I've come across it a number of times in the nearly twelve years I've been here. Only recently has it ceased to amaze me. What still amazes me is why more people on the so called right, the chest thumpers who talk about how this is the greatest country and all that, don't speak out more against it. (There are some of this forum. You know who you are.)

For people outside the USA, I swear to you that in this rich and beautiful country, there are actually people who feel this way. I am not making it up. For the people outside this country, desperately trying to get in, Obviously too busy to read a folk music forum I hope you never find out about this attitude all too common in the most blessed country on earth.

The idea is that people shouldn't have to pay any taxes because they "earned" the money and it is "their money". Yeah, people of the world, I know! They think they earned it on their own, without any help from the government. I'll swear to you, no lie, one of the guys who says this me gets a large piece of his income having his employees clean windows on government buildings. A very nice guy otherwise. I laughed when I heard him say "his money." He actually got offended.

Anyway, below is an encounter I had on the Tea Party website. The guy is talking about government when he says "but one has no valid claim on the resources that were produced by others."

>> One has a right to procure resources to trade for the service of others, but one has no valid claim on the resources that were produced by others.<<

Where is the source of this right? It is not in the Constitution. It is not in the Bible. The above is a very strange and silly concept.

Where would you be without the public resources of the US? Where would you be without the Military? You have an obligation to contribute. There isn't any doubt about that. Don't make up rights that you do not have.

Don't think that you are a complete individual, self created and self made and have no obligation to the system that nurtures you and makes you comfortable enough to be as smug as you apparently are. Where would you be if you had been born in a poor country? How about Somalia, Somalia is about the most free place that there is; no taxes, no cops no laws. If you want something, just take it... if you can. Why don't you go there and talk about your rights to your property? Oh yeah right, EVERYONE There has the "right" to take whatever you have. We owe the USA. We owe it a lot.

And like it or not we have system for determining how much we have to put back. Its called government and the way it has decided is called elections.

Talk all you want about the benefits of smaller government, rail against waste, work for your idea of a better country.

But don't say that the USA does not have a right to money you make. The USA is the reason you are able to make that money. The USA is the reason you are not in a ditch in a third world country fighting over the protein of a rat carcass. Don't forget that. Its what makes America great.