How much is basic dignity worth? 12%, 15%, ???

[freestyle]

That is the question that the Social Security debate boils down to for me. It is not about paying in, or taking out, or return on some imagined investment. It is about the cost of providing some basic level of dignity, care, and decency to the elderly, disabled, widows and orphans. It is about being, at some level, a decent society. I don't object at all to the part of my salary that goes to Social Security and Medicare, and I really wonder about the compassion of those who do. This selfishness and greed is the opposite of what any religion teaches and also of what any thought about human rights would lead to.

I am troubled more by the fact that the highly paid and those whose income is not from wages get to evade this collective responsibility, than by the prospect of getting out less than what I put in. If you can visit old people who you are or are not related to and find them doing more or less OK, be thankful for Social Security and work to make sure it stays around as a guarantee for those who have already given so much.

And to those who want to destroy Social Security, I would ask why they hate old people. A person's worth does not end simply because their employment does.