re: #459 reine.de.tout

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.

Mainly because it is a debt. And it is an obligation.

I don’t feel generous for paying taxes. I feel damn glad I live in a country with a low amount of corruption (in general, I know LA has its whatsits) and where I can clearly calculate my taxes ahead of time and won’t be hit up for a ‘special’ tax by some local asshole. I see taxes as an obligation, because they are an obligation. They’re not a free gift I make.

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.

That’s cool. But notice that you’re saying here you’re obligated, and in the first part said you didn’t understand how I could see it as an obligation. How is that not contradictory?

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

I didn’t ever say if your taxes are reduced you’re being subsidized. If you, personally, had your taxes reduced and I didn’t, because you were Reine and I was Obdicut, then yes, you’d be subsidized. But that’s not happening. And I always clearly said that a part of the money isn’t yours because you know, ahead of time, that it belongs to the government, because you have to pay it to them. Because it’s an obligation.