Running for the Exits

Occasionally I make the mistake of clicking on a video on YouTube with a title such as: "O'Reilly Gets His Ass Handed to Him." Usually I only watch music videos. The striking thing, besides the not-so-latent aggression and bogus indignation of Bill, is the belief in the rightness of America no matter how we behave. America must be right: always, everywhere, and irrespective of what we do. 

Love it or leave it. But in this virtual world of ours we know who is heading for the exits. You can head for the exits as though it's a video game and over time through technology because your financial self is a kind of avatar. Corporations are people. People are corporations, limited liability entities, with the ability to cross borders in all kinds of inventive ways. The motivation: to avoid taxation.

These self-proclaimed patriots don't think they have any responsibility at all to the society that made it possible. They think the society is the beneficiary and should be grateful that they deign to live here. Well, pardon me. Excuse me for my existence, for interfering with their money-lust, but I think they are the beneficiaries, as Franklin Roosevelt stated as though it were so obvious it couldn't be argued. 

Those who benefit the most are more responsible, in every way. Let me look at my crystal ball. I'm back. The crystal says that if we do the inconceivable, raise taxes to the levels of the fifties and sixties, let's say, when America was in fact great, when we made stuff and acted reasonably intelligently as a nation, O'Reilly and his clan will clog the exits, their virtual, financial selves and maybe bodily.

Be gone. "We the People" will live on and be better off without you.