Subtitle: Just pay your fucking taxes and shut the hell up.
Last week, a former professor of mine went missing and was found dead in the woods near his apartment building. He’d been struggling with depression for much of the time that I’d known him, and when one of his relatives became concerned that he hadn’t been heard from, she called the local police, who searched for him and found him. The coroner hasn’t released a cause of death, so no one knows for sure whether it was suicide or something else. That’s the sum total of what is known. This rant isn’t about the injustice of his death. Lord knows there are volumes of philosophical treatises devoted to that and I don’t intend to add to that body of knowledge.
This rant is about the taxpayers’-rights assholes who feel that their taxpaying status gives them special access to whatever they want in the name of “accountability.” Their identifying call is “I’m a taxpayer!” and they use it freely and without embarrassment.
Exhibit A is this lovely gentleman:
[sic; obviously he’s also opposed to his precious tax dollars paying for education]
How fucking magnanimous of him to realize that the man’s family is suffering. How callous of him to assume that the details of the professor’s misery and death (from whatever cause) should be placed in the public domain because he pays taxes.
This asshole’s attitude makes me sick. Paying taxes is a civic responsibility. We get the tax bill, we pay it. As citizens, we should demand full accountability for how our government spends our taxes. That accountability does not extend into the right to intrude on the private pain of the family and friends who have a genuine right to know, and who deserve to know what killed their relative and friend.
I’m sorry for the lack of creative invective and possible lack of coherence. The shock is wearing off and the anger and sadness are taking over. Someone I cared about is gone and some asshole is picking over the bones hoping for one last juicy morsel to tide him over until the next victim falls. I can only hope that someone he cares about goes missing and that the police will be there to find them. Because, after all, that’s why we pay taxes. Not so some voyeur can get his jollies.
Oh, yes, the Taxpayers. These are the same assholes who think they can tell me how to do my job because, “My tax dollars pay your salary!” So do mine, assmunch. So does my supervisor’s. And since we both know how to do this job, and you don’t, guess who’s calling the shots here? Hint: It ain’t you, jackass.
And fuckers like that, you can try to reason with them until you’re blue in the face, it won’t do a bit of good. Because they have Rights! They’re Taxpayers!
There just aren’t enough rolleyes in the world for people like that.
I work at a newspaper and 1/3 or more of our letters to the editor are basically people pissing their pants about every cent that gets spent by town governments, and thinking they have the right to say that services should not be extended to people or things they don’t personally like. It’s like, guess what, doofus? You’re not the only person in town! It’s not all up to you! :rolleyes:
I’m on a emailing list for my little region, and someone was going off the other day about how it’s perfectly fine for him to hang around and take as many pictures as he wants at an accident scene because he’s a TAXPAYER.
Someone called him on it and said that while this is true, it’s kind of a pain in the ass if you do that. Even worse if everyone in town feels the need to do the same.
A couple more people rebutted THAT and said that the second guy should stop trying to trample the rights of the TAXPAYER.
That callous taxpayer has been conditioned by the media to behave as such. There is no moment too private, no event too sacred, no grieving too heart wrenching, to escape the lenses and microphones of that soulless cadre who “report the news”. Fuck them all. They’re hateful, and incapable of remembering what they should have been taught in kindergarten. Common decency was a victim whose death was never reported, having been trampled by the news crews of the information age.
I really started my post with the intent of posting a satirical rant ending with the words “my taxes pay your salary”, but I couldn’t come up with anything that made it clear that I was trying to be funny and not trying to be inappropriate. So, score -1 for me trying to be funny.
But since I still have the reply window open… I’m sorry to hear about your friend and even sorrier that you had to deal with that assnugget.
We can rant and rave about the assnuggets “out there” who behave like that, but that sort of behavior finds its way onto these boards every now and then. I remember a few years back there was a heated discussion about how recipients of food stamps and other food programs should have their shopping lists restricted to budget items only. Remember the “I’m a Taxpayer and no one gets lobster on my dime!” threads?
Yep. I get the “my taxes pay your salary” on occasion. I work in a public library. This phrase is always accompanied by some asshole trying to get away with jerkish behavior. I guess they figure that I will be so cowed by a confrontation by an almighty taxpayer that I will immediately stop having rules and bow down before them.
I feel like digging a penny out of my pocket, handing it to them, and saying "here, this is more than the percentage of your taxes that goes to my individual salary, now quit acting like twerp"
Someone needs to give the guy in the OP his penny back, and tell him to put it into internet snuff porn. That way he can satisfy his voyeuristic needs, without bothering others.
That is an entirely different issue. Taxpayers have a legitimate complaint if their money is spent wastefully (and buying luxury rather than staple items with public assistance certainly fits that description).
No they don’t. It’s not as though the recipient can go back to the state and say “Oops, spent all my food stamps on lobster, can you give me some more for cereal?”
The state gives the recipient $X. The recipient is free to spend it however they wish, and live with the consequences. Their spending decisions do not determine whether or not the state has “wasted” your money.
And how are you going to define staples vice luxury items? Spices, after all, are a luxury item - or have been through most of human history. I wouldn’t care to cook without them, though.
Is organic produce a luxury? So, what happens when the organic produce is cheaper than the factory farmed produce? (IIRC it doesn’t happen often, but it does happen on occasion.) How about meats? Are all meats a luxury, or just some? How do you determine the difference?
AIUI public assistance is cheaper to manage when the assistance is in the form of spendable credits, or monies, that the beneficiary can spend according to his or her needs and desires. The alternative method would seem to be some variation of having public assistance beneficiaries simply be handed their benefits as goods.
ETA: Even some of the restrictions that currently exist make little sense to my mind. Forex, one can use food stamps to buy deli meats. Or to buy pre-cooked chicken, either in a can or cold in the refrigerated sections. But one cannot use food stamps to buy the rotisserie chickens, which are priced (per pound) comparably to the raw chicken in the meats section, and generally much cheaper than cooked chicken you’ll see in the refrigerated section.
Not sure how that program works, but a certain amount of interference would be justified if that person was using the program to in turn feed others such as their children.
An insistance on buying expensive luxuries rather than cheap staples could mean that dependents are doing without necessities. The dreaded “taxpayer” (meaning I think the public at large as a whole) is at least somewhat entitled to expect that the program is actually doing what it is supposed to be doing.
How much interest? How much interference? Most states already limit what can be purchased with food stamps. Do you want an itemized receipt? And if so, can I sign up to get one from the Pentagon?
There’s a world of difference between being interested in how state programs are being administered, and feeling entitled to critique/approve/deny the purchases of the individual people who are spending “your” money.
(meaning I think the public at large as a whole) is at least somewhat entitled to expect that the program is actually doing what it is supposed to be doing.