Friday, February 9, 2007

Rabble Rousing, part one of many

I know from history that liberals and progressives have advanced many ambitious sets of programs with catchy names like Square Deal, New Deal, Fair Deal, and Great Society. I think that now we need another catchy slogan. I call it the Fair Share. The idea isn't unique to me, by any means, but I thought I'd give a bit of stump speechifying a try. The reasoning goes like this:

Most Americans, real Americans, in the heartlands, on the coasts, on the farms and in the small towns, and in the cities, gripe about their taxes. Fair enough, griping is part of what America is all about. But, and here is the important part, they go ahead and pay them. They pay taxes to every level of government, not cheerfully, but they pay them. They recognize that what they get back from the various levels of government depends, in some vague and mysterious way, on taxes being paid. They understand that taxes are their bill for living in a functioning country, not a geographic expression. They know that taxes pay the salaries of their kids' teachers, the beat cops on the street, the firemen who show up for emergencies, the roads that they drive on. Perhaps most personally, they know that the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines serving their country abroad, in whatever capacity, their sons and daughters, are paid by the government, using money from taxes. They may grumble, but in the end, real Americans pay their Army bill.
But there a few who think they are above all that. The ultra-rich, in their decadent enclaves scattered throughout the nation, along with their enablers, declare that they shouldn't have to shoulder the burden of taxation. They don't want to pay their fair share. In a way, this is perfectly understandable. After all, the richest of the rich have been cutting themselves off from the rest of us for decades. They deny that they have any obligation to their employees, to their customers, to the environment, to their communities. Why should the nation be any different? They see themselves as lone wolves, above all us common sheep.
But most of us know that even wolves do better hunting in packs. We understand that "no man is an island", that a certain amount of interdependence is inevitable in any society of any real complexity. We know that we are, to a point, our brothers' and sisters' keepers. And we know that keeping up with our responsibilities to our neighbors, our communities, our nation, is the right thing to do. We pay our fair share. Why won't the "libertarians" and those who hide behind them pay theirs?

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