Andrew Tobias asks if we can finally put the tax argument to bed:

• Is the reason you’re not investing in stocks these days (a) the prospect of having to pay 15% capital gains tax?  Or (b) the fear of further losses?  (Well, or – c – that you don’t have any money?)
• Is the reason you don’t start a new business that (a) if it made you a lot of money you’d have to pay a lot of taxes?  Or that (b) you can’t get anyone to risk the funds you need to finance it?
• Is the reason you don’t hire new workers that (a) you’re paying so much in taxes?  Or that (b) with business down so much, you don’t need them?
• Is the reason you’re not spending money as freely as you used to that (a) your taxes are too high?  Or that (b) you’re afraid of losing your job?  (Well, or – c – that you’ve lost half your net worth and suddenly realize you’d better get serious about saving for a decent retirement?)
• Is the reason you’re unemployed that (a) taxes are too high to make you want a job?  Or that (b) you’ve sent out 400 resumes and called every connection you have, but no one’s hiring.

April 15 has been tax day in the US for as long as anybody can remember, but with the weekend and all, most of us have ’til Monday to file and some of us in the Northeast have ’til Tuesday.

The thing I don’t like about tax time is that it brings out the worst in me. Most any other time of the year I’m a pinko liberal, but the anticipation of taxes makes me look decidedly conservative and ornery. An example from last year might include the herculean efforts I went through to donate an old vehicle before ‘less advantageous’ 2005 tax laws took effect.

And though my taxes for this year have been filed for some time (about 27 hours now), I’m ashamed to have to admit now wondering about the tax value of my blood donations.

I wasn’t surprised to find mention of this at Halfbakery and WhyNot? at the top of the Google results, but I was surprised to learn that blood might be best valued at about $250 per unit. I’d been estimating $25, based on what I’d heard about what I’ve heard people get paid for plasma.

One recent study of over 400 college students, age 18 to 22, found that 10 percent have sold their Blood plasma at least once for cash payments of from $9 to $20 per visit. Of that group, three out of five are former Red Cross donors who stopped donating Blood for a lollipop and a T-shirt when they started selling their plasma for cash!

eHow, meanwhile, tells prospective plasma sellers to check at their nearest college campus for information on the nearest plasma collection center.

But just as my friends began to worry I’d be forever stuck on this tax write-off thing, I discovered “The Blood Brokers, How The Gift Of Life Became A Billion Dollar Business” and remembered my liberal ways again.

blood, blood as commodity, blood donation, blood economy, charitable donations, plasma, plasma collection, red cross, tax write-off, taxes, value

Welcome the flacks. I don’t get many comments on stories here at MaisonBisson, so I was interested when I found a comment to my story about the Outfoxed documentary just an hour after I’d posted it.

Here’s my theory, and it’s supported by stories in Eric Alterman’s What Liberal Media and Al Franken’s Lies: conservative groups spend a huge amount of time identifying and attacking every liberal criticism. This mysterious Matt (perhaps from Ohio?) is a brownshirt on a mission. Are such personal attacks fair? No, but neither are Matt’s attempts to reframe my stories. It’s that reframing that so identifies the comments as conservative.

Answer the point, Matt. The question is about Fox news, an organization soundly criticized as biased and inaccurate by darn near every liberal, a bunch of centrists, and even a number of it’s own staff. You’re rhetorically and logically wrong to think you can disprove that by claiming other sources are more biased. But that’s how conservatives work: think Obi Wan as a republican saying “this is not the argument you’re looking for. You liberals should go chase your tail while we rewrite the constitution and shift your tax money to the rich.” Or something like that.

And that’s what’s happening in Matt’s comments to the Farenheit 9/11 story. Oh no! “Farenheit 9/11 contradicts itself.” But the Hitchins quote you offer as proof is less coherent than he claims the movie was. Here’s a fact, and let me suggest you watch Fog of War and read some psychology texts to understand it, people are not always logical, reasonable, or consistent. Furthermore, it seems people — heads of state included — will often tolerate extreme cognitive dissonance while in pursuit of money and power. The Hitchins quote plainly illustrates this fact, further darkening the sad conclusions Moore makes.

I will, however, compliment Hitchins’ rhetorical style. The play of equally unlikely and exaggerated opposites (“they do, or they do not; he is, or he isn’t”) create a lulling rhythm that leads nowhere, but appears sound.

As for Moore’s facts, let me repeat what I wrote in my earlier story: “Collectively, Bushwacked, Lies, and The Iron Triangle all lead the reader to the same conclusion Moore comes to. These authors’ references show a diversity of well researched primary sources — including government documents and qualified informants — that paint a fairly clear picture. It’s this brush that Moore uses for Fahrenheit 9/11.” I’ll gladly listen to any equally detailed and documented rebuttal, but please, no more empty accusations and false claims.

Finally, however, I’m amused by the apparent criticism of Moore for suggesting that troops should never have been sent to Iraq. That’s the point. Isn’t it? Our troops are suffering death and disability and and our nation deficits and diminished civil liberties in a war with no end in sight. This like like Vietnam and McCarthyism all it once if you think you can silence Moore and others for saying so.

[UPDATE]: Matt’s still at it….

Fox News is undoubtedly the most conservative news channel, and any argument to the contrary is intentionally misleading or stupid. Anybody who can count can tell you that Hannity gets three times as much air time as Colmes, and a mildly perceptive time counter will tell you that Colmes’ boss, Hannity, doesn’t allow him any time or opportunity to cross, correct, or criticize him. And that’s what happens when centrists are allowed any voice at all. Yes, one example is sufficient to characterize the entire network.

The problem isn’t that Fox News is biased, anybody who understands the history of journalism can tell you that the idea of unbiased news coverage developed sometime during WWII, peaked around 1970, and has been fading since. Democracy actually thrives amidst the cacophony of biased news outlets, so long as there is diversity and sufficient numbers of them. The complaint against Fox News is that they falsely claim the banner of “fair and balanced” despite contradictory evidence.

This is one of the reasons that former Fox News news anchor Jon Du Pre is speaking out against the channel. This is why former contributor Jeff Cohen is doing the same.

What is reframing? I put up a story about Outfoxed, you try to dismiss the argument with a comment that claims the source is too liberal to be listened to. I put up a story about Fahrenheit 9/11, again you try to dismiss it by claiming Moore is self contradictory. Another reader comments that he too has a family member in Iraq and is glad to find bumper stickers with a message he appreciates, and you dismiss him too. You ask what it means to (attempt to) reframe these stories? Clearly you know better than I do. Not once have you addressed the facts of any of these stories; you’ve made no attempt to demonstrate contradictory evidence.

What makes a liberal or conservative? The authors I name use primary evidence to discuss facts. Facts, by definition, can be neither liberal nor conservative. The authors don’t agree with my perspective, they’ve presented logical arguments based on independent evidence. That these authors make conclusions based on these facts that are offensive to people like yourself does not make them or their work liberal. You paint yourself as a conservative by claiming they’re liberals. Once again, these are facts, and nothing you’ve written here contradicts them.

But you knew that, you knew all of this. Why would you write such misleading comments in this blog, so far from the rest of the world? What motivation could you have? In the big picture, this conservative sniping serves a purpose, and I have to commend your efforts. But aren’t they sort of wasted here? In a larger forum, there’d be at least one idiot who didn’t see through you and would instead join with in wearing me or another blogger down with endless arguments about points off from my message.

Today, my message is about how conservatives like yourself are doing everything they can to snuff the flames of opposition. I’m up for a debate, but this isn’t debate. It’s a delay and distraction tactic. So here are your options: reveal yourself and enter a real debate with evidence to back your arguments (include citations), or leave. Further comments that do not meet this criteria will be edited or deleted as the commercial speech they are. This is an odd decision to make, as I believe strongly in the first amendment protects to free speech, but I also agree with the courts that commercial speech is subject to lesser protections. Further, I won’t let my blog, a media I pay for, be used as a mouthpiece for lies and deception in support of a candidate and ideology I oppose. That is to say, you can’t have both Fox News and my blog, but I’d gladly trade.

Technorati Tags: al franken, blog, colmes, conservative, conservative groups, conservatives, deception, eric alterman, farenheit 9/11, fog of war, fox news, hannity, liberal, media, news, obi wan, outfoxed, personal attacks, political, politics, progressive, psychology, reframing, republican, tax money, taxes

This may not be news to somebody who hadn’t swallowed the school approved version of American history whole, but there are a few important things to note:

Before 1776, Colonists paid less in taxes than Britons in their homeland did. While the colonies were not represented in Parliament, neither were big British cities such as Liverpool or Manchester. Meanwhile the colonists enjoyed a free press, voted for local representation, ate better, lived in larger houses, and were generally better educated than their British cousins (the literacy rate in Massachusetts was more than twice that in Britain).
It wasn’t until a coarse, blotchy-faced, tumbledown drunk named Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense that the revolution began to ferment. Amid “immense emotional confusion in America, he was possessed of an unusually clear and burning sense of America’s destiny.”

Despite the lower taxes, greater freedoms, and better quality of life, Paine advocated revolution. “’Tis time to part” he wrote, a bit of anticlimax after calling the crown of England “a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man” and “the royal brute of England.”

In short, Paine’s influence on the colonists was like that of Rush Limbaugh. He’s not known for his philosophy or originality; he’s known for telling Americans they pay too much in taxes and can’t trust their government.

But if Paine was selling revolution, who was the supplier?

History remembers John Hancock as a signator of the Declaration of Independence, it is important for us to also remember that his smuggling made him one of the richest men in New England. Like any government (the US included) the British tried to put an end to smuggling. Hancock’s interest was not in forming a nation, but disposing with British control over his imports. Further, it was not lost among British contemporaries that many of the authors of the Declaration (and later the Constitution), were also slave owners and traders.

America was formed not out of ideals, but as a tax shelter for businessmen. America is and always has been the land of big business. And what of Thomas Paine, the one who sold it to us? After failing at every job he’d tried prior to writing Common Sense, he fought as a common foot soldier in the war. He did a stint in France (mostly in prison) but returned to America. He was found passed out in a tavern in New Rochelle, NY where he died soon after. The whereabouts of his remains is unknown.

–inspiration and information for this piece was found in Bill Bryson’s Made In America, an informal history of the English language in the United States.

Technorati Tags: american revolution, britain, british colony, british control, britons, common sense, declaration of independence, john hancock, literacy rate, rich men, royal brute, rush limbaugh, slave owners, taxes, thomas paine