“I don't know if I can live on my income or not -- the government won't let me try it.”

Your income is there to allow you to meet your responsibilities... including support of the common good via your taxes.

You two are socialists. I meet my responsibilities. I should not be forced to support what others are responsible for. Private companies do a much better job than government providing the needs of the poor. Life-long welfare recipients are leeches on our country, providing nothing and owed nothing. What part of "common good" is invading Iraq? Oh yeah...it keeps our gas prices low by stealing their oil.

No Joe, they are communists who love government because it lets them steal the fruits of others labor by proxy and give it to the lazy, the stupid and the unproductive. They are not Americans they just masquerade as such while trying to subvert every principle the country was built on.

I doubt that I'll ever be given the opportunity to live on my income. However, I'm sure that someone else is (living on my income, that is).

'Income', pre-2nd plank of the communist manifesto was, as a general accounting practice and procedure, a corporate excise. Pre-funny money (a fiat debt system), income was an equation of lawful money (a tangible monetary element of exchange with intrinsic value), That which is currently holding itself out as income by the occupying statist theocracy infesting this land is, what is left over after robber barons have justified their booty. The carnal gods (those calling themselves government) make the question very difficult to answer. If the question is, can I live on that which I exchange my labors for; the answer is, yes.

Reston, who determines my 'responsibilities'? The common good is defined by whom? I have a real responsibility to feed and clothe myself -- that is not YOUR responsibility, nor is it my responsibility to feed and clothe you. It is for every man's conscience to determine the 'common good' -- the voluntary contribution to which is true compassion. Reston frames his argument in terms of 'responsibility to the common good' -- the key difference is the definition of 'responsibility.' If imposed or forced, then it's not a responsibility but a duty imposed without consent. It is not 'service' but 'servitude.'

The communists'/socialists' clarion call is "we are victims and oppressed, and we demand you take care of us as you would your own 'privileged' children." This is the oldest communist trick in the book. Rally the minorities (blacks, women, gays, atheists) as an oppressed class, and subvert the very meaning of responsibility until it means its polar opposite. Unemployed slaves demanding their slavery upon all in the name of "fairness." Hence the rise in the field of psychiatry to define/redefine behavior to suit the cultural Marxist agenda. 'Normal' becomes abnormal, and self-delusion is not only tolerated but the rest of us are supposed to 'celebrate' it as well. The emperor has no clothes! ;-)