Somewhat politically motivated

[adrian76]

This past weekend, cid62 and I got into a conversation with someone about what was more important...the individual's needs or wants or the community needs or wants. Let me know what you think.

Poll What is more important?

Comments

[adrian76]

I agree somewhat. Personally I think the individual is more important than the community...simply because as you said, "without individuals, there would be no community or family".

However the issue I'm primarily pondering is the government mandated individual support of the community. The main question that was presented was, "Should the income of the wealthy be distrubuted to the poor?" I'm more of the personal responsibility type. If a person is poor (as I used to be) then that person should do everything they can to pull themselves out of poverty. If the wealthy person wishes to contribute to assist the poor, that is fine with me but it should be up to the individual, not a government agency taking money from a wealthy or even middle class person to provide for the poor. Smacks of Marxism to me...and I don't like it.

[justben]

I worry that political discourse in America often degenerates to false dichotomies, much like this one here -- "the individual versus the community" -- when in fact the two are intertwined in a fashion far too complex to be described so simply

[sophocles]

With the healthiest communities I've seen, it's very much a duality. The individual serves the and contributes to the community, and the commumity promotes the growth of the individual.