MindSpinner

This is going to be quick - and probably in need of revision. The end of the grading period approaches. But it’s been on my mind all week.

I don’t resent paying my taxes. I don’t think of taxes as an evil. When America is moving in a direction I can support, paying my taxes is a part of making the country what I want it to be, a place of justice and opportunity. It’s a part of doing my fair share on behalf of the future. I see my taxes as means to achieving constructive ends that I cannot achieve on my own. I don’t want to pay my taxes blindly, true, and I don’t want them wasted, but I am all for some of the things that a bit of money in the hands of a responsible government can do.

I have ambivalent feelings about the tax cuts I’ve received thanks to the “generosity” of the Bush administration. I don’t want to line my own pockets with an extra thousand or two dollars each year when that means that my children and grandchildren will have to shoulder an enormous national debt. I don’t want to keep the money in my pocket when levees and sea walls that protect cities are left inadequate for their purpose, when people in poverty have no means to escape a doomed city, when Americans can’t afford adequate healthcare, when environmental protections are compromised, when NPR’s funding is slashed - this list could go on and on, but you get the idea. I also recognize that a tax-cutting frenzy hasn’t actually left me any better off.

I’m tired of being called upon to value my own self-interest above the needs of the nation and my neighbor and to vote for those who pretend there is no necessity for sacrifice and no price to pay for greed.

Patriotism does not consist of waving a flag and following without question when we march off to war. Patriotism may more rightly consist of questioning incisively the motives, means, and ends of government, in affirming a nobler, more just vision for America, and in voting for candidates who are brave enough to say, “Yes, this is going to cost you something, but it’s going to be worth it, and the alternative is unacceptable.”