Thursday, March 27, 2008

Better Men

Who is the better man?

Is the man who freely gives to the poor a better man than the one who was taxed and had his money given to the poor?

Is the man who gives his time to charity a better man than the one who takes a second job to feed his family?

Is the man who is taxed and still gives to charity but lets his family go hungry better than the man who feeds his family but spends his extra time with his children?

My taxes increased a lot this last year.  My net gain barely increased at all.  I am now considering the prospect of traveling for business in order to better support my family.  I would not even have to think of it if the IRS were not sending me love letters because I "underpaid" my taxes.

Now the Democrat presidential candidates are telling me that they are going to take more.  They are going to take more "for the greater good." 

Should they win the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, they are going to take more and then, instead of telling people they can feel good about all of there property that is being given to charity, they are going to try to shame the "richest Americans" (which I certainly am not).

They are going to take from them with their hands and vilify them with their mouths.

Because they do not like having their property taken from them, Democrats will consider them bad men.

2 comments:

Weetabix said...

That sucks. I fear it may be coming my way, too.

I'd say the better man takes care of his family first. Charity is great, but if everyone takes care of his own responsibilities first, charity becomes less necessary.

I like to look at a situation and think, "What if everyone did A or B? What would be the long-term result?"

Everyone taking care of his own first then others second works much better than everyone taking care of others first and his own second, in my opinion.

"Taking more for the greater good" sure worked well in Russia and in Jamestown, eh?

Sorry to hear about your taxes.

Shawn McManus said...

While at MC combat training (or the "4th month of boot camp") one of the troop handlers (or "sort of a drill instructor") had us prepare each others packs before preparing our own. The results were disastrous.

We quickly learned to have our packs prepared as early as possible and then inspect each other for accountability. That worked very well.

We found that when we had taken care of ourselves and then our brother, there were no problems.

The analogy was then passed to us in a few different ways...

If both you and a fellow Marine are wounded and only you are conscious, take care of yourself first. If not, you'll bleed to death helping the other and you'll likely both die.

When doing water rescue and the surge is about to put you into a rock or pier, do not use your own body as a buffer to protect the person you are rescuing. If you get knocked unconscious, you'll likely both die.

I'm quickly coming to terms with the IRS. It's not going to be pretty and will likely result in me railing against the IRS for the rest of my life.