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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GenX Enthusiast, post: 4007384, member: 101075&quot;]Paying the wrong taxes, or ones you don&#039;t owe by law is of course egregious, but to play Devil&#039;s advocate...</p><p><br /></p><p>If taxes are a theft of your money, then jury duty is a theft of your time and being drafted to protect your country a theft of your youth? It&#039;s possible we are uncomfortable when our individual existences are interrupted by the notion that we are born part of something greater than ourselves, even greater than our own lives.</p><p><br /></p><p>Mankind has also been conditioned to drive on roads from state to state without injunction, get a (more and more) basic education, receive mail, participate in a system of justice, enjoy the protection of a military, a police force and a fire brigade, etc, things that for some reason don&#039;t just magically appear on their own. I&#039;d personally have to spend a lot less time on the computer or looking at coins and more time with the local potholes.</p><p>Unless you&#039;re Amish and everyone&#039;s pitching in on everything in a rather small, manageable community, we need taxes to pay others for these things we don&#039;t have the time/the skills/the desire to do and that we need. The tax rate in the happiest countries in the world is 45% to start - In this are usually included national healthcare, retirement and unemployment.</p><p>One of the most prosperous/happiest times in American history was when our tax rate was higher than 90% on the richest individuals. It was that moment that built a huge middle class, a top notch infrastructure and got the engines of the cultural explosion that would infect the world until now with Americanness absolutely roaring. It&#039;s only recently we&#039;ve been able to sit on our duffs to such a degree, coasting on the decadent wave of our wiser forefathers.</p><p><br /></p><p>So while many Americans have been conditioned to think taxes (and laws) are bad, reality seems to say the more taxes paid, the higher the actual well-being, contentment and sense of participation in and ownership the government, not to mention services and infrastructure. University is also usually free in these places, but extremely competitive and therefore some don&#039;t get to study what they want.</p><p><br /></p><p>Some Eastern wisdom says &quot;If it doesn&#039;t pinch, then you haven&#039;t contributed anything.&quot; American mantra these days is, &quot;Pinch me and I just may shoot you.&quot; How about Taxes are where patriots put their money where their mouth is. The fact that that money is often misplaced and misspent concerns everyone and demands their participation should they want to make better electoral choices.</p><p><br /></p><p>On not at all that note, got two beautifully reverse toned Morgans - an 1880-S and a raw 1884-O, one for too much and the other for surprisingly little. In fact the new sales tax upped the price on the 80-S one uncomfortably.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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