If you're not already following
David Simon's blog, you need to fix that asap. It's intelligent, insightful stuff, and it gets
really good when he starts replying in the comments section. Take this particularly lovely passage written in response to some idiot defending Mitt Romney only paying 13% tax...
I will say one other thing in response:
Your ad hominems land coldly and to little import in this discussion.
I am not, when last I checked, running to represent fellow citizens in any higher office, certainly not the highest office. So, no, you will not peruse my tax filings in the near future. And my unwillingness to hand them over to the crankiest voice on a blogsite should not be interpreted as a furtive act. On the day I do decide that Baltimore needs a new dogcatcher, you can be assured that I won’t have any problem sharing my entire tax history with anyone and everyone whose vote I intend to seek.
I can tell you now, as I indicated in the original post, that my effective tax rate has been for at least a decade, maybe longer, at least double that of what Mr. Romney claims for himself. This doesn’t reflect well on me in any sense. It is not a point of any pride. It is, simply, evidence that on a proportional basis, millions of Americans are asked every year to do more to sustain and operate this republic — our American collective — than is asked of Mr. Romney and other captains of industry who can so readily avail themselves of inequities in our tax code.
As to charitable giving, I am supportive of any and all such giving. I haven’t maligned Mr. Romney’s charity at any point; you conjured that, I’m afraid, from your own anger than from anything I’ve written. No, I have merely explained that charity has nothing whatsoever to do with mitigating one’s tax obligation. They are two unrelated endeavors, save for the fact that the tax code allows funds given to recognized charities to go untaxed. But what we don’t give, well, that is called income. And yes, on this thread, we were discussing not who gives what to worthy causes, but who pays what proportion of their income in taxes.
Now then, you further raise — as a means of attempting to denigrate the substance of my criticism of Mr. Romney — your certain knowledge that if facts were known, I would surely be incapable of any comparable acts of charity.
Well, first, as to your fulminant and passionate use of argumentum ad hominem, let’s be clear that everything I’ve written above would be true if I never gave a dime to help a fellow man, and all of your anger at me for making the argument would be no closer to unseating any of my ideas if I were a complete sonofabitch who walked down the street kicking dogs and small children. However, because you’ve gone out of your way to malign your opponent personally without knowing very much about me, the causes to which I am committed or uncommitted, or where I spend or misspend my money, I will only reply by noting that the Talmud argues that public giving, while entirely worthy, is less of a mitzvah, or an honorable deed, than giving in which the donor does not seek recognition for acts of charity. As again, because I am not seeking any higher office, my giving is my own business and I find an additional measure of humility in doing nothing to publicize that giving or to use it to advance myself in anyone’s estimation.
Having said that much, I must now certainly urge you to strawberry float yourself with a rusted, military-grade entrenching tool for shamelessly presuming you have any clue whatsoever about the actual extent of my philanthropies, or lack thereof, about whether I give less of my income away than Mr. Romney or anyone else, or give away more as a proportion of my income. You don’t know gooseberry fool, yet armed with not a single, solitary fact, you lurch straight into the petty ad hominem rather than addressing yourself to any part of the substance of the original debate.
At this point — and based strictly on your performance on this website — I must do something I genuinely endeavor to avoid, especially since I am of the considered hope that this blog can become notable for a better class of open, uncensored public discourse and argument. Alas, in your special case, I must greet one ad hominem with another:
You’re genuinely an asshole. Gaping, in fact. And, my friend, you are not merely an asshole, but more than that, you are a wholly ignorant fellow, unadorned with any of the necessary intellectual facets by which mature, reasoned human beings can successfully discourse and even disagree on matters. In terms of the argumentative back-and-forth on this blogsite — which is, after all, an existential part of its purpose — you are hopeless and useless, outclassed and without class. Truly, sir, it’s not that we disagree on matters of substance, because that would be fine. It’s that you don’t know how to disagree and argue your points without rushing to mischaracterize and denigrate your opponent by suggesting knowledge that you entirely lack. This makes you incapable for our purposes, not to mention dishonest. But good news, this incapability is the least of your problems. To reiterate precisely the first and greater obstacle to your continued participation here, you are, indeed, an asshole.
Webmistress, please dust off and invoke the computer key that omits this fellow. We don’t do this often, but… [banning]
With a wonderful P.S.,
You have no call to even imply that you have the slightest clue of my charitable endeavors or the lack thereof. If you did have a clue, you’d be ashamed of yourself for baiting people, even on internet forums, with that kind of rancid sarcasm. Or perhaps your capacity for shame and/or self-awareness is permanently impaired. Go strawberry float yourself, shitbird.
He almost makes the arguments on here look civil.
