The Mitt-Lefty Paradox of taxation

[bUU]

Taxing someone who has to actually work for their income more than taxing someone who just sits back and lets it roll in (dividends) is not fair. If both examples, like the golfer and Mitt in the OP example, both make 1,000,000, why should the golfer have to pay a higher tax rate than Mitt, who doesn't have to swing a club, or shovel, or 'hash' to 'earn' his income?

Unfortunately, this is a matter of morality, something that each person can decide to set aside for themselves, to rationalize that which advantages themselves at the expense of those more in need of such advantages, if they so choose. To truly appreciate what you're saying, it requires placing one's self as a member of the whole, rather than conceptualizing one's self as superior to "the little people". All someone needs to do to side-step the implications of a moral definition of fairness is define themselves in this latter way, and shape their world-view around some image that rationalizes the promotion of one's own desires while marginalizing the abject needs of others. Such a corruption of the relative primacy of "desires" versus "needs" could readily justify, for example, the transgressor's dogs eating better than other humans in their community, though that's admittedly an extreme example.

Talking about 'double taxation' is a diversion.

Perhaps. I think of it and similar rhetoric as a rationalization for refusing to internalize and acknowledge the ramifications on others of one system versus the other. I think a diversion must be conscious, but most of the time such rationalizations aren't, and, rather, are crafted because their absence would invariably tarnish the self-image of those who support the more regressive system.

A progressive system leaves more people able to pay for their own abject needs. A regressive system leaves more wealth in the hands of the wealthy, and leaves more poor people without the means of surviving without additional assistance. A progressive system, which most definitions of morality define as fairer, supports best that idea of a society of citizens working together at all levels of society to move society forward as a whole. A regressive system supports best that idea of a society of puppet master using lesser humans to figuratively turn the cranks of the machine that lifts the puppet masters higher and higher. If you are inclined to advancing your own desires regardless of the impact on the ability of others to afford their own survival, then you'll adopt a rationalization to justify your choice.

Romney paid 13% tax on his income, only after he fiddled it to pay a higher rate, as it turns out, and the golfer paid more. Much more. I'm pretty sure if Romney were to release the past 10 years of tax returns we would see just how little he actually pays, (which, of course, is why he refused to release those forms)

I think this is a myth. The best indications I have seen indicate to me that Romney only sought to shield one year's tax forms from publication, 2009. My evidence of this is that Mitt Romney ran for President in 2008, and if he had been nominated would have had to reveal at least a couple of years worth of taxes, 2007, 2006, ... The 2009 tax forms would have showed whether the Romneys shielded themselves from prosecution for tax evasion through an amnesty offered that one tax year.

The American people see through this BS, which is why Romney lost....

Sorry peggy, but I think this is wishful thinking, as stated. 47% of the American voters voted for Romney. A great number of them almost surely did not see through the BS, and (either through being manipulated or through self-deception) have and will continue to shield themselves from the understanding that would pierce the BS. And while it is invariably true that many others did see through the BS, they still voted for Romney because the see themselves exploiting the advantages that reactionary world-view affords those with wealth, and rely on rationalization as I indicated above to side-step the negative aspect of supporting a system that feeds their own discretionary desires at the expense of the abject needs of others. The point is that it isn't enough to point out the manipulations, deceptions, rationalizations and diversions; there may very well be enough people who's definition of morality is such that the impact of anything on people other than themselves and their own family and friends is of no significant importance.

And there is every indication that that trend is accelerating. One of the most insidious aspects of reactionary perspective is that it rewards doubling-down on itself. The more such things make it more difficult for more people to follow-along with those benefiting from society's prosperity, the more those who are facing that increasing difficulty are motivated to rationalize the measures they support that they see will foster their own comfort and luxury even at the expense of others' abject needs. For example, when management makes competition more cut-throat in the office, such as by doing away with team incentives and replacing them with individual incentives, the most aggressive self-promoters increase their rationalization of offensive actions against others, stealing each other's leads, throwing each other under the bus at status meetings, etc. And going back to what I said about rationalizations, there are many who tout the benefits of such a system, by hardening themselves against having to face and internalize the negative ramifications of such a system on people. If you have a chance to hear someone defend such a system, watch how deftly they avoid humanizing those harmed by the system.