David McElroy

It’s sometimes hard to say whether economic ignorance is more severe among the poor and uneducated or the rich and overeducated.

We recently had Warren Buffet issue a call to raise taxes on wealthy people such as himself in this country. (As I pointed out then, Buffet is welcome to donate his own money, but for some reason, that’s not the route he’s taking.) Now some of the elite of Europe’s rich are getting in on the act, too, as various wealthy people in a number of countries are calling for their taxes to be raised.

A German group is proposing that wealthy people pay a special 5 percent wealth tax for two years. Does anyone sane think it would stop at two years?

Why is it that these people are being treated as sacrificial when they’re actually demanding that other people have their money confiscated? If these people believe they owe their money to their fellow citizens, they’re perfectly capable of voluntarily turning over every bit of their money. Instead, they’re demanding that the state force other people to turn over their money.

Anyone who believes that taxing the rich — however you define that group — will end the coercive state’s economic problems is delusional. What’s more, it’s wrong.

I’m not among the rich. I’d like to be, but I’m not. However, they don’t owe me anything. They have no responsibility to subsidize the lives of the rest of us. Taxation is a moral evil. Progressive taxation — which simply means that you are penalized at an even higher rate if you’re successful — is both evil and stupid.

There’s tremendous pressure in society to conform to what everyone else wants and expects. That might seem like a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your temperament and values. Are you a “conformity enforcer” or a “diversity generator”?

If you drove down my street, you’d have a pretty good indication that the people in one particular house aren’t conformers. While pretty much every other home on the street has closely cropped shrubs like something out of a landscaping magazine, this house has bushes that have been allowed to grow up almost to the roof of the second floor.

The yard is carefully kept and there’s a lot of other greenery in a side garden, so it’s obvious that this is intentional, not just a matter of being too lazy to cut shrubs. Is this a good thing or an eyesore?

It depends on your point of view. Personally, I don’t think I’d want my bushes that high, at least not with such a traditional style of architecture, but it doesn’t bother me in the least. I’ve talked to a couple of people on the street, though, who find it nothing short of scandalous.

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Every time the U.S. military (or U.S. taxpayer money) is used to knock off some government around the world, we’re told that it has to do with freedom or self-determination for the people or whatever else politicians think it takes to get us to let them have their own way. When will we learn that they’re lying to us?

Now that Libyan rebels have overthrown the dictatorial regime the U.S. opposed, members of the rebel groups are going around the country rounding up suspected sympathizers of the old regime. Read this account of people working for The New Boss going into a hospital and summarily executing wounded men who they believed worked for The Old Boss.

Is this what you want your tax money being used for?

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