re: #445 Obdicut

Okay. This is just a terminology thing, then. If I make a deal with a guy whereby I give him every tenth fish in return for fishing on his land, I’d consider it rather insulting to him to tell him that that tenth fish was a gift of my own free will to him. Instead, I’d consider it a debt and an obligation to him. Gifts, to me, are things that you give when there is no obligation, when you haven’t agreed to one.

See - I don’t know how you can reduce the good-heartedness and generosity of citizens by looking at something like that as an obligation, a debt. Really.

The law says I’m obligated to pay taxes. And I do it. And I’m glad to do it, for all the reasons the government has decided it needs to use that money. I don’t pay my taxes with anger toward the government, or for any of the needs government has determined are important.

I do get angry when I’m told it’s not my money to begin with, and that if my taxes are reduced, I am somehow being “subsidized”. That’s the whole thing in a nutshell, right there, and a