- 10 Oct 2022 18:10
#15250432
"Because the US and the UK have been so friendly for so long, however—with the phrase “the special relationship” having achieved semi-official status—it is generally a jovial matter when Americans and Brits happen to come together on the Fourth. That was no less true this year at my gathering, even though I did find myself in the odd situation of chairing an academic panel that included a paper co-authored by professors from England and the Netherlands, discussing the role of taxes in the American Revolution.
I am recalling the circumstances of that presentation here only because seeing the American story through the eyes of two European tax historians reminded me how important it is to understand that the American revolution was not a rebellion against taxation.
For at least the last forty years, however, the Republican Party has been spinning a fantasy about the United States and its supposed hatred—from its very birth, mind you!!—of government and taxes. We need to remind ourselves again and again that that is utter nonsense—dangerous, harmful, toxic nonsense.
The result of this framing, however, is jarring when viewed through the distorted lens of modern conservative anti-government dogma. Anyone who bothers to read the Declaration of Independence (as opposed to assuming that they know what it says) cannot help but observe that the Founders wanted two things: legislatures and the rule of law. Let me put that more bluntly: the Declaration of Independence tells us that the American Revolution was fought so that we could live in a world run by Congress and lawyers!
More than a century later, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes captured this truth with this famous comment to a colleague that taxes are “the price we pay for a civilized society.”
More at the link. The Right has, for a very long time, been building a fantasy, a myth about what we are, how the world works, and most importantly that what failed in the past can be brought back and made to work.
It comes from a very dark place.
https://verdict.justia.com/2022/10/03/t ... r-us-today
I am recalling the circumstances of that presentation here only because seeing the American story through the eyes of two European tax historians reminded me how important it is to understand that the American revolution was not a rebellion against taxation.
For at least the last forty years, however, the Republican Party has been spinning a fantasy about the United States and its supposed hatred—from its very birth, mind you!!—of government and taxes. We need to remind ourselves again and again that that is utter nonsense—dangerous, harmful, toxic nonsense.
The result of this framing, however, is jarring when viewed through the distorted lens of modern conservative anti-government dogma. Anyone who bothers to read the Declaration of Independence (as opposed to assuming that they know what it says) cannot help but observe that the Founders wanted two things: legislatures and the rule of law. Let me put that more bluntly: the Declaration of Independence tells us that the American Revolution was fought so that we could live in a world run by Congress and lawyers!
More than a century later, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes captured this truth with this famous comment to a colleague that taxes are “the price we pay for a civilized society.”
More at the link. The Right has, for a very long time, been building a fantasy, a myth about what we are, how the world works, and most importantly that what failed in the past can be brought back and made to work.
It comes from a very dark place.
https://verdict.justia.com/2022/10/03/t ... r-us-today
Facts have a well known liberal bias
- By paeng
- By Pants-of-dog
- By Godstud