Time for another left-wing "taxes are patriotic" lecture

The myth is that America was born in rebellion against taxes, and today’s Tea Party movement takes off from that illusion. (The Boston Tea Party of 1773 was not a protest about oppressive taxes. American colonists took the government’s right and duty to levy taxes for granted — but they wanted it to be their government.) In fact, the so-called Tea Party phenomenon that now drives Republican politics is less a movement than a spasm because its radical preference of individual over group undercuts the minimal solidarity required for any authentic political organization, even their own. Absurdly cloaking their fiscal solipsism in the rhetoric of patriotism, the anti-tax crowd assaults the core value of citizenship. The Republican Party is by now almost fully hostage to such political nihilism, which puts it well on the way to self-destruction. Alas, when a major party so narrows its civic sense, the destruction can be general.