Palin pal’ing around with teaparty terrorists, putting down America’s taxes that help build our country.


Looks like Sarah Palin is up to her tricks of pandering to the Tea Party people (who have demonstrated their destructive racist tendencies) as tax day approaches.  If you recall, Sarah Palin has denied in the past that taxes are in fact, linked to patriotism:

Palin might want to turn her back on America and do away with all taxes; but unfortunately there would be a high price to pay for that in our nation.  George Lakoff put it best on his book Don’t Think of An Elephant (p. 108):

Isn’t tax relief the natural way to talk about taxes?  I’m a progressive, but I have to admit, they do seem burdensom sometimes.

Homework in school is burdensome too, but you have to do it if you’re going to learn anything.  Exercise is burdensome, but you have to do it if you’re going to be in good physical shape.  Taxes are necessary if we are going to make wise investments in our national infrastructure that will pay off for all of us years and years in the future.  That includes investments in things like education and health care for those who can’t afford it.  Education and health care are investments in people.  They are wise investments because they give us an educated citizenry, and educated workforce, and a healthy and efficient workforce.  Those are the practical reasons for taxes.  Other reasons for taxes are public services-like police and fire, disaster relief, and so on.

Those are the practical reasons for taxes, but there are moral reasons as well.  Education and health are important factors in fulfillment in life, and this country is about fulfillment in life.  There is a reason why the Declaration of Independence talks about the pursuit of happiness and links it to liberty.  The reason is that they go together.  Without Liberty, there can be no fulfillment in life.  Thus there are practical reasons why it makes sense to understand taxation as an investment, and there are moral reasons to understand taxation as paying your dues in a country where you can pursue happiness because there is liberty and freedom.

Update: if you’re on twitter, please join the movement to ask Sarah Palin to stop putting down America. If you could tweet the following:

Plz RT 4 #taxday @SARAHPalinUSA pal’ing around #teaparty terrorists http://bit.ly/aRHb0D putting down America & what builds our country #p2

Update # 2: here’s another great passage from Don’t Think of An Elephant regarding the topic of taxes (p. 117).

The government has made very wise investments with tax-payer money.  Our interstate highway system, for example.  You couldn’t build a highway with your tax refund.  The government built them.  Or the Internet, paid for by taxpayer investment.  You could not make your own Internet.  Most of our scientific advances have been made through funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health-great government investments of taxpayer money.  No matter how wisely you spent your own money, you’d never get those scientific and medical breakthroughs. And how far would you get hiring your own army with your tax refund?

Update # 3: funny how the rich like Sarah Palin refuse to support America by not paying their fair share; guess it’s not surprising-they KNOW they’re not like you and me.

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Update # 4: it’s not the first time that Sarah Palin has sided with the dangerously wrong crowd; first she virtually sided with sexist right-wing extremists during the Sotomayor confirmation process, now she is siding with racist tea party’ers.  Back in August ’09, I wrote the following: 

I still think [Palin] missed a key opportunity to advance her chances to be the Republican Presidential nominee next time around because she hurt herself by remaining silent on defending Sotomayor while all the sexist attacks were being flung at the Supreme Court Justice nominee.  Should Palin have come out and castigated her Republican colleagues’ attacks on Sotomayor, she would have come out as the good guy, boosting her stance with Latinos.

Who knows, maybe she prefers to ‘pal’ around more with racists than with the Latino community or with women in general.

Update # 5: glad to see that DailyKos followed suit on highlighting how paying taxes is, actually, patriotic.