How can we fix this? How can we make this system fair? Even things out, you know? Can’t let the poor have all the fun, while I sit here, toiling away for their benefit, getting taxed more just because I’m successful! I’ve got it! Flat tax!

Great idea that flat tax. A 20% across the board tax rate would affect earners equitably, no matter their circumstances. The impact of a 20% tax on both an income of $10000 and an income of $250,000? In a word: Fair.

Speaking of fair, it swells my heart with reverence to think of just how perfectly the market rewards the best things about us, how it’s such a proficient indicator of the things that should be valued in a society. It brings a tear to my eye, thinking of all those starry-eyed idealists out there – the investment bankers, the IT managers, the real estate developers, the software architects, actuaries and professional atheletes – toiling away at a mere pittance of what they deserve. I’ve lost count of the times I have lain awake, squirming in bed, fretting over the inequality of the average CEO making 400 times the salary of his lowest paid worker. Only 400?!? Jeez, we’ll be giving the knuckledraggers at the bottom the impression that they’re real human beings if we keep this up!

Conversely, all those social workers, child-care workers, teachers, research scientists, home-care workers serving the disabled and the elderly, those who work for charitable organizations, conservation workers, public defenders… Getting just what they deserve, thank you very much. The market rightly exposes the frivolity of compassion and intellectual curiosity.

And, hey, only those who work – really WORK, pal – get the big payoff in this society. Those schlubs toiling 60+ hours per week, pouring sweat into working in a warehouse or steel mill or digging ditches? Well, there’s a word for those people where I come from: lazy. I mean, hey, who else do they have but themselves to blame for being born into families and communities that didn’t value intellectual rigor? Come on, get some better genes, people! Pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get a real job! Show some gumption, fer chrissakes, you goodfornothings.

If I get my fair share of the pie in this country, who are you, you liberal weenies, to tell me I need to contribute to the functioning of society? I worked for what I got, gadnabbit! Next you’ll be telling me that commerce these days depends on public transportation, a publically maintained internet, public highways, public fire and police services, workers educated in public schools and universities, and other socialist(!) instituations. No way, no how I’ve benefited from these things. There’s no way that government’s guiding hand, keeping society from going too far off the rails, keeping us safe from threats within and without has benefited me at all. I’ve earned what I got, pal, fair and square, by the sweat of my brow alone! Go live in your liberal lala land where people care about each other and work toward societal goals! I’m moving to Dubai, where a man can be free! Free from taxation and regulation! Free from the chains of caring about the lowliest among us! And there’s 12 year old prositiutes too!

Yow.

For some reason this freak reminds me of a character – that I believe was on the Commander Tom Show – that wore this ultra-creepy skin tight suit of the human internal anatomy and talked about health & fitness. I was always scared shitless as a kid, Sunday mornings, watching this poofy-haired weirdo in a suit that made him look like he’d been skinned alive telling me to drink milk and eat my vegetables.

*Note: This video has since been removed from You Tube. It had featured a person in a skin tight deer suit, prancing awkwardly (possibly seductively?) in the woods. You are probably better off for not viewing it, actually.

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