Why They Fight

The big deal today, the outrage and call to action, is inequality of wealth and the only proposed solution I have seen is to “tax the rich.” If this is the nation we have become, then millions of soldiers have died in vain. They saved a nation that does not value freedom, but has become a nation squabbling over money and unable to offer halfway reasonable solutions even for that.

We take off our shoes and submit to searches in the name of “being kept safe from terror,” we submit to our phones and communications being tapped by government, we accept a government that imprisons and kills without due process of law. We have been content with two consecutive chief executives who openly violate our constitution, stand mute as our Congress devolves into uselessness, and we are moved to actual protest only over being denied “our fair share” of the nation's wealth.

Even then the protest is not against the lawmakers who betrayed us and violated laws, but a mere expression of anger against the “haves” of that inequality. The demand is not reforms and proper governance, or the return of the jobs that have been lost, but that a symbolic pittance be taken from the rich to salve the feelings of the “have nots” in the inequality of wealth.

Salving the hurt feeling of the “have nots” is the only thing that such taxation will do. It will not create jobs in any meaningful way. It will restore the social safety net only partially, and only for one year, and it will do nothing for the “have nots” after that. Most importantly, it does nothing whatever to address the issue that is believed to be so important, the inequality of wealth. Does anyone seriously believe that a 1% increase of taxation is going to address the protested 99% imbalance of wealth?

Soldiers are dying on battlefields today. They believe in the constitution of a great nation which provides for things like freedom from improper search and seizure, due process of law, and proper governance. They are not sacrificing their lives to assure that you get your fair share of the money.

"We are the 99%" they cry. I'm one of the 99%, and I don't care. I don't care who has the money. I care about a government which adheres to our constitution.