Running for Your Life: Tax Facts

The New York Times doubled down on its Trump dissent with a gold-plated special section screamer this month (October) that outs the president’s family for decades of fishy tax-avoidance schemes, some of which stink of out-and-out money laundering.

No bodies turn up, so not mob-like in that way, but you get the drift.

Damaging? Yeah, but …

Much is made about the American Revolution.

Other notable political and social revolutions – French, Russian, Nicaraguan, Cuban – at least pay lip service to change that will address the problem of the poor, a lack of nominal justice toward them. How those revolutions evolved in trading one bad situation for another is beside the point.

Rather, the acknowledgment of the poor masses is central to the liturgy: Socialism is a pathway backed by pious priests (think the late Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador), a righteous approach to addressing the needs of the have-nots, a compelling theory for millions.

The American Revolution, by contrast, rises from a tax revolt.

Its leaders, the slave-owning landed gentry, balked at taxation without representation.

But central to this liturgy is a fear of Leviathan government, what happens with taxes collected. Where are they spent? Whom do they serve?

American frontier spirit isn’t with the taxman. The revenuer.

Run him off the land with your shotgun, your rural militia, drink corn whisky till you black out at freedom’s dawn.

Trump’s family cracks that code; it’s the American dream, a family getting the better of the revenuer.

What your average American family sees as the bedrock of our nation: the pursuit of happiness come hell or high water – even better if it’s done by sticking a finger in the eye of the revenuer.

Next: Running for Your Life: Got a Hero?