Am I mad? Fuck yes! Anger is a completely valid human emotion, and it is my personal natural response to your particular brand of asshole. I'm annoyed by your dismissive and patronizing tone -- I'll admit that. That does not, however, justify your attitude. There is a reason why it's customary to hold a certain standard of decorum in public debates -- to avoid needless banter like this. That's all I'm going to say about that. Now, moving on: > You say I've only made straw-man arguments. Illuminate them. Again, we'll revisit the charity example: > That's not an analogy. That's a "rich people have kids, therefore they shouldn't have to pay taxes" argument. You have not explained why this is so. You took an analogy which mentioned children and somehow transformed it into that simple mantra which you keep repeating. There were no actual children being discussed, not even in the sense that the "poor" are the metaphorical "children". However you have taken this redefined version of the argument and attacked it. That is a straw man fallacy. > You say I'm "outside the scope of my argument." Demonstrate why. I was referring to the fact that you were leaving the boundaries of the proposed analogy. Here, you said: > If you really stretch to make it an analogy, the analogy is "rich people have a paternal relationship with poor people, and without government intervention rich people have a history and tendency of promoting poor people to positions of power out of altruism." Which is a silly analogy to make. Because they don't. And never have, and never will. Unless there's a tax break in it for them, of course. The analogy was only meant to demonstrate the role of coercion within the two models of wealth transfer. If, as Warren states, the wealthy are meant to "pay it forward" to the community which supports them, it is because it is a generally accepted social practice and not because it is federally mandated (as in the example of hereditary wealth between family members). You exceeded the scope of the analogy when you made the quoted argument because you made an observation which, although true, does not actually break the parallels made in the analogy. One could also point to examples wherein the parents do not transfer wealth to their children. The point still remains: there is no coercion involved. Now I'll go back to your initial reply to artifex to highlight more of what I'm talking about. > "The final major principled problem with Warren's position is that the government gives the rich little choice in accepting the alleged benefits of its activities." Did you see that? We're now arguing that the rich shouldn't have to pay for infrastructure because they were never given the option of TURNING THAT INFRASTRUCTURE DOWN. No shit. Here's the elaboration: "And CEOs in Boise — who don't think they are at serious risk of an al Qaeda attack — don't have the option of rejecting the US government's "helpful" foreign policy with its tremendous price tag." That's right - if you don't agree with a government policy, you shouldn't have to fund it. You didn't actually address this argument, you just ridiculed it. Then there is this significant chunk of the article sub-titled "Practical Problems with Warren's Stance" which you didn't not address at all -- and it's no small piece, either. It is a central point which holds tremendous weight in the article in that it address Warren's quote directly.