I am neither Republican or Democrat and I would never follow in my father's footsteps of worshipping Fox News.

And I didn't realize that "parents" equalled "father." Thanks for clearing that up. I'll be sure to tell my mom that.

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That's easy. If you assume that the distribution of intelligence is the same across both the old voter population (male) and the new voter population (female), then there's no reason to believe voter "quality" should go down when expanding voting rights.

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Things are getting crazy for guys like Peter though. For every dollar a company of his earns and he wants to leave to his family he has to make about $5!!!:

38% Corporate Profit Taxes

38% Income Tax

45% Estate Tax

and that's not counting 15% payroll taxes on a large chunk of revenues.

And when the government is taking like 80% of what you make in your life...well, I think that's understandably disheartening, which was the real focus of his article.

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Haha, 80% taxes?! What a quaint notion.

Sorry, but hedge fund principals pay the capital gains tax rate on the bulk of earnings, ~15%. And Estate taxes are mainly for the plebes. The rest of us do estate planning and shelter millions from the long arm of the IRS...

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I'm sorry but this struck me as amusing. Would I be less inclined to sympathize with him if he planned to spend the money on strippers rather than leave it "to his family"?

I really don't sympathize in either case.

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Demonizing people who pull themselves up by their bootstraps for doing so is also silly. Europe is getting messed up, too...I wouldn't consider it a shining example. Maybe Europe's demonizing of extremely hard-working entrepreneurs is why Silicon Valley is as dominant as it is on the tech scene compared to Europe.

Flat taxes is different from just changing the top tax bracket, and I don't think that richest benefit in a non-linear manner from the state, but from their hard work. Without a flat-tax, I think it's fair to argue the right to property is greatly infringed and democracy flawed. If anything can be considered "greedheaded", disproportionately shaking down a minority for their money through control of the government might as well be.

For the record, I work like 100 hours per week, building an extremely bootstrapped business for the past 5 years and intend to cross over eventually to a better economic situation through my own hard work. I live on very little in the meantime, so it's not like I'm some hypocrite who can't relate to whole economic spectrum here. America is great in that almost all of us can become rich like Peter through hard work and we should celebrate instead of demonize that.

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I would also point out that TRENDS can be more worth studying than current status. Some of the most outspoken and effective people who are considered libertarians, Objectivest and so on (Ayn Rand WAS a woman after all) are either female, minorities, or both.

Democrats, and the media have done a good job of convincing many people (no need to specify what type of people they are) that Democratic quick-fix solutions are in their best interest. "Guaranteed me a job NOW, an optional-pay mortgage NOW, free healthcare NOW." It even sounds good to me until I start thinking about who will pay for it, and who's sweat-equity will be involved. Frankly I'm much less inclined to go to a doctor who is payed the wages of a clerical worker. Anything that is free for very long eventually becomes worth what you pay for it. By the time the electorate figures out what has happened to them the country will be run by organized crime (to the extent that they a

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I swear I typed it the first time.

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And that mess of a last para: you speak of Democrat efforts as "quick-fix solutions". Please provide the Republican and/or Objectivist (lol) solutions to what is actually an urgent, pressing problem: preventing collapse of the economy. No, don't actually, they're the prescriptions that got us into this disaster. The rest of your caricature of "demanding" jobs and affordable health care is contemptible and unworthy of comment. Verbatim right-wing radio mockery of the real suffering going on.

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/snark

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