I'm actually with you more than you'd think ... but here's where I get hung up ...

I have a friend who is roughly the same age as me, same race (white), parents were the same class, and we grew up < 3 miles from each other. Yet he is the laziest eff'ing slob I know. His wife works part-time, he collects unemployment and makes no attempt to train or find a job. They live in subsidized housing and make ends meet via welfare and taking advantage of others' charity.

I'm curious how you argue that all of society (including people like this) should have their lifestyle increase in perpetuity.

I (being optimistic) would like to believe most people want to be productive. So as long as you make it 'easy' to be productive, then the problem should be minimal.

You can always find fringe cases where people are undeserving and insulting to a particular system. But the system shouldn't be defined by the few.

For every one person you find, who is a lazy slob, I bet I can find three people who want to work, want to make something of it but just don't have the means to get out of the rut they are in. (presumptuous I know, and I can't really back this up, but I'd like to believe it is true).

So basically you are basing your proposition of robbing the people who have made wealth for themselves on your really wanting to believe that most people would want to be productive? Isn't that, how shall I say it, rather strange? Because for your assertion that those who want to be productive outnumber slobs 3:1, I'll posit the exact opposite.

> ...robbing the people who have made the wealth wealth for themselves...

How about I flip that then, the wealthy robbed the people to generate their wealth, and then complain when they have to give (some of) it back.

It is very rare to find a company that isn't exploiting someone along the chain in order to generate that wealth. Of course capitalism renames it to "surplus value", but it is in fact exploitation (people being paid less than the value they add).

Do you really think an individual is responsible for all wealth they generate? So, if Steve Jobs was born in china, and lived through the cultural revolution, he would have still built Apple (or equivalent) and been the success he is today. Because society and the services around him had nothing to do with his success?

People don't generate wealth for themselves, they capitalise on opportunities provided to them. The U.S provided a lot of opportunities to a minority of people, who then capitalised on it. But their wealth wouldn't exist without the opportunities being available and thus they should pay tax (proportional to the amount of wealth they have generated) so that the U.S (government) can provide more opportunities to more people.

It's not a perfect system, but I'd rather subsidize a few bums like your friend and also subsidize people who really do need welfare / disability / unemployment.

The good news for is that a standout non-lazy person will raise much more revenue than a stand-out leach will be able to take.