Quote from nitro:
I understand the conundrum well. I am of two minds on the very subject, and feel a disgust that my life is dedicated towards the acquisition of wealth. So it is best to understand the phenomena than to simply call people hypocrite, because there is no questiont that WE ALL ARE.
I think what happens is that we grow up in a material society, so those feelings are inbred into us from a very early age. As we progress in conciousness through education and experience, many of us realize what an empty self-serving existance it is. We begin to feel guilt when we see that 20,000+ children die on a daily basis (some people never give it a second thought). We begin to wonder how much of our wealth is "zero sum". We begin to have a split mind of our very existance. We are disgusted with ourselves.
What I believe now is what Picasso believed:
"I want to live like a poor man with lots of money" - Pablo Picasso
Warren Buffet [sort of] lives this way. The reason for me is mostly one of not having to worry about things like not having enough to deal with old age, or being able to afford an education, or having to slave away at some stupid job. To be able to impact people by giving it away anonymously. It has nothing to do with huge houses or fancy cars or snorting coke or yatchs or planes or fancy clothes or fancy food or having a trophy wife or or or...
Nitro, you are missing a very important point. Yes, I agree with you that we are ALL hypocrites on some level and on some level we all want to be independent financially. Here is where you are misguided. These leaders are getting their wealth through power. And power is a tricky thing. You see, to get it and hold on to it, you have to kill people. And many of these so called "socialists" have killed millions all in the name of socialism. So yes, I'm sure you are a good guy. I believe that actually. But I don't think you or anyone on this board would kill and destroy or pillage for an extra buck or two. The streets around the world are flooded with the blood left behind from the socialists who are fighting for the common man. If you truly stepped back and looked at the damage left behind of these people, I think you would have a change of heart. It reminds me of those murder suicides you see on the news where a husband and father kills his wife and kids before killing himself and leaves a note behind saying, I killed them because they would have suffered without me in the world. THAT is your socialist.