akuma587 on 17 April 2009
Even with flat taxes just because two people pay equal amounts who own the same amount of property doesn't mean they obtain the same amount of benefits. Person X and Person Y could live in two different towns in the same state and pay the same amount in gas tax. Town 1 may have shitty roads and Town 2 may have great roads based on the amount the cities are allocated per capita. They are paying the same but not getting the same benefit.
Its the same with people who own the same amount of property. Person X may live in an area with a higher crime rate than Person Y, so they benefit more from that protection than the other person does.
Even with people who shop at different grocery stores there are higher incidences of food contamination at some than others (like Wal-Mart, where the outbreaks most often occur). Those people who shop at Wal-Mart benefit more from the FDA than people who shop elsewhere because those other stores are less likely to buy cheap and shitty food.
I wasn't talking about national defense in the military spending example. I'm talking about a person who doesn't believe in waging war at all. Its not "fair" to make them pay the same amount in taxes for the military as those who are for waging war.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
