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I think the problem lies with one group asking the other group to pay their way. Nobody can deny that that’s not happening. The simplest example is over 50% of the United States pay zero taxes. 5% of the top wage earners pay what 60% of all the taxes? It’s a little out of balance don’t you think?
Don't you think the astronomical wealth inequality is a little out of balance??
We should base our laws on *both* and we do base our laws on both.
Complete lack of freedom would be actual slavery.
Complete freedom would be chaos and pretty soon, everyone's end.
Since this is about laws, if we make laws based on 'greater good', there would be NO room for individual liberty. But if we make laws protecting individual liberty there is always the potential to persuade some sacrifices for the greater good.
The moment we come into contact with each other, two or more, there is the potential for conflict and the cause of that potentiality is the selfish needs that each possess. Forcing sacrifices is easy, persuading sacrifices is not. The government is an entity that always trend towards force.
Your poll, like any good poll, should have options for Neither and Both
Living in a society with other people has to accommodate both attitudes, depending on the situation.
And no, I do not agree that "Right now in the USA, it's mainly "Individual Liberty""
Because while some people feel that way, others are constantly pushing back for the greater good.
If that's how American "left" feels about it, then American "left" had no business destroying these "collective" beliefs in post-Soviet Russia, while stealing the ideas from there. ( Something like the concepts of day cares, working mothers, the system of extensive public transportation and the rest.)
So before "pushing back" against the ORIGINAL ideas of American society, the ones it has been built upon, ( i.e. "individual liberty," not "collective,") think twice.
I'd venture to guess that the people who don't get the choices are liberals.
When you put "Individual Liberty" vs. "The Greater Good" in black and white, they can't understand that they are generally mutually exclusive.
The reason people risk their lives to come to the USA is because of "individual liberty," certainly not the collective good.
The part you don't seem to get is because we live in a world with other people, there has to be a balance between the individual wants and needs and the group's need to survive.
I think our country is based on giving individual freedom where possible. But not if the individual will upset the society.
To have total Individual Liberty would be anarchy. Nothing would ever get done or built.
We are a society. If we want the perks of living together there needs to be some give and it can't all be about "me, me, me." (Even a four-year-old learns this just being in his own family, and having friends.)
At the same time, individuality should be supported because we are not robots. We should have our degree of privacy, and of course, freedom.
If "the individual were king" then we would have people tearing eachother apart because, MINE. MINE. MINE. I can have what I want. I can do what I want. Who are you? Not me! I get MY freedom, I want to do target practice next to a playground, I want to never pay into a system I USE every day for my own (roads, schools, police, etc.) but I want to have have have. Nope. That won't work out very well either.
I reiterate. Preschoolers know this.
You CAN NOT have both. The worldviews are wholly incompatible. Pick one. We can still have a society with government-paid-for goodies under the individual liberty model. You can't have individual liberty under the collective good model. You simply cannot. It's impossible.
Simple ; Greater Good ...China
Individual Liberty...United States of America.
Thats my interpretation.
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