Or available free of charge from GuideStar.com.

Fine. If you want to lie about me and then lie about my positions, then I don't see the need to continue this.

Fine. If you want to bastardize the definition into something else, even THEN, your definition doesn't meet what these people did because NO ONE can take simple "fortitude and talent" and turn it into a fortune without the help (read "fortitude and talent") of others.

That's the point I'm trying to make here: No one is capable, in a free market system, of becoming rich and successful all by themselves. So, when people complain that the rich have to pay more taxes than the poor (something they currently DO NOT do; the redistribution of wealth is currently in full effect on the conservative side), they are simply complaining that the rich have to pay for what they use.

No, none of these people are self-made (they did not, by themselves, plant an apple orchard with an apple seed, tend to the orchard all by themselves, sell the apples all by themselves, do all the accounting all by themselves, and make themselves a fortune from those seeds. No. They had the help of thousands, if not millions of people.

So, don't give me this charade of the 'self-made millionaire'. They don't exist.

Self-made men, according to Frederick Douglass and Benjamin Franklin are "the men who owe little or nothing to birth, relationship, friendly surroundings; to wealth inherited or to early approved means of education; who are what they are, without the aid of any of the favoring conditions by which other men usually rise in the world and achieve great results."

Every one of those people listed in your citation had the aid of favoring conditions by which other men usually rise in the world and achieve great results.

Sorry, but I can prove that none of these people made all their money all by themselves:

You can't make money without help. None, and I do mean none, of these people would be where they are today without the help of thousands of programmers, testers, accounting staff, payroll staff, help desk staff, the EVIL GUBMINT, and millions of consumers.

No dodge. Your questions are the same as mine. Liberals don't want the government to control industry.

None of the people listed in your article are "self-made". Not a single one.

Do you still beat your wife?

What makes you think that liberals are communists?

That poll is worded badly. If one was questioned about what liberals and conservatives actually believe in, the numbers would be reversed.

Instead, after decades of stigmatizing the word "liberal", I'm actually surprised that those self-identifying as "liberal" would be so high. In fact, take the number of self-identifying "moderates" and add them to the number of self-identifying "liberals" for a more accurate view.

I know a lot of hard-left leaning people that would be disgusted to find out that they were, in fact, "liberals".

Simply coming from "rags" does not mean that you're "self-made".