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The difference between ‘libertarian’ and ‘liberal,’ courtesy of Harry Reid.

Taxation is completely voluntary in America. Harry Reid says so.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  March 31st, 2009 at 02:40 PM  | 

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[Libertarian]: “Voluntary taxation” = You can choose whether or not to participate in the tax system.

[Liberal]: “Voluntary taxation” = You calculate and send in your taxes, instead of your employer. And, oh, yes, you don’t have to pay taxes on a house if you don’t want to own one.

Watching an example of the former explain the definition to an example of the latter – and watching the liberal completely reject the definition without even remotely understanding it – in the following video will no doubt amuse you. Or make you want to throw a brick through the screen. Or both.



“I really don’t understand what you’re trying to get at…” – An actual quote from our illustrious Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who apparently really is this… well, dumb is the wrong word. Try “blinkered.” He’s so drawn up in the concept that taxes are of course a fundamental force of the universe that he apparently can’t contemplate the notion that people might be inclined to oppose them on general principles. After all, they’re taxes. You can’t talk about them as if you can just make them go away by wishing hard enough. They’ve got… taxions, or something like that. You can’t destroy taxions, right?  Isn’t that a law of physics?

I’m well aware that the GOP has a – somewhat deserved, honestly – recent history of not taking fiscal conservatism seriously, but you have to admit; at least we understood the concept that this is your money that we’re talking about.  Senate Democrats aren’t even trying.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

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  • RJD

    is right around the corner. This is going to save me a lot of time and effort.
    *snark*

  • RJD

    I feel for the interviewer – I think he wanted to throttle ol’ Harry a bit, there.

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    NT

  • traversecityconservative

    That was priceless. I guess the difference in a voluntary tax system is that we can or cannot voluntarily fill out the form. This man has a mental illness.

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    If you consider that people like Harry Reid believes that all money earned is really the government’s rather than the wage earner’s it might make more sense that he thinks taxation is voluntary.

    After all, they are volunteering to keep only an arm and a leg rather than both arms and legs and whatever other body parts they’d be inclined to keep rather than give.

    /snark

  • Deep_Thinker

    A Monty Python skit I vaguely remember.

  • http://nighttwister.blogivists.com NightTwister

    See here.

    I thought it was funny that it came out around the time several of Obama’s appointees were found to not have paid their taxes.

  • Right_Again

    Or to be dumb as a post. Wow. And this man is the Senate Majority Leader. Put him together with Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama and we could be in real trouble.

  • Freedomlover

    One more believer that the most powerful position is that of the “Name Giver” He gets by with it – keeps getting re-elected. Funny isn’t it, we used to think the crooks were the guys running the casinos in his state.

    Reminds me a bit of a line from a Tom Lehrer song which went, “..Plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize. Let no one else’s work evade your eyes. Remember why the good Lord made your eyes. Don’t shade your eyes, plagiarize, plagiarize plagiarize, But remember, of course, to call it ‘research’”

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    No harm repeating it, huh? :)

  • http://www.theotherworsham.blogspot.com toddworsham

    You see Harry Reid was exactly right. Income taxes are voluntary in the sense that the government voluntarily chooses to allow you to KEEP some of your money. You see all the money, all the property, all the jobs, belong to them. Think that statement is a little bold, dont pay your car or home property taxes and see how long you have your car or your home. Like your job in the childrens moto cross industry, not any more since we have to protect the kids from lead paint.

    We live in their world, their rules, their money.

    Get used to it…..

    ….or get out before then wont let you out.

  • bk

    The questioner says if you don’t pay your taxes, you go to jail.

    Harry says that’s necessarily true, as there are civil penalties that may apply instead.

    Well neither of those is necessarily true, as a third alternative is that you end up as an Obama cabinet member.

  • bk

     

  • bk

    Flee to a foreign country and await a pardon from a President like Clinton.

  • Freedomlover

    but if you happen to be “the only man alive who can solve this massive problem” you’ll be given unilateral power to decide what every employee in the private sector ought to earn and to cut his pay or fire him if he is being paid too much.

  • randy streu

    but if you’re going to accuse a bunch of people of being “dumb,” it might help to use the correct version of “you’re”.

    “your” is possessive
    “You’re” means “you are”

    It’s a contraction, see.

  • Deskpilot

    +Tobacco -Alcohol – Luxury Tax – Don’t want to pay the tax, don’t buy it.
    - Unemployed merchants=less tax revenue
    + Fuel Tax – Bus, Mass transit
    - The great black hole of city finances (UTWU)
    +Tolls – use alternate routes
    - Roads will not receive adequate repair and maintenance $$$

    But don’t tell me that that payroll confiscation of taxes is VOLUTARY.
    No W4/1099/1040 , off the to IRS(or lower level authority) judge and jail with you.
    Wnat to drive ANYWHERE, you have to pay fuel tax
    Want to buty ANYTHING non-food in many states, SALES TAX
    Harry may have aged from the original of this video, but with age has come greater insanity, which is why the Wicked Witch(es) of the West lead him around by the Ba^7^7$
    (Pelosi, Frankenstein, Water(board)s, Boxbat)

  • http://www.fredmaidment.com Fred Maidment

    He’s saying that it’s a voluntary system for the government. They volunteer to allow us to keep some of our income and property.

    Poorly phrased, but his concept is exactly the thinking of the Left.

  • http://www.fredmaidment.com Fred Maidment

    Video Camera: $279 at Best Buy
    Website Registration: $2.99 at GoDaddy
    Microsoft Front Page: $149 online
    Gas for the round-trip: $5
    Bewildered look on Harry Reid’s face: PRICELESS

  • http://nighttwister.blogivists.com NightTwister

    Please feel free to show the idiocy of Harry Reid as often as you like. I had to listen to it three times because first I couldn’t believe he said it, and second I couldn’t believe the reporter didn’t call him an idiot right there.

  • Next93

    This actually explains a lot. Under Reid’s definition of “voluntary”, people can be required under penalty of law to do “volunteer” service work. It’s NOT slavery, it’s “community service”, and the people in charge aren’t slave masters, they’re “community organizers”. Yeah, THAT’s the ticket!

    Did I fall asleep some time in January and wake up in an Orwell novel?

  • mom2oneson

    nt

  • http://www.theotherworsham.blogspot.com toddworsham

    Just messing with you there. But you’re right about my grammar it is pretty shoddy, I zoned out during that part in school, my lovely girlfriend edits my diaries, not my comments though.

    My essential point is that the average politicians mindset is so warped that, to harry “the body” reid, the “taxes are voluntary” statement makes complete sense. It’s voluntary in the sense you can e-file or just mail it in like grandpa did. All politicians are guilty of this sort of thinking so some degree. Indeed, as time goes on, even the most promising young politicians is often corrupted to the point of no return by operating inside the beltway.

  • mom2oneson

    wrong thread, I read the post above and posted since I just saw the AP article.

  • ss396

    They printed it, didn’t they?

  • bk

    Not sure why you thought so.

  • bk

    Payroll taxes (and FICA etc.) – don’t work
    Income tax – don’t work; don’t invest; keep all your money under your mattress
    Gas tax – walk, ride bike, ride mass transit

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    If people regressed to the barter system wouldn’t they?

    :-)

  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    Oh Grammar…..

    WARNING: JOKE folks… just interjecting some levity

  • http://www.fredmaidment.com Fred Maidment

    Minimum community service requirements to graduate from Middle/High School?

    Or am I confusing that with someone else?

  • randy streu

    what bugs me is that it’s not actually any different from what anybody else was saying. Which is why the “dumb” comment seems misplaced.

  • swglaw

    More evidence for the true believers that the tax system is voluntary. Reid’s bumbling about, if widely disseminated, will confirm the mistaken views of lots of tax protestors. Sure, he said you can’t get away with it, but listen to him. His bumbling is so bad, he must be “in the know” and covering up, because he has to. People will go to jail, in part, because of Reid’s failure to a) recognize the distinction between forced taxation and voluntary compliance; and b) acknowledge that the government TAKES taxes whether its citizens think it is a good idea or not.

    The phrase “our system is based upon voluntary compliance” has led more people to jail and ruin than any other ever propogated by government. Whoever came up with that ludicrous phrase really ought to be shot, drawn and quartered, tarred and feathered, and forced to listen to an endless loop of Barry Manilow muzak while to chained to a prison cell somewhere in Central America. Of course, what was meant, was that the U.S. relies on its citizens voluntarily COMPLYING with the law, in that it would be difficult to force everyone to comply. This is why we have income withholding. If the taxpayers themselves had to write out the checks to the government every payday, we would have revolt. But you can’t miss what you don’t see.

    Unfortunately, some see that “voluntary” language and think, “Well, I’ll just unvolunteer.” And then they incur huge penalties, ruining them financially, tearing apart their families, and possibly even jail – thereby losing their livelihoods and any possibility of paying their debt. And then we have Dingy Harry coming out with a thoroughly pathetic defense of the notion of “voluntariness”. This governmental/political need to try to paint the tax system as less than what it is has caused, and will continue to cause, thousands of people to be ruined personally and financially. But will it ever touch Harry Reid? Will it ever touch the pols who take more and more of the citizens hard earned money? Will the person who wrote that nonsense into IRS forms ever feel anything toward those he or she misled? Will any of them care, or at least notice enough to change it? Of course not.