them essential skills at the same time. Any group of teachers is going to pass on propaganda; to teach objectively is utterly impossible. So, if they're going to do so, let them do it without forcing everyone to pay for it. Let the passionate teachers teach their passions, instead of stifling them with bureaucracy. Let parents decide where to send their kids, and who will feed them propaganda, and how much propaganda the parents will fail to correct. The students that don't want to learn? They wouldn't have to go to school! They could take apprenticeships or become hobos or whatever fits their fancy. That's what freedom is! Don't make them waste taxpayer dollars to diminish the education of the other students around them.

Do you object to sending your child to such a school? Start your own, or home school your child, please! Freedom is the entire point.

Would there be a barrier to the poor? There would be many schools that would teach for free, in return for the ability to proselytize... indeed, there are now, funded by donations. Why waste that resource? If the poor didn't want that? Why would we care? If you're turning down free education, then why should I pay to have your children taught?

[Tocsin]

Abolish taxpayer funded schooling, period, is my advocacy. Allow groups that want to propagandize the youth to do so by teaching them essential skills at the same time. Any group of teachers is going to pass on propaganda; to teach objectively is utterly impossible. So, if they're going to do so, let them do it without forcing everyone to pay for it. Let the passionate teachers teach their passions, instead of stifling them with bureaucracy. Let parents decide where to send their kids, and who will feed them propaganda, and how much propaganda the parents will fail to correct. The students that don't want to learn? They wouldn't have to go to school! They could take apprenticeships or become hobos or whatever fits their fancy. That's what freedom is! Don't make them waste taxpayer dollars to diminish the education of the other students around them.

Do you object to sending your child to such a school? Start your own, or home school your child, please! Freedom is the entire point.

Would there be a barrier to the poor? There would be many schools that would teach for free, in return for the ability to proselytize... indeed, there are now, funded by donations. Why waste that resource? If the poor didn't want that? Why would we care? If you're turning down free education, then why should I pay to have your children taught?

The notion of public education is to bring disparate people together and educate them to become part of a common community.

If we allow private institutions to take over public education, we could end up having fundamentalist christian schools teaching kids to hate atheists and homosexuals. Fundamentalist atheist schools teaching their kids to hate christians. Black schools teaching black kids to hate whites. White supremacist schools teaching white kids to hate blacks. etc. etc.

Such a society would more than likely end up resembling inner city communities, plagued by "gang" violence as groups vie to eradicate each other in order to control territories.

In a worst case scenario, society would fragment and America would end up looking like several African nations, or Afghanistan, with local clan/tribal/faction warlords controlling segments of society and using them to wage war on their competitors.

Not the kind of country I'd want to live in, if I had a choice.





Tocsin added to this post, 3 minutes and 55 seconds later...

How comfortable would you feel with someone opening an Al Qaeda funded madrasah to "educate" Muslim youth close to your house?


... But "Richard Dawkins High School" does have a certain ring to it... ;D

[DrEast]

The notion of public education is to bring disparate people together and educate them to become part of a common community.


Like I said... enslaving people to the State. Making people believe in the existence of a common good. There is no such thing as corporate responsibility or common good.


How comfortable would you feel with someone opening an Al Qaeda funded madrasah to "educate" Muslim youth close to your house?


I'd be fine with it. Wouldn't send my kids to it, but I'd be fine with it. I'd defend myself from any "turrist" repercussions with my right to bear arms, too.

As for the rest of your post, freedom isn't anarchy, and I'm saddened that we've been taught to see it so.

[Tocsin]

Like I said... enslaving people to the State. Making people believe in the existence of a common good. There is no such thing as corporate responsibility or common good.

Which is why education is better left in the public domain, with public oversight and control.

EDIT: Excuse me... I thought you said no corporate responsibility for common good.

If you don't believe in the common good, then the alternative is the "dog eat dog" world of competitive social darwinism. The problem with living like a "lone wolf" is that without a common structure to resolve conflict, the likely result is that conflicts end up being resolved by violence.

I'd be fine with it. Wouldn't send my kids to it, but I'd be fine with it. I'd defend myself from any "turrist" repercussions with my right to bear arms, too.

Afghanistan, here we come.

[DrEast]

If you don't believe in the common good, then the alternative is the "dog eat dog" world of competitive social darwinism. The problem with living like a "lone wolf" is that without a common structure to resolve conflict, the likely result is that conflicts end up being resolved by violence.

Afghanistan, here we come.

Well, I'm not a complete anarchist. I relegate the following roles to government, and enforced by taxation:

1. The enforcement of voluntary contracts.
2. The judgment of crimes of violence or theft (defined constitutionally), and the punishment thereof.
3.

Well, I'm sure I'll think of more later. Note I said judgment, not prevention. To rely on government for the prevention of crime is to open the door to totalitarian "security measures."

Hmm, punishment of the second category would probably have to be death, since there'd be no such thing as legal tender laws... well, that would prevent the criminal from repeating the crime!

Note, however, since there's no such thing as corporate responsibility, enforcement of taxation would have to come from the barrel of a gun. But no change there from the current system, so it's all good.

[Tocsin]

DrEast,

Would I be correct in assuming that you live in either a rural area of a fairly small town?

[DrEast]

DrEast,

Would I be correct in assuming that you live in either a rural area of a fairly small town?

Nope. Medium-sized city.

[reb]

Tocsin,

are you making the value judgment that violence is 'bad'? resolution by violence is quick, efficient, and rarely has collateral damage, unless things get out of hand. there appears to be no great disadvantage in precisely executed violence as a solution to disputes; if done carefully, the lawyers make no money off it, but that's their problem. violence has historically been reserved by the 'establishment' in a widespread campaign of intimidation (and has always been, if history books have any truth in them), and is used by a significant number of individuals, both socially sanctioned and not....to think that humanity will give up violence is to believe that humanity will give up being human-won't happen in my lifetime.
reb

[Tocsin]

Tocsin,

are you making the value judgment that violence is 'bad'?

Yes

resolution by violence is quick, efficient, and rarely has collateral damage, unless things get out of hand.

Which they frequently do.

there appears to be no great disadvantage in precisely executed violence as a solution to disputes;

Are you saying that violence has no "disadvantages" for the victims of violence?

to think that humanity will give up violence is to believe that humanity will give up being human-won't happen in my lifetime.
reb

Child molestation, starvation, and genocide won't end in our lifetimes either, but I don't see that as a good reason to throw my hands up and say "well, it must not be a problem, then."

If you belief that violence is acceptable as a means of resolving disputes, then I hope that someday you reap the ideaology that you sow.

[Autoptic]

The founding and continued existence of the state is based on coercion, you know? Those who disagree simple lose the firefight, usually just in the theoretical as it would be an obvious loss so they don't even try.

[DrEast]

To be fair, like I said, I'm not a complete anarchist. I'm more of a government minimalist. Government has bounds that it must not go beyond or it will become tyrannous, as sure as sunrise. Our government went beyond those bounds a long time ago.

Government is not society. Government is that which uses force to tell people what they can't do. Government can't say, "It's good to send your kids to school." Government can ultimately only say, "If you don't send your kids to school, I'll shoot you." Now, there are intermediate steps... attempting to remove the children from the parents, etc. But if all these are resisted, including the ultimate imprisonment, ultimately the gun is the only resort the government has. This is true of any infraction, be it ever so minor... continue to resist what the government is attempting to enforce and the government will shoot you. From not sending your kid to school to resisting having the kid taken by social workers to refusing to appear in court to resisting arrest to firefight.

There are things that government needs to enforce with a gun. It's not entirely evil, theoretically. Contract enforcement, keeping the peace... these are things that people can rightfully appeal to government for. But these are all "negative freedoms," the freedom to not have something happen to you, or, even more acceptably, the freedom to get redress for wrongs, as available, from those who commit them. Whenever government attempts to do something positive, it's like pushing a rope... using a gun to make people happy just doesn't work. As one progressive famously once said, "What's the point of having this army you're always bragging about if we can't use it?"

Society, on the other hand, does have the power to say, "You should send your kid to school." It doesn't use a gun, just the approbation of your peers, to back up its powers. But Society has no legislative body, only generally acceptable behavior. Further, an individual can successfully resist society, but almost always to his detriment. If not, society may well hinge on his actions, changing to conform to the more intelligent member.

Society and government need each other to exist. Without government, Tocsin, society does indeed degrade as people attempt to do everything... what is socially acceptable AND what government could otherwise prevent, such as rape, murder, pillage, etc. Genocide, on the other hand, usually requires government intervention to be successful.

However, when government attempts to enforce society, to solve ills, it always does so in the most inefficient way possible. You're not supposed to push rope, you're supposed to pull it. If ills exist in society, it is society's job to fix them... not government's. To give those who rightfully hold the power of government the power to intervene in society is to invite the dictator into your home and offer him a drink. But it's what we've done for decades now, in an inevitably progressing fashion.

And we're no better off for it than we would be if we hadn't. People often say "things were better back then," but the truth of it is that in many ways they were. Government, especially democratic government, is ridiculously short-sighted. Society tends to take a longer view of things. Government has a proper role, to create the environment where society can function, but that role has been suborned as government takes over more and more functions of society.

Because the simple truth of the human nature is that people resent being made to do things, even good things. People also tend to take for granted that which they can achieve with ease. Ironically enough, the best in human nature seems to be displayed at the height of human suffering.

And that's why, in a way, I'm looking forward to the coming Second Great Depression. Coming? It's already started. Because even though people will fail to learn the lesson and continue to entrust to Government that which they should be handling themselves, charities will, at least for a time, again find themselves needed and people will finally, again, realize the desperate measures that exist in this world, even if it takes suffering them themselves to do so. The school of hard knocks is, indeed, the only one that seems to have any sort of effect, limited though it may be.

Anyway, you seem to think that government protects us from Afghanistan-like conditions. Does this mean you don't sleep with one eye open and think constantly about your security and the ones you love?

Are you safe, or just deluded?

[thod]

I find that rich men are all for the government protecting property rights to prevent the poor becoming as rich as them. It doesn't matter if you would be better off with a smaller piece of a bigger pie. Only relative sizes count. They will talk about society, yet if that society decides to remove them from their lofty station then it becomes about the rights of the individual. There is a hypocrisy in their stance motivated by self interest.

We see now just how far their libertarian principles of no government interference held out. They took private profits for years and told government not to interfere. As soon as things turn bad, they demand that government bail them out. Self interest again and nothing to do with self reliance.

There will always be government, but not necessarily democracy. The gangs will form to enforce their will and make their gains. Many inner city areas in the US are governed by such local warlords. People know that collectively they can coerce any individualists and they will form up to do so. The only way to oppsoe it is to belong to a colllective yourself and then you are subject to their will.

[reb]

Tocsin,

you said 'If you belief that violence is acceptable as a means of resolving disputes, then I hope that someday you reap the ideaology that you sow.'

what i'm trying to discuss is not ideology. from dictionary.com:

1. the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.

my doctrine is to use whatever behaviour that best achieves my goals in a particular situation. i have told a couple friends 'i want to be able to play the entire keyboard' from a psychological standpoint. that's more my ideology.....

frankly, i hope that you don't reap anything of the sort; however, statistically, i stand about as much chance as you do of being involved in a violent confrontation (absent us discussing personal demographic data that i'm not going to put forth). to me, death is death-the swifter the better. the beating of that austin dj in nyc that the newsheads are showing on tv today is hideous....and he's not dead. i have no qualifying words....i will not live anywhere i cannot carry a firearm. i also try to avoid going there on travel.

it seems you're bringing too much emotion to a discussion of violence. i'm not going to probe your reasons. as a former victim of violence, i know that those things can lead places some don't want to go. my best to you.

it helps to remember, there are realities that exist beyond the thinking of any one of us individually.
reb

[acyckowski]

I find that rich men are all for the government protecting property rights to prevent the poor becoming as rich as them. It doesn't matter if you would be better off with a smaller piece of a bigger pie. Only relative sizes count. They will talk about society, yet if that society decides to remove them from their lofty station then it becomes about the rights of the individual. There is a hypocrisy in their stance motivated by self interest.

Um....could it be possible that the "rich" have a better idea how they got there than do the "poor?" Bill Gates is way on the left side of the political spectrum, a huge philanthropist, and yet Microsoft still maintains legions of lawyers to aggressively protect their intellectual property rights. And if you really think the size of the pie doesn't matter, man, you need to get out and see parts of the world where flush toilets are not exclusive to the elite.

We see now just how far their libertarian principles of no government interference held out. They took private profits for years and told government not to interfere. As soon as things turn bad, they demand that government bail them out. Self interest again and nothing to do with self reliance.

Sadly, though, that's not the case. Freddie and Fannie have been riding the fence between private and public for decades. They made bad business decisions because of certain political objectives (broadening "opportunity" to high-risk applicants), and now they deserve to go down in flames. They got bailed out because they're completely entrenched in Washington, not because they were a bulwark of libertarian ideals.