From: Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Fri Nov 13 1998 - 04:54:05 MST
At 01:21 PM 11/12/98 -0500, John Clark wrote:
>Being forced to pay for something you detest will cause resentment
>in some, I really don't see what's surprising about that.
>The fact that part of my tax money goes to subsidies tobacco farmers and
>help them increase production makes me unhappy, the fact that another part
>of my tax money goes to subsides television advertisements to get people to
>stop using tobacco does not cheer me up.
Yes, but my point is that this perception itself (of how your tax share is
being spent) is a somewhat arbitrary one. You can choose to look at the
matter differently. As other people have noted, it would be refreshing to
be allowed to nominate your own preferences concerning which pork gets
barrelled. But since that option is not likely to be made available why
not recognise that some proportion of people favor state-funded abortion
(or space science) and notionally a part of their tax can be ascribed to
such use. A different proportion of the voters wants to fund orphanages
for hapless bastards, and an equivalent part of their tax goes there.
Obvious such segmentation is rough & ready, but I suspect it might reflect
the underlying reality (except for space travel and astronomy, where
probably *most* people bitterly resent having to pay for any part of that
goddamned pointy headed science bullshit boondoggle).
Damien Broderick
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