> It may have been harder or they may have had to work hard, but there's no reason to make the argument the opportunity wasn't there, because it typically is.

This a a fallacy. The difference between pulling yourself up by your bootstraps or not is far more than just "how hard you work". Similar to a successful start-up, hard work is a prerequisite but not sufficient.

In reality, that opportunity is just frequently not there for many poor people, regardless of how hard they work. Yes it is there for some people and some of those people fail to work hard enough to take advantage of it. However, the belief that people are poor because they are lazy is generally false and quite disrespectful.

You want to see taxes as money being taken at gun point. That is sorta true, but then you must also be opposed to debt collectors being able utilize those same guns to collect on their loans?

In my view, our ability to make money is inherently dependent on the society we live in. You can't make millions without customers or infrastructure or educated workers or the rule of law. As such, wealthy individuals owe a debt to society for helping them acrue and keep that wealth. That debt is what justifies taxing that wealth. There is a good deal of evidence that the sort of broad investments you can make with that money have incredibly high returns for society and the ability for individuals to accumulate wealth.

I think we agree that the money is best spent investing in providing more opportunities to society rather than encouraging bad choices and laziness.