"Taxes are Its Sacrament"

It's tax time, and wouldn't you know, here's a liberal, James Carroll at The Boston Globe, talking about the sacred treasure collected in taxes by the government.

But the sting of taxes, paradoxically, is a prompt for gratitude because the returns we file, checks included, are both a signal and a precondition of the sacred treasure we share as a people — also known as commonwealth. Taxes are its sacrament.

Oh really! If that is the case then taxes are not really taxes but a tithe to the liberal church of the welfare state. In that case liberal politicians are some sort of German prince-bishops. And liberal journalists are altar boys.

And you can say goodbye to the First Amendment and the separation of church and state.

Of course, you have to give James Carroll credit. He is only being honest. Liberals really do think that the self-interested taxing and spending they preach is a sacred calling. Taxes are a sacrament and spending is compassion. They really believe that.

But they are wrong.

My American Thinker op-ed this week is on precisely this. Government cannot be compassionate and giving. Government is the force sector of social life. Its votaries are politicians and their coin is power.

If you want compassion and giving you cannot do it with government. Government is about taking from people by force and giving the proceeds out to the government supporters.

Government is force. Politics is power. All the rest is narrative.