Toughness and Gas Taxes

(Louisiana Heron--James Audubon)


Thomas Friedman, in a New York Times article made an interesting connection between the concept of personal toughness and public policy.

In this country there is a lot of talk about toughness. Flaccid, overweight, over compensating commentators rant about the soft headed, weak kneed liberals who are intent of wousifying this country with plans for healthcare, programs for the needy (who needs to pander to those undeserving welfare queens in the land of the free and the home of the brave?) and worst of all, those liberals now want us to cut and run from the fights in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The thunder from the right from the tough brave guys who have never faced a bullet fired in anger (Rush Limbauh, Dick Cheney, you fill in the blanks) is that we are going to get attacked again unless we are tough enough to deny those terrorists their safe havens in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Never mind, as one undaunted professor from Georgetown recently pointed out, the terrorists don't need safe havens in Afghanistan or Iraq as long as there is a Somolia or a Pakistan or an Indonesia, or for that matter a nice apartment in Germany or Queens, New York.


Real American patriots are all about buying those $1 decals at the gas stations which say, "Support Our Troops." But those same patriots get blood in their eyes and drive their Humvees to Washington to protest even the whiff of news we might consider higher taxes on anything, especially taxes on gasoline.

Of course, terrorists have no greater nightmare than an American tax on gas, which would raise the price of gas more or less permanently, decrease dependency on Middle East oil and provide real national security for the US of A.

One thing about those terrorist types--their minds are a little more subtle than Rush Limbaugh's. They think about clever ways to attack a stronger enemy with the greatest effectiveness and economy: So they use our own airplanes to bring down the most visible symbols of American power, real American power, which is to say, economic power. They are vile and they are maddening, but they are not stupid. They are cunning.

None of our responses have been cunning, unless you count electing a guy whose middle name is Hussein to the presidency. That apparently rattled them a little.

They'd be much more rattled if we passed a dollar a gallon gas tax.

That would show some actual resolve on the part of people who have been insulated fromt the fight, who have until now made no sacrifices for their country, who have sung America the Beautiful with tears in their eyes, but not sent their kids off to die, who have pasted the decals on their cars, but still cheat on their taxes, who have shouted out at town hall meetings, but whose idea of a united States of America has nothing to do with unity with other Americans, if those Americans might require some financial help from the government.


Of course, those decal patriots would argue the only people our government helps out financially are the bankers and Wall Street CEO's. Just don't touch my Medicare or Social Security, you big government tax and spend liberal socialists.


But ask those tough guy American patriots to make anything approaching the first step their fathers and grandfathers made during the Big War--when there was gas rationing and sugar rationing and lots of sons and even some daughters actually dying overseas, and our present day patriots pound their corn fed chests and hitch up their blue jeans over their beer fed bellies and bellow, "Government is the problem not the solution."

Thomas Friedman says a gas tax would separate the courageous from the cowards, the committed from the phonies.

As they say on the mean streets of Baltimore, where they know something about toughness, "True that."