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[omedalus]

Well well, it appears that LJ is still alive and breathing. Moreover, it even appears that there are still people I know and love who post regularly on this thing. It's been so long since I've seen my old brain-in-a-jar icon. Ahh, nostalgia.

Anyway...

Happy Passover.

The news implores me to complete my Census 2010 card. It cites, as a perk, the fact

Comments

Re: As I predicted, some things never change.

[omedalus]

I infer that you, however, are not. I also infer that this is not because you're independently wealthy, and in fact need a job.

I offer you the following observation: Your unemployment is not my fault. I feel bad for you, but your predicament is not something I caused. No possible moral code that can conceivably be worth the name can possibly conclude that I "owe" you anything.

Yet you insist (again, I infer) that we live under a government that takes resources from me against my will and gives them to you, or allocates them disproportionately to your benefit.

This is prima facae self-serving. Now, that in and of itself I have come to accept. But what drives me mad is the temerity you exhibit in claiming that it's anything other than bald-faced theft. I accept your desire to mug me; what I don't accept is that you expect me to smile and be happy you're doing it, to support you in your efforts, to call you a good person for it.

And really, I think that's why I'm hated by people like you. It's not that I'm unwilling to pay my taxes. It's that I'm unwilling to maintain the pleasant social facade that enables you to justify to yourself the practice of taking them.

I refuse to NOT call you a thief. And people like me piss off people like you because you know it's true.

Because at the end of the day, you and I are equals. We're exactly the same. We want the same things: the money currently in my wallet. If our situations were reversed, I'd try to get that money from you by convincing you I deserve it. In my vocabulary that means I earn it by performing some kind of work for you; in your vocabulary it means trying to convince me, using social pressure and twisted logic, to internalize a socioeconomic philosophy in which I just hand over that money with a smile on my face. But it amounts to the same thing: trying to get the person with the money to give it to you of his own free will.

The key difference between you and me, though, is that if I fail to do so, I accept it and move on. When you fail to do so, you use this country's democratic process to pass a series of laws that result in your desired outcome anyway. Well, I can't fight against that, which is exactly why you do it. But don't you dare expect me to give you both my money and my social validation for the act of taking it against my will.

Re: As I predicted, some things never change.

[omedalus]

I'm so glad I don't talk to you anymore.