Building an Analogy

Professor J,

Thorough answer, as always. I'm amused that you anticipated my question about adjustments and answered it before I even had a chance to think of it. :)

You are right in pointing out that a certain amount (you put it at $30,000) would need to be exempt, thus protecting a base amount of income for people to live on. I was more intrigued though by your concept of a "US occupancy fee." That might help in some small way towards people having a sense of "ownership." I think most people rarely give any thought to their own responsibility as citizens, or how they are or are not contributing to their communities or to the nation as a whole. It also reminded me of something I heard Ben Stein say during a panel discussion once. His Democratic counterpart used the analogy of a building association in reference to taxes used to pay for things we all benefit from and the meetings were likened to elections, where we all decide how we are going to manage the building. Stein stopped the anchor person who was ready to move on to say (I'm paraphrasing), "Can we just stop for a moment? I want to acknowledge an excellent point when I hear one, and that is actually a very good analogy."

The way the Republicans twisted the president's "You didn't build that" comment, when he was trying to make a point about how we all benefit from investments in things like roads and bridges, shows how detached we are from grasping this concept. A dearth of understanding (due to the lack of teaching, and valuing) of basic civics keeps us arguing and divided about things, that in reality, people would certainly agree on if they could be bothered to give it five minutes of rational thought.

Here's a question as the election looms: To what do you attribute the closeness of so many presidential elections? State and local elections seem to have more clear winners and losers.  We seem to be almost divided exactly in half in regards to political ideology. Are we like a divorced couple who agree on little sharing the same house, or is something else at play, like a populace that is wary of either side wielding too much power for too long?

I'd never thought of the fact that just after elections we are all distracted immediately by the holidays. Excellent point. Then it's time for weight loss and organization followed by Valentine's Day. And of course there are always squirrels! ;) We'll give it our somewhat full and temporary attention again when we are on the verge of a full blown crisis. But as you have noted, something may be coming that will demand our total long term focus. 

You just have time to squeeze in a civics lesson before Tuesday! :)