Fair tax

I have just received my first ever piece o' hate mail. Can you believe it? I read a lot about this supposed fair tax pushed by a guy named Boortz. I did read the review here on the blogs and did come to believe that the people who love this idea are very uncompromising and at times down right hateful. They don't believe in dialogue. Well, just for fun I submitted an anti Fair Tax blurb to the T-U last week. I had read that the T-U refuses to print opposing views on the subject but tried anyway. Lo and behold, it got published,. Go figure.

Now we get to flash forward to today. Some hate monger named John D. Williams actually took the time to write me a hate letter telling me I am "ignorant and functionally incompetent" because I don't think the way the fair tax people do. Can you believe this nerve? According to the hate letter, Neal Boortz wrote this in his book, Somebody's Got to Say It. (Never heard of it. Must be a real barn burner of a book.) Well, Mr. Williams, go to hell. I now fully believe that you and your kind are sick in the head and I want the entire community to know what I think of you. And to quote a nobody like this Neal Boortz? That's who you look up to to lead you? Talk about "functionally incompetent". If you need to be led around by thenose from a blabber mouth you are a very poor excuse for a man. Go to hell, FAST!

I know, I know, most of us are bored to tears with this topic and I keep going back to it. Since my grandson is napping I have extra time on my hands. I wondered if there might be an antidote to the propaganda site that Truth keeps pushing and found a whole litany of debate, pro and con (unlike her site) from the Washington Post. Here is one bloggers thoughts put much better than apparently I am capable of. (Pay special attention to point 10.)

For those of you who have drank the Kool-Aid and actually believe all the propoganda spewed out by the FairTax proponents, please consider the following (which I gurantee you will never hear from Neal Boortz, John Linder or AFFT):

As many of you know, one of new favorite authors is a woman named Meg Gardiner. Her sixth novel is her debut in this country. It's called The Dirty Secrets Club. Previously, she has published five in her Evan Delaney series which has just debuted here in paperback form. The first is called China Lake and it is centered around a religious cult called The Remnant.  Amazon.com has an interview with Ms. Gardiner at its website. At one point she is asked to describe a cult.  Here is her response.

Amazon.com: What’s the difference between a cult and religion in your opinion?
Gardiner: A religion is a system of beliefs about the true nature of existence and humanity’s connection to the divine--to a supernatural reality beyond what we can see with our eyes.  And it’s a community that shares convictions about what people must do to bring themselves closer to God. (Or bliss, or enlightenment.) A cult, to vastly simplify, is a group that takes religion to extremes.  It’s fanatical, manipulative, and in the end, destructive. Cults demand total commitment. They often have charismatic leaders who require absolute subservience from followers. And they’re coercive. They tear members away from their previous lives to isolate them from the wicked, tempting world. They may force followers to break contact with family and friends who are “unsaved” or “infidels.” 

And now the denouement

Chapter 7 is roughly 2 ½ pages long. In what we have now come to learn is the author’s style of enhanced vagueness we are introduced to “The Birth Of The Fair Tax”. Essentially, there are no names given. I find it curious that as evolutionary as a completely new way of funding government and its services as this scheme is supposed to be, no one wants to take credit for it. The proponents mentioned are shadowy and anonymous. To me it sounds like Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and the board of Enron.

Lordy, lordy, are we in for some fun now. I just had to stop reading to give you all my impressions of Chapters 5 and 6. (Yes, through an editing error I did not mention that Chapter 4 was already included in essay number two.) But I’m the one with OCD so I don’t imagine little things like that will bother those of you who are interested in the Big Picture here. Just wanted to let you know that I do err and I am not ashamed to admit it, unlike my harshest critics. As an aside, let me address one of those criticisms now. The point was nearly beaten senseless that I did not agree with the concept of the Fair Tax and that this was wrong of me because I had not read this particular book. I have, of course, read many other articles on the Fair Tax. This book is not the End All on the subject. Other people much sharper than I, whom I respect, have also weighed in on the subject and detailed points even better than I can. It is through their insight I have formed my opinions. But once the whining began that I had not read the Boortz/Linder book and that anything I said was not to be considered seriously, I decided as a lark, to read it and analyze it to the best of my ability and to entertain other readers here. Frankly, my critics are nowhere near as fair as I am trying to be. I openly admit I dislike this “plan” and I am using this pitifully written book to explain how I see it. The critics should just stop trying to censor me and reply in a point by point assessment of my conclusions, something they have thus far refused to do. All they say is “read the book” rather than actually approach the level with a serious discourse. I also have suggested those who are interested should read the book. Don’t take my word solely on the subject. That would be as foolish as taking the author’s word for it solely. How much more fair can I be? Those of you who are following this thread, PLEASE tell me how you feel about these posts and whether or not you agree and what you think.

One of the fascinating things about right wing talk radio (and perhaps left wing talk radio as well) is how the hosts of these shows have so much “Personal Confidence”, by which I mean “Chutzpah”.  These shows are designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. On many of these shows the host will demagogue the concept of Rugged Individualism to their audience. What it seems to come down to is that to be a Rugged Individualist one must see the world as the host does. Does this not subvert the very concept of individualism? I recall in the sixties when my generation eschewed (although we had no clue as to what eschewing was) collegiate attire and we all donned T shirts and jeans just so we could be different. What we were, ultimately, was a ragged army impressed into service by jeans salesmen. Live and Learn. That’s what I have attempted to do for much of my life and I feel, for the most part, I have succeeded more often than failed. Which brings me to the point of today’s missive.