JDPriestly (1000+ posts) Sun May-09-10 03:51 AM
Response to Reply #3
11. Most Americans really don't have a problem with taxes.
We don't even notice when they are taken out of our paychecks.
That's the whole point of withholding ya dumbass. It's so we don't notice.
If everyone had to wait until the end of the year and cut the gubmint a check, there would be a number of scaffolds erected in front of the Capitol Building in short order. Maybe a guillotine or three.
salguine (1000+ posts) Sun May-09-10 06:57 AM
Response to Original message
19. It's not that they don't "get it". It's that they DON'T GIVE A SHIT.
You're right in that I don't give a shit about
you. I grew up poor. As a teenager I picked tobacco under the Florida sun for $11 a day, which was top dollar in those days. A lot of farmers were only paying $8. Doing a job that you say only illegal aliens will. I was damn glad to have that money. I didn't accuse the farmer of "exploiting" me. He would have probably exploited my ass right on down that rutted dirt road if I had.
At eighteen I got a decent paying job with phosphate mining company, but I resigned after a few months to join the Navy. It wasn't an "economic draft." I enlisted to serve my country and see something of the world besides the north Florida piney woods. For five years I made next to nothing, but I didn't mind or complain about the pay. I was doing something meaningful and making great friends. The first two years I sent half my meager E-2 to E-4 pay to my folks to help them get out of the debt they had accumulated raising me and my younger sister. That would be the same folks I didn't alienate or disown over politics like you DUmmies. They didn't declare bankruptcy or just refuse to pay their debts. Back then when you got something, you expected and were expected by others to pay for it.
For years after I lived paycheck-to-paycheck, some of it because of lower wages, some of it because of my free spending habits, but not once in all that time did I imagine someone else was supposed to give me money simply because they had more of it than I. When I got tired enough of that situation I went back to school (at the start while still working full time) and majored in something chosen not just because I liked it but because I calculated it to actually provide a good income. That income allows me to pursue my favorite interests. I didn't do it the other way around, going to college for my favorite interests and expecting the income to follow that. If you can do that, fine. But expecting or demanding it just indicates stunted emotional or intellectual growth.
Now after 53 years of my life, my wife and I together, all the while saving and sacrificing and helping out our family financially, are finally hitting that 100K mark, and now you want to call us "rich" and demand we cough up some more money for you beyond the amount we already pay in federal taxes, state sales taxes, excise taxes, property taxes, fees, assessments, licenses, and the privilege of having my used oil disposed of in an environmentally sound manner down at the Jiffy Lube.
Well **** YOU, Jack. That's right, **** YOU. I'll say it as a proud capitalist. Get out there and start acting like a responsible, self-directed human being and stop blaming people who have more than you for your plight. Or whatever passes for plight as you sit in your air conditioned house with a full belly, typing on your miracle of science computer and bitching about jackbooted thugs who mysteriously never seem to materialize at your door. Do that, then maybe if you get your face blown off in an unfortunate bong-lighting accident, I might not mind some of my tax dollars being tossed your way. Otherwise, kiss my ass and STFU. No one is listening anyway.
