Death and taxes.

A few miles from where I live, there's going to be a demonstration of sorts sometime soon. Our local NPR station did a somewhat incoherent interview with the organizer, an elderly sounding gentleman who said he was bringing together people who represent a broad range of political tendencies, left to right, to protest taxes against the backdrop of Fort Stanwix in Rome, a tourist-oriented recreation of the Revolutionary War era outpost. His contention was that, like the colonists during the revolution, he was encouraging people to take a stand against taxation. Actually, I think the founding fathers took issue with the notion of taxation without representation, but nevermind. This is a very 21st Century type of revolution - a bunch of people gathered at a local tourist trap to complain about something that will be with us as long as we have an organized society. It's kind of like protesting gravity. Jump as high as you like - eventually, you'll have to come down.

I wonder if this is what Grover Norquist dreamed of when he was a College Republican (like his pal Jack Abramoff) - that we would adopt an ethos of almost childish self-centeredness. Nobody likes paying taxes, goes the cliche. Nobody likes paying for anything, right? (Wouldn't it be awesome if everything were free, man?) And do I have to eat my oatmeal, mom? Seriously, in the last 30 years, taxes, like "tough on crime" legislation, gun control (or lack of same), and national defense, has been the stuff of legendary demagoguery. It remains true today, with a somewhat hollower ring. Republicans, for instance, are really only about tax cuts now, while intoning recently-developed concern about rampant deficit spending. These are the same folks who enthusiastically signed on to pirating the treasury during the first Bush term, voting for two major tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that contributed to growing deficits even during what they themselves refer to as relatively prosperous years - tax cuts designed to create far greater costs in the out years (i.e. right now) and which left us in a far weaker position to face down the current economic crisis. That's the party of fiscal responsibility.

The truth is, they're not against running deficits - their own alternative budget provides for a $1.7 trillion shortfall. They've just against the notion of that borrowed money going to benefit ordinary people in any tangible way. So I have to wonder what that guy who's picketing Fort Stanwix hopes to achieve, except perhaps a completely dysfunctional government that still runs massive deficits.

Shoot 'em up redux. Just down the road, in Binghamton, some lunatic shot up an immigrant services center on Friday, killing as many as 15. Where'd he get the gun? Who cares, right? These mass killings keep happening, and no one even attempts to address the flood of deadly weapons anymore. We're being held hostage by 2nd Amendment absolutists who rail at any limits as an attempt to take away their firearms. Bullshit. Consider this, friends - the word "gun" never appears in the 2nd Amendment, just arms. If we consider it beyond any limitation, people will claim the right to buy rocket launchers and nuclear bombs before we're done. Time for some common sense, before someone else dies for nothing.

luv u,

jp