Kinda makes you wonder how intelligent the liberal intelligentsia really is. I think they're more like educated idiots.

I've long said that this election wouldn't even be close if Bush hadn't spent the first 3.5 years spending like a maniac while pandering to those who would never vote for him under any circumstance.

Let's face it - if John Kerry replaced Edwards with Charles Manson, then wandered into a schoolyard and porked an 8-year old boy, he would still get more votes than Badnarik and Nader combined, and nearly 100% support from the liberal "elite".

Never underestimate the average Democrat's ability to ignore everything except the (D). Only a small portion can ever be convinced that Republicans actually don't eat babies, strangle puppies, and steal old people's medicine. At least I haven't yet, but thanks to Bush's Big Government, I'm hardly even a Republican anymore.

All Bush has accomplished, besides making it even harder to slow down the ever-expanding Federal Government, is pissing off his base. I'm no politician, but I hardly believe that victory is most assured by angering many of your faithful.

Oh well. I must be missing something.

I think the most frightening thing about the future of our nation is that the % of the population that has no tax burden is growing. These people are essentially voting for their own pay raise, which means Kerry. Very depressing.

He pointed out that "the concentration of people who earn more than $200,000 a year are in high-cost states such as New York, Massachusetts, California and Washington state" - where Mr. Kerry's support is strong.
"Kerry is taxing his own base and George Bush is defending them. Go figure," Mr. Hodge said.

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My god! People who have OTHER values besides accumulating money? What are these types with their high falutin moral principles? CHRISTIANS? People worried about "higher concerns"? People who think that civilisation is people working together and everyone working for their own interests is anarchy? Shocking. You won't catch any conservatives voting for anything that doesn't directly line their own pockets will you? Go Bush!

Giving away your own money is charity. Seizing someone else's money is tyranny.

Oh I've only started reading this site lately. I take it you ARE an anarchist? No government, no taxes? Someone who out of principle doesn't use streets, public water, or anything else paid for by tax money? Someone who never went to a public school or university or used a municipal airport or bus?

Seizing someones money is robbery. Seizing their rights to representation is tyranny. Taxation to support a government is civilization.

Anarchy is an interesting idea, I could support it in principle, but it would seem even harder to carry out in practice than communism, and we've seen that has been pretty darn hard to make workable.

Perhaps I've over-extrapolated, but "seizing someone elses money is tryanny" is quite a statement.

You definitely took that one out to the extreme. I was speaking in the context of the post.

You say "Taxation to support a government is civilization." That's fine. But we are talking about taxation to support one's fellow man. Using your vote and the police power of the government to steal from someone else is still stealing, and when the government steals from it's citizens that's tyranny.

Examples of such are taxation for the purpose of redistribution of income, and eminent domain abuses.

Okay, that makes sense.

I guess the question is where is the line dividing taxation for helping others and taxation for redistributing wealth in?

I could see a flat tax if I thought all people were receiving the same benefits from the government and/or the society that their government fosters.

But I believe that wealthier people get more from America than poor people and I think its only fair that they pay a higher percentage of their income. I think this idea of shifting all the taxes onto wages and off of "unearned income" is kind of wacky. If taxes discourage something, we don't want to be discouraging work do we?

Eminent domain is carried to extremes sometimes, when land is condemned to help the owners of a major league baseball team, that really seems NOT to be a "necessary" benefit to society, a bit more of an "optional" benefit which shouldn't carry the same weight at all.

But even with a flat tax, people who earn more pay more. A person that earns $10,000 a year and pays 10% tax pays only $1000. A person who earns $100,000 a year would pay $10,000.

Also, I fail to see how people who earn more necessarily use more government services. It seems to me that people who use the most services, often pay the least. For instance those with children get an exemption to pay less tax. Likewise, those that own property also get an exemption. Here I am with no children, no property, paying a buttload of taxes and getting very little in return.

Of course I enjoy military and police protection, but I don't use hospital services, schools, and community features at all. (Certainly not as much as a family of four would use.)