Thanks again for stopping by, taking the time to read, and mostly for caring enough to comment.

I can’t believe I let myself go so long without reading more of your various blogs. From technology to Tuna Helper tips, you’ve done an amazing job presenting the world with this information exchange.

Thank’s for the contribution and inspiration.

Love,
Adam

“The modern conservative is engaged in one man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
~ John K. Galbraith

Humans love to assign value judgements to things, especially humans whose worldviews are rooted in modern (post-enlightenment, pre-20th century) thought. Communism is “bad”, and capitalism is “good”. Many people become very uncomfortable when you begin to insinuate that amoral, inherently ethic-less, and staggeringly complex entities like markets should not have arbitrary values of the superlative applied to them.

I started going somewhere with this that I very much want to explore, but then I realized that I’m contributing an awful lot of content to Perk’s blog for free, so I think I will write an essay about it and put it on my own blog.

You know another point you bring up indirectly, but which always seems to baffle the majority of the population, is tax brackets. People get it in their head that if you make $249,000 you pay 32%. but at 250,000 you suddenly pay 36% or whatever the bracket is today - rather than the fact that you only pay the upper-bracketed rate on the amount above the line in the bracket. Nutballs and I try hard to explain this to people as well because they just don’t get it. People do not understand how a graduated tax system works, and how the obligation works.

Going back to the original point, of which you and I seem to agree quite perfectly, the obligation of taxes is attached to the benefit you receive by living in this country. Consider:

If you are making 1MM/year, then the odds are that you have a bunch of people working for you. Let’s say you have 10 people making 50K/year. The 50K per year people are driving on roads, used our public education system, use health system(s), are protected by fire, police etc etc … and you (the 1MM/year earner) are making money off of their efforts. In effect, the 1MM/year earner has placed a larger burden and is making greater profit from the public infrastructure, so it is completely fair that they then put more back into the till. The 50K earners use the roads and such for themselves, so they also contribute an amount to the public coffers, but not to the same extent because they have not made as much from it.

IMO this is another form of the obligation, but is just as valid and important as the simple, yet elegant wording of the Constitution. In the free-marketeer’s (or more precisely, the Libertarian) notion of the world, if (the collective I) can make money off (the collective you) then I deserve the spoils. Period. If I can get you to work for me at 25c per hour creating chairs that I will sell at a 10,000% profit, then I deserve it because I am smart and you are dumb. Capitalism at it’s essence. There will be some that read this and say, “Yeah. What’s the problem with that?”

I submit that if you have to ask, you’ve just demonstrated the answer

I had the opportunity to live in a couple different parts of Europe during the 90’s. In one country in which I lived, the income tax system was set up so that the highest tax bracket was something like 60%. However, you didn’t get into this tax bracket until you were making boatloads of money - something like $500,000 per year. Folks at lower incomes paid little to nothing in taxes.

There was virtually no grumbling about this like you hear in the U.S. Folks completely accepted that there was an upper limit to what anybody needed to earn to live a comfortable life, and that above that limit, it is perfectly appropriate that much - maybe even most - of the excess earnings should flow back to the government to help those less fortunate and pay for infrastructure, etc. The high tax rate didn’t serve to discourage entrepreneurship, hard work, or innovation — in fact, this country is one of the most successful economies in Europe. But folks recognize that great success is accompanied by great obligations to one’s country.

Now I’m not proposing a 60% tax bracket here. But I am proposing that Americans need an attitude adjustment when it comes to our obligation to our country and each other. Nobody NEEDS to make $10 million dollars a year – but if you are fortunate enough to do so, you should be willing to contribute a chunk of that back to the country that gave you the ability to earn it in the first place. You might even think about feeling proud of your ability to do that, instead of grumbling.

In all of your points, I se the 70s/80s influence the most because that’s when the current middle-aged generation was born. They were raised with that sense of greed - brought up with a sense of me first and damn the rest of you. And oh, BTW: the church backs this all up, so I’m good. (Referencing the linkage between the so-called evangelicals and their political comrades in that unholy partnership … I think we must start looking to see which of the current televangelists are new Cardinal Richelieu… could it be he gave our national benediction at the inauguration ceremony…?)

I also would love to see Obama swing harder left and dig deeper into issues that pissed us off for so long, but politically, he got elected and I did not so clearly he knows a thing or two about what he needs to do in the future. I think we’re going to have to trust that we’ll all get a little bit of what we want, and a bit of what we don’t to get back on track.

I remember the second world war. I remember how young men and women committed and in a very large sense, gave their lives to our country. The war we fought then was not a volunteer war that one could easily avoid, it was a draft war, in which every citizen gave what was asked and usually did not complain if the cost was great. Hundreds of thousands of young men purposefully marched into withering fire on beaches, in forests, and into deserts, giving their lives for the idea that our country was worth protecting.

In the 50’s, thousands of people of all races, went to the south and faced dogs, water hoses, and the Klan’s nooses to finally free the black population in our society. The fight was real and deeply painful, but people committed to it with eagerness, because it did truly help the common good.

In the 60’s, a much maligned period in our history, thousands of young people, students, workers, artists, and parents, stepped up to face the incursion of a government that had, under Nixon, decided that an imperial presidency was a good thing, regardless of the pain it inflicted upon the body politic.

During the 70’s and 80’s, we saw a time when the purveyors of greed and self interest promoted the concept of “me first and all others be damned.” Reagan was the prime mover of this philosophy, pushing for the destruction of unions, support systems, and other social programs that assisted people in getting ahead. The carnivorous among us had begun to feed on the weak and our country began to drastically change.

Today, we are at a crucial point in our nation’s history. The world as we know it could easily collapse into chaos, bloodshed and violence. Most of us are almost totally unaware of how deep the morass we have created is. It will be generations before we clearly understand just how toxic the last eight years have been for our country. The fools on the right think it is simply a contest, like the super bowl, and the object is winning and getting the spoils, and not working for the common good. They spew slogans of support for America, the troops, and “family values,” but really they only want to make their buck and get out, leaving the rest to clean up the mess.

Barack Obama is not perfect. I worry at times about his policies and view points, but I will say this: he has committed to our regaining as a nation, the sense of the common good. He is determined to drag us all into a new awareness of America as it was originally conceived. I am with him.