In
A Liberal Walks Into A Bar..., georgia10 asks for our anecdotes about times we've personally countered the blatherings of conservatives with the cold steel of Reason. I've done quite a bit of it, chiefly in e-mail, principally among the members of my high-school alumni mailing list, where a few outspoken conservatives are resident. Here is one of the messages I sent.
A conservative classmate wrote:
EEEEEEK, more and higher taxes....lovely. Simply lovely.
I wrote:
No one likes paying taxes, but there are plenty of things that are worse, such as crumbling infrastructure, impoverished families, etc. And there are some big important projects that are easier and less expensive when everyone chips in -- even those who benefit only indirectly -- than when it's every man for himself.
It seems to me that even a small-government conservative could agree that when the return-on-investment justifies it, taxes are a good thing. But so many conservatives appear to think only national defense justifies taxation. (OK, national defense and giving sweetheart deals to multinational corporations.)
Thanks to taxes, there are good public schools and afterschool programs where I live. Because (in part) of that, crime rates are low. And because of that, I don't have to spend a fortune on home and personal security, and my property value is nice and high. So those taxes are money well spent -- I get more out (in dollars plus intangibles) than I put in.
Can't conservatives see that?
Thanks to taxes, there is such good public transportation in New York City that a 12-year-old kid from Forest Hills could go to high school on the Upper East Side with all of you fine folks and have a reasonable expectation of timeliness and personal safety, not to mention learn a thing or two.
I went to college in Pittsburgh, a city second only to St. Petersburg, Russia, in number of bridges (so I've heard). Thanks to taxes, I crossed those bridges hundreds of times without ever paying a single toll.
Obviously there are many bad taxes, and there are some good taxes used badly. But I don't understand the kneejerk opposition to all taxes that seems to dominate the national conversation.
He wrote:
It can be argued that you should have, and should now, pay a toll, otherwise someone else who might not be using the bridge is/was probably maintaining it.
I wrote:
I thought you might say that. My answer is that there's not a single person in Pittsburgh who doesn't depend on those bridges. Even if you never drive -- even if you never leave your neighborhood your whole life -- you need the goods that arrive over those bridges, you need the emergency services that reach you via those bridges, you need the thriving local economy made possible by those bridges. If only the drivers crossing the bridges paid, then it is they who would be bearing an unfair burden.