<p>leibow your point about having friends who died on 9/11 doesn’t make you any better at formulating foreign policy or dealing with the muslim world. sorry for your loss, but I still don’t think it entitled America to attack Iraq, a country with no connection to terrorism or the events of 9/11, and unleash all the suffering that wars have brought and always will bring on the Iraqi (and our own) people. and for the record two kids who i was close to in high school lost their dad in the pentagon on 9/11, so I wasn’t completely unaffected. </p>
<p>i’m no idealist. i’m a pragmatist, and you should be too. i analyze things. and so, without further ado:</p>
<p>“capital gains taxes, inheritance taxes, spending on welfare, etc. The middle class will get clobbered.”</p>
<p>Spending on welfare? As in Obama is going to increase or decrease spending on welfare? If he increases welfare spending, as I hope he does, I’m all for it. I’ve always believed society should help its less-fortunate members, and you, as a self-proclaimed member of the middle class, should too. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to decrease welfare spending.</p>
<p>Capital gains taxes? You mean the money that rich people make playing the stock market, which then gets taxed and benefits the state a little bit before it gets squirreled away into offshore bank accounts in the Bahamas or the Cayman Islands? Which Bush cut massively while we suffer the worst budget deficit in history? Oh yeah, those. I don’t see anything about taxing money you, a member of the middle class, make from the stock market (which isn’t REAL MONEY to begin with) and using it to pay for us to go overseas to play World Policemen (a role the rest of the world, somehow, doesn’t want us to paly) and kill some brown/black/yellow/orange/purple people, which you seem to advocate when you talk about Iraq. Or, Heaven forbid, to support the poor; even though you tremble with rage at the mere mention of increasing welfare spending, I for one think it’s a worthy cause, worthier perhaps than another half-cocked war.</p>
<p>As for the inheritance tax? It never took EVERYTHING. The purpose of it is to prevent an ancestral American noble class from forming by prohibiting one generation of Gatsbys from passing on its massive wealth to the next. I for one see nothing wrong with that aim. God knows we have enough privilege in this country already. As for you, a self-proclaimed member of the middle class? Work harder at your job. Make real money. Don’t play the lottery, don’t gamble, don’t expect a huge windfall of money from dead relatives (money you didn’t legitimately earn through your own labor), and you’ll be in good shape. The inheritance tax increases meritocracy in this country and I am all for that.</p>
<p>Everything you’ve cited are examples of things which help wealthy people far, far more than the middle class. I fail to see, in fact, just how the “middle class” will get clobbered on all these issues. Furthermore, as I understand it, all these were touchstones of the BUSH presidency (or what meekly passed for it). They have nothing to do with Obama. I don’t think he’s said anything about all these issues one way or the other, and though I’ve given what I’m pretty sure was the Democratic line on them, I fail to see how they’re going to mark Obama…? </p>
<p>If you want to talk about what you percieve to be Obama’s weakness in foreign policy, stick to that.</p>