Taxes and Torture

Okay, we’re going to a double-header tonight on two topics that have been in the news a lot lately, but no one really likes discussing – taxes and torture. And I would love to get some comments going on this stuff, get a nice spirited (but courteous) discussion going.

First on taxes.

Let’s be clear about one thing… taxes are a necessary evil. No society has ever or will ever exist without either a tax or a tribute system, and trust me… we don’t want to go to tributes. The reason that I say this is because every society incurs some sort of debt. Building roads, paying police officers and soldiers, funding libraries and schools, and yes (to the governor of Texas who threatened secession over President Obama’s tax policies) swine flu vaccines ALL COST MONEY. The money has to come from somewhere. Hence taxes.

The question is “Who should be taxed and how much?” Over the last eight years we have seen a huge shift in the tax burden from the wealthy to the poor and middle-class, which I feel is unfair. Despite the fact that the wealthy are paying less taxes than EVER IN HISTORY, they seem to feel that they’re being treated unfairly as well. So what’s the solution to this?

Probably the most common term that I have heard thrown around in relation to this is a “flat tax”. What I discovered today is that there are actually two types of “flat tax” proposals being floated. I want to examine both and see what everyone else thinks.

The first is a flat income tax. In other words, regardless of HOW much you make every year, you would pay the same percentage of your income… say for the sake of no argument 23%... to the government. My problem with this is that the wealthy can afford to hire a tax attorney to find loopholes and shelters for them that the rest of us cannot. So their 23% becomes 20 or 15 or 10 or 5 or zero while MY 23% remains 23. I said to someone today that the only fair way to do that was to eliminate ALL tax loopholes and shelters. His concern is that, by eliminating these things, you would be eliminating the incentive for a lot of people to contribute to charities. Sad, but probably true.

The other type of flat tax that I have discovered for the first time today is a flat SALES tax. The income tax would be eliminated (which would mean that the IRS would be eliminated and don’t we love THAT idea?). All business taxes would be eliminated. Instead, everyone would pay a flat 23% sales tax on every non-essential purchase. So food products such as dairy, meat and vegetables would not be taxed, while snack food, soda pop and candy would be. Heat and power bills would not be, but cable would. A gray area to me would be housing and transportation. Would the purchase of a car be taxed, while the purchase of a bus pass not? And what about a house? If the purchase of a house is taxed at 23%, shouldn’t rent be as well? I think that an argument could be made that, up to a certain cost point, both of these things (as well as cars) would be exempt, but beyond a certain price point they cease being necessities and start being luxuries. For instance, if a cap of $20000 was placed on cars for exemption, and someone bought a $50000 Jag, then they would pay the 23% tax on $30000.

What does everyone else think of this?

Now… away from the torture of taxes and onto the taxing matter of torture.

America tortures.

There, I’ve said it. Boo me where appropriate. We SHOULDN’T, because we’re supposed to be the good guys, but we do.

How do we determine what torture is? Easy. If we don’t want someone else doing it to OUR people when they’re being held prisoner, then we shouldn’t do it to theirs. Period. WE are the ones who first determined, for instance, that water boarding was torture when the Japanese were doing it to our guys in WWII. If it’s torture, guys – IT’S TORTURE. No matter who does it.

There’s been a lot of back and forth in the news lately about who President Obama and the attorney general should prosecute for this, if anyone. President Obama, for instance, has vowed not to prosecute the men and women who actually PERFORMED the torture because they were, of course, following orders. But in the spirit of “what’s good for the goose”, when the Nazis tried to use that excuse during WWII, we cried “bullshit”, right? At what point does your individual conscience kick in and say “No, this is wrong, I’m not going to do it and I’m prepared to accept punishment for this decision if necessary”? What about that old saw-horse “personal responsibility”?

Finally, I’d like to follow in the footsteps of every experienced interrogator in the civilized world and say that torture is ineffective. Here’s an example… let’s say that you have a guy and you ask him if there’s an attack planned. He says no. You say “Look, if you don’t tell us the truth, we’re going to FUCKING TORTURE YOU!” He says “I am telling the truth – there’s no attack planned.” Do you believe him? Yes? No? Better to be safe then sorry, so let’s torture him. So we waterboard him for fifteen minutes. We let him up for air, he still says no attack planned. So we waterboard him for fifteen more minutes. Just to be on the safe side. He still says no. But that CAN’T be right, can it? There MUST be SOME sort of attack planned. So we waterboard him some more. Now, finally, when we let him up for air, he outlines an impending attack, complete with names dates and places.

Perfect. We got the information. Excellent. This exact scenario happened with Abu Zabadia (not sure that I’m spelling that right). Of course, the information that he gave us had one teeny-tiny MINOR little flaw… it was a complete fabrication. NONE of it was real. He told the torturers what he thought that they wanted to hear… imagine this… JUST SO THAT THEY WOULD STOP FUCKING WATERBOARDING HIM! What a pussy. “The truth obviously ain’t working, so let’s try a lie on for size.” To my way of thinking, bad information is worse than NO information because it has us squandering our resources on a threat that… well… doesn’t exist.

Peace.

Randal