Death and Taxes
By John Constantine

From here on out it's all down hill
-Unknown

A wise man once said he who laughs last laughs best.   In my book, anyone who can laugh has already won, but that's beside the point.

The one question on working stiff in the good old US of A is "why the f*ck do I have to pay taxes?"

Libertarians from all over this nation are bonded together in a mini-cosmic convergance.  All followers of the holy Rand, bonded together in common individualistic horror at the cost of government in their lives.

Having just paid out a huge sum to my favorite uncle, I stand in shock as well.  Actually, I lay recovering on the couch, but you get the point.

The issue for me, however, is not that I have to pay taxes.  Groups take resources to maintain.

And that's what seems to irk the Libertarians.

But it doesn't bother me.  What I hate is that most of my money goes to line the pockets of the people who are richer than me by orders of magnitude.

Let's face it.  The government is not run by the POOR.  The poor people in this world have an unmeasurably small amount of political capital in this world.

In fact, I believe that the political capital one has as an individual is directly proportional to the amount of monetary capital an individual controls.

Money = Power.  Gee, what a surprise.

But it's something all you die hard free market, government be damned types seem to completely ignore.

One of the design priniciples in our political system is the balance of power.  Things are supposed to be set up so that no one individual or group has "too much" power.

Things are supposed to balance themselves out by design.

However, if Money = Power, and we place no limits on the Money someone (or corporation) can make, then we place no limits on their power.

This is not fundamentally sound.

Haven't heard any argument for why we should think limiting political power is okay, but limiting the individual's (corporation's) financial power is not okay.

We seem to want it both ways.  I want to do whatever it is I (the corporation) wants, but damn those neighbors (corporations) down the street!   There outta be a law.

Unlimited power potential (and I consider a 50 Billion dollar personal net worth to be pretty much unlimited power) is not a good idea in a group.

Anyone whos been on a playground in third grade instinctively knows that big dominates.

Really, really big -- well, they completely dominate.

Life is short.  Make the best of it.