1) There is only one mistake that cannot be corrected, and that is the death penalty.

I’m not a peacenik or a pacifist. I’m super lefty progressive, but I think that sometimes revolutions need blood. But the death penalty in never a form of revolution or even justice and is the only form of punishment that has no reversal. I was watching Thomas Kahill (Spelling?) on PBS say that “No one who has money ever ends up on death row”. Poor people don’t commit worse crimes than wealthy people (Hello OJ), they just have less legal resources and therefore become fodder for our public bloodlust.

2) Just like there should be no taxation without representation, there is no representation without taxation.

Taxes, besides paying for the common good, are one of the best way we have of judging how well our government is representing us. In countries that have no need of taxes because of some alternate form of wealth (specifically oil rich countries) there is no reason for the government to bow to the demands of it’s citizens because the citizens are not paying for the government, outside interests are.

In our country, when I hear the “strangle the government in the bathtub” people start speaking, what I hear is “so that we don’t have to do what the people want anymore”. It’s not just that the no taxes people are personally selfish (though that is a part of it) it’s that there is no need to represent citizens (or tax payers) best interests if they are not being taxed. And if people are not being taxed, they have no measure of whether their government is providing the services they want. People are generally rational and understand that nothing comes free. But we also understand when we are being screwed over,