The Most Patriotic Thing You Can Do

http://blogmaverick.com/2011/09/19/the-most-patriotic-thing-you-can-do-2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogmaverick/tyiP+(blog+maverick)

by bjonathan • 15 years ago

121 79 15 years ago

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pavel_lishin• 15 years ago

It seems that paying taxes is the most patriotic thing you can do; being rich just allows you to pay more of them, as well as benefiting the economy in other ways.

Hisoka4• 15 years ago

He's making a few assumptions:

1) Government knows how to spend our money wisely on things that improve the quality of our lives

2) Getting rich equates to improving the quality of lives of society, as a whole. I know several industries where this isn't the case.. (gambling, cigarettes, fast food)

redfiche• 15 years ago

He says no such thing. He says we live in an imperfect world where the government has a role to play in getting us out of this recession. As to your second point, that's based on your opinion of what constitutes making society better.

Hisoka4• 15 years ago

I didnt say he said those things explicitly. But by saying it's patriotic, he's assuming those things.

Yes, it's based on my opinion. Yes, I'm generalizing, and I bet the majority of human beings on this earth would agree there are industries that make people rich and are harmful to the general public. In fact, I'd argue there's a TON of them. Humans love to self destruct (ie. get fat, kill themselves, get addicted, overspend, etc)

arethuza• 15 years ago

I don't gamble, smoke or eat fast food - but I'd hate to live anywhere that didn't give people the freedom to do these things if they wanted (and in the case of smoking, outside or in their own properties).

rgarcia• 15 years ago

I think there's an argument to be made that even the industries you mention improve the lives of people in society. Assuming (1) all gambling/cigarette/fast food transactions are voluntary on both sides, and (2) people act rationally, then any money that you spend is done because you perceive the good you receive to be worth more than the money you spend on it.

One counterargument in the case of addictive drugs or "vices" is that transactions aren't completely voluntary, since you are acting under the influence. In gambling you might also not act rationally. Nevertheless these are still a subset of all transactions, and taking your argument to the extreme of outlawing these industries would prevent a decent number of society-bettering transactions from taking place.

Hisoka4• 15 years ago

I never suggested outlawing any industries. Just pointing out the flaws in his post.

Our modern society is set up so that it takes our primal urges to the extreme, making it BAD for the individual, but probably good for the overall economy. Our choices are hardly rational because we don't understand how our genes and primal urges work subconsciously. That's why men cheat, do drugs, and self sabotage ourselves.

Apocryphon• 15 years ago

"Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

anamax• 15 years ago

That doesn't imply that every possible taxation system is an acceptable price.

More to the point, a large fraction of the taxes that we pay go to things that have nothing to do with a civilized society.

"Three generations of imbeciles are enough" - Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Buck vs Bell.

gentle• 15 years ago

If you're rich and you can't recognize your debt to the society that enabled you to become rich, then you're a greedy, horrible person. Pay your taxes, for gosh sakes.

civilian• 15 years ago

Strongly disagree. My classmates picked on me, my teachers didn't challenge me. The state didn't pay for my education. I'm successful because I've applied myself while my peers were screwing off.

Just because you need consumers to become wealthy doesn't mean that you're exploiting them... wealth creation is NOT a zero-sum game. Becoming wealthy is the reward you get for making consumer's lives better.

Edit// For clarification, I'm fine with paying taxes. But I don't owe a debt to society just because of my success. I'm an equal citizen with everyone else, and we all benefit from the stability that government provides. I would also say that if the concept of "societal debt" is legitimate, then the poor have accrued much more debt anyway.

(I'm fine with the downvotes. My highest net-point posts usually start with some downvotes.)

BrandonM3• 15 years ago

That may be true, but it doesn't mean the government hasn't enabled you.

Most people fail to recognize that a big function of civilized society is to shift the power from the physically-strongest to economically- (or politically-) strongest. Enforcing property rights, keeping the horrible realities of war out of your life, building and maintaining the infrastructure that allows you mobility and access to goods and services, keeping the poor happy enough to avoid revolting against the (evolutionarily unnatural) rich, and maintaining a mostly fair capitalist market are major functions of government that the majority of us take for granted.

The rich benefit from these functions significantly more than the poor, so it makes a lot of sense for the rich to pay more taxes.

knowtheory2• 15 years ago

And here you are, posting on the successor to a government funded project, developed by brilliant minds who were likely the recipients of scholarships or state funded educations.

Just because some of humanity are dicks, doesn't mean that you didn't benefit from the people who aren't dicks.

And i'll reiterate what was said above. Just because you're making bank doesn't mean you're making people's lives better. You can make money making the lives of others awesome. But making bank doesn't necessitate that you're making the lives of others better.

That's the same logic that was used to over-inflate the sub-prime mortgage bubble. If you want to make the lives of others better, make sure you're doing that, rather than walmarting your customers.

bennesvig• 15 years ago

Agree completely. The only honest way to make a living in a capitalistic society is to provide a service or product that someone wants. You can only make money by providing something people find valuable.

ora600• 15 years ago

If you are currently living and creating wealth in Somalia, then I agree - society doesn't help you much and if you pay any taxes, you can stop.

If you live in a first world country, you should realize that the difference between your country and Somalia is a result of government work and is funded by taxes.

Secure borders, police guaranteeing your property rights, courts, lack of bribes and corruption (relatively!), good roads, good lines of communications, educated people to hire. They don't just show up randomly in places.

jsherry• 15 years ago

I'm still confused at how the down-vote is supposed to be used. This person is getting down-voted for posting an opinion that people here disagree with. But it's a constructive opinion that has generated 5 constructive responses, which in turn has become a discussion. No reason for a down-vote here.

jhamburger• 15 years ago

Warren Buffett made a comment to the effect of, even though he's intelligent and worked hard for his money, he still has to consider it luck that he happened to be born in the right circumstances because if he were born in a primitive hunter/gatherer society, he would be at the bottom no matter how smart he was because of his lack of physical strength. We all owe our success and the ability of be successful on the merits of our intelligence and hard work alone to the current structure of society to some extent.

smokeyj• 15 years ago

Cuban: Pay your taxes, be a patriot!

In a country founded by patriots protesting taxes, I find his rhetoric tiring. Patriotism doesn't create jobs, capitalism does.

Taxes, legal fees and regulation can all kill a start up. The government has a money printing machine, it's not like a fledgling startups is the only source of revenue to finance endless war. If we want to create jobs, it should be free to start a company, sell shares, and start doing business.

leviathant• 15 years ago

The way I remember it, the founding fathers weren't protesting the taxes, so much as the lack of representation. Ben Franklin famously wrote that "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." This country wasn't founded on the notion that we should be tax free. The Boston Tea Party basically came about because The East India Tea company made bad business decisions, and wanted a tax break in England to alleviate warehousing issues.

Actually, it's all quite complicated, but to say that this was a country founded by patriots protesting taxes and then to complain of tiresome rhetoric is to illustrate how little you understand both American history and rhetoric.

astine• 15 years ago

The way I remember it, the founding fathers weren't protesting the taxes, so much as the lack of representation.

That's arguably wrong as well. A large number of American colonists (particularly in Boston; esp John Hancock) made a living as smugglers bypassing English tax laws and circumventing the EITC's trade monopoly on tea. The administrative changes that parliament made in that time included not only new taxes but better enforcement of laws which were already on the books and this nearly drove many prominent Americans out of business.

r00fus• 15 years ago

2nd most patriotic thing you can do - fight corruption by supporting increase of oversight and transparency in government.

Corruption (both Dems and Reps are guilty of this) is the disease will kill capitalism as it clogs the arteries of the economy.

I also love Cuban's logic - be happy you have a large tax bill to pay for that is a good problem to have.

gerggerg2• 15 years ago

It seems rather foolish to think that there can be a most patriotic thing you can do. Plus the grey area and loop holes in the tax code generally tend to favor the rich. Does the author mean that the most patriotic thing you can do is pay taxes without trying to minimize the amount of tax you pay? And if so whats the threshold of manipulative tax paying.

It's also very naive to think that your own bottom line and tax bill are in any way a measure of your patriotism. Is shipping jobs overseas to increase profit more patriotic than maintaining a more modest business while providing jobs in your country?

Associating patriotism with profit is just a psychological tool for justifying your own desire to have more things than everyone else.

The most patriotic thing you can do is love your country.

viraptor• 15 years ago

> The most patriotic thing you can do is love your country.

What does that actually achieve or change for anyone in a broader sense? Patriotism is by definition a kind of love for your country. Now what you do as a result is what actually matters.

Alternatively, can you love your country without striving to make it better in some way? Is an own love for the country without any action a valid concept?

gerggerg2• 15 years ago

That's exactly what I'm trying to convey. The concept of patriotism is just as abstract as the concept of love.

People who talk about it otherwise just have something to sell.

littlegiantcap• 15 years ago

I share his general sentiment. In a broader sense that's why I love the capitalistic system, or at least the way it's evolved within the US. People don't exist in a vacuum. Bettering your own situation with goals ranging from altruism to full on greed still pulls people up with you, and improves the lives of everyone else in society. Granted it's not a perfect system, and there's things we could do to make it better, but still at it's core I believe there is the best their is.

sportsTAKES• 15 years ago

Paying taxes is patriotic in one sense.

But not feeding the monster is also patriotic.

Fundamentally, if I knew tax dollars were were being spent efficiently, I wouldn't have a problem paying 'higher' taxes.

Corruption, inefficiency make it impossible to support tax increases.

Tsagadai• 15 years ago

So Greece should become the world's first anarchist state? Paying taxes there is only supporting corruption, bureaucracy (including their debt holders) and inefficiency. Part of their problem is that no one was paying taxes to start with. Not paying taxes is a form of corruption.

What you are talking about is a problem of government accountability. What you are suggesting is fighting fire with fire.

coenhyde• 15 years ago

There are a few assumptions in blog post but one in particular that I really do not like. And that is that 'making money' automatically equates to improvement of society.

For most businesses this is the case. If you manufacture something or provide a service then you are adding to the overall wealth of the nation. Making a lot of money from something that does not provide a valuable service to society actually detracts from the wealth of the nation because you are extracting resources (people, natural resources, time, etc) that could be assigned to more productive uses.

Remember is money is not wealth.

whiskyant• 15 years ago

I believe Captain America does an excellent job on explaining what it means to be a true patriot: http://imgur.com/a/TEvWk

slowpoke• 15 years ago

Maybe we could stop asserting that patriotism is in any way, shape or form a positive attribute. It's not.

vijayr• 15 years ago

Totally agree. It seems that patriotism applies only to "normal" people, not to those huge businesses that operate internationally, across borders. Also, in an age when no country could exist in isolation, what sense does it make to think of just "my country, my society"?

0003• 15 years ago

The most patriotic thing a person can do is to continuously know the value of them self and of others and to use that knowledge to do good.

gavanwoolery3• 15 years ago

IMHO: "Patriotism" != handing money to your government. "Patriotism" == doing what is best for your country (i.e. the people).

Believe it or not, the government does not alway's have the country's best interests in mind. The example I always use is the Wall Street bailouts. Tax-payer dollars were used (mostly against tax-payer will) to bail out reckless banks and provide golden parachutes for undeserving CEOs. Sometimes the government will even hurt the country when it is trying to do the right thing - it was one of the major catalysts in the current recession, because it backed entities like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and their "toxic" mortgages.

If you want to do something good with your excess money, the government probably is not the best charity to donate to. A simple rule of thumb: the more hands that money passes through, the less money comes out the other end. If you want to be patriotic, give your excess money DIRECTLY to those who need it most.

rockarage• 15 years ago

And I would argue the best way to give your excess money directly to those it the most without waste is to pay your workers well. All of them, think of workers who can't command a high salary. If the industry allow you to pay a worker $7.70(about minimum wage) can you afford to pay them $15.00 hr ? Many companies don't want to pay their employees a living wages so they can keep more of the revenue, but instead of giving the excess to government in the form of taxes, or donating to an vetted charity, why not give it to the people you know, your workers. It will be an investment in your company. Workers who are content, are typically more productive and you'll have higher retention.

muzz• 15 years ago

Private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis

jessedhillon10• 15 years ago

Thank you! It's ironic that on a site like HN, so much of the commentary about home lending is based on rhetoric and dogma instead of fact. I wonder if GP even knows what Fannie or Freddie do.

gavanwoolery3• 15 years ago

Ha, that's a joke - are you aware that during and prior to the crisis, Fannie and Freddie were both PRIVATE companies? They traded on the stock market, as private companies do. The government eventually nationalized them (in 2009 I think) and completely destroyed their value on the stock market (I should know, I owned stock in the two during the crisis - they traded under FRE and FNM before they turned into junk stock).

The only respect in which Fannie and Freddie were public (prior to being nationalized) is that they were federally-backed. What happens when you have lenders backed by government dollars? They take in riskier loans and leverage the hell out of their credit line. In reality, it is much more complex than that though - there are many layers on which debt is traded. But the end message is that private companies should never be federally backed!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Mac

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were not the sole catalysts, but they were silos for toxic debt.

jack_alexander• 15 years ago

Patriotism is a sham put in place by a social experiment of the introduction of organized sports. It created team-spirit and it was translated to other levels to equate patriotism. In the original days wars were small enough and there were enough real patriots to fight it. But since the country was based on violence and theft I have no faith in it anymore.

War is lie and Capitalism is parasitism.

jroseattle• 15 years ago

I'm sure Mark believes this to be true, but I find his comments to be self-serving. He's basically saying that what he's accomplished in his life is patriotic, and that should be your goal too! If we all follow his advice, by nature he will be "patriotic".

I don't necessarily disagree with the advice, but his sentiment toward it feeds his own feelings more than anything else.

jlarocco• 15 years ago

I don't see the connection between patriotism and taxes. I could see an angle where explicitly dodging taxes could be unpatriotic. But patriotism isn't something you buy. It just doesn't work like that.

chopsueyar• 15 years ago

Buy a failing basketball team.

zackattack• 15 years ago

nothing cuban writes in public is going to be honest, it's fundamentally self serving and it's good PR.

rubashov• 15 years ago

Alternate patriotic strategy: learn to live comfortably on an untaxably low income, or an unreported cash income. Draw the maximum benefits you can. Keep yourself healthy and don't buy health insurance. Help to accelerate the inevitable collapse of a corrupt, immoral, and unsustainable system.

The Most Patriotic Thing You Can Do

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