Are you free to quit your job? Maybe...but since its pretty hard to save money when you're shelling out 60% to the overall tax burden you probably wouldn't be able to keep a roof over your head and food on your plate for more than 3 months or so.

I'd agree that saving up for retirement can be a challenge, regardless of your income level. I find that the more money I make, the more I spend on stuff I definitely could live without. Not sure about the 60%, though...I'm in one of the higher tax brackets, and my "effective" federal income tax rate last year was about 18% of gross - and I wasn't able to itemize, since we were renting a house. Add in the 7.6% for Medicate and Social Security, and I'm looking at about 26% going to the federal government (I don't pay state taxes since my home of record is FL).

Adding in state and local taxes: sales tax in my part of SOCAL is about 7.5%, but that adds an element of fuzzy math when you try to combine it with the above federal taxes. Same with property tax (which I'll talk about later), since that depends on where you choose to live vice how much you make.

Even with state and local, I can't see you hitting 60% of gross. But whatever, I think the point you are trying to make is still valid (if a bit overinflated) - saving money for retirement (at whatever age you want to retire) is hard. But it's not impossible!

Do you really own anything? Well, considering you get taxed on your income, investments and land you own, I don't really contend that you do. What good is ownership of a house if the government has the power to just muscle it away from you with tax increases?

If you determine ownership in the absolute sense, i.e., no one can take it away from you, then no, you own nothing. Not even your life. But I think that governments do more to protect our right of ownership than you give them credit for. For example, I don't really worry about anyone taking my car away from me. The risk of punishment vs. reward in that case is pretty high, whether it comes from someone carjacking me, or the person I bought it from trying to repo it. In both cases, the government provides the framework of laws that makes it difficult (or unrewarding enough) for me to lose my car.

Property taxes are another subject entirely - but they're not federally controlled. States control the overall property tax rate, and your local city/county/municipality/whatever add their ad valorum costs on top of that rate. I've heard of instances where fixed-income families lose their homes in areas of rapid land valuation increase - this sort of thing really pisses me off. But there are plenty of states (California for one) where citizens have successfully lobbied and passed laws to limit the rate of property tax increases. So the groundwork has been laid; it's up to the concerned citizens of a particular area to ensure their property rights are protected in the same way.

What good are rights to a speedy trial if you can be held without trial against your will for an indeterminate period of time?

Those rights would sure as hell help me if I were arrested! Do I agree with what's going on in Gitmo? Meh. The part of me that's had those dudes (or dudes like them) trying to kill me sure as hell agrees with it. The part of me that swore to support and defend the Constitution has a much, much harder time with it.

What good are rights to privacy if they're mitigated without a warrant?

Not a lot of good, I'll agree there.

What good is a right to life if you can be drafted into the army and forced into a war you don't support on foreign soil?

While I agree with you in general, there are plenty of ways to avoid being drafted (Texas National Guard, anyone?) or actually going to fight once drafted. But whatever, the fact that there isn't a draft going on right now is a pretty strong indication to me that the "war" in Iraq isn't enough of a political priority for Congress to push for one.

In reality what rights and freedoms do we actually have? I mean ####, I just got a copy of my birth certificate and I had to pay money for it. Then I changed my address on my driver's license and had to pay money for that too. Apparently, I don't even *own* the information used to identify *me*.

*heh* I'm cool with that. I think that the fees are there to encourage people not to waste government resources, to a certain extent.

At the very least, I think people need to stop confusing "comfortable" with "free". Having a nice couch at home doesn't make you free. Freedom means power and your average citizen has very little.

If freedom is power, then having the power to choose comfort means you're free, right?

I agree that our government isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But given the fact that any representative democracy, especially a two-party system like ours, is basically founded on comprimise, and you'll be able to point out tons of problems with the system - depending on which side of the comprimise you come down on. Don't like the fact that our government spends so much on social programs? That's probably because you aren't directly benefiting from said social programs, but it's a comprimise that our citizenry has agreed to make. And I'd argue that if you don't directly benefit, you at least indirectly benefit from said social programs. They keep the "unwashed masses" happier, and less likely to rise up and just take what they want from those that have it. I like the education analogy: I have no kids, so why should I pay any taxes that go towards education? The answer is that I indirectly benefit from having an educated society surrounding me, now and in the future.

One of my biggest concerns for the future is the growing wealth gap between the haves and have nots, and the widening between the upper class and the middle class. The wider that gap gets, the more likely (historically speaking) the chance of revolution. Being a have, I definitely don't want that!

Anyway, I've run out of steam on this topic, though it's definitely an interesting one. I'm a pretty liberal Republican, but I've got huge problems with the way the Bush administration has been running the show for the past six years. Not sure who I'll end up supporting, but it will definitely be someone with some sense of fiscal responsibility.

Thanks for the post, man!

Kastellyn the Devourer of Magic, Lord of Legends

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