The Church of America

Next to ATM fees and the automated phone mazes utility companies use in order to not talk to their customers, taxes annoy me the most. More specifically, the completely hypocritical "sin" tax which our government imposes on alcohol, tobacco, and gambling among other things. Ever since the age of 21 I've been baffled by the idea that I have to pay our government extra money to indulge in a product that our society says is perfectly legal. Even worse, in many states the government peddles that very same "sin" product to the public in the form of state-run lotteries. Is it just me or does that smack of the great Doc Holliday line in the movie Tombstone, "My hypocrisy knows no bounds." And yet we accept it. Instead we let things like the date rape drug or reciting the National Anthem in schools take center stag because we have an opinion on what is or isn't abortion or what is or isn't true separations of church and state. Honestly, if we thought things like smoking, drinking alcohol, or gambling are sins then why aren't they illegal like murder and rape and theft? Why does my state lottery constantly have commercials telling me to go out and buy more lottery tickets? Why do beer commercials run nonstop during the Superbowl--the most watched event in the world? In a society that is constantly fearful of the Christian Right trying to cram its crazy moral system down its throat, why do we let our own government daily penalize us for purchasing products that we have deemed legal to purchase? In fact, sin taxes sound like something the Christian Right might conjure up if they did control our government. But, thankfully, they don't....and yet we pay "sin" taxes daily. I mention this now because, recently, the President of our country said that we need to search out alternative fuel sources in order to break away from our dependence on foreign oil. His opponents responded by saying that wasn't enough. Their suggestion: raise taxes , raise taxes, or, I don't know, maybe raise taxes (although this idea won't do so until a few years but it certainly paves a way) in order to discourage Americans from buying gasoline. I guess using gas might soon be a "sin" as well.