Obama: ”…at a certain point you've made enough money.”

[Upchurch]

Is there some loop hole that allows the President to not be subject to these income tax expirations?

Nope. Obama pays his taxes. You can find his tax return online. Somehow, he managed to pay his taxes without being a whiny . Weird, huh?

 

[The Fallen Serpent]

Nope. Obama pays his taxes. You can find his tax return online. Somehow, he managed to pay his taxes without being a whiny . Weird, huh?

I know! How odd! It is like how my libertarian and Republican friends whine how liberals are always voting to raise other peoples taxes, yet I consistently vote in favor of raising my own when the rare opportunity comes up. The company I work for engages in contracted profit sharing and therefore corporate taxes directly affect my pay. I whine occassionaly how government money is spent but I do not whine about my tax rate.

 

[stevea]

Bob, what's your source for that quote?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and wildly speculate that it was an unsourced right-wing blog.

Found this, which cuts off suspiciously close to the end of that particular statement.

I suspect it was a joke and the laughter was intentionally clipped off.

This is a great example of the mindless ninnies that inhabit this forum. Anyone can easily google up half a dozen more complete vids in 2 seconds, but instead of doing the most trivial fact check possible, they post impugning the source.

Typicaly political play-book stuff - when you've lost the debate impugn the source. You people have no business on a forum about critical thought.

 

[rwguinn]

This is a great example of the mindless ninnies that inhabit this forum. Anyone can easily google up half a dozen more complete vids in 2 seconds, but instead of doing the most trivial fact check possible, they post impugning the source.

Typicaly political play-book stuff - when you've lost the debate impugn the source. You people have no business on a forum about critical thought.

No, you don't understand. Obama said it, so its a joke, or off-the-cuff sarcasm, or something like that.
If Rush or a Republican says it, its for real, and he believes it in the core of his being.

 

[Upchurch]

This is a great example of the mindless ninnies that inhabit this forum. Anyone can easily google up half a dozen more complete vids in 2 seconds, but instead of doing the most trivial fact check possible, they post impugning the source.

Typicaly political play-book stuff - when you've lost the debate impugn the source. You people have no business on a forum about critical thought.

You must be new. The burden of evidence is on the person making the claim, in this case: Bob. I searched out of my own curiosity. However, I was at work at the time so I couldn't do an extensive search at that time.

As it turned out, it wasn't what Bob made it out to be at all.

 

[tyr_13]

This is a great example of the mindless ninnies that inhabit this forum. Anyone can easily google up half a dozen more complete vids in 2 seconds, but instead of doing the most trivial fact check possible, they post impugning the source.

Typicaly political play-book stuff - when you've lost the debate impugn the source. You people have no business on a forum about critical thought.

Right, because saying 'I suspect' means nothing. Then, we get the confirmation bias fun of ignoring that people did post up more complete vids.

Besides that, lost the debate? Yeah, that's exactly what happened here. Oh, am I getting in the way of your, 'change the subject, attack the lib' play? My bad.

 

[johnny karate]

No, you don't understand. Obama said it, so its a joke, or off-the-cuff sarcasm, or something like that.
If Rush or a Republican says it, its for real, and he believes it in the core of his being.

Yeah, because what Limbaugh doesn't ever do is play to the irrational, reactionary segment of his audience with outlandish remarks he can write off as "sarcasm" to everyone else.

And of course, Obama the tyrannical socialist is always explicitly and publicly outlining his secret plan to render America a fascist state.

 

[johnny karate]

You must be new. The burden of evidence is on the person making the claim, in this case: Bob. I searched out of my own curiosity. However, I was at work at the time so I couldn't do an extensive search at that time.

As it turned out, it wasn't what Bob made it out to be at all.

Right, because saying 'I suspect' means nothing. Then, we get the confirmation bias fun of ignoring that people did post up more complete vids.

Besides that, lost the debate? Yeah, that's exactly what happened here. Oh, am I getting in the way of your, 'change the subject, attack the lib' play? My bad.

Are you guys still here?

I'm pretty sure you were asked to leave.

 

[KingMerv00]

This is a great example of the mindless ninnies that inhabit this forum. Anyone can easily google up half a dozen more complete vids in 2 seconds, but instead of doing the most trivial fact check possible, they post impugning the source.

Typicaly political play-book stuff - when you've lost the debate impugn the source. You people have no business on a forum about critical thought.

Do you have an opinion of people who throw around childish insults?

 

[A'isha]

"Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who sacrifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensible to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune, and putting his fortune only to the basest uses —whether these uses be to speculate in stocks and wreck railroads himself, or to allow his son to lead a life of foolish and expensive idleness and gross debauchery, or to purchase some scoundrel of high social position, foreign or native, for his daughter. Such a man is only the more dangerous if he occasionally does some deed like founding a college or endowing a church, which makes those good people who are also foolish forget his real iniquity. These men are equally careless of the working men, whom they oppress, and of the State, whose existence they imperil. There are not very many of them, but there is a very great number of men who approach more or less closely to the type, and, just in so far as they do so approach, they are curses to the country." - Teddy Roosevelt

 

[Ziggurat]

At a certain point you've grabbed enough power.

 

[Ziggurat]

"Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who sacrifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensible to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune, and putting his fortune only to the basest uses

The decades that followed have demonstrated how terribly wrong Roosevelt was about this. There are far, far worse people in the world than the merely greedy.

These men are equally careless of the working men, whom they oppress, and of the State, whose existence they imperil.

No robber baron has ever oppressed people to the degree that Roosevelt's precious State can and has.

Here's another quote about money, one which has far more truth to it than Roosevelt's populist rabble-rousing:

"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun."

 

[Upchurch]

At a certain point you've grabbed enough power.

Oh, I see what you did there. You are a witty one, Zig.

 

[thaiboxerken]

The decades that followed have demonstrated how terribly wrong Roosevelt was about this. There are far, far worse people in the world than the merely greedy.

In your opinion. I think history has shown that TR is right.

 

[Ziggurat]

In your opinion. I think history has shown that TR is right.

So tell me, thai: what robber baron ever compared to Stalin in the magnitude of his crimes? What banker killed as many as Mao? What capitalist ever oppressed workers as much as Pol Pot?

Are you simply ignorant of history, are you being dishonest, or do you honestly think that Roosevelt was right, that those who pursue money are worse than dictators and tyrants who killed by the millions?

 

[thaiboxerken]

Are you claiming that those people were not greedy?

 

[Ziggurat]

Are you claiming that those people were not greedy?

I'm claiming that it was power, not money, that they wanted, and that the distinction matters. Now, are you claiming any capitalist, banker, robber baron, etc. ever did as much evil as those dictators did?

 

[thaiboxerken]

Greed is greed, whether it's for power or money. In the USA, money has quite a bit of power.

 

[kellyb]

I'm going to have to say that serial killers et al are more "ignoble in character" than money-hungry Americans.

 

[Ziggurat]

Greed is greed, whether it's for power or money.

Look, I really don't care about the semantics of this debate. Call it greed if you want, call it something else, it doesn't matter. The fact remains, dictators are NOT the same as the people Roosevelt described in that quote. And they are far worse.

In the USA, money has quite a bit of power.

Yes, it does. But Bill Gates poses no threat to me, and never will, no matter how much money he acquires. There are limits to the power of money in a free society. There are no limits to the power of a gun in an unfree society. And it is the nature of government, not the rich, which determines how the guns are used, and whether the society is free or not.