raison

It's not that I enjoy ridiculing people; some people just readily lend themselves to public ridicule. The author of the following letter to the editor in the Star Tribune, for example, is just asking for it:

It's my money

I am disgusted with the recent letter writers who are happy to pay their taxes since they see them as an investment in their families via government spending.

This liberal, collectivist attitude is why more Minnesotans aren't outraged by the immorality of the income tax.

I am nowhere close to being in the highest income tax bracket, but I still lament the amount of federal and state income taxes that I must involuntarily surrender with each paycheck.

I do not view these as necessary investments in the community. Individuals should have the right to spend their entire earnings as they see fit rather than having the government spend some of it.

I am in my 20s and upwardly mobile. It disturbs me that as I become more successful and make more money, the government says it's just fine to take an even greater bite out of wealth generated from a service I provide to my employer.

The left-wing attitude is that I should take my medicine and turn over this money since I can more easily afford it. Liberals and the Minnesota DFL promote this never-ending class envy and enact punitive tax laws for those who are most successful in life.

Wealth is not a four-letter word, and I should have the unfettered right to spend or invest 100 percent of it at my discretion.

Jeremy DeMai, St. Paul


Wow, man, whatever drugs you're on, I'd like to try them. It's pretty clear that it's not just the income tax this gentleman opposes, but all kinds of taxes, because any taxation would mean the government is taking some of your money against your will.

Ok, how do I explain this... See, it's the little things like roads, public education, and not letting people who can't work because of a disability die of starvation that set us apart from earlier generations of people, say, those who liked to live in caves. And these things need to be funded. Hence taxation. But it doesn't end there; taxes also help the government fund important clinical research that would help explain how some people reach their 20's without maturing enough to accept social responsibility along with individual rights.

Assholes piss me off.