Logic Pretzels

The change in the public political debates since last year's election put Democrats in power is becoming rather fascinating. Sure, the Iraq fight (not the one actually happening in Iraq, but the one in Washington) still gets lots of play. But I'm noticing that there are lots of new left-wing ideas beginning to pop up, because of course, domestic socialism is what that party's really about.

Take a recent tax discussion I caught briefly when channel-surfing. The argument was the usual soak-the-rich thing. One side says the rich don't pay enough, while the other says they actually make up a very large chunk of the national budget.

What I wished I could ask them was this: Most of the biggest supporters of the political left are very rich. From Soros to all the Hollywood crowd to recording artists. Do I understand you to be saying you will reward their millions in support for bringing your party to power by slapping them with a 90% tax rate? How do you think that will go over with them?

My suspicion is that if and when they get a 90% rich tax passed, they'll cleverly write exemptions into the tax code carefully targeted to include their supporters while excluding the rich people they don't like. Those being people like surgeons, CEOs, stockbrokers, and such.

How else can it make sense that a political party would bite the hands that feed it?

I find it interesting that the argument is based on a twisted logical exercise that goes something like this: Rich people have obscene amounts of money they can spend on vacation homes and private jets and the like, while the poor worker barely gets paid enough to take care of his family.

The flaws in the logic of that whole story are many. First, what are you going to do with all the money you confiscate from those rich people? Give it to the poor families? Please. We all know better. The "programs" you want to create to "help" people are really the creation of big bureaucracies in which you hope to get appointed to a top job so you can make a good living without having to work much.

Next, since when do you care about families? You're a feminist, which means you would prefer women remain childless. But if they really want children, they certainly don't need men around. And you also believe a gay couple is the moral equivalent (if not superior) to a traditional married couple. Finally, from what I hear, you believe the planet is overpopulated, so even if a hetero couple get married and want a family, you think they should be limited to only one child.

You might think these are strange people with strange ideas. I tend to think they are actually people with visions of great power. Taxing the rich isn't about helping the poor or any sort of "fairness" idea. It's about power. The power of elite people in government to tell the citizenry how they are to live their lives. And make a very nice living for themselves with cushy positions deep within their bloated bureaucracies.