Before the Internet

Our college librarian had a blog, sort of. This was the late 1980s, so it was strictly analog. He called it the Comment Book. It was just about my favorite thing on campus.

The Comment Book was a large loose-leaf binder that sat on top of the card index. Inside, each page was divided by a crisp vertical line down the center. Each half of the page was labeled with some variation of "Your Comments" and "Jim's Comments." Jim's side was always on the right (both as a symbol of his political perspective and to give him the last word on the page).

Anyone could write just about anything in the Comment Book. It served as a kind of community bulletin board where students and faculty alike posted invitations and reminders of upcoming events -- lectures, study groups, basketball games, announcements of which band was playing when -- and the pages of lined notebook paper were interspersed with fliers inserted into the CB via the three-hole punch sitting nearby.

But the real fun of the CB was the way it served as a kind of salon -- a place to weigh in on and discuss and argue about whatever was on your mind. Jim was a masterful master of ceremonies -- by turns charming, witty, whimsical or infuriating, whatever it took to keep a lively conversation flowing. That conversation sometimes took place between the commenters on the left side of the page, with Jim merely providing a running commentary of quips, mysting and scorekeeping off to the right. At other times, Jim would take on all challengers. He posted "links" to newspaper stories (analog links in the form of photocopied articles inserted into the binder) with the skilled blogger's knack for provocation -- spoiling for a fight over Calvinism or libertarianism or the necessity of America's nuclear arsenal. These fights were always engaging and civil, but Jim didn't make the Broderian error of confusing civility with dull timidity.

I loved the Comment Book. Like dozens of others, I would stop by the library two or three times a day to read the latest entries and to chime in with some of my own. It was there, in the pages of that book, that I earned the closest thing I've ever had to a nickname. In the course of our umpteenth argument about nuclear weapons (Jim was for 'em, I was agin' 'em) he referred to me as "my lefty friend," which evolved into "my friend lefty" and eventually just "Lefty."

The name stuck. Lefty started writing op-eds for the campus newspaper. The pseudonym was liberating, allowing me to follow ideas to their logical, if outrageous, conclusions, writing wild words with the kind of crystalline moral clarity that comes from being 21 years old. Lefty even wrote a few sharply critical attacks on the agenda and personal character of our egomaniacal, do-nothing student government president. (In my other capacity at the paper -- writing a formal column as student government president -- I chose not to respond to such criticism.)

One of the last things Lefty wrote for the school paper was recycled from a post in the Comment Book. It was an unpolished, not-quite-coherent riff on the gospel's call to self-denying generosity. "If there are eight people and seven cookies," it began, going on to suggest that going without a cookie might be the Christian's duty in such a situation. Consider the lilies and worry not what you shall eat or drink and if any man have two tunics and all that. The thing continued in that vein -- generosity in the face of scarcity -- broadening its scope until finally considering the global picture of billions of hungry people and millions of overfed Christians with all the cookies they could possibly want. I'd quote the whole thing here, but I don't have a copy of it. Plus it wasn't very good. I never planned on giving it a second thought.

Fast-forward five years, to a seminary class on Christian faith and economics. We're reading, among other things, Amy L. Sherman's Preferential Option: A Christian and Neoliberal Strategy for Latin America's Poor, which argues for free-market reforms. Any suggestion of altruism -- of the wealthy voluntarily contributing to help the less fortunate -- is attacked in Sherman's book as redistributionist and, somehow, therefore "statist." The idea that Christians might choose to "live simply so that others might have more," she writes, "makes many Christians receptive to a statist model of development."

As an example of this "redistributive," "statist" model, she could have cited the sacrificial, voluntary, personal generosity of Ron Sider's call for a "graduated tithe" in Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. Or she could have cited pretty much any novel ever written by that noted Stalinist Charles Dickens. But Sherman chose, instead, to cite the example of:

... a poem that circulated in the urban ministry office where I volunteer. The poem begins by noting that if there are seven cookies and eight people ...

My first reaction, reading that, was that it wasn't a "poem" or anything like a poem. It wasn't remotely poetical. And my second reaction, of course, was to take issue with the way that a call for voluntary, personal generosity was being mischaracterized as "statist." (I was only beginning to realize that this was par for the course.)

But then I had my third reaction, which was to realize that something I had written in a loose-leaf Comment Book and in a campus newspaper with a total print run only in the hundreds had resurfaced, years later, as something that was "circulating" through the office of a nonprofit hundreds of miles away. What on earth? How did that happen?

Flash-forward again a few more years and I get a phone call from an old college friend. "Remember that cookie thing?" he asked. He'd just been to a conference in Colorado Springs where one of the presenters, a rep from one of the big evangelical sponsor-a-hungry-child groups had put the thing up as a slide on an overhead projector. I tracked the guy down. He'd gotten it from a colleague who had photocopied it out of a book -- another book.

The damned cookie thing -- this half-baked, slapdash Comment Book posting of Lefty's -- seemed to have taken on a life of its own. Before e-mail, before the Internet, it had gone viral.

I find that strangely inspiring and hopeful. We speak words or write them on paper or on the screen and we can never be sure who will hear them or read them or photocopy or forward them. You might write something in the comment section here on this D-list, off-brand blog and years from now some think-tank hack could be attacking it or some conference presenter could be including it as a PowerPoint slide intended to inspire. Cast your bread on the water and loaves and fishes and the kingdom is like a mustard seed and all that.

You never know.

P.S. Happy New Year!

Comments

[Mabus]

Fascinating story, Fred. Happy New Year to you as well.

Also, btw, a fascinating example of how individually-oriented morality tales can fail when set in a group situation. Suppose that you are not the only Christian present (or that other people, despite being non-Christian have similar moral stances). Should you all refuse a cookie, even though there's only one short? If not, how do you decide who should refuse? (I'll presume for the sake of the story that the cookies are non-divisible, though that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. ;) ) If three people refuse before you, are you still being non-altruistic when you take a cookie?

[Vermic]

I don't understand, why didn't you people just use the Interne...oh, that's right.

[Jeff]

Cast your bread on the water and loaves and fishes and the kingdom is like a mustard seed and all that.

"Cast your bread upon the waters and I'll give you a sardine sammich with mustard!"

( I'll presume for the sake of the story that the cookies are non-divisible, though that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. ;) ) If three people refuse before you, are you still being non-altruistic when you take a cookie?

There are a lot of cookies which are non-divisible (they'll fall to pieces if you try to cut them, although I suppose the crumbs would be easy to distribute *). I'd say that if three people had already passed on a cookie, taking a cookie says nothing about your altruism (especially if one of them looked tempted, but declined).

* Reminiscent of the old joke about how to distribute 7 apples among eight people: make apple sauce.

[Duane]

A smart Christian would just bake enough cookies for everyone.

[Jesurgislac]

When I googled on "eight people seven cookies" I found someone using "I have seven cookies and eight people who want them...what do I do?" as a sig.

I find that strangely inspiring and hopeful. We speak words or write them on paper or on the screen and we can never be sure who will hear them or read them or photocopy or forward them. You might write something in the comment section here on this D-list, off-brand blog and years from now some think-tank hack could be attacking it or some conference presenter could be including it as a PowerPoint slide intended to inspire. Cast your bread on the water and loaves and fishes and the kingdom is like a mustard seed and all that.

Yes.

[Anna]

I can only admire your librarian's stamina: it must have taken a great deal of energy to maintain such a book in the manner you suggest. My university was far too large to make it possible, I think (13,000 undergrads are a few too many).

[Praline]

Happy New Year, Fred! And incidentally, congratulations on writing an evidently memorable piece so early in your career. You always get my attention with your stuff, so I can well believe it. :-)

The very best for 2008.

[Geds]

Cast your bread on the water and loaves and fishes and the kingdom is like a mustard seed and all that.

It's fortunate that I read this while at home. Also while not drinking milk.

[Dylan]

The real question is, do the 8 Christians share the 7 cookies on a creepy date while their overbearing father preaches to his sorta-kinda-not-really-mistress about the Rapture?

[Rosina]

If three people refuse before you, are you still being non-altruistic when you take a cookie?

As I see it you are being altruistic. The whole dilemma of the cookies is that every one of the eight people actually wants a cookie - if one person hates cookies, or hates these cookies in general then there is nothing altruistic in their refusing one, leaving one each for all the others. But once the first person has jumped in and turned down the cookie, the rest must welcome her sacrifice. And enjoy the cookie. If you genuinely do not like the cookie, then you may explain this to the sacrifice - ask her if she'd like it because you couldn't eat it for good not-sacrificial reasons. But if she still refuses, let her live with her warm feeling inside. Pass it to another cookie eater. And if you do like cookies, and a third and fourth person refuses, eat the extra cookie, share them among those who are still licking crumbs from their chins - these people have made the sacrifice so that you should eat two cookies.

If not, why did they say "No"? There was no plan to send the uneaten cookies off to the Red Cross, or the local orphanage ("Here, Oliver, seven cookies we couldn't manage to eat! Say Thank you, Oliver"). The first one refused so there would be enough to go round. All Subsequent refusals (except on health grounds) would be muscling in on their sacrifice, and showing that the second sacrificer was just as generous, and the third... Or it would show that no one actually wanted the terrible cookies. And self-denial was no sacrifice.

Where is Andy Williams' Cookie Bear when you could use him?

[Mabus]

Good show, Rosina. Very solidly argued.

I sometimes get the impression from Christian liberals (not all, but some; wear the shoe if it fits) that the point of self-denial is the sacrifice. Refuse a cookie because it's evil to indulge yourself. Give to him that asketh of you, not to make him richer, but to make yourself poorer--and if your own family goes hungry, well, that's righteousness at work.

For my own part, I say, better that someone be rich and happy than no one, even if it's not me.

[Jeff]

Let's pass around the (non-divisble, non-send-offable) cookies.

Person1 refuses a cookie so there will be one for everyone else.
Person2 takes a cookie.
Person3 refuses a cookie because they're on a diet.

At this point, Person1 should be asked again if they would like a cookie.

The cookies continue on, starting at Person4. Person4 doesn't like this kind of cookie.

And so on, to Person8.

At this point, the remaining cookies are available, first come first served, to anyone who wants a second cookie.

This lets anyone who wants to refuse or accept a cookie with no self-denial or sacrifice, save perhaps Person1, if everyone else really wants a cookie.

[Boze]

one of your best entries. what a good first post of the year

[Jesurgislac]

I'm now envisaging the Mad Christian Teaparty, where there is always one less cookie than there are tea party guests, so that everyone always refuses as the cookie plate is passed round.

Alternatively, How Christians Save Money At Parish Teas: they have one less cookie on the plate than there are people present, and so the same cookies can be brought out again and again with no one ever eating them. Of course, they'd have to be replaced every so often, just before they got so stale and nasty that the sacrifice would be eating one of them, and double-sacrifice would be eating two of them.

[Stacia]

Hey... you gonna eat that cookie?

[hapax]

Jesu, shhh! You're about to reveal the Secret of the Fruitcake!

[Mabus]

Good one, Jesu!

But in my church, the potlucks never go quite that badly.

[Spherical Time]

That's really interesting. I've always been interested in the viral phenomena, and I'd wondered how that sort of thing existed pre-internet.

I don't suppose you have a link to the poem/column/article that we can take a look at, Fred?

[cjmr's husband]

I made you a cookie, but I eated it.

[MikhailBorg]

Cookie?

That's good enough for me!

[Peter Boysen]

Analog blogging. Might have to try resurrecting that somehow.

[Ian]

Since blog posts survive for eternity,
We all must write comments poetically.

Challenge issued. If it's better than doggerel, you may be trying too hard.

[Becca]

I'm hoping to quote you when I write about the "mission of the church" for my ordination paper-- not about the cookies, but something you wrote in LBF: that the AA meeting in the basement of the church is a more authentic use of space than the worship meeting in the sanctuary. so painfully, beautifully true.

[mmack]

Dear "Lefty" Clark,

You must realize Fred that you have opened yourself up to a world of hurt from one infamous Slacktivist poster here with that story. That said, it was a good post, and Happy New Year.

[mmack]

And Fred,

Cast thine bread upon the waters, and ye shall end up with a soggy sandwich.

[Ian]

If you calculate with precision
algorithms for cookie division,
___ don't forget, ere you speak
___ that each case is unique
or you open yourself to derision.

[Elphaba]

This Christian liberal agrees with you, Mabus. I once heard our bishop praised for making it a practice never to eat second helpings at a meal - to, like, remember the poor and stuff. This always struck me as an almost offensively facile gesture. No poor person had more food as a result of this act ... all that happened was the bishop looked good and felt good about himself for his meaningless sacrifice. And in the process managed to underscore his class status rather than actually doing anything to make the last first or the first last or any of that other Kingdom of God stuff("I'm so well-off I can afford to have second helpings available to me and choose not to eat them!"). His non-consumption was the worst kind of wasteful conspicuous consumption. Blech. (This is different from ascetic practices, in which one gives things up but does so openly and honestly out of self-interest).

On the issue of charity - though the book from that seminary class sounds like it had some rather obnoxious bones to pick, I do think there's room to criticize our culture of philanthropy. I read a great book called What's Love Got to Do With It? (no it wasn't about Tina Turner) that made the basic argument that our traditions of charitable giving are more about easing the consciences of the wealthy than substantially changing the lot of the poor, hence in the process being more an act of expressing oneself as a wealthy individual (and supporting the system of class disparity rather than overturning it). Interesting points.

[Abelardus]

Dylan, I think Fred would want us to wait till Friday to have that bit of dessert about LB. Appreciate the parallel, tho.

[Jeremy]

I like being known around the Melbourne blogosphere as "Lefty". Even if you apparently had it first.

[Salamanda]

*applauds Dylan* Nicely done. :)

[Salamanda]

Ian, that's wonderful! :D

[Wogglebug]

That kind of viral transmission of a piece of writing has happened before the Internet. Remember Barney the Dinosaur? Remember that he had a theme song?

Lee Bernstein of Schererville, Ind. wrote that song and taught it to her child's preschool class. She let it be published in a songbook, too. The songbook didn't take off, but the song spread from kid to kid until one of Barney's creators heard her child singing it in Texas. She asked around, but there were so many links in the kid-chain that she didn't find anyone who knew the songwriter, and her copyright search missed the songbook.

There was a copyright suit about it in 1993-4, settled out of court once it became clear that the song had spread by oral tradition and the TV show's creators really had thought it was by Anonymous.

[scottbot_of_the_internith]

Scottbot bows to the man that invented sockpuppetry.

Scottbot will now ritually dsmvwll hmslf s tkn f rspct.

Scottbots respect schizophrenia, as it is a necessary part of dealing with people, especially those who say one thing (love thy fellow man, or fight censorship, governmental or corporate), and do another (willingly support leaders that invade other countries, or ban anyone that shares an opinion unacceptable to a moderator).

Can Scottbot now have a cookie? Without milk - pasteurized cow sweat udderly ruins Scottbot's complexion. Scottbot always wanted to be a writer for the mass media, and has no qualms at being a strikebreaker. Take my joke, please.

[Mabus]

Elphaba...the first part of your post I agree with. But...

Well, it seems to me that "changing the class structure" would involve theft on a massive scale. I'm not quite out there with Scott, but I don't understand liberal concepts of social justice. To me, normal adults deserve what they earn, and if that results in inequality I really don't have a problem with that. That is justice.

[burgundy]

To me, normal adults deserve what they earn

Mabus, I agree with you, in the general sense. The difficulty I have is with the definition of "earn." I also feel that the reverse needs to be true - people should earn what they deserve - in order for there to really be justice. To take a hackneyed example, I don't particularly feel that professional football players deserve that much more money than do teachers. The market is not in itself a just mechanism.

[not_scottbot]

"inequality .... = justice...."

And some people wonder just how far even the brightest fall from the heights to the belching factories of hell, preparing infernal weapons.

While I at least find Scott's warnings understandable, if not often their raving manner, the idea which has grown in the eyes of many about how any change in America's current society is socialism as long as it benefits a large number of people is laughable. Clean water is not a matter of socialism, or at least it isn't, for those who feel ensuring clean water for everyone leads to better public health, higher economic productivity, and better long term social perspectives in general. Restricting a factory owner from pouring heavy metals into a river is not a question of socialism or capitalism, it is a matter of what a society values. The power of the few, as in the Soviet Union, or the wealth of the few, as in today's America.

Inequality is not justice - forcing the families of those that profit from pollution to live among the waste they create for their private benefit just might be.

[Mabus]

Burgundy, it's not been that long since I was objecting to the baseball strike, so I don't exactly disagree with you. At the same time, I don't feel qualified to tell people what they should or shouldn't value. If enough people think entertainment is more important than education that football players make more money, then who am I to try and impose a different system from above?

[burgundy]

A long explanation, because I'm going to go to bed (no, really!) and then I'll be at work all day tomorrow and unable to check in except maybe for a few minutes before work.

In the simplest economic model, wages are a function of what employers are willing to pay and what employees are willing to work for. If public tastes suddenly shift so that no one wants to watch football anymore, the NFL will no longer be profitable in its current form and players' pay will plummet. Even if the players train just as hard and play just as well, they will make much less money (if they're even still employed.) Actual earnings do not reflect talent, dedication, hard work, education, skill, training, or societal benefit. It may be in some cases that one or more of these factors happens to affect a person's wages, but they don't have to.

So, is that just? You've said before that you don't have a lot of patience with people who indulge emotion and whim at the expense of reason. What then is your justification for the wage differentials that exist in our economy? What about people who work hard at important jobs but still don't make enough to support their families?

[burgundy]

Well, people also seem to think that some kind of safety net and redistribution is important... internet libertarians aside, most people support programs like food stamps and Medicaid and minimum wage laws. I'd argue that the labor market isn't a clear reflection of preferences, but if we say for the moment that it is, then why can't people choose an inequitable distribution of wages and also choose government redistribution? If you don't want to interfere with the former, then why complain about the latter?

There's also a huge difference between "justice" and "mob rule." You're basically saying "if that's what people want, who am I to argue?" But your initial claim was that to do otherwise would be unjust. Is your conception of justice really all about popularity?

[Consumer Unit 5012]

Scottbot said: Scottbots respect schizophrenia, as it is a necessary part of dealing with people, especially those who say one thing (love thy fellow man, or fight censorship, governmental or corporate), and do another (willingly support leaders that invade other countries, or ban anyone that shares an opinion unacceptable to a moderator).

That's not schizophrenia, that's just either hypocrisy or cognitive dissonance. (Yes, I am a huge nitpicker.)
-----------

On the topic of earning, social justice, Communism and such:

How much money would anyone here say Paris Hilton has "earned" in her life?

(In any just society, George W. Bush would be spending the rest of his life working in a coal mine to PAY US ALL BACK.)

[Elphaba]

Mabus, I certainly appreciate that many people work very hard for what they have and deserve to benefit from their labor, though I sometimes feel like the benefits are too extreme in many cases and far too paltry in others. I wasn't advocating for changing the class structure by massively redistributing wealth/goods/services on a grand scale, nor for eliminating social benefits of hard work, talent, and creativity (though it would be nice to see us reconsider some of our more undervalued forms of hard work, talent, and creativity, such as the woefully underpaid job of teaching children). Changing class structure is not the same as eliminating social differences entirely.

I'm more interested in addressing disparities of opportunity (e.g. adequate parenting, nutrition, access to healthcare, and education) and obstacles such as racism, sexism, heterocentrism etc. that have a tremendous impact on who can be successful at what and to what degree. There is very little success - and perhaps none that has economic implications - that can be attributed to individual effort/talent alone. That doesn't mean individual effort/talent isn't important, just that from my perspective it's not realistic to assume that most people are where they are on the class hierarchy just because they earned it (in my case, being born white and upper-middle-class to highly educated parents was awfully helpful).

The point of the book I mentioned is actually that hundreds of years of addressing poverty through frenetic redistribution of wealth and goods has done little to alleviate the problem, while economic differences between the richest and the poorest (especially on a global scale) seem to have gotten more extreme. That argument can lead to some very different conclusions, some more conservative (aha! redistribution of wealth/goods/services isn't the answer!), some more liberal (aha! redistribution of wealth/goods/services should not rely on the whims of the rich!).

[Elphaba]

Consumer Unit, thanks for pointing out the incorrect use of the term schizophrenic. I wanted to say something but was less brave (and/or more worried about looking nitpicky) than you. I spent years working with individuals who actually have schizophrenia, and it irritates me to no end when the word is casually used to mean "two contradictory states of being." For the record, that usage is based on the misconception that schizophrenia = multiple personalities. It's a totally different illness. I can't tell you how many times I have had to bite my tongue when some dude got it into his head to charm me with his over oh-so-clever jokes about my clients' many supposed personalities ("So you get to meet them, and then you get to meet them again, and again, right? Right? Huh? Why aren't you turned on by my stunningly witty banter?")

(/nitpicking)

[Jesurgislac]

To me, normal adults deserve what they earn, and if that results in inequality I really don't have a problem with that.

Actually, it's not so much "deserve what they earn" that results in inequality, as inherited wealth. As noted elsewhere, the first step on Bill Gates's road to becoming the richest man on the planet was when he chose to have an extremely wealthy grandfather, then choosing to have an extremely wealthy father, and then deciding to begin life with a million-dollar trust fund. The US has less social mobility than any country in Europe (even the UK): if you're born to poor parents in the US, no matter how hard you work, the odds are extremely unlikely that you'll even end up moderately well-off.

So talking about how people "deserve what they earn" when in fact the wealthiest are not "earning" anything - their money brings them more money - and the poorest are working hard for minimum wage for adults that's close to what, in the UK, we find acceptable that 16-year-olds should earn as a minimum - how is that justice?

Does someone who works very hard at two full-time jobs really deserve, in your eyes, only to earn just enough to get by on, not enough to save for emergencies?

[Funkula]

(In any just society, George W. Bush would be spending the rest of his life working in a coal mine to PAY US ALL BACK.)

May I recommend that, rather than digging up carbon and sulfide-packed, dirty burning coal, we put him to work excavating foundations and pouring concrete for new nuclear plants? It'll do us a lot more good in the long run.

[Ray]

Where are your royalty cheques? Fred, these people are stealing from you. Set the lawyers on them immediately.

[And it was uphill both ways...]

“I don't understand, why didn't you people just use the Interne...oh, that's right.”

By then the Internet was thriving, and people were already having debates like this enriched with the additional perspective of correspondents who don't live in the same cosy University campus as them, or even necessarily in the same country with the same ideas about what is good and bad. The type of computer you're used to today, with the pointing device, and the icons, and sending email and so on, already existed, although perhaps not at Fred's college.

Usenet, which formalised much of the culture that continues in forums like this, is so old that we've actually lost records of how it started, the first Usenet message that Google has record of is a 1981 reply, to an earlier message, about changing how Usenet works.

It's hilarious how many people figure the Internet was an 1990s invention, no doubt if not for the US actually using it back in World War II, today's school kids would think the atomic bomb couldn't have been invented before the pocket calculator.

[scottbot_in_serious_mode]

Nitpicking is fine - but then, my personal experience of mental illness in others has been related to manic-depression, oops, bipolar disorder. And to be honest, it has never occurred to nitpick over how brutally those terms are misused in public discourse - but to each their own.

'...wages are a function of what employers are willing to pay and what employees are willing to work for....' And a company town store is a pleasant shopping experience benefitting the employees. However, in the real world, the market tends to respect other perspectives than fair wages. For a concrete example, check out how much clothing bought in the U.S. is made in China or even lower wage countries like Vietnam. Then reflect on the fact that the market is basically saying you too should be satisified with a wage that involves 70 hours of labor without vacation for a handful of dollars a day. Please volunteer to be one of the world's true working class - then after a couple of years, report on the your feelings about your employer's willingness to pay a wage that you would work for - recognizing that such a desirable job in a country like Vietnam puts you in the class of the fortunately employed - making you instantly replaceable, since there are literally millions of others willing to work for the same terms. I welcome every increase of wealth by such companies as Nike, because there is no higher goal in life than maximizing profit by offering products that some people have literally died for.

[And it was uphill both ways...]

And for the record, I'm much more likely to give up my cookie so that someone I know can have it. Pretty simple dynamic, with an easy (and perhaps even correct) evolutionary justification. Feeding a friend who is down on his luck is easy, feeding a stranger from my town a little harder, but it's very hard to care about feeding someone you'll never meet in a country you'll never visit on the other side of the planet.

The fact that poverty is relative (when Europeans say their children are poor, it means they didn't get toys for Christmas, they wear second hand clothes, their houses are cold; but when Africans say their country's children are poor they mean they don't have enough to eat, they wear rags, they have no home) doesn't counteract this. The biggest cause of misery in the world isn't unemployment, or political oppression, or religious intolerance, it's plain and simple war. But when your country's wars are in distant lands, and the sound of guns can't be heard from the polling booth, it's easier to concentrate on tax breaks for couples with kids, or setting a fairer minimum wage, or just good old fashioned partisan bickering.

[Francis]

Mabus, as you support people keeping what they earn, I'm sure you agree that both the inheritance tax and the capital gains tax should be near 100%. In the case of inheritance tax, the recipient hasn't earned very much of the money at all and there is no good reason that I can see that they should receive lots of money simply by having the good fortune to be born to wealthy parents.

And also that you are responsible for all the outputs of your work - responsible for the law and order needed for it to happen, responsible for the health of everyone (OK, the US healthcare system is FUBAR'd enough that you may be), and for the road network, and for the rest of the environmental factors that make it plausible.

[Scott]

Any suggestion of altruism -- of the wealthy voluntarily contributing to help the less fortunate

Voluntary as in voluntary, or voluntary as in the govt voluntarily taxes you?

The reason quotes from Jesus are read as statist, even if you mean it to be truly voluntary, is because people like you turn Jesus into a Dem party shill by taking what he said out of context and using it to support today's favorite social policy.

You have nobody to blame but yourself if people think in terms of Jesus == statism. Stop bringing Jesus into your demands for political power over others and people might start listening about voluntary giving.

Mabus, as you support people keeping what they earn, I'm sure you agree that both the inheritance tax and the capital gains tax should be near 100%.

Francis, it isn't your place to decide if it was 'earned'. If the person who earned the money wants to leave it to his children, that's tough shit for you.