Paying Taxes IS Patriotic
By Steve Hynd Thursday Sep 18, 2008 5:00pmI agree with Joe Biden. Biden said: "It's time to be patriotic ... time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut." Tax cuts in a time of war, or a time of massive financial crisis, are unpatriotic. But not just tax cuts for the rich.
This should flow logically from rightwing positions as well as from "kitchen table" common sense that you can't spend more than you make. As I wrote in 2005:
"In times of war when the military needs every cent for armor, bullets and bandages, it is verging on treasonous to avoid paying taxes even if the methods used are ostensibly legal. It certainly isn't supporting the troops or the war on terror."
That was the point about the "Good War', WW2. Everyone shared the fiscal burden. Either a war is worth that commitment or it isn't, and rightwingers have consistently argued that the War on Some Terror is a generational war just as vital as WW2. Bush in 2005 said it:
World War II generation endured great suffering and sacrifice because they understood that defeating tyranny in Europe and Asia was essential to the security and freedom of America.
Like previous wars we have waged to protect our freedom, the war on terror requires great sacrifice from Americans.
So, here's the sacrifice. Put your money where your mouths are and make it.
Similiarly, the financial crisis is going to add 1 to 2 trillion dollars to a national debt which, at $9.6 trillion, is already more by six or seven trillion than the federal government takes in every year and which has been ballooned to pay for those wars - for which few have made any kind of sacrifice. I don't care what's being said on the stump - tax cuts are a pipedream of fiscal irresponsibility and there isn't enough pork in the budget to cover the coming bill, by a factor of 100.
Thank you, the Bush administration and Republican politicians, for those woes - by pushing dumb lending decisions by mandate while at the same time encouraging an utter lack of oversight of get-rich-quick exploiters. Thank you, flip-flopper McCain, who has always been an enemy of oversight for the financial markets (right up until yesterday). Thank you, in particular, Phil Gramm - John McCain's adviser.
Do Republicans intend shouldering collective responsibility for the debt and making a sacrifice - paying more taxes - or do they intend to shove their responsibility for payment off onto their grandchildren?
Apparently the latter. Ed Morrissey today tells his readers "America’s economic woes have nothing to do with taxes." Well, Ed, they do if the country wants to ever recover from those woes. Be honest enough to say so.
The final word comes from Melissa McEwan, explaining how progressives should push back hard against the Right on this.
Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: "I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization." And I've always thought the Democrats should use that, should connect, at every opportunity, paying taxes and buying civilization.
Every time some bloviating nitwit conservative goes on about how the government never gave him nuttin', the Democrats should say: "Oh, you've never used roads? Never mailed anything? Never logged on to the internet?"
And every time the Republicans talk about the Democrats wanting to raise taxes, the Dems should retort: "Yes, we want to raise taxes on those who can afford it, because with taxes, we buy civilization. We build schools and bridges and freaking spaceships. You got a problem with that?"
Indeed.
Crossposted from Newshoggers
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Sacrifice, what and give up golf?
How about making taxes earmarked by application. At least in terms of war. The people who agree with the war effort should pay for it. If the war is really something that concerns the whole nation they will gladly pay it.
Oh, and in the team Palin - McCain, John is definitely the bitch.
The great sacrifice W referred to was to personal freedoms, wire taps, habeas corpus etc.
No financial sacrifice was intended.
I agree with JJ, and its the same case with the draft. If a war is just, you don't NEED a military draft, enough people will sign up.
"All of the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arises, not from the defects of the Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation." -- John Adams
I'm a tax lawyer, FWIW.
Paying income taxes is like standing peacefully while you're milked.
As long as you stand peacefully, they'll milk you.
BTW, I don't mind being milked so long as my milk is used to benefit my fellow citizens.
Freedom isn't free. It costs money.
Republicans do not believe in paying taxes...it is beneath them. It is only the little people who have to pay taxes. They GET money from the government, they do not give money to the government.
Republicanism is a sickness...a malignant disease. I hope this election puts it into permanent remission and that our country will once and for all be cured of the cancer that calls itself conservatism.
I'm fond of this old chestnut, myself:
From each according to their ability; to each according to their need.
I'd favor a 90% tax on ANY income over $3Million/year, including the value of non-financial assets acquired in pay for services or material rendered.
Nobody who NOW takes home (nets) less than $15,000/yr as an adult wage earner should pay any Federal income tax at all. They're as good a indentured in this economy. They don't make enough to save, so they're spending every dime they get, and paying taxes on their purchases.
and a graduated tax for everybody else
Works for me.Apart from the obvious sacrifices that should be made during "a time of war" it should be clear by now that you can't have wide open unregulated capitalism and a healthy social climate concurrently.
Paying taxes is required because without it, government shrivels up and the economy collapses.
How the Right can honestly argue treason is beyond me.
Gary @ 4:
...
You don't know much about how WWII was run, do you?
There was a draft, hombre.
I'm making the sacrifice. I'm going shopping!
BTW, the repuglickins,"what, me worry?" Alfred E. Bush's and their special class breed won't be shoving responsibility for payment off on their grandchildren when there are your grandchildren who shall inherit the 'golden' screw.
MsJoanne @ 8:
That is about as false a statement that has ever been printed on this blog. Here's to you MsJoanne.
Orangutan. @ 5:
Said the signer of the Alien and Sedition Acts.
VietVet8666 @ 6:
Yes, and you can shear sheep as often as they'll give, but you can only skin them once.
pinkobait @ 10:
Well, it's not quite as bad as it was in the good ol' days of Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Morgan.
Pretty close, but at least the old folks have a choice beyond starving, now.
General Pavel Rennenkampf Xocoyotzin @ 15:
The "economy" is like Tinkerbell: as long as everybody applauds real hard and thinks real good, positive thoughts, it'll pull through...
Listen to Biden, then listen to BillO lambaste Obama for wanting to raise his taxes (BillO's salary is $9 million a year not including book deals, graft, bribery, kickbacks, etc.).
dennis @ 14:
woody, tokin librul @ 18:
Yeah....pull through to breadlines and Bushburghs.
woody, tokin librul @ 9:
Most people around 15k do get most of their taxes back, but that means they don't get the money when they need it. The gov't takes a nice little no interest loan out of each paycheck. Last time I checked, most bills are not yearly, they are monthly.
90% of 3 mil? 300k? Yeah, I think you can live comfortably on that. Make car payments on 5-6 cars. Pay land taxes on a few homes. Not too bad.
90% of 15k? 1500? No, that doesn't scale quite as well. Even 10% is too much. 10% is rent for 3 months.
" or do they intend to shove their responsibility for payment off onto their grandchildren?"
Correction: Given that "their" grandchildren will inherit more money than they otherwise would, thanks to the Bush tax cuts, and will inherit even more thanks to the Repbulican obsession with the "death tax," it will not be THEIR grandchildren who will pay for this. YOUR grandchildren will. The grandchildren of the middle and lower class will pay for the mistakes of these Plutocrats, and those who were foolish and irresponsible enough to elect them.
Paying taxes is kinda the equivalent of paying your association fees in a gated community.
In many, if not most, important ways, the USofA is on the way to becoming a 'gated' nation, what with the endless fence across the desert and the trillions soughed up by the various demands of "Homeland Security".
So think of paying taxes as your part in cummunity beatuification: keeping the lawns trim and the undesirables out...
The war on TERROR is a sham - just like the war on DRUGS. Anything to make Americans think they need to be giving up their hard-earned money to FIGHT SOMETHING! But, somehow, the tax money always ends up in the hands of the elitist corporatists.
And, may I say: Dennis, you are in no way qualified to judge what may or may not be a "False statement" on C&L. Go dis-seminate by yourself, in your bedroom, like all the rest of the right-wing, repug perverts
Military service is the only thing that's more patriotic than what Biden's saying.
It's about doing something that does NOT benefit you for the good of the country.
Rush Limbaugh and his clones can be thanked for bringing us to a point as a country where this is idea is mocked and even attacked as unamerican.
Amitola @ 25:
If I may, attacking Dennis's beliefs is fine. Argumentum ad hominem is argumentum ad hominem regardless of what you think it is.
woody, tokin librul @ 24:
Ah...
anarchists. Ready to kill the 6 billion that are going to die without the current governments that are ensuring most of them get fed?
The bailout this week represents Bush and his team giving a big finger to the American people and a big salute to the next generation of Wall Street predators.
<90% of 3 mil? 300k? Yeah, I think you can live comfortably on that. Make car payments on 5-6 cars. Pay land taxes on a few homes. Not too bad.
90% of 15k? 1500? No, that doesn’t scale quite as well. Even 10% is too much. 10% is rent for 3 months.
that's 90% of everything OVER $3 Mil...subject to graduated taxes on everything under that, just like everybody else...rightnow, 35% is aobut the highest...
woody, tokin librul @ 9:
I'd buy that completely. I may have to fork up a few extra bucks in taxes, but if it is used wisely (yeah, I know...a big IF) I am more than willing to do so to ensure that we have safe roads, healthcare for everyone, a ready military to be used if we are attacked, and all of those other silly liberal ideals.
BigD145 @ 22:
But remember, even if you get all the withheld income tax back, you do not get back the other payroll takes: FICA, Medicare, etc. This is quite a chunk of change for lots of low-income people. The income limit for payroll taxes needs to be raised or eliminated as well.
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." -- Henry Ford
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
— Thomas Jefferson
Most here, from what I can tell, favor working within the existing system.
To whom I say, good luck, I hope you're successful, but I've hedged my bets.
Pericles @ 23:
No one person should inherit anymore than $1,000,000. That's enough of a head-start for anybody. Any estate left after each heir has received their Mil, and other legal bequests are met, should revert automatically to the state...
dennis @ 14:
Apparently, you haven't read any of the lies and bullshit that spews from your pea brain daily. Your mendacity equals McCain - a pretty lofty goal, troll.
Actually, the smartest thing for "America" (does the country even exist anymore? or is it something out of a childhood dream?), the smartest thing for America to do is to start defaulting on the debt by printing trillions of dollars and mailing it out to each and every America in $1,000 monthly increments. Let the Chinese hold the bag.
More people need to study the economy and monetary policy of this country.
Here's the best documentary... The Money Masters
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936
Here's a shorter one.. The Federal Reserve
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1693084887024293324
Here's a good one.. The Income Tax
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173
Hope we get the job done. Peace.
Dennis,
From where I sit, you're a contrarian within the existing system.
Which means, as I see it, you're half-correct.
mark @ 31:
Seems to me that should be okay, since we all expect some benefit to accrue to ourselves from those payments. Low-income folks pay proportionately less into those funds anyway. They're Social Insurance plans, after all, for every one. Milton Friedman cashed and made a ritual of spending his social security check, just I think, as a fuck you to Roosevelt...
Please don't tell me Thomas Jefferson put an unnecessary comma between the subject and the verb.
woody, tokin librul @ 34:
That isn't necessary. Cut Defense Spending. Make Corporations pay taxes. Etc.
i thought that dennis would have enlisted by now. i guess that yellow streak is permanent.
JudyLou @ 40:
That's what you are worried about?? Stay strong.
General Pavel Rennenkampf Xocoyotzin @ 17:
General Pavel Rennenkampf Xocoyotzin @ 17:
True enough.Still,America needs to think about reinvesting in its infrastructures and social programs which Chomsky has pointed out could be every bit as lucrative as its military/industrial/corporate model.
America could easily put half of its military spending elsewhere and still be far ahead of the rest of the planet as far as military superiority goes.
mark @ 7:
That's the dumbest thing i've ever heard. The idea that government gets to decide how much of YOUR hard earned money YOU get to keep is patently absurd and is not what the founders had in mind.
dennis @ 14:
Know what, Dennis? She's right. It's no longer the "party of Lincoln." Or even the party of Eisenhower, Nixon, Percy, Chafee, Jeffords, Baker or Dirksen.
Wake up, clue in and smell the proverbial coffee. Your "party" stinks.
Orangutan. @ 41:
Sure it is. Inherited wealth is the bane of democracy. We wouldn't have to deal with the Chimp's legacy, now, if Bush pere and meree had been prevented from inheriting Fuuking fortunes...
Michael at 45
The reason taxpayer money has been used to protect U.S. corporations abroad is that major corporations control congress and the White House.
For some reason, my favorite John Kenneth Galbraith quotations seem fitting here...
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. "
"Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
"The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character building values of the privation of the poor. "
"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. "
"If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. "
"Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative. "
"More die in the United States of too much food than of too little. "
It doesn't matter as long as the Clintons are sabotaging the election.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/polit.....on-pr.html
pinkobait @ 44:
Republicans do not believe in paying taxes...it is beneath them. It is only the little people who have to pay taxes. They GET money from the government, they do not give money to the government.
But that would be beneficial to too many people and the GOP will have none of that. Our tax money has to be funneled to the least with the most. That is GOP requirement for any tax spending.
Just ask Blackwater who is down in Texas now, just as they were after Katrina, getting $350 per day per mercenary. And the rest gets funneled to Eric Prince, a religious neocon who loves him some Bush.
It's patriotic to send our young to die to protect our corporate system...
and how many of those corporations pay NO TAXES?
Michael @ 45:
The founders didn't have in mind a standing army, far-flung military bases, fleets of enormous nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, each one capable of wiping out a medium-sized country, financial 'derivatives,' or Sean Hannity (/.g.) in mind either, pard...
A heck, at this late stage I'm almost willing to say let the Republicans pay no taxes. No representation without taxation - give them no vote if they won't pay :-)
And they don't get to drive on our roads, call for our police and firefighters, use our military for their wars, get their trash hauled by our collectors, pay for things in dollars...
Regards, C
woody, tokin librul @ 53:
I agree on all accounts. Don't you find it ironic that over 70% of the country thinks the we need a new direction as a nation, and at the same time we've never been farther from our constitution. If Joe Biden want's to talk about patriotism and supporting the troops then why doesn't he make good on his oath to uphold and defend the constitution. Anything else would effectively render any soldiers sacrifice meaningless.
VietVet8666 @ 38:
I don't mind paying taxes, VietVet. I don't mind paying more taxes. I don't mind giving to charity; as a matter of fact, I prefer giving more to charity because I feel good about doing it. What I don't particularly care for are politicians who want more of my taxes because they want to grow government and redistribute wealth as secondary concerns to their primary concerns of getting elected, as is the case with the two current Democrats.
Neither I nor any Republican I know hates paying their fair share of taxes, as MsJoanne falsely asserts. What people like her who hate us never can explain, is just what amount is that fair share that 'we' are supposed to pay. To her, it's always just more, and it's never enough.
woody, tokin librul @ 53:
Just think of the money it must cost just to keep Sean Hannity's enormous head spit shined and propped up.
Cernig @ 54:
The only problem with that is - churches. No taxes but man, do they have more say than I do.
Maybe all those prisons that Halliburton built can house every neocon supporting, POS Republican in America.
Damn, that's an orgasmic thought. I need a cigarette now.
well, we will not survive bush/cheney.
the war has not been paid for....bush/cheney have hidden all the bills
until the next president takes over
now, they are making every man, woman and child for
the next three+ generations pay for the crimes they and
their bastard friends have committed on wall st and in the
banking industry.
and i thought you need KY to get a good f#cking.
apparently not, bush/cheney have tied everyone up
and are dry-humping the American people.
So ... Repubs think chipping in to help out is a bad thing?
They think it's wrong to expect the very affluent to pay a little more to help their country work?
Fuck, U.S. conservatives are the most contemptible greedheads in the world. Hands down.
Spoken like a man who makes more than $100,000.00 a year.
Don't even try to attach patriotism to paying for government boondoggles and fu@k ups.
Mr. Biden, how about you convince President Obama to remove a couple of the ARMIES that we have scattered around the world right now, all in the name of "spreading democracy". THAT could save us a few pennies.
But I suppose the defense industry wouldn't be able to handle the SHOCK... another business that's "too big to fail"?
"The power to tax involves the power to destroy." - John Marshall
A cynical man might say that Federal Reserve is hungry again, and daddy Joe is promising it a late-night snack on Inauguration day.
MsJoanne, making churches tax-exempt for anything other than the portion of their incomes used for charity work was always a con.
Regards, C
Michael @ 55:
I do believe that Biden said just that not too long ago...three or four days, if I recall.
Get thee to CO and VA!!!
A group of volunteers just launched a site called ObamaTravel.org that puts volunteers who want to travel to swing states in touch with financial sponsors and swing state host families, and allows the sponsor to track the progress and on-the-ground numbers of the volunteer they've sponsored.
It’s sort of a political hybrid of Craig's List and Team-in-Training and a pretty cool concept - check it out here: http://ObamaTravel.org/
I think that the draft should be reinstated for family members of anyone in congress and the executive branch
Wasn't it John Locke who said...I buy civilization with my taxes? When I get frustrated about writing the check to the IRS, I reflect on this purchase and think it's a pretty good deal.
MsJoanne @ 63:
Great! But if he believes in the income tax then he would do good to tell us where the constitution gives the government the right impose an income tax on the American people. I missed that part.
Michael @ 67:
Right where it gives Congress the right to create legislation, and the President to sign them into law. If you can get the Supreme Court to declare the income tax unconstitutional, please let us know.
dennis @ 56:
Which party has been in charge for eight years in the executive branch, six years in the legislative branch? And for the last two years, which party had a slim majority of one - Joe Lieberman? And how much wealth has been redistributed under GOP rule? How much corporate welfare are we seeing right now? How many people are out of their houses? Out of their jobs? Priced out of heathcare -- or ineligible?
You disgust me at such a visceral level. You are a pathetic human being. You think redistributing wealth is OK if it goes to Bush cronies but to anything that might go to real citizens of this country who are beneath the level of humanity to deserve anything.
[Deleted. Abusive. Site Monitor]
VietVet8666 @ 6:
what happening with the bush/cheney milking,
they are forcing all of us to suck ourselves dry.
Cernig @ 54:
...Or drink from public city and rural water systems or flush their toilets down our public sewers...
Cernig @ 62:
Don't you know it!!
Michael @ 45:
The founders this.. the founder that.. This ain't 1776, brother. And how the hell are you sure what the founders thought. I've read enough history to know the founders thought a lot of things. Adams disagreed with Jefferson, ectera and they compromised. Everyone seems to forget there must be room for compromise. Personally, I think collecting taxes based on income deducted by the employer is a pretty fair system. Perfect? Who knows!?
Here is what I do know.. it takes money to maintain and sustain a military, it takes money to support a national infrastructure, it takes money to pay government employees to perform their duties. We all have families. We all have obligations. I also think it's appropriate for corporations and the wealthiest individuals to begin paying their fair share. Trickle down economics is a crock of shit. The average American citizen and worker is paying the ultimate price for the stratified few and the numbers prove it.
James @ 61:
here we have another gop pundit asshole, blaming liberals
for his neocon fascist parties' fuckups.
Surely we can all agree that it's patriotic to give one's life for one's country. Then surely it's patriotic to give a few bucks.
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. ” -John Kenneth Galbraith
Pay your taxes!
Support the war!
Support the torture!
Support the police state!
Support the corrupt status quo!
fdr_democrat @ 75:
are you not sure you wanted to say--
then surley it's patriotic to get fucked over for a few bucks?
Bullshit flag!!!!!.. the Obama ticket just lost my vote. You know what's patriotic? Throwing out tyranny who allows for an illegal federal reserve to dig into my pockets to bail out rich people with a 44 million dollar severance pay!!!!!! And we are here losing our rights day by day.. so many rights thrashed in our faces and they want income tax? Why? So I can pay them to tighten the noose even further? FUCK THAT... THe income tax is bullshit... ever since we've been given the income tax we've been involved in wars of choice, started secret governments, supported dictators, built an empire and on and on.... If you liberals want entitlements. then fine. I can live with that... Money goes to specifics.... but NOT to the whim of a rogue president with unfettered powers.. WAKE THE FUCK UP!
Whenever someone says "patriotic" I'm immediately reminded of Albert Einstein's statement "Nationalism is an infantile disease; it is the measles of mankind". Sadly Al, I think it's incurable...
Taxes are the price of admission to a civilized society. Period. Redistribution of wealth aids democracy. Centralization of wealth amongst a tiny upper class supports plutocracy. There's no argument to be had, the lines are quite clearly marked.
Not being an American, perhaps one of you can explain to me this criticism I often hear levied agaist the democrats, namely that they "tax and spend". My immediate thought is "Yes... and?" Maybe I've missed the point but is not the purpose of taxing the populace to SPEND thsose revenues on public needs?
Perhaps my confusion can be better illustrated by switching to the alternative: "tax and hoard"? Clearly that doesn't serve the needs of the nation. Or perhaps those on the right prefer the Bush regime's "spend and spend" policies, where more money goes out than comes in?
Explain it to me, please.
Tim @ 79:
So, who you gonna vote for??? Barr? Nader? Mickey Mouse?
dadams @ 74:
I think the original poster may be more of a libertarian asshole, they have a penchant for using senseless quotes as if somehow it gives "gravitas" to their inane points.
Tim @ 79:
Interesting that you blame Obama when I have heard him say don't panic or overreact and watch what happens before doing something kneejerk.
I've been watching the news all day. Where are you getting your news from?
sofla @ 76:
I enjoyed the other quotes as well-thanx.
Lyon @ 80:
In order to understand it, you would need to forget logic and unlearn all of your common sense... in other words, to become a typical Republican.
86 this comment.
rcm @ 73:
Founders this founders that? Talk about patriotism. The income tax only represents about 40% of the governments revenue. If it were to be eliminated our federal government would have an operating budget the same as it had in 1997. That's a frightening trend, brother. So we allow government to get however big it deems necessary and we foot the bill. If you allowed workers to keep 100& of their paychecks we'd see an economic burst beyond anyone's imagination. The government gets money from other sources like corporate income taxes and excise taxes. By the way, our country survived for over 100 years without an income tax so clearly we can manage. Tisk tisk on the founders comment, that's a shame you think so little of their sacrifice.
According to the IRS code - only corporate profit should be "income taxable". Your house tax pays for public schools, gas tax for roads, etc. Taxes should be an "opt-in" for the average person. If you don't drink - you don't pay alcohol tax, don't drive - no gas tax for you, don't buy things at retail stores - no sales tax, etc.
If a company makes chairs:
$20 materials
$20 labor (assembly)
And then sells them for $100 - there is a $60 profit. The $60 is what is income taxable. Taxing the worker is unfair (especially 30%) because there's no profit - it's an even exchange of time and money. For the materials - it's sales tax (%5-%15).
Now think about the HUGE corporations in America - that would be enough to fund our Government and then some. Of course - they wouldn't be able to be very wasteful (ie. starting wars for no reason) - but that's a good thing.
Think about it this way - 1/3 of the time you spend working making money every year (4 months) goes directly to the Government. The Government then squanders ALL of it and then has to go and borrow more from China. And about 90% of the time - it's wasted on something that the American people don't even want.
If every American (but not corporations) stopped paying income tax - it would probably stop the war. Not only that - but the economy would go through the roof.
Biden is a mixed bag. He'll do as many good things as bad (you just won't hear the bad). I don't trust him as far as I can kick him. He's also a Zionist which makes me really uncomfortable. Basically that means Israel comes before America. This is nothing Anti-Semitic - I just think personnel in my Government should put my country first - it's usually how it works. McCain is also it big Israel butt kisser - so don't think I'm some Repub taking shots at the Dems.
Israel has been at war with its neighboring Arab countries for a long, long, time. It will most likely continue until one side has been wiped out. With Israeli butt kissers in office - you can expect to be in the middle east fighting Arabs until they or we are destroyed.
Do a little research into Zionism for yourself. Then watch the video where Biden says "I'm a Zionist - you don't have to be Jewish to be a Zionist". Only about 30% or less of the Jewish community worldwide are Zionists, it's allot like Neo-Conservatism here in America.
Something tells me that no matter who is elected - will be in the middle east for a long, long time (ie the move to Afhanistan/Pakistan/Iran if we have to leave Iraq from both sides).
Michael @ 87:
Baseless fantasy. You can't compare the economic structure of a pre-globalizied, pre-industrialized USA with the way it is now. Things are how they are and they ain't going back.
Lyon @ 80:
In America the right wing has made an art of using sense less sound bites as a form of attack.
It is very fascistic in its approach: based around symbolism or slogans. Things that do not require the average person to spend time thinking about, since they have been manipulated by the right to be taken as axioms of truth.
The clear example is what you said: Tax and expend. In any other country, the reaction would have been as you described "so?" Here taxes have been demonized, ergo anything with taxes in it is taken as a bad thing.
Same goes for the word liberal which has been transformed by the right here into an insult...
Michael @ 87:
Libertarians are funny...
BTW, the romans managed to survive without electricity, I am just not willing to go back 2000 years just because you want to justify that "fuck you I got mine" is somehow a sensible policy.
Lyon @ 89:
Actually it's an historical fact. You mistook my argument. I'm not arguing to get back to those times as that would indeed be a fantasy. I'm suggesting that our government can and has existed without taxing it's citizen's income. Plus it's illegal so I guess I win.
Michael @ 67:
Michael: No problem. I am happy to tell you. 16th Amendment to the Constitution. I guess you did miss that part.
Tyler Durden @ 91:
First of all, I don't got mine! I make 40,000 dollars a year. I just believe in personal responsibility. You should too.
Tyler Durden @ 90:
Exactly! Very well said! FWIW, I have always been and continue to be a proud liberal. And fuck Rush Limbaugh for making it an insult. I embrace it and will always stand for what liberals stand for; equality, justice for all, compassion.
Michael @ 94:
Personal responsibility is a catch all phrase that is virtually meaningless.
It's a right wing phrase to say screw anyone who doesn't make enough money to live. We'll take more from them. We'll let companies take advantage of them. We'll remove any ability for them to make any gains in education or other areas.
Spare me the personal responsibility crap. It's right up there with the ownership society...and Obama did a really good job taking that on in Denver.
Republicans have been unpatriotic for a very long time. Many of them are outright traitors deserving of nothing more than a final cigarette, a blindfold and a paper heart pinned on their heartless chests. A hangman's noose would be an acceptable alternative.
Bill Clinton from last night:
ABC News’ Jennifer Parker reports: Former President Bill Clinton has largely kept himself out of the public eye since his wife lost the Democratic primary to Barack Obama.
However in a rare television interview tonight, the former president called Republican presidential candidate John McCain “a great man” and praised GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as an “instinctively effective candidate.”
On a day when Obama sought to convince voters that he’s best able to handle the economic crisis, the former president said it was his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who gave today “the most detailed position” on what to do about the financial crisis.
Fucking sell out.
MsJoanne @ 96:
Speaking of ownership...digby just posted this and it's so apropos!
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/society-of-pwned-by-dday-this-has...
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Ms_Joanne@83
My second guess is the voices in his head.
My first guess is Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul.
MsJoanne @ 8:
Only the "little people" fight their wars too.
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nickpoppagorgiofromyuma @ 98:
I think he sold out when the CIA and George Bush Sr. were bringing in drugs to the U.S. through the Mena, AR airport. While Bill was the Governor there. Politics is a dirty business and the Clintons happen to be closer to the power structure and even the Bushes then they are the Democratic people or the progressive values of people like us.
I don't agree with Biden. He basically saying that you, the American taxpayer, should bail out the companies that screwed us all. When will the taxpayers be paid back for their generosity? Terrible.
dennis @ 56:
Will this do for a definition is Dennis?
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3869458&page=1
How about... the rich should pay the same percentage of their taxes that a secretary pays?
ranch111 @ 105:
I understand how you might take his words that way, but I didn't. Bush's tax cut while at war have had us in a recession for some time (no matter how loathe they were to actually call it such) and it is going to take taxes to unbury us from that...this recent mess adds a whole new level to it. And no matter how you look at it, it's not pretty.
This will never fly. Americans do not think ahead or abstractly enough to grasp the concept that paying now actually saves later. They understand one, simple idea: republicans will make me pay less now, democrats will make me pay more now. Intelligence and foresight have become elitist liabilities. That's why our economic system is exactly where it is. It's why McCain is still even in the polls, and will probably win. It's why flip-flopping never hurts him as long as he's always saying what Americans want to hear right now. Plan for the worst. It's coming.
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Eddie Murphy as Billy Ray Valentine in the 1983 comedy, Trading Places said: "Yeah. You know, it occurs to me that the best way you hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people." - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086465/quotes
Not that I'm condoning "hurt" or "pain", but I say let the 'publicans have it!
How about Obama's first act as President is to find all of them guilty of treason for acting against the betterment of the nation?
Scott @ 108:
It must be nice to be in that $250,000 income range (AFTER deductions), for that is where you need to be (and above) to pay more in taxes. Everyone who earns less than $250k will get a tax break.
How much of a tax break? Check it out yourself. It's a simple calculation page.
Michael @ 87:
By the way, our country survived for over 100 years without an income tax so clearly we can manage.
that's right.
they did, however charge extortionate tariffs.
and during that 100 years, we did not sponsor a standing army, or a seven-seas navy, or an overseas military presence on nearly 1000 bases and encampments, air fields and naval yards across the globe. We did not have an interstate hiway system, or a network of international air traffic controllers, either. We didn't have a food safety bureaucracy, or health inspectors, or any of the safeguards we don't even realize we enjoy today.
To say nothing of there not having been any medical care beyond patch and stitch.
You go Mike, back to, oh even 1908...if you weren't upper middle class, you would have been ucky to live to 45, IF you survived childhood.
you go on back there, buuba...I'll miss ya...
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Tim @ 79:
What?! Aren't you describing the current REPUBLICAN President BUSH? He's the one that's in charge during this disaster. It's his place and his duty to address this and try to fix it (and he should have prevented it from happening in the first placetoo)! The liberals don't want entitlement - the republicans do. The liberals just want the system to be fair (oh my!) and (gosh!) actually WORK instead of failing. And failing mighty spectacularly too!
I wonder if Lieman Brothers was democraticially owned and that's why Bush didn't bail them out...
Michael@45
Where do you come up with this stuff? Really, WHERE?
Michael@67
One oof those people who thinks that the Amendment XVI to the US Constitution is bunk, huh? I'd give your belief a mote of respect if someone who really hates government and the taxes it imposes (say Grover Norquist) ever attempted to get the SCOTUS to hear this argument, yet this never happens. Why not?
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Lyon @ 80:
Tax and spend is a common criticism. And it is accurate, but compare it to the unstated criticism against the republicans that is equally true. Republicans "tax and borrow" or at least this administration has. That's a recipe for debt and heaps of it. What do we have? Debt and heaps of it. I rather like your "tax and hoard" comment that. That's accurate too.
At least with "tax and spend" you're actually paying for government programs. This is so much better than the "borrow and spend" policies of the last 25 years. The national Deficit is 9 trillion and counting...
Whatever happened to "fiscal conservatism" ?
Michael @ 94:
I have a heart and I have a brain. Which is why I make significantly more money than you per year, and yet I have no problem helping my fellow man. I am also in no hurry to devolve back into the jungle...
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Being born in American is not a right. It is a privilege. For those who've had the supreme luck of being born in the U.S., then exploited and grown rich from the opportunities such luck avails, it cannot be argued, at least in my mind, that a moral obligation does not exist to repay the nation for such opportunities afforded in order to bolster the likelihood of other citizens rising to equal heights of lofty fortune. It is simply one's duty. It is descent. It is honorable. It is American in the way that “American” used to mean.
If my memory is correct, a mere 1% of American families are shouldering the responsibility of fighting these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Let me spell that out: One percent of America is sacrificing their lives and livelihoods to wars devoid of a any clear definition of what victory might be. The corpses that should serve as a reminder of what's been sacrificed, the flag-draped coffins flown in daily from Germany, remain unseen. But for family members and comrades in arms of those fallen, the majority of America has no vested interest in what's being sacrificed. They're censored from such reminders. They’re purposefully distracted by noise.
If one is unwilling or unable to serve in the military, yet earns over $250K a year, it is morally reprehensible to suggest there isn't a deep-rooted and moral responsibility to give more money to the government than the majority of citizens who can't afford to because their sacrifice is so often measured not in cash, but in blood, sweat, compromise and tears.
For those whose earnings rank in the upper 5% or 1% tax bracket and are opposed to being adequately taxed for enjoying the privilege of being "rich," I suspect your love of this country is superceded by a righteous absorption of self, and an unenviable sense of entitlement -- at the expense of all others who've enabled you to be so fortunate -- that you’ve deluded yourself into believing somehow is your right, and not your truly lucky privilege.
--msg
Tim @ 79:
Fixed
Daniel at 121, it's not just tax and borrow, it's worse. It's tax, borrow and spend, spend, spend. True fiscal conservatives (me) do not spend on bullshit like wars and cronies. I am all for spending for things which benefit American citizens - and since corporations have become more citizen than I, I am not for that kind of spending at all.
George Arndt @ 122:
It was a load of bullshit, too bad so many idiots fell for it.
"fiscal conservatism" is up there with "compassionate conservatism" in the pantheon of swindles pulled out by the right in this country.
MsJoanne @ 8: Says:
Republicans do not believe in paying taxes…it is beneath them. It is only the little people who have to pay taxes. They GET money from the government, they do not give money to the government.
Republicanism is a sickness…a malignant disease. I hope this election puts it into permanent remission and that our country will once and for all be cured of the cancer that calls itself conservatism.
To Which Dennis reacted:
That is about as false a statement that has ever been printed on this blog. Here’s to you MsJoanne.
Which is about as idiotic a retort as every other idiotic retort that Dennis has to offer:
Why is it that all republicans have to say about any, any politician that stands in their way is to allege that that politician is going to raise their taxes. It doesn't matter whether its true or not and most of the time they know its not true but they will still make that claim. Why? Because they know that their mindless minions, like Dennis, are selfish, greedy, self-hating people that would rather throw out platitudes than engage in meaningfule dialogue. Dennis proves it day in and day out. He knows that anger will sometimes get the better of those he is trying to provoke. He loves to try to push buttons. He is, in other words, a pathetic, lonesome loser in life that has nothing better than to try to bring people to his level.
Stay calm and you will find him in the OODA Loop that he thinks is his and which his pea brain fantasizes is a victory.
He really, really does have an over inflated sense of self worth. I really do pity the poor soul.
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Our Declaration of Independence starts with the word "WE" not "ME."
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MsJoanne @ 127:
Oh, I agree! I never, ever imagined seeing this country in the shape that it's in. I am honest (to a fault) like you and it truly bothers me to see it happen before my eyes. I really do want Obama to win and immediately point fingers, take names, ... and reopen Alcatraz after a little redecorating. Bush can have a cell next to Cheney down in the dungeons away from the sunlight. And they will be OK because all of their other friends will be there too! They can relive the glory days of being above the law when they are, in fact, literally six-feet under being buried alive in a sense.
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pinkobait @ 44:
Actually, we could stop altogether for 30 years and the rest of the First World would only have caught up to us by then.
I think merging the army with the state is always dangerous for Republics. It didn't turn out well for the Weimar Republic, the Roman Republic, or Athens.
And that's just what has been ongoing the last 50-odd years.
I'm still waiting for a solid explanaition why "tax and spend" is derogatory, I still don't follow.
If I'm getting taxed someone better damned well be spending it on something useful. You're the right-wing archetype here Dennis, spell it out for me.
Oh, and by the way, Dennis. I actually think you will vote your heart and go Obama. I do think there is "hope" for you.
Daniel Smith @ 140:
In my wildest fantasies, that is exactly what Obama would do. I don't know if that will ever happen, a la Clinton "let's just all get along and move forward." No! We were lied into war. Americans have died because of those lies. We torture. God, I can't come up with the many lies and unjust things this administration has done in eight years.
No, no getting along. Either we are America or we are not. Either we stand on principle or we do not.
And right now, we do and are not.
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Lyon @ 143:
Correct. Its the spend and spend and spend without any way to pay for it.
This trickle down republican crap has been debunked for years. Reagan’s Economic guy (can’t remember his name, damn it) said it was all bullshit. Henry Ford for all his right wing bull shit had it right. He made sure his workers made enough money to buy his cars. He made sure they had enough to prosper. That’s called trickle up. Henry Ford died a very rich man.
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Recycling is patriotic.
Riding a bicycle is patriotic.
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