Happy Tax Day to all my US readers!!!
April 17, 2012
All right-thinking and patriotic Americans should be beaming with pride as they pay their part of the community bargain today.
I know I am proud to contribute my part towards all the great things our State and Federal governments accomplish. Admittedly, I’m not so keen on the blowing-other-people-up stuff but this is what a social compact of millions means. We take the good with the bad.
So join me in wishing out fellow citizens a Happy Tax Day!!!! Put a smile on your face and puff up with nationalistic pride.
DrugMonkey 
April 17, 2012 at 5:10 am
I have overpaid, so the government got to use my money in the interim. I’m like a super-payer and thus *extra* awesome.
Yay for all the things taxes go to support. Yay infrastructure!
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April 17, 2012 at 5:34 am
Yay clean water! Yay public education (especially for the poorer children)!
Yay motherfucking traffic laws and paved roads!!!!
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April 17, 2012 at 6:13 am
When I used to live in DC, I always liked the slogan on the IRS building: “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society”. Obviously it is somewhat self serving on the part of the IRS, but it does make one think about all the great things we have that are paid for by taxes. It isn’t “theft” as some would have it, but what prevents us from living in a “Lord of the Flies” world.
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April 17, 2012 at 6:21 am
Yay for world’s largest prison population! Yay for disparate racial impacts of Drug War!
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April 17, 2012 at 6:59 am
Yes, Alex, because the alternative “Lord of the Flies” is soooo much better. As I alluded to with regard to bombing the shit out of other countries, it is part and parcel of community that we put up with things *in our name* that we do not agree with. This is fundamental to compromise. This very fact is in no way a legitimate objection to the very fundamental nature of the government/taxation agreement.
Of course, our ability to work within the social compact to alter the direction of the whole should be a cherished right/privilege.
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April 17, 2012 at 7:56 am
We also overpaid and are reaping the benefits of our refunds to stimulate our economy. Our OK state overpayment got refunded on a debit card. Easy to spend, harder to just deposit in the bank.
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April 17, 2012 at 10:41 am
Yay for the world’s largest military budget, making up nearly half the worldwide total!
Yay for throwing people in prison for years for selling (relatively) harmless herbs!
Yay for nude-o-scopes at the airport!
Yay for brave adventures in kicking A-rabs around their deserts! And let’s do it to the Persians too!
Yay for denying US citizens the right to visit Cuba!
What compromise? I LOVE all these things!
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April 17, 2012 at 10:59 am
So Grumble, you are willing to trade in all of the benefits you enjoy and *don’t* seem to whinge about so that you can live in a society in which you agree wholeheartedly with every single group action?
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April 17, 2012 at 12:17 pm
I think I’ma start me a hashtag: #todayI’mthankfulmytaxespaidfor… (I’ll start: the FSIS promising to start treating the big six shiga-toxin producing E. colis the same as O157H7. Doesn’t matter to me directly, but I like to know that the hamburger my kid is being fed will be tested for this)
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April 17, 2012 at 1:18 pm
[…] Tax Day, fellow Americans! I agree with DrugMonkey that we should all be proud to keep our side of the social bargain. I'm getting a refund this year, […]
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April 17, 2012 at 2:45 pm
I discovered this year what a beneficial thing it is to have a baby, tax-wise that is! Aside from the fact that tax payers pay my salary! And compared to how much tax I used to pay in Europe, I don’t find tax day all that bad.
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April 18, 2012 at 10:02 am
No, DM, I would just prefer to generally agree with my country’s foreign and security and, come to think of it, energy policies. As it is I can barely find anything in them I agree with. Yeah, it’s nice to have roads to drive on and policemen and firemen and federally funded DrugMonkeys to give drugs to monkeys to see what happens, and all that.
But if the same tax dollars that pay for those nice things also pay for worldwide stupid wars and the obstinate refusal to acknowledge, much less do something about, the very real threat of climate change — well, there isn’t much point to all those roads and firemen and policemen and drugmonkeys if, 50 years from now, society will be wrecked beyond recognition because half our land is underwater and the other half is under constant threat of hurricanes. And everyone hates us because we tried to boss everyone in the world around back when we were rich and powerful and had money to burn on taxes.
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April 18, 2012 at 10:08 am
society will be wrecked beyond recognition because half our land is underwater and the other half is under constant threat of hurricanes
To describe the likely consequences of climate change as wrecking US society “beyond recognition” betrays a first world problem of the highest order. Expensive ass Manhattan or Los Angeles area real estate going under water barely even registers on my list of concerns. hurricanes? build for it and/or move population centers elsewhere. I hear Colorado is nice.
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April 18, 2012 at 10:22 am
Climate change doesn’t just mean Manhattan and Los Angeles. It means more flooding in the heartland. It means more droughts. It means more storms. That means agricultural output will be in disarray at best, and severely reduced at worst. And it means these problems in the third world, too.
“Move population centers elsewhere”. Do you have ANY idea how expensive it would be to move New York City to Colorado? And will our business/financial capital survive the move?
Big changes are afoot. We could do something about them. But we aren’t because our government is not addressing the problem now, when it’s still affordable to do so. I don’t hate taxes. But I do hate that they aren’t being used to combat some very real problems.
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April 18, 2012 at 10:25 am
Do you have ANY idea how expensive it would be to move New York City to Colorado? And will our business/financial capital survive the move?
waaah. and yes. it will.
It means more flooding in the heartland. It means more droughts. It means more storms. That means agricultural output will be in disarray at best, and severely reduced at worst. And it means these problems in the third world, too.
and we, the cockroach of mammals, will adapt. it is an inconvenience. Not an existential threat to the US, nevermind our species.
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April 18, 2012 at 10:37 am
Head. Sand.
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