I have charts to help people out with ideas on what all those eeeeeevil taxes are really spent on:

http://www.offthechartsblog.org/where-do-your-federal-and-state-tax-dollars-go/

The answer? Most of your Federal taxes go towards insurance of one sort or another -- Social Security for if you live past 65, Medicare in case you need medical treatment after you turn 65, Medicaid if you need medical treatment and are poor, CHIP/SCHIP in case you need medical treatment for your kids and are relatively poor, Unemployment if you get laid off, disability if you are unable to work because of illness or injury, food stamps if you need to eat if you're poor, TANF aka "welfare" if you're poor, etc.

Defense is the only big-ticket non-insurance cost, and I'm all for cutting it. However, even if we zeroed out defense we wouldn't be able to eliminate federal taxes, or even give that big of a tax cut to regular joes, since most of our taxes are payroll taxes tied explicitly to Medicare and Social Security.

But mostly, I find it fascinating that everyone focuses so much on the tax thing.

Personally, I'm a liberal, and not a conservative or a libertarian, because I think you need to make proactive attempts to insure that people's individual exercises of freedom don't cause harm to others.

Libertarians have this whole witchcraft approach to that topic, where they feel that the threat of post-damage monetary settlements are more effective (and more libero-freedom-y) than preemptive safety regulations coupled with the threat of post-damage monetary settlements. Personally, I'd rather people took steps to make sure they avoid injuring or killing me, rather than just resting comfortable in the notion that I can sue people who injure me, and my surviving family can sue people who kill me.

I also think that despite all the flowery rhetoric about human rights being natural and innate, they only exist when there's a government backing it up. Otherwise, my rights are limited to what I can defend with the martial strength I can gather together myself.

In reply to this comment by laura:
opa!

greek?
ah molto belle..
many thanks.

opa!

Opa!

On another note...,
My dad's dad, (my grandpa - Opa in German) had the name Leonardt. I never met him. He never made it out of Germany/Poland in WW2 but I was named after him. My parents made the decision to change the spelling to a more "Canadian" (phonetic) spelling.
Lenard – this way no one could incorrectly call me “Leo.” The 'O' was silent in the english translation. I shortened it to Len around grade seven after I got tired of being called names like Leonard Nimoy and Lynnerd-Skinnerd, I have often considered having my name changed back to the original spelling of Leonardt.

btw
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2007/March/07_nsd_161.html

They were paying protection money, and they admitted it voluntarily.

"Chiquita has already provided the government with voluminous corporate records and made numerous company witnesses available for questioning in connection with this matter. As part of the plea agreement, Chiquita has committed to cooperate fully with the ongoing investigation."

Upvote the fit of those jeans.

Downvote for MagicPill meme. (FTC Takes Action Against Marketers of Top-Selling Xenadrine EFX).