By the way - I consider this a factor in the ME…can you imagine a young boy’s attitude toward women developing when the person who is responsible for his every whim is subject to his demands? Him mother has _no_ authority over him. He is the “man” of the house if his father is not present by the time he is 6 or 7.

Personally, I think it’s because the individual with power never has anyone who will refuse to fulfill his desires or contradict the wrongness of his actions. In medieval times, the Court Jester was granted immunity from punishment for ridiculing the King, which he did when the King did something unreasonable or irrational. We don’t have Court Jesters anymore…no one has immunity from some of the worlds worst tyrants.

I suspect it’s in the category of “hey…look what I did/got - wonder if I can do/get _this_!”. As a result, the demands keep getting bigger and badder - no one says no. The result is a three year old mentality that gets everything he wants - and if he doesn’t, people die. He may still not get what he wants, but by golly, someone paid for the denial. I think there’s a maturity regression when one doesn’t have to deal with denial of whims. Call it the narcissism of toddlerhood…

Have you ever dealt with a three year old?

>>Was Washington more ruthless than the British?>>

My statement was based on an equality of motivation. The Americans were fighting for freedom, the Crown was “just” fighting for an increase of taxes. When the cost of the war became greater than the profits, the British quit. You know…like the Dems wants us to do in Iraq…!
If the motivation is equal - both parties are fighting for their life, eg, the “gentleman” who values his honor more than winning will lose. You have to remember, the British considered the Americans to be fighting without honor because they didn’t fight in the manner that was “acceptable” at the time. The Brits were unwilling to change their methods…they didn’t want to become “ruffians”.

>>There are more ways of winning than through ruthlessness.>>

I agree that sometimes strategy etc. can make the difference and ruthlessness doesn’t apply - but ruthlessness is also critical in many situations. You may be able to avoid ruthlessness if you’re the smarter opponent, but it doesn’t always work that way. Saddam, for example was both smart _and_ ruthless. He got the upper hand before his potential opponents knew what was happening, and then killed anyone who challenged him. Or who he _suspected_ might challenge him. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il - likewise. Maybe not Kim Jong Il…he’s in a different category. He _started_ on the top of the heap.

But nobody ever actually knows or prefers to explain why power corrupts. If you don’t know the why, then you won’t know where the problem originated from. And if you don’t know where the problem originated from, then it is going to be hard to fix it through anything except trial and error. And there’s a shatload of errors that resulted from trying the “solutions” of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and what not.

The most ruthless among us wins.

Was Washington more ruthless than the British?

There are more ways of winning than through ruthlessness. Like the myriad arts and ways of warfare, there is one goal, but many paths to it.

Very true. And of course, “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The concept of God - a Supreme Being - is the incorruptible limit upon mankind. Without it, we’re back to dog eat dog. The concept of a God who will hold us accountable for our rights and wrongs in an afterlife is about the only civilizing influence that exists. Take it away, and you’re right - it’s all about power…what one human can force upon another. The most ruthless among us wins.

At the core fundamental and axiomatic level, I value power and see that from it, everything else flows. I don’t believe in “rights”, God endowed or otherwise, and I don’t believe in “the law” either, for that matter.

Helen looks like she believes in wealth, but the truth is that she believes in power. Just as I do.

Without power, nothing else is doable. Without power, no ideal can become reality, and no reality can be changed for the better or for the worse.

I’m not sure what other people here would reduce their core principles down to. But everything of value in my world, the US Constitution, military strength, safety, security, knowledge, and so forth has been based upon power. The ability to do things and the ability to make other people do things.

Power, just like a gun, can be used for good or evil. I’ll leave it to your conscience to decide whether people with helen’s views should be supported or not.

Rich people and corporations exist to make money, and people like helen exist to get some of that money.

It’s not all that complicated.

If, “not enough people” will be motivated to take the risk, then you’re just going to have to nationalize the corporations and make them take the risks on pain of punishment, jail, or execution.

What’s the problem? People like Chavez and Khomeini and Kim Jong and PROVEN that such methods work, even only for less than a century. Less than a century is perfectly good enough for the 30-50 year old megalomaniac, Don. Plenty good enuf.

Actually, the ultimate reason people comply with the IRS is because Americans see America as their family and when family requests family, it’s hard to refuse on a moral level unless you are literally starving or something.

Because the loyalty of any single American to America is not guaranteed, the IRS is there to enforce things so that the people who willingly pay into the US treasury are not cheated by the people who don’t give a damn whether America goes broke or not.

The progressive income tax was a way for people like FDR to fund all those social programs, after the war has been paid by similar taxes.

The cost to living in America is to obey the laws. Taxes are only one of those laws. People pay taxes not so much because they will be punished, but because they want to live in the hierarchy called America and to become a member of that hierarchy.

You can’t become part of the hierarchy by being an outlaw.

If you want to see the state of things should people have to obey laws that they don’t want to obey, look at the Taliban execution videos in Afghanistan, taken by the AP, in order to extinguish the hope of life and liberty in this world.

To Dq,

To a lot of people, making money requires no personal risks. It just requires brown nosing, exploiting lawsuits, exploiting the law, or exploiting political power.

Look at Obama and his wife for a good example. Look at the Clintons for another. Even a Huckabee can apply.

When you can steal money from other people and give it to yourself because you have acquired more power than they, what exactly do you have to personally risk?

Helen, even in your view of the world, corporations are the geese that lay the golden eggs. Steal the eggs, and you kill the geese. The corporations will not continue to lay the eggs and everybody suffers. Is that okay with you, so long as everybody, the hardworking and the slothful, suffer equally?

There is an irony here. We all support “equal pay for equal work” in theory. But, when it comes down to it, the Helens of the world want to give equal pay for unequal work, by taking from those who do the work and giving to those who do nothing.