A Spot of Tea

“It’s so awful when uncreative, dumb people try to be symbolic. So embarrassing.”
–Jeffrey Rowland

Yesterday was the American Tea Party, a chance to come out, get to know your neighbors, and complain that the U.S. government isn’t meeting its expenses with pixie gold.

The income tax, you see, is unfair and unjust, at least the part where people with more money are taxed more (which they really aren’t; the wealthiest ten percent of Americans have half the wealth and pay less than a third the income tax). Levying a tax on citizens’ incomes is exactly like imposing a use tax on items needed by a subject people with no franchise, so we protest by waving teabags around in commemoration of the actions of the 18th century colonists (who wouldn’t recognize a tea bag, incidentally).

No, actually it’s a protest of . . . well, actually, of the fact that a Democrat won the election (which proves that it was rigged), but ostensibly of the tax hikes that, um, well, actually there haven’t been any significant tax hikes proposed, but, y’know, the idea of tax hikes. In the abstract.

It should be noted that if you got a tax refund, you have actual reason to be aggrieved: the government took more money than it was entitled to, earned interest on it (or at least prevented you from doing so) and is now giving you back the principal.