Progressive Tax System and the Parallel of the Law of Principles

Democrats and Republicans are calling for an offset of the out of control Federal Spending and building debt.

Democrats’ solution? Lowering the tax bracket from $250,000 down to $200,000.

“You could go lower, too — why not $200,000?” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). “With the debt and deficit we have, you can’t make promises to people. This is a very serious situation.” (Thehill.com)

This is our government protecting us with the ends justifying the means.

I drone on and on about sacrificing the principle. I sound like a broken record probably. Repetition is the only way to really drill into people’s mind the importance of an issue. Principles should be leading our decisions. Without them we can jump from decision to decision without cause or reason. It leads to irrational decision making and a lack of vision for the consequences. Principle-sacrificing is a great threat to freedom.

With that being said, when you sacrifice the principle you lose everything. Maybe not at first, but over time you will.

This proposed decrease (this time not being a good verb) of the tax bracket is an example of the old cliche “where does it stop?” Say later on down the road they want to reduce the tax bracket again, and again. Until soon taxes being paid by the middle class are almost equal to the amount the elite class pay right now (close to 50%!). How many of your families could afford to pay 50% in taxes? I can BARELY make ends meet paying 26% right now.

One other example of sacrificing the principle even applies to the First Amendment and the FCC. Or when we ban violence inciting remarks. This may seem like a really good idea at first, but then what happens when the government decides that we need to stretch it a little further. Maybe we should ban any sort of hate message? Who defines whether a hate message is good or bad? Is hating Nazis a good or bad thing? Without the Freedom of Speech being TOTALLY unrestricted we don’t have the freedom at all.

Before you argue that the government’s decisions are made for the greater good, first question what that greater good is. Is the greater good the good for the individual? The individual is, after all, the smallest minority is it not? The greater good is an example of sacrificing our principles, torture being the main focus here. But we can’t just rule out torture as being the only form of greater good that MAYBE we aren’t willing to enforce.

As always I love playing Devil’s Advocate with any discussion. If you disagree that the greater good is actually not good at all. I dare you to come up with an example of how it isn’t. Can you think of one?