"Secular" Thursday: Patriotism & Taxes

We're going to rename Secular Thursday for today, to Patriotic Thursday. Okay, I am renaming it, anyway. I wrote this as a refutation of the idea that the only patriots are conservative or libertarian. I wrote this as a refutation of the idea that only certain types of people read and love the Constitution, or love this country. I've always been a big old bleeding heart liberal, but I've also always been a flag-waving, country-loving patriot. They aren't mutually exclusive.

This is also based on emotion, not debating specific facts. This is my perspective, MY gut reaction, just as your gut reaction may be against taxes, or against new legislation. I'm not out to say that you are wrong and I am right, and I'm not particularly interested in a debate. Just putting that out there - if you leave a contentious comment, I likely will not respond.


I'm a strange soul.

I get a patriotic thrill when I pay my taxes.

My life is full of points where a stranger took a chance on me. At five years old, at eleven, at nineteen - my story could be so different than what it is today. I can't be that stranger for every five, eleven, nineteen, or twenty-nine year old, but I can pay my taxes.

I can make sure that I pay for the roads on which I drive, and a million other services of which I and my family partake without even noticing. Yes, I happily pay for public education, too. It is of no benefit to my family for public education to decline. I don't believe that public education is a bad thing. Do I think that in many areas it is badly broken? Yes. Do I think it has no value? No.

I can make sure that I pay a equitable tax on my vehicles, my property, my income. Notice I didn't say on the things I buy; I'm one of those strange individuals who opposes most sales taxes out of principle. Our state has eliminated sales tax on groceries, and I think this is an excellent thing.

"Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore."

We'll give them (and, yes, I'd definitely prefer legal immigration!) a chance, an education, health care. We'll do what was done for our ancestors, and then make it bigger and better. That's what this country has long been about. To paraphrase Queen, bad mistakes? We've made a few - but we've come through.

We're meant to be a city on a hill, some say. An example to the world. For too long of late, we've not been the best example that we might otherwise be. We took another step towards bigger and better. This week, I paid my income taxes, and yes, I did it with a light heart. I want to keep America's lamp burning bright.

"Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."