Posted by
Arturick on Thursday, June 04, 2009 2:59:36 AM
I was asked in my last post about what turned me to conservatism. Well, the answer would probably require a sizeable memoire, but I'll share one particular turning point that set me on the road to fiscal conservatism, at least.
Carl represented everything an intellectual disdains about the white working man. Crude, dirty-handed, and occasionally violent, he had a sense of humor that relied heavily on racism and people getting hit in the testes. I hung around him for a while in my college days when we discovered a shared interest in a collectible card game. Not content with sitting around and making stupid jokes while the rest of us played, he asked me to teach him the game. I was impressed by his quick grasp of strategy, getting a glimpse into the tech-savvy, calculating intelligence that hid under the crude idiocy.
So, alternately revolted and endeared by the lummox, I found myself riding in his car, if such a term can fully describe the conveyance that he had extensively modified and loved with a passion normally reserved for a first born child. I joked that, in his will, he would not leave his car to anyone. Rather, he would leave things to his car.
It was a hot day, and Carl turned on the AC. Grinning, he looked over at me and said, "You like that? That's freon. It's safe for us, cools down fast, and f__ks the environment." He took a puff off his cigarette and settled back with a look of utter joy he only got from carcinogens, excessively modified cars, and environmentally unfriendly air conditioning. "The government wants to replace it with something that's more environmentally friendly. Only problem is, the new stuff leaks out faster and causes cancer. Save the whales, killing the f___king humans."
"Probably more expensive," I replied. While liberal, I was also cynical.
"Of course," Carl said. "But you don't know why things cost what they do." I raised an eyebrow. "You see, people complain about their taxes, but they don't have any idea what they're really paying." He tapped the AC vent. "This freon got manufactured somewhere. So, some guy had to get a government permit to make it. He pays taxes for his employees. He pays sales taxes when he buys his raw materials. He pays property taxes on the plant. He pays to have someone certify his 'environmental compliance' and buys more stuff, which is taxed, to maintain that compliance. And that's just for the state. Then he's got to pay the feds."
"So then he's got freon, right? But he's got to store it. He stores it in a container, made by someone else, who has to pay all those taxes to make containers. And once it's int the container, he's got to store it. Oh, you need another permit to store it, and that'll cost you. So, someone wants to buy it. Well, he's got to ship it, so the shipping company needs a permit to carry the stuff, and pays all those other taxes, then loads it onto a truck. The truck costs them vehicle permit taxes, gas taxes, and tolls. It goes on and on, and who pays those taxes?"
"The rich a$$ dudes who own the companies?" I said, like a good little liberal. Carl rolled his eyes.
"We do!" he exclaimed. "You think they sell this s___t at a loss? They have to sell it for enough to cover the taxes, pay the workers, and then make a profit. Rich people don't pay taxes! We pay their taxes when they sell us what we want. And you have no idea how many taxes you're paying. The tax code of Illinois alone takes up a phone book of tiny little print. And it's all written in legalese, so unless you hire a lawyer, you don't even know what it means."
I was stunned. All through elementary school, high school, and some college, it had never been plainly expressed to me that producers necessarily hand their tax burdens down to consumers. My curiosity piqued, I began to pick up books by conservative authors and found myself exposed to thought processes that finally made sense to me. When I offered to share my growing library with Carl, he gave me a slightly embarassed look.
"I really don't read much," he said, "I listen to Rush Limbaugh."
Having been informed by all manner of intelligentsia that Limbaugh was a moronic blowhard, I wasn't quite ready to take that step for a few years.