I pride myself on my individual, moderate, pragmatic views. I guess if I'm in a bucket, it'd be libertarian like a lot of white guys around 30 years old. Pro gay, pro abortion, pro liberty, don't f with my money but i'm not an idiot that doesnt understand that collectivism money can produce a positive social good.

The BLM movement caused me to think a bit. I've been quick to think, I really didnt come from anything with a firefighter dad and a retail store clerk minimum wage earning mom, so if I can do it so can everyone. I do still think that and I do still think increasing money on social welfare is a stupid idea because it's usually just a bailout for people who dont make good decisions. I don't believe in inequity in the workplace as most managers would kill to be able to hire more women/POC, etc., but often times there just isnt a huge talent pool and the best candidates just are white guys, especially in areas like tech. Even at the corporate executive level, companies often strive to add female and minority board members/executive leaders. However, I've come to really understand white privilege and there's a piece we don't really think about.

Inheritance and family money is seldom talked about and white people don't give it much thought. More of a class issue than a race issue, but they often go hand-in-hand. For most, if they lose their job they have a family member even if not a direct parent that could support them financially or let them live in a room in their house, etc. That isn't nearly as common in minority families. Also, why i feel class/race go hand-in-hand dates back to housing laws for many past decades. Levittown is an easy example. Those houses were sold for about $10k per, sometimes less, which would be maybe $100k or so in today's money. Those houses are about half a mil now, meaning they made 5x in investment equity value after adjusting for inflation. Those houses, as was the case for many other communities, weren't available to blacks. Outside of just the law, many areas refused to sell homes to blacks, pushing them to historic black areas. Surely most of us know the historic "black neighborhoods" that still exist today even in more wealthy cities. Those home values didnt rise at anywhere near the same rate.

This isn't broad brush and I get that, but the amount of inheritance money about to flow to millenials i believe is somewhere in the neighborhood of $60 trillion. Not a lot of that is going to minorities because of what happened in the past. So when my white friends say "hey i didnt do anything to you, don't blame me" I kinda get the anger/annoyance/attitude from minorities as we're going to benefit off of the racist actions of our grandparents' and great grandparents' era and minorities won't.

Anyways, I haven't posted here in a while and wanted to share this.

If white privilege exists, why did Obama become president instead of McCain/Romney?

In all seriousness, good on you for recognizing compounded effects of systemic racism. Hopefully, we can get to where we need to be someday.

you perceive inherited inequality between classes. That's simply a statement of fact. Then you have the opinion that those inequalities are inherently a bad thing, that privilege and inheritance should be apologized for and corrected. That's the poisonous flawed morality common among the left. Inequality and social hierarchy are just natural products of the human condition and the only stable structure for society. You tear down the inequalities of one set of classes in a pursuit of a level playing field and all you'll do is watch the field upends in favor of another. As Terry Crews so inelegantly put it, defeating white supremacy to create black supremacy. You're punishing a group and creating unfair and immoral discrimination and prejudice in the name of defeating discrimination and prejudice. The world doesn't have to be ruled by cutthroat social darwinism taken to a randesque extreme, but neither can the world be completely egalitarian while needs, wants and limited resources exist, because the result of every such attempt is always the same. The only sensible path is somewhere in the middle, trying to buffer against falling off either side of that knife's edge. But the left today would be happy to take a death plunge with their overt marxist ideals

This post was edited by Goomshill on Jul 13 2020 02:16pm

false binary tho. a wealth inheritance tax doesn't have a perceivable effect on most that it taxes, especially if planned for. if you're passing on 1 billion dollars you kids can live with 900 million just fine. it is only taxing the 90%, rather than 10%, that tears societies apart and causes wealth to flee nations. but also it would make my physical silver/gold worth a lot more so im in favor of it.

I think the Obama debate is quite simple. Yes, there were Americans who refused to vote for him due to his race or the stupid Muslim/he wasn't born here theories. The reason he overtook Hillary in 08 and won back to back is purely just because he was a good candidate and a good junior senator and a good president. I think in 10+ years he'll be widely regarded as a good president who genuinely tried to do the right thing and reach across the aisle. History will look fondly upon him and we'll all recall that from 2010 -> when congress went red, he just couldn't budge as even very republican leaning bills with a hint of liberal stuff in them got shot down by republicans over and over and ushered in an era of Congress being super hard line. It's been that way since 2010 really, and I mean that on BOTH sides of the aisle. Obama genuinely tried to do right. Even when he wanted to go to war with Syria, he went to seek Congressional approval. With plenty of stuff he could've jammed through in his first 2 years because it was a dem house/senate/executive, he didn't.

White's voted for Obama because he was just a really good candidate. I think it's kinda a bummer that the first thing the following morning after the election said "First Black Man Elected President" rather than "Great Candidate Ushers in Era of Change" which is ultimately why he won.



Never said a wealth inheritance tax is a good thing. I'm against it actually. I think luxury taxes should be increased. Tax houses worth over $3m and cars worth over $100k at a higher rate. Those kinds of things should be taxed higher and would adjust.




I don't think they should be apologized for and corrected. I'll inherit a couple hundred thousand when my mom dies and i won't apologize for it. What happened, happened. I simply think we need to talk about it and tax the rich higher to benefit the poor who won't benefit from the wave of inheritance rolling in. I'm thoroughly a capitalist, but it behooves the country to lift up the bottom. I think there should be a heavier focus on the WORKING CLASS rather than the social welfare leeches. There is a big, big difference between someone working 40 hours a week and struggling to get by and someone who is receiving food stamps, wic and welfare and "trying to find work but hey it's hard out there,"

This post was edited by AspenSniper on Jul 13 2020 02:23pm

i think a wealth inheritance tax is better, but both could work. inheritance doesnt stifle hard work as much, if i know i have to pay more and more taxes while im alive it might.

It’s a hard balance because you could cause an Atlas Shrugged. I work with 15 different Bermuda domiciled companies and with individuals who have their wealth abroad specifically due to fear of an inheritance tax.

A bigger fear of mine is a tax on the “kinda wealthy” like increasing taxes on people making $200-300k a year. 200k a year in DC, San Fran, NYC, etc., is NOT rich. That’ll maybe get a kid or two through college and yourself in a 3 bed 2 bath old house often times. The left not knowing where to draw that line is dangerous to me. Tax the overpaid and family money rich, not the hard working who just kick ass with their MBA/law degree/MD/working 60+ hours a week in a challenging space and get compensated well for doing so.

This post was edited by AspenSniper on Jul 13 2020 02:36pm

the idea of aggressively taxing anyone who isn't multi millionaire status to me has always been stupid. many of those people with 300k salaries still aren't rich in their bank account. they've increased investments they cant touch, have a 3 million dollar suburban house, and 3 car payments. good, bad, w/e. but point is they're not cash rich, and no more insulated from a bad health scare bringing them down as many other people who make far less.

honestly tho on tax shelters, any time there's a tax increase that causes a shift in policy (be it inheritance of earnings) , and we're overdue, there will be a mass exodus. if bernie won in 2020 we'd see a massive recession slump take place just because of that. its funny how the more progressive people get the least progress, but point this out and you're just a bootlicker for the patriarchy/capitalists/billionaires/kochs/w.e.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Jul 13 2020 02:36pm

I’d like to see 4-8 years of a Bernie style president just to give it a fuckin shot and see how it goes. His views don’t match my own, and yeah he’s a total fuckin hypocrite rich white guy at this point, but I’d like to see what happens when the country entirely supports the poor and covers the burden of healthcare and education and childcare cost entirely. If it’s a total car crash, we live and learn. We spent trillions on a useless war and the economy didn’t crash, so I don’t have an issue spending trillions on domestic policy and seeing whether it helps or hurts.