I didn’t know what to name this entry: the choices were Going Down with the Ship? or Putting out fires… And in all honesty, your (uncharacteristic) post confuses me. Either you’ve painted in incredibly huge strokes for brevity’s sake, or you may be ignoring some massive vulnerabilities in the perspective in which you support. Or am I just missing something? (And I thought I was going to spend this morning on a Gallaudet post…)

Your argument seems to suggest that the tax’ees should have the right to protect their income while having influence as to how their tax money is spent. And that's fine. Cryptically, you brought in national defense spending. (Which is orders of magnitude less than education spending or the so-called "war on poverty". And I won’t even bring up the JFK notion that a lower taxation rate increases governmental revenue by expanding the national economy--and idea that works each time it’s been tried.)

Suffice it to say that we do not agree on the Saint Bono issue. And the fatal flaw in your perspective (as viewed by my eyes) is that I don’t attempt to spend other people’s money--taxed or otherwise. Saint Bono, on the other hand, decided that all industrialized nations should donate .7% of their gross domestic product (GDP) to Africa. If we don’t follow Saint Bono’s plan of .7% gross domestic product, then we must be a nation of guiltless evil selfish uncivil industrialist racist bigot homophobes.

Sorry Saint Bono, I call shenanigans. Do not attempt to impose higher taxation on me, while you try to weasel out of less taxation for yourself. Sorry; I’m just not buying that; conversely, I believe in low taxation for all. At least Santa Angelina doesn’t try to sway public policy, thereby taking money out of my pocket to give to her pet charities. She bypasses the persuasion of policy and acts on her own. I’ve got no beef with that; she won’t buy her way into heaven, but at least her life appears to be consistent with her values. Saint Bono appears to value higher taxation on me, while he values less taxation on himself.