You wouldn't go to a five-star restaurant and expect to walk out after dining without paying, would you?
You wouldn't go to the grocery store and load up your cart and wheel it out the door without paying, would you?
You wouldn't go to your favorite department store, select the clothes and housewares and electronics of your choice and take them to your car without paying, would you?
So why do Sarah Palin and people like her say that it's OK to live in America, taking advantage of all the benefits of being an American, but that paying taxes is "unpatriotic"?
Because they are greedy, that's why.
There's no other explanation [rational or otherwise--Ed.] for their willingness to take advantage of all the benefits of living in American society without contributing their fair share to maintaining that same society.
Remember, in the US Supreme Court case that affirmed the constitutionality of the federal income tax, no lesser a light than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes noted that "taxes are the price we pay for civilization."
Yes, there are loopholes in the tax structure--most of which allow the very rich to privatize their profits while socializing their risks. That doesn't mean that those who take advantage of the loopholes are less than greedy. After all, most of the loopholes were put into the system at the behest of their lobbyists in the first place. So they get to keep all their profits and they get to take advantage of everything the government does for all of us (including but not limited to things like providing national defense, certifying the safety of the foods we eat, the drugs we take, and the places we work, and maintaining infrastructure), but they don't have to pay their share of the costs of doing these things?
What's wrong with this picture?
Anybody out there ever heard of noblesse oblige? Just in case you haven't, it's a concept not unlike the philosophy given to Spiderman: those to whom much is given are also given great responsibility.
We cannot go on spending billions more than we have while exempting that those who can best afford to help cover the costs from any responsibility to help do the same. That's economic class stratification. It's saying that those with the most money have the least responsibility. It's saying that those with the most money are better than the rest of us. That's what's un-American, not the calls for fiscal responsibility and for everyone to pay his/her fair share of the burden.
[Then again, they probably are hoping that if they spend the government into the ground, the govenrment will stop spending entirely . . . after all, they can afford to pick up the slack. But what about the rest of us, the ones who are actually in the trenches, the ones who fight the wars and do the jobs and who spend what money they have on the goods and services that give the very rich their obscene profit margins? They couldn't care less. This is the twisted end of "rugged individualism," and it ultimately means the end of America. Like it or not, there are times when we all have to put our individual wants on hold for the sake of the nation--just not to the point that the end game is the economic destruction of that very nation.--Ed.]
And they say liberals are the ones whose agenda is to exercise rights without responsibilities!
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