Robot Heart: Sex, Religion, and Politics

Everyone Has a Pet Project

jeffmiller in response to my post on the Happy Bill:

Everything sounds like a good idea.  Clothing for your kids—of course that’s a good thing to buy.  Should it be tax-deductable?  Fruits and vegetables—everyone should eat them.  Should we give a tax credit?  We like when people choose to take public transportation—how about that?  Self-help classes?  Haircuts?—we all need to get our hair cut now and then.  Books—reading is good!  Newspapers—we have to do something to save the industry.  What about indie-music stores?  Alt-comics?  Fair-trade coffee?  Yoga class?

Who decides what’s good?  If pet-owners decide, then we’ll get to deduct costs associated with our pets.  If realtors decide, then we’ll give even more tax credits for home purchases.  If newsmen decide, we’ll bailout the newspapers.  Who gets to decide depends largely upon who has the best lobby in Washington.  Of course, if you can afford a DC lobbyist, you probably don’t need much help at all.

Here’s a thought:  if you spend ten dollars on something you love and I spend ten dollars on something different that I love, this doesn’t mean that one of us did something noble while the other did something frivolous.  Every person is different.  Some people want to have kids that they’ll have to clothe.  Some people want to play video games that they’ll have to buy.  Freedom is choosing what makes us happy.  Tyranny is the state making some of us more free than others.

So now you’re complaining about tax cuts?

I’m sorry, it’s just hard to take a person seriously when they are shouting tyranny(!!!!) over giving people a tax break on their vet bills.

You want to be “more free,” presumably by having a lower tax burden? (I can’t even type that without snorting.) Get a dog. Spend thousands of dollars on that dog over the course of a year just to keep that dog alive and from suffering, and then have the government maybe give you a tax break that will cover a fraction of the total cost of owning a dog. You’ll still be out several hundred dollars, but hey! The government gave you a tax break, so you’re more free!!! Woohoo!!!!

Keep in mind that this tax break is really about trying to ease the burden on overwhelmed state-run animal shelters by helping pet owners who have lost their jobs and homes take care of and keep their pets. I know your “solution” to this problem is probably just to close all the government-run shelters, and either let private shelters take over (even though it’s not a profitable business and most business people aren’t interested in running a business where they aren’t making money) and/or just let the strays and abandoned pets run all over the place, but. Most people I think see the value in having homeless domestic animals sheltered and off the streets. Not only does it avoid situations where you have starving, sick animals running around where the potential for them to be hurt or abused goes up exponentially (not that I expect compassion to be a reason for a libertarian to advocate a government service), it also prevents things like the spread of disease, animal attacks on people, and rapid growth of certain animal populations that could overwhelm a community. And I don’t expect there would be many people who would advocate hunting house cats and man’s best friend as a way to control an out-of-control animal population. (Although I very well could be wrong on that…)

In sum:

1. Your response is an absurd overreaction. Take a few deep breaths, and chill the hell out. I can not take anymore TYRANNY!!!! bullshit over silly things like tax breaks. It makes you sound more like an alarmist than a person with reasoned arguments, which I know you are.

2. Follow the logical path of this legislation back to its purpose, which is not to make some people “more free” than others. (God, I snorted again.) It’s to reduce the amount of money going toward certain government services by enabling the populations who use those services the most to take over the responsibility for themselves.