The Left Loves Diversity — Except When It Comes to Political Views
Except that taxes are patriotic
David, I have to take exception to this as a blanket statement. The portion of my tax dollars that go to the powers and duties specifically enumerated in the Constitution *is* patriotic. The remainder, however, is not.
The fact that the people are coerced, under the force of law, to pay for politicians and bureaucrats continually making a mockery of the contract between the people and their government is an affront to any reasonable sense of patriotism towards the United States of America as a country.
From your posts here, I think you would probably find the end of that last sentence superfluous. However, as a liberal in the linguistically-correct sense, as opposed to a “liberal”/progressive/leftist of the modern sort, I find the concept of patriotism towards a government revolting. In my view, a government is a means towards the end of preserving the liberty of a people, nothing more.
Our political class has quite thoroughly abandoned the mission of preserving the liberty of the people they serve, instead seeking to rule and control us through various means of coercion for their own benefit. The GM and Chrysler bailouts, the bank bailouts, the stimulus packages, both the creation of and the rescue of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Kelo v. New London, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, the Defense of Marriage Act, warrantless wiretapping, Camp X-Ray, and the PATRIOT Act are all symptoms of the desire of the political class to shape society to their ends, and all in direct contradiction to the spirit and explicit letter of the contract between the people and their government. Paying for any of these things is simply not patriotic in the sense of being a supporter of the people and principles of the United States of America.
