bodog is such a joke (with a screen shot)

[jukofyork]

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I consider people like Calvin Ayre (or <insert billionaire here&gt to be the biggest thieves of all time. What right do they have to such a big chunk of the worlds resources for themselves?

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This is terrible. Since when is having earned a lot of money evidence of theft?

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So if it were possible for one single person to amass the rights to every single resource on the planet and just sit back and watch everybody else suffer and die, then this would be fine just because they "earned" it?

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You didn't answer my question, but I'll answer yours anyway: No. If you really feel this is in danger of happening soon, let me know and we'll see what we can do about it.

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If you define stealing as to take what does not rightfully belong to you then I do class somebody who has claimed the rights to enough resources for 1000's of people to have stolen it. They might have done it within the current "laws", but I'm quite sure that if you asked the entire world to vote on if he should be forced to redistribute his wealth the answer would be an overwhelming majority yes. I think if you were to do the same for the "average" person, then I think the overwhelming majority vote would be no. If you think that just because the "law" says it's ok for them to have so much, then see my point below.

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The law shouldn't protect the billionaire from losing his money to thieves;

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I'm just going to leave this out here percolating for a while...

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Who is it that makes the laws then? Is it a couple of billion Indian and Chinese peasants that make them? No, it's rich westerners who are also in the pocket of the rich billionaires and corporations. The vast majority of the wealth is in the hands of the top few percent of the population, and the wealth they have buys them power to influence society and it's laws.

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the law should protect the normal person from the billionaire taking far more than their fair share...

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You keep saying things like "fair share". Who decides? You?

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The very fact that they have so much excess wealth that they have to protect themselves from it being stolen is an obvious sign that they have way more that their "fair share". I agree it's not easy to define their "fair share", but I'd guess again that if the entire world voted on if a billionaire had more than their "fair share" the answer would be an overwhelming majority yes.

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The problem is that your argument applies to any two people who have different amounts of money. According to you, the one with less is justified in stealing from the one with more.

If this is not the case, exactly how much money do I have to have before I deserve to be robbed?

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Exactly how much money do you need to live a reasonable quality of life?

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You didn't answer my question again. The answer to your question is "it depends". While I certainly have an opinion about what the answer is for me, You seem to think you have the "correct" answer and would like to impose that answer on everybody else. I doubt if you would want somebody else imposing his answer on you.

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How can I answer your question as you know full well it has no answer. Again, the very fact that others are envious of them and they are in danger of being stolen from seems to suggest they have far more than is fair. Again, if the people of the entire world were to decide about the "fairness" of a single guy taking so much - see my point above. I think the closest you can get to answering this question is if a person can live of $500 a week, then making $100k a week is making far more than they "need" to live a "reasonable" quality of life.

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Do you think Calvin Ayre put in several million times more effort to make his money than some random guy making carpets 16 hours a day in an Indian sweatshop?

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Obviously not. As with poker, there is a lot of luck involved. Does this mean the carpet guy has some claim on Calvin or any other person with more resources than him?

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Is the "carpet guy's" life is worth less than Calvin? If not, then why should the "carpet guy" and his family starve while Calvin lives the life of luxury? If their was enough resources for everybody and no starving sweatshop workers in the world then I would have nothing against him having so much, but since that is not the case then for the interest of all Calvin should be forced to redistribute what he has gained by "luck" as you call it.

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If you want a society that encourages extreme greed as the ultimate goal for all humans to aspire towards then that's your view and nobody can change that, but I think you'll find that's there's a few billion people on this planet that struggle just to feed themselves each and every day and I don't see why some [censored] like Calvin Ayre or Bill Gates should be allowed to just suck up the rights half the world's resources for their own private use.

Juk [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

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What I want is a society that encourages extreme liberty and doesn't punish extreme ability (or extreme luck).

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So you have no care at all about the poor people of the world who are extremely "unlucky"? You are happy for a single person to lay claim to so many resources and wield so much power just because they were "lucky"? I would like to see a society that was forward thinking and ruled for the best interests the people (not just to protect the rich), but I doubt it will ever happen. What are the odds of the people with the money and they power ever denouncing their own beliefs? Zero.

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You seem very angry about this. Why would you hate somebody for being successful/lucky?

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I am angry about this yes, but it is not the fact that they are successful that I hate - it is the fact that they take so much of what is not truly theirs and leave so many of the world to rot from starvation and poverty. Their are a lot more ways to measure "success" than simply owning seven houses and three private jets.

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Does that somehow make it harder for you to be successful/lucky?

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No, but does their "success" do anything to improve the lives of the other people of the planet?

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The reason I reject your position is that it seems like a copout that allows you to rationalize stealing from those you deem deserve it while simultaneously rejecting that defense from somebody who would steal from you.

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To be 100% honest I don't really care what you think and what you do/don't reject. You have quite clearly stated what you think and I have clearly stated what I think along with what I think the vast majority of the poor people of the world want if anybody listened to them. If you think I'm talking [censored] and the poor people love to have rich billionaires sucking up the rights to the resources, then their is very little I can try to do to convince you otherwise. You keep telling me that I didn't answer your questions, so let me ask you a two simple questions:

a) If everybody in the world had a single vote, and they were asked "Force all billionaires to redistribute their wealth?" what do you think the majority vote would be?

b) If everybody in the world had a single vote, and they were asked "Force all people to redistribute their wealth?" what do you think the majority vote would be?

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Perhaps I'm wrong, but the next time you're out walking the mean streets of Leeds, UK, if some poor person hits you in the head with a tire iron and steals your wallet, I don't think your first thought upon regaining consciousness is going to be, "Gee whiz, I didn't get a chance to thank that guy. After all, what right did I have to such a big chunk of the worlds resources for myself?"

Cliff notes: Be careful what you wish for. You are somebody else's billionaire.

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Cliff notes: If you try to take more than the average person deems as "fair", don't cry when poor people try to steal it from you.

Juk [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]