Today is the day we honor those who fought for our freedom. On this day and Veteran's Day I used to like to tell my father-in-law Thank You. Now he lies in Arlington National Cemetery.
It boggles my mind that someday in the not-too-distant future the World War II veterans will all pass over to the other side. My late father, also a World War II veteran, used to tell me of the conversations he had with Civil War veterans as a boy. Both his grandfathers fought in the Civil War, one for the Union and one for the Confederacy.
Dad gave me his grandmother's diary, kept when she was a teenager, living in New York City during that war. I cherished it growing up, for she spoke to me more than any living relative.
Mary Louise was passionately Pro-Union and anti-slavery. She wrote about her brother in the Union Army. She wrote a witty poem satirizing Jefferson Davis and predicting a Union victory. She believed in Love and Justice. At the close of the war she argued just as passionately against the cruel policies of Reconstruction. Everyone had suffered enough, she wrote, and Reconstruction will only cause needless added suffering and breed resentment, resentment that would be taken out on the newly freed slaves.
Ironically, it was this passionate Unionist and Abolitionist who married the Confederate veteran. But it was the values in Mary Louise's diary, passionate in the belief that love in private life and justice in public life spring from the same fount, that were passed down to my grandmother Frances, to my father and to me. Mary Louise and her descendants understood that if this country does not work for the least of us, it does not work at all.
We are not a plutocratic or theocratic fiefdom with a carefully brainwashed populace spouting oft-rehearsed but nonsensical slogans. We are the United States of America.
On this day I try to remember why my ancestors sacrificed so much to come to this country and to fight for it. I have run into foolish souls who think an Obama-Biden sticker and a yellow ribbon sticker for the troops, including my brother-in-law, are contradictory. But those who think their suffocating ideology holds a monopoly on patriotism don't get it. They don't get it at all.
Honor the dead today, but remember to thank the living, too.
Monday, May 25, 2009
A Day in a World without Taxes
In Response to Chris deTreville*
I awake in my shack and pull my ragged clothes on in the dark so I can make the run to the outhouse. My house has no electricity or running water.
Then I run back to the house through the rain. Standing by a window to take advantage of the light, I brush my teeth using a cup of water from the bucket I brought in from the communal well. The well water is muddy and polluted. Before using it one must first let it stand at least a day so that the mud settles to the bottom and then boil it. This kills the germs but does little about the unidentified chemical runoff that gives it its acrid taste.
Unbeknownst to me, the crude painted wooden toothbrush I use contains a hefty dose of lead. I am baffled at why I and my family feel so weak lately and have no idea the paint on our toothbrushes is to blame.
Even if I could afford it, it is tough to find a doctor. Doctors and hospitals are very scarce. And even if I could find or afford a doctor, the state of medicine is primitive. There is little money for medical research. Furthermore, the doctor has no way of knowing our toothbrushes are to blame. There is no regulation of manufacturers and no reliable way of disseminating the news if a safety defect is found.
My young children get up and get ready to go to their jobs or to look for work. There is no public school or public libraries, and I cannot afford the private ones. Few people can, so illiteracy is widespread.
I worry about the twelve year-old. She lost her right arm in an industrial accident in the factory where she used to work, a warlord’s small armaments business. She almost died because of the lack of medical care. There is no workers’ compensation, no insurance of any kind, really, and no way of holding the factory’s owner accountable. He is too powerful. He simply dismissed my daughter and replaced her. There are too many people willing to take these dangerous, poorly paid jobs because it is better than starving. I had serious doubts about my young child taking this job, but the warlord swore to me he would make sure she was safe. Now I blame myself for trusting him.
The only government we have is the warlord. He acquired his power by defeating our old warlord in a fearsome battle that left many of our crude homes and crops in ruins and many of our people dead or maimed.
We don’t pay any taxes. At least our warlord does not call what he takes from us taxes. Nonetheless, he confiscates most of what we earn and leaves us barely enough to survive. It’s a protection racket really. This warlord’s favorite tactic is to deem a large part of what he leaves us a “loan.” The interest rate is 100% annually. Who’s going to tell him no? Last year a group of citizens went to him in peaceful protest. They all disappeared. No one knows what happened to them, though there are rumors someone got a glimpse of what looked like a pile of bodies in a ditch.
Private enterprise cannot do it all. Without government the distinction between lawful private enterprise and criminal enterprise collapses, and power passes to the ruthless acting purely out of personal greed. Who shall protect us and vindicate our rights then?
For those of you who still yearn to live in a Paradise without taxes may I assure you that such places do exist? You can always move to Afghanistan or Somalia.
*I wrote this essay after reading Chris deTreville’s letter to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, published April 23, 2009, explaining a day in his life paying taxes as the reason he attended a Tea Party. Those who read Mr. deTreville’s letter are also urged to read Renee Sarao’s excellent reply published May 3, 2009.
http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/opinion/op_ed/article/DETREVILLEC_20090422-182207/262738/
http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/opinion/letters/article/WALLENBORNW_20090501-202104/265151/P10/
I awake in my shack and pull my ragged clothes on in the dark so I can make the run to the outhouse. My house has no electricity or running water.
Then I run back to the house through the rain. Standing by a window to take advantage of the light, I brush my teeth using a cup of water from the bucket I brought in from the communal well. The well water is muddy and polluted. Before using it one must first let it stand at least a day so that the mud settles to the bottom and then boil it. This kills the germs but does little about the unidentified chemical runoff that gives it its acrid taste.
Unbeknownst to me, the crude painted wooden toothbrush I use contains a hefty dose of lead. I am baffled at why I and my family feel so weak lately and have no idea the paint on our toothbrushes is to blame.
Even if I could afford it, it is tough to find a doctor. Doctors and hospitals are very scarce. And even if I could find or afford a doctor, the state of medicine is primitive. There is little money for medical research. Furthermore, the doctor has no way of knowing our toothbrushes are to blame. There is no regulation of manufacturers and no reliable way of disseminating the news if a safety defect is found.
My young children get up and get ready to go to their jobs or to look for work. There is no public school or public libraries, and I cannot afford the private ones. Few people can, so illiteracy is widespread.
I worry about the twelve year-old. She lost her right arm in an industrial accident in the factory where she used to work, a warlord’s small armaments business. She almost died because of the lack of medical care. There is no workers’ compensation, no insurance of any kind, really, and no way of holding the factory’s owner accountable. He is too powerful. He simply dismissed my daughter and replaced her. There are too many people willing to take these dangerous, poorly paid jobs because it is better than starving. I had serious doubts about my young child taking this job, but the warlord swore to me he would make sure she was safe. Now I blame myself for trusting him.
The only government we have is the warlord. He acquired his power by defeating our old warlord in a fearsome battle that left many of our crude homes and crops in ruins and many of our people dead or maimed.
We don’t pay any taxes. At least our warlord does not call what he takes from us taxes. Nonetheless, he confiscates most of what we earn and leaves us barely enough to survive. It’s a protection racket really. This warlord’s favorite tactic is to deem a large part of what he leaves us a “loan.” The interest rate is 100% annually. Who’s going to tell him no? Last year a group of citizens went to him in peaceful protest. They all disappeared. No one knows what happened to them, though there are rumors someone got a glimpse of what looked like a pile of bodies in a ditch.
####
How much we should pay in taxes, who should pay and how are all valid subjects for open and honest political debate. But this simplistic idea that taxes are bad per se is dangerous nonsense. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, taxes are the price we pay for civilization.Private enterprise cannot do it all. Without government the distinction between lawful private enterprise and criminal enterprise collapses, and power passes to the ruthless acting purely out of personal greed. Who shall protect us and vindicate our rights then?
For those of you who still yearn to live in a Paradise without taxes may I assure you that such places do exist? You can always move to Afghanistan or Somalia.
*I wrote this essay after reading Chris deTreville’s letter to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, published April 23, 2009, explaining a day in his life paying taxes as the reason he attended a Tea Party. Those who read Mr. deTreville’s letter are also urged to read Renee Sarao’s excellent reply published May 3, 2009.
http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/opinion/op_ed/article/DETREVILLEC_20090422-182207/262738/
http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/opinion/letters/article/WALLENBORNW_20090501-202104/265151/P10/
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