We Live Daily with Taxes Patriots Died Fighting to Prevent

[Guest]

by Michael Minkoff

The average tax (combining the state and national taxes) on gasoline is about fifty cents a gallon. In California, that tax reaches sixty-nine cents. Most of us don’t really keep up with these taxes because they are pre-included in the gas prices. That’s about a 13% tax on something we use everyday—not a luxury, but a necessity, for most Americans. There’s a seven or so percent local tax on just about everything else we buy, as well as a much higher “sin” tax on alcohol, tobacco, etc. (since statists just absolutely hate “legislating morality”… right.)

Further, most of us are paying out federal income taxes through automatic withholdings. Most of us don’t even really “see” how much we’re paying in taxes. I expect that if most of us paid no taxes on anything throughout the year, and then had to write out three checks every April (one county, one state, and one Federal) to pay all the taxes we would have paid throughout the year… there would be some serious unrest. We’ve been fooled. The Sons of Liberty who started the Boston Tea Party weren’t so easy to fool.

As are most things in history, the story of the Boston Tea Party is more complicated than we’ve been told. Most of us were told that colonial patriots, refusing to pay a new tax on tea, dumped a shipment of British tea into Boston Harbor. This is only part of the story. Great Britain had already repealed the Stamp Act, a direct internal tax on stamps and such, because colonists wouldn’t stop griping about it. So the crown thought a better way to raise revenue would be an indirect tax: a tariff on any non-British tea imported to the colonies. The Tea Act repealed customs taxes for the financially troubled East India Company, thus allowing this company to undersell foreign competitors. In effect, the Tea Act was the original big government bailout. Colonists had a difficult decision:

Purchase their tea from a non-British company and pay taxes to the crown, or keep more money in their pockets by supporting a company they felt was harmful to the society they were trying to build.

The Tea Act was an attempt at indirect taxation, and it also failed. The percentage was much lower than 13% (as low as 0.8% by some accounts), yet the colonists would have nothing of it. They made it clear to King George that they would not be maneuvered back-handedly into supporting the selfish interests of the crown.

So they dumped some East India Company tea into the harbor (that’s why they were dressed as Indians, by the way… to make it clear they knew whose tea they were dumping and what was at stake). In effect, they were saying, “We won’t make this hateful choice… We refuse to be manipulated. Repeal the law.”

Perhaps many would say that there is a difference between our situation and the colonial one because they felt they were being taxed by a government in which they had no representation. We, on the other hand, get to elect our officials. But this is becoming less and less the case. The Department of Transportation, a bureaucratic Federal agency with government-appointed rather than popularly elected officials, is responsible for setting the Federal taxes on gasoline. Whether it is the IRS, the EPA, the FDA, or whatever other Federal Brobdingnagian you want to pull out of Leviathan’s hat, most of the taxes we pay go to agencies in which we have very little if any representation and over which we have almost no control. And those of us that pay taxes are paying exponentially more than the colonists would have ever dreamed was possible.

And it may not be the case that we need to have a unanimous tax revolt. The graduated income tax may actually be working in our favor in the end, as immoral as it is. If only ten percent of Americans are paying ninety percent of the taxes, we just need to convince the ten percent to say, “No more!” This is not “unpatriotic” as some may say (and have said). This is in fact in line with the original patriotism that gave this country birth. Not to mention that a tax revolt would have less environmental impact than dumping gasoline into the Gulf of Mexico…

http://politicaloutcast.com/2012/09/we-live-daily-with-taxes-patriots-died-fighting/#ixzz26fSeMDtM

[olger]

Socialism’s aim is to “redistribute the wealth,” but in practice it leads to communism and gives the government prohibitive control of every aspect of life — many times with deadly results, as in Communist regimes where millions have been slaughtered.

[lazarus]

Socialism’s aim is to “redistribute the wealth,” but in practice it leads to communism

In practice, where and when has socialism led to communism?

[Guest]

The goal of socialism is communism.

Vladimir Lenin

If anybody should know...

[lazarus]

So comrade, where has socialism led to communism?

[Guest]

Socialism is bad enough, even if it NEVER turns into full blown communism.

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

- Winston Churchill

[bonnie]

Socialism is bad enough, even if it NEVER turns into full blown communism.

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

- Winston Churchill

It doesn't really matter whether socialism leads to communism.

Nor do I believe it is easy for non americans or those that want more government care to understand the basic american dislike of socialism.

Those that see only the wrong or bad that occurs in the US see the need for a more socialistic US.

If only the US took more from those that succeed it would somehow lift those that haven't out of poverty. As if poverty and hunger have been eliminated in socialist countries.

[Guest]

“Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”

- Alexis de Tocqueville (French Historian and Political scientist. 1805-1859)

“Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it”

- Thomas Sowell (American Writer and Economist)

“Socialism is simply Communism for people without the testosterone to man the barricades”

-Gary North

[lazarus]

You guys have gone off topic. My focus is on Olger's assertion about where socialism goes.

America probably has more socialism than all western nations put together.

[bonnie]

You guys have gone off topic. My focus is on Olger's assertion about where socialism goes.

America probably has more socialism than all western nations put together.

We certainly are getting there,But that should make you happy.

To end up where this country will in what I believe to be soon

we need to slide more in that direction.

You cannot take a people that are independent and not interested in being bottle fed by government and take the steps that will be taken.

We have to take a few steps forward into government control and a couple steps backward for awhile before the citizens will demand and take what they will from the US government.

I worked with a young immigrant during the Bush-Gore election.

She would get so frustrated with her parents because they kept trying to get her to support and work to get Gore elected even tho she could not vote yet.

I asked her why they felt that way and she explained because the democrats represented more of what we consider a socialist ideology.She was very vocal about why she came to the US. It was interesting to watch her,she worked two part time jobs.One four hour shift and one six and found time to clean for two families.Some of the employees(american born) worked as little as they could get by with because they were supplemented by the government.