I think your taxes are too low. I think you should be taxed more.

Disagree? On what basis? Do you think you already pay too much taxes? Why? What is your basis for comparison? What tax rate should you be paying instead of the one you are paying now? Why?

In the video linked above, I reiterate some points that I have made before in political essay form. Basically, I attack the very notion that taxes are too high, and I do it by presenting my audience with a startling modern heresy : saying taxes are too low.

I don’t actually know if taxes are too high, too low, or just right. I just want to shock people into realizing just how shallow and crassly manipulative the whole “my taxes are too high” bullshit is. It is exactly the sort of political message that people swallow hook, line, and stinker because they like the sound of it, and are then led around by callous and elitist leaders who have realizing that it is perfectly legal to buy votes as long as you use the government’s money and not your own.

What could be a more perfect deal for the One Percent? You get to buy votes with some else’s money while conveniently cloaking your own sociopathic greed as some form of patriotism, when in reality it is the exact opposite of patriotism.

It is refusing to pay for the society from which you benefit. Worse, it is often accompanied by naked attacks on the very concept of government in favour of some kind of anarchism where only the strong survive and the rest perish.

This is a philosophy always favoured by the strong, but the real trick is convincing the sheep to go right along with it. The trick is to get them feeling like they are the strong, too, and so sure they are selling out millions of their countrymen, but it’s nobody they know and the people getting screwed possibly even deserve it.

The real truth is that the One Percent, those myopic monsters, do not give a shit about anything outside their own cloistered world. The only thing that truly matters to them is socially competing with other rich people in their peer group as to who is the richest and that means they will do absolutely anything it takes to get richer.

The concept of having “enough” money is alien to them. To them, it is crystal clear that as long as there is one person in the world who thinks they are better than them because they have more money, they do not have “enough” money.

And even if they become the richest person in the world, they will still collect wealth with equal rapacity just because getting more money feels good. And woe betide anyone who dares to tell these incredibly spoiled brats that they can’t have something they want or that they can’t do what they want to do. They will use all the power that their enormous wealth gives them to destroy all remaining ties to the world outside their own ivory towers, and this whole idea of excess taxation plays right into their hands.

They do not give a fuck about the consequences of tax cuts, because they know that they will not be the ones to suffer them. We will. All they care about is that mean old government is making them less rich than they could be and that is the most evil thing ever in their childish world.

This excess taxation lie even lets them pretend they have something in common with the average citizen. It is, in fact, the perfect set of sheep’s clothing for these fat and greedy wolves. Hey, we are all entitled and thoughtless enough to think taxes are the worst thing in the world, right? Government is just a big meanie that takes our toys away and makes us share with others and take our turn.

And they only think that society could crumble all around them and they would be fine, and they would finally be free of those taxes and regulations that remind them they are not gods. In truth, even their self-centered little world is enormously dependent on government support and assistance. The very currencies that make up their wealth are backed by the full power of nations in which they refuse to pay taxes. And that money would be worthless if there was not a highly advanced and complex society held together by social programs and public services producing things for them to buy.

So in reality, they are just greedy little children who want to be able to get away with not paying for the world they live in and getting all us chumps to do it for them instead.

But we can fight back. We can save them (and us) from themselves. We can reject all this “my taxes are too high” bullshit and be proud to say “My taxes are fine. They pay for the country I love. I’m adult enough to know that freedom isn’t free and that I am living in the best time to be alive there has ever been and that does not come without some kind of sacrifice. I am just glad that modern civilization is so advanced that I can get all of this without having to do anything more than pay my fair share of the taxes!”

If we have the courage and the vision to do this, they will lose so much of their power over us. They are counting on us not knowing how civilization actually works and being as shortsighted and self-destructive and immature as they are.

But they are the children. We are the adults. We can rise above their petty tricks and reject their self-serving political philosophies and act instead like good parents who know when to tell their children “no” for their own good.

Sure, they will scream and kick and cry and tell us how much they hate us and that we are the worst people in the world for being so damned mean.

But we will know we did the right thing.