I’ve seen gay people claiming they’ll vote Republican, even for strongly anti-gay Republicans, in order to keep taxes low.
Some pro-choice women will vote for McCain-Palin because they think Obama is a socialist who will raise taxes.
Some libertarians who hate government intrusion voted for Bush-Cheney despite the Patriot Act because Democrats might raise taxes.
All of these people put certain of their rights below money. Where is that cutoff for you?
(Note: I’m using Republicans in these examples because they are the party that gets more “Lower taxes are the most important thing” voters. Examples from the other side are welcome if you want to offer them, but the specific examples are less important to me than where you personally set your boundaries.)
I object to surrendering any rights. Taxes should be low, government should be small and as minimally intrusive into private lives as possible. This is why I don’t particularly like either McCain or Obama.
I agree with Oakminster. I want to pay no taxes, and have a gigantic defense department and a federal government equipped to defend every single one of my Consititutionally-guaran-fuckin’-teed rights on a second’s notice, 24/7.
ETA: While I agree that taxes should be low on general principle, it strikes me as aggresively stupid to say that we should pay no taxes. Our civilization costs money, and it’s foolish and selfish to say either no one should have to pay for it, or that everyone but me should pay for it.
I’d like to give up the so-called Right of Privacy established under Roe v. Wade, because I there appears to be no actual privacy right it gives me. I would give up my right to speedy trial, because these days you’re better off grinding the justice system down for decades.
You know, Skald, you may be right that saying you want to pay zero taxes is aggressively stupid, and foolish and selfish, but that’s actually my position on people who tear up the grass claiming that lower taxes is their prime consideration in making voting choices.
This may well be a hijack of this thread, so maybe we can continue this elsewhere, but you’ve captured the essence of my major malfunction with the fiscal conservative position (which some conservatives are honest enough to espouse openly, while others pretend that other issues also determine their positions): basically, “I don’t want to pay for anything of which I don’t personally approve. If I do end up paying for some project I personally disapprove of, then I’m going to hold my breath, turn blue, denounce the foul proponents of stealing my money from my pocket, and generally behave like a whiny two-year-old with a load in my diaper,” which is the essential fiscal-conservative mode.
Here’s the problem: living in a democratic society demands that everyone accept the necessity of certain governmental expenditures being wasteful from the point of view of every individual living in that democracy. Not all the SAME governmental expenditures will be seen as wasteful, but every expenditure will be seen as wasteful from someone’s perspective. You don’t have kids, and don’t mind an uneducated workforce? Then all school funding is a total waste of money. The important part of an enlightened democracy is that most people will disagree with that position, and the schools will get funded, and life goes on. But to complain on PRINCIPLE that the gummint is wasting money on project A or B or C is just, as you put it, “aggressively stupid, and foolish and selfish.” It elevates one’s own position WAY above one’s society, which has voted to approve those expenditures you so vehemently denounce. As Obama told Joe the Plumber, “No one likes paying taxes,” but that doesn’t mean that lowering everyone’s taxes is desirable or beneficial, and a federal government means that some money will be spent on stuff that you don’t approve of.
It sucks that, in our two-party system, we have to discuss this choice.
I want a party that’s low-tax, pro-gay, pro-gun, pro-military, anti-war, pro-science, and rabid in their defense of civil liberties. Try finding that on a ballot.
None. I voted for Obama who will raise my taxes, but it will be worth it. Considering that thousands, possibly millions of Americans have given their **lives **so that their fellow countrymen can enjoy the rights afforded by our Constitution (even if they are black, gay, female, etc)…the very least I can do is pay a little more in taxes to have a president who supports these ideals.
There are some I’m currently not using that I’d be willing to give up. For example, I’d be okay with allowing an attainder of treason to work corruption of the blood after my death.
I mean, it’s not that I cannot be bought. It’s not that I don’t find lower taxes an attractive idea. It’s not even that I wouldn’t be prepared to surrender certain rights, or have them weakened.
It’s the idea of a transaction involving these three factors. I am automatically suspicious to the point of flat refusal.
Untrue. The preservation of your rights involve a great deal of time, effort and money being spent by the government to keep other people from trampling all over you. And many of those “entitlements” are necessary to keep the whole concept of rights from being a joke.
As for me, none. First, because as Mangetout says it’s a highly suspicious bargain. And second, because the government needs money both to protect my rights and to accomplish all the many goals I and others want it to. If anything, the problem is that Americans , especially the wealthy are seriously undertaxed; we demand the government do things, but don’t want to pay for it.
Precisely because the government prevents others from trampling on you. If the government wasn’t protecting you, odds are you’d a slave with no rights at all. Rights are enforced ONLY because of the government.
We’d be in pretty sorry shape without the interstate highway or judicial systems.
That said, entitlements are what’s costing us: the federal government is basically a huge pension plan that happens to have an army.
Among the prominent beneficiaries of this entitlement system are those with feckless or unlucky parents. Intrafamily obligations are less than they were 80 years ago. Bonds loosened, I’d say that young adults have received a corresponding increase in freedom - no loco parentis for them. As a proxy, I’m guessing that geographic mobility has increased.
