Loudon is a Fool
If taxes must be raised, the pain should fall squarely on the lower and middle class....That's a bite, but it's probably not enough to make them hate the government. Double that and the middle class may become believers in a fiscally sound government.

The new United States Republican party slogan, folks: Of the People, By the People, Against the People.

You know, in the end, all this is self-correcting. If you keep raising the taxes of the majority of the people, guess what? They'll stop voting for you. That's why the Republican party stopped raising taxes on the middle class a long time ago, and switched to deficit spending. And blaming that on the Democrats.

I think there are issues of justice that are often ignored in soak the rich tax schemes.

I'm not entirely sure I've pointed this out before, but something like half of all government spending is to help protect assets, which are, obviously, mainly owned by the rich.

Who needs property rights protecting asserts from theft more? Who needs a military protecting the sea? (Pirates are now almost extinct thanks to our spending.) Who needs laws saying who owns what land?

But it's not just that. Who needs a cheap rail and roads to ship goods so people can buy them? Who needs an air traffic system? Who needs a court system that can work out contract law?

Yeah, everyone can use those things, but who actually does use the ATC system? Commercial airlines. And the roads...yeah, we all pay gas taxes, but shipping puts a much larger toll on the roads than transport.

Seriously, there's this sort of blindness that fails to notice all the 'traditional' things, things conservatives think are 'good and proper', that a government does to maintain the rule of law and society almost invariably benefit the people who, without such a government, would be the people who had all their stuff instantly stolen.

This is because the rich and powerful invented government, and for the first 5000 years of operation it solely was there to protect them from the poor. As it had the added side effect of protecting the poor from the poor, the poor went along with it. And then we invented democracy, and it all went to crap, because it turns out that the poor figured out they could vote too.

People on the right whine and moan when the government does things that actually would benefit all, like provide health care to everyone, but ignore the fact that 'asset protection' and 'rule of law', the major things they think a government should do, mainly protect the people with assets. (Duh.) It's only fair that people with assets should pay for that.

Anatole France said it best: The law in its infinite majesty forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread.

It also allows the poor, as well as the rich, to safely operate commercial airline service, to walk down the street wearing a $150,000 worth of jewelry, and to have the police investigate robberies of any banks they own.

We're all nice and equal under the law.

Posted by: DavidTC | April 8, 2008 5:13 PM

I don't think anything of the sort, I'm just somewhat annoyed at the conservative idea that 'socialism is bad' without the recognition that the 'traditional aspects of government', the ones that libertarians and conservatives say is the only 'legitimate' function of the government, almost entirely are set up to protect people with assets from people without assets.

I mean, there are laws that specifically set dollar amounts! Stealing more is more of a crime than stealing less, even though stealing 15 dollars from someone living min wage paycheck to min wage paycheck is a lot more harmful than stealing 50 dollars from a middle class person. But the first is a misdemeanor and the second a felony in most areas.

And even laws that are theoretically helpful to everyone, like laws against murder, end up still being disparately solved based on the economic status of the victim. Mostly because police departments in rich areas tend to be well funded, and ones in very poor areas tend to be dysfunctional.

I'm not saying the rich deserve to be robbed, but there's some fundamental lack of realization that the entire concept of 'ownership', enforced by rule of law, is for them. It is for people who own things.

And then conservatives go on and assert we should all be taxed 'equally' to make sure law enforcement has money to keep the rich from being robbed. And things that the rich don't need, but could use anyway, like government-paid health care, people shouldn't have to pay for.

It's like we're living in a commune where we all pay equally for parking, but only half of us have a car. And, meanwhile, suggestions we chip in for a washer-dryer go unheeded...the upper class have servants who wash their clothes, the middle class uses the incredibly expensive laundromat if they can afford it, and the poor shower while wearing them. But that's because a washer-dryer is 'socialism' whereas paying for parking is 'traditional'.

Posted by: DavidTC | April 8, 2008 8:40 PM