November 5. Feeling Like My Dog Just Died and I Lost My Last Friend
by JBEZL
Nov. 05, 2008 18:17

It's not just because Barack Obama's neo-socialist ideals will harm my family and chip away at the principles I worship. It's not just the prospect of four years of a self-congratulatory media swooning over the man they helped elect. It's not only the horror of watching a fad turn into the most powerful man in the world.

It's about living in a world where wondrous political thought, where the real deep and meaningful solutions to the mysteries of organizing human societies were glimpsed and then shut away. It's knowing that fairness now means equality of outcome despite merit and achievement, liberty comes by permission more than ever and one's claim to redistributed wealth is a good sob story and the ear of a powerful politician.

Look at Obama's infomercial in the final week of the election: a parade of misfortune and a politician equating sharing in kingergarten! with a progressive tax plan. I listened to Obama cry foul when his opponent opportunistically acused him of wanting to provide sex education to kindergartners. I listened to his campaign bemoan the slightest stretch of fact. And yet the refrain of Obama's campaign was reminding people that George Bush gave tax breaks to rich people. I'll never forgive him for this most egregious smear. Even after the Bush tax cuts, rich people pay more than their fair share. Here's a fact and a source, instead of a slick soundbite.

Last week the Congressional Budget Office joined the IRS in releasing tax numbers for 2005, and part of the news is that the richest 1% paid about 39% of all income taxes that year. The richest 5% paid a tad less than 60%, and the richest 10% paid 70%. These tax shares are all up substantially since 1990, and even somewhat since 2000. Meanwhile, Americans with an income below the median -- half of all households -- paid a mere 3% of all income taxes in 2005. The richest 1.3 million tax-filers -- those Americans with adjusted gross incomes of more than $365,000 in 2005 -- paid more income tax than all of the 66 million American tax filers below the median in income. Ten times more.

Source: Wall Street Journal, 2007

I almost wonder if Obama even knows those facts. And then I remember that if he's half as smart as his crowds believe, he must know, which means he's deliberately inciting class warfare in contradiction to the actual facts of the matter. Obama does know those facts, but I'd bet a majority of his hip, trend-swayed followers hear him speak and come away thinking that "rich people" got off the hook when it came to taxes under Bush.

I'm not even rich. Not even close. But I'm principled. I don't deserve someone else's money. And kindergarten has nothing to do with it. It's stunts like that that make me feel Obama doesn't have the right to speak the word fair. I was embarrassed to be a citizen in a country where such a popular politician gets away with such sleaze, and embarrassed to be among an electorate so orgasmic at the thought of sticking it to the "rich" that the facts be damned.

I heard a commentator on the radio attempting to help republicans calm down after losing the presidency and facing huge opposing majorities in Congress. "It's not like the democrats are going to nationalize heavy industry and raise the tax rate to 90 percent," he said.

Don't be so sure. Not today. Not tomorrow. But the liberals are trending that way. And if it's not good enough for the king of their party that the richest 10 percent of people in our country paid 70 percent of all income taxes, then what would make it "fair" (in the kindergarten sense, of course). Eighty percent? Ninety percent? Since principles don't matter anymore, why don't the rich people just pay all the taxes? They have more money than they need anyway. This election also taught us that the president gets to decide how much people need and how much they deserve. And for people who don't have as much as they need, we've got a new Robbin' Hood.

He's willing to throw out the facts in the case of taxes and the wealthy, he's willing to do it on a number of issues, I'll bet. That's why today, although I'm relatively young and unarguably hip, I'm not partying in the wake of yesterday's election.

There's too much B.S. talk about what this election meant. It meant this: there is a huge majority in America of unprincipled people who worship the transformative power of government to decide what's best for each and every one of us.

So get in line. And find out what Obama decides is best for you.

Edited Nov. 05, 2008 20:45