Posted by Carl

This brings up a very important point that I try to keep raising. The Americans were not averse to something like a war tax being imposed. We would have gone for it. The political elites were afraid to ask us to do it. They lacked any real backbone or moral courage as evidenced by all their defense of torture. Hell they lack any real moral base.
I tend to agree, since conservations with most people outside of the self-appointed political elite point to agreement on many of the moral issues we're discussing. However, we have a system that allows us to purge the politically elite and yet we re-elect the same batch of clowns repeatedly. Can we be both moral and apathetic?

As for lowering taxes to raise revenues I'm in strong agreement with Fuchs. I have done a fair amount of reading on this topic, and I tend to believe that big business propaganda is pushing that line, but the numbers don't add up. I'm also of the belief the government should spend less, but that is a different argument altogether. I think we're in agreement that when we go to war the nation goes to war, so everyone should sacrifice. Putting a "I support the troops" sticker on your car isn't sacrifice. Paying additional taxes to support the war effort is, and it should motivate the nation (populace) to more closely watch how the government spends that money in support of the war and put a stop to the multi-million dollar contracts to political croonies who are getting rich off the war and providing no value in return.

This gets back to my previous point can we really be moral if we're apathetic? The political elite count on us being sheep, in military terms it gives them considerable freedom of movement.