[spiderfarmer]

> Equitable is a terrible goal. Taken to extremes, it's communism. Where everyone ends up equally poor.

How you go from a society that focuses on the common good to communism is beyond me. One is a moral goal, the other is a form of government. Most Christians in this thread boast that they are somehow morally superior. I guess not.

> It's a noble goal and idea in theory, but put into practice it causes great misery and poverty.

Again. The secular countries are all doing much better than the USA and that gap is getting wider rapidly. Why are you denying obvious truths?

> Because fundamentally it's at odds with reality. People are not equal.

Ah. There you have it. You somehow feel superior to the people around you and think that if we take care of "underperformers", it somehow disadvantages you.

I just argue that we should take care of people who aren't able to bring value to the table (anymore). And that is a net benefit to society. Less crime, less suffering, better life expectancy, more social mobility. Basically every index where the US is underperforming, reflects societal efforts to care about the poor.

Again. Where are your superior christian morals?

> For a system of organizing a society and economy to be successful, it has to acknowledge that and empower the out-performers, who then pull everyone else along for the ride.

Nothing about a secular government is incompatible with capitalism, as long as the government takes their job as a regulator seriously, which hasn't been the case in the US for a long time.

But other countries do way better. Deal with it.

[slashdev]

You seem triggered. You’re attacking me and assuming lots of things.

I’m secular and don’t live in the US.

Europe is struggling economically, having been left in the dust by the US in the last decade. On top of this it is suffering major societal problems with the influx of refugees. Essentially being conquered by religious zealots from the Middle East who don’t share and don’t care for their values.

I’m completely onboard with having good social programs that make society more fair, but the model demonstrated by Europe is not clearly a success - in fact it appears to be slowly dying.

Deal with it.