This election is pretty surreal. It started with McCain choosing Palin as his running-mate, and then increased when we discovered that Palin couldn’t open her mouth without committing gaffes (seeing Russia from her house indeed !), or give straight answers during the VP debate. As a VP, or as a President (and I don’t even want to think about that) she’d be a national embarrasment.

I have heard some daft lines from her, but the one which takes the cake, is when she disdained the idea of paying taxes ! It boggles the mind how one can even question such a basic duty, or think it unpatriotic. Tax-payers form the corner-stone of government. Taxes are used to pay for schools, roads, water, and infrastructure and other things we take for granted. If all of us stopped paying taxes, the government couldn’t do it’s work – there would be no schools, or those wonderful public libraries, or even running water in your home. From wikipedia :

“Funds provided by taxation have been used by states and their functional equivalents throughout history to carry out many functions. Some of these include expenditures on war, the enforcement of law and public order, protection of property, economic infrastructure (roads, legal tender, enforcement of contracts, etc.), public works, social engineering, and the operation of government itself. Most modern governments also use taxes to fund welfare and public services. These services can include education systems, health care systems, pensions for the elderly, unemployment benefits, and public transportation. Energy, water and waste management systems are also common public utilities. Colonial and moderning states have also used cash taxes to draw or force reluctant subsistence producers into cash economies.”

I especially like the way, this article puts it :

The next time you drive on the road, go to school, simply breathing in clean air, or even eating a good meal you will know where the money came from that gave us these opportunities. We all have paid to make a better future for ourselves and our future generations.

Somebody tell Palin.