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calimary

(80,700 posts)
6. NO. This isn't just some bullshit hypothetical argument.
Sat Jun 30, 2012, 07:15 PM
Jun 2012

It's an accurate prediction of the future in the full vision of the teabaggers. Only they're unable to envision anything beyond their own selfish little myopia.

I was part of a forum last summer in which there were several rigid howard jarvis worshippers. One, a crotchety little old lady who could almost literally have come from Central Casting, proved utterly unreachable. But others not quite so much. One fellow I sat next to may have at least begun to think a TINY bit beyond the Pox Propaganda.

I gave a hypothetical, too, that actually is based on quite a bit of truth. The state of our roads here in CA is WIDELY agreed to be pretty shabby. Especially around my area. Not enough money to do road repair and simple things like filling potholes because no one dares raise taxes and so many fund-raising bond issues are defeated at the polls. I posed the question to everyone about that - how much more do you stand to have to spend on auto repair, fixing your wheel alignment, replacing oddly-worn tires, maybe in some extreme cases having to replace your front axle because that one pothole was bad enough to bend it just to the point where it made your car dangerous or more difficult to drive? How often do you have to go in for wheel alignment since most of the roads around here are so damn bad? How much more is that gonna take out of your pocket for car repairs than the few extra dollars we ALL are asked to chip in, in taxes, to underwrite general road repair? This guy next to me stopped arguing so vehemently and admitted in a subdued voice - "well, I didn't think of that..."

And that covers ALL the roads. Not just the ones that affect me directly in my own geographical area. Listen, I've got a daughter living in the Pacific Northwest, and I've got a son with a rock band who tours nationally, which means they're out on the road EVERYWHERE. They've been through at least three-quarters of the lower 48 states by now, some places getting quite a few repeat visits. And while it doesn't affect me in So Cal (because I'M not driving through Georgia or the Florida Panhandle or New Hampshire or Flint Michigan. But he is, and the five other young dudes with him are in that same vehicle. And dammit, I care! I care a LOT. I want ALL the roads repaired and kept in good shape for EVERYONE in this country!

Taxes are DUES. DUES we all pay for the privilege of living in a country like this, and all the wonderful things and advantages and opportunities that it offers that MAKE such a wonderful country in the first place. No one who wanted the privilege of belonging to a high-class country club would begrudge paying those often exhorbitant dues to belong there. Well, America is like the greatest and most wonderful and desirable country club in the world! The wonderful freedoms and amenities and opportunities and blessings and riches of this country - are worth us all chipping in to help underwrite. That's how we MAKE it that wonderful, in the first place!

Freedom indeed is NOT free. True that. But it costs much more than exclusively the blood of patriots. It also costs tax money.

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