I have one last thing to say about Peter David’s Miss South Carolina Teen post. One of Peter’s commenters, “elf”, wrote the following (at August 29, 2007 06:40 PM):

#2. Find the money to making teaching a viable profession once again. We live in a society that has villified even the idea of taxes. You know what? Taxes are a GOOD thing. They are used to benefit everybody. Even if you don’t have kids and part of your taxes go to support the school system it benefits everyone by producing smarter children who are far less likely to end up on welfare or otherwise being a burden on society, thereby saving everybody money in the long run. What is bad is when government revenue is WASTED on things like tax breaks for large corporations and needless invasions of foreign countries.

This is like saying that war is a good thing, because it’s used to benefit everybody, as in World War II. It’s a pretty silly thing to say. Yes, taxes can be used for the common good (which includes defense), and because of that, they are a necessary evil. That doesn’t make them less of an evil, though. The problem is that taxes are used for far too many initiatives that aren’t really necessary for the common good and, in fact, aren’t really a part of the government’s jurisdiction at all.