Who-?

When I'd first heard of the latest dust-up in the military blog-world I thought "Who the heck is that?". For those who don't know, Alan W. Brown, a writer for Saturday Night Live back when it wasn't funnier (it's not funny now), posted a YouTube video and a corresponding diary on Daily Kos where he decides to call everyone in uniform a sub-human animal.

There are people who are better writers who have already tackled this issue. I'm not going to cheapen their effort by diluting it with my random keystrokes, and I'm really not in the mood to pile on the ad hominems by pointing out that about as many people know who I am as who knew Alan Brown before this.

I'd just like to point out something in Mr. Brown's rant.

But to answer the question, what I mean when I say I support our troops is that I actually pay for their food, their ammo, their upkeep, transport, everything. I pay for all of it. And I do that not only because I’m a patriotic American, although I am, but also because they take 35% out of my check every week and if I don’t pay it I will end up in jail.

Yes. I pay the same taxes and they go to support a whole lot of things of which I don't approve. Right now I'm sure the IRS is working on a form which will allow tax payers to line item veto their tax expenditures. I hope that it's available soon so that I can stop my involuntary support of people who choose to be mimes.

However, my dear eight readers, remember what Mr. Brown has just said, he pays 35% of his income in taxes.

But I have paid hundreds of dollars in taxes over my lifetime, hundreds of dollars, and I don’t have so much as a single picture of an Iraqi child that I paid to have killed. It would be nice to just have something, you know, to remember them by.... a picture, a lock of hair, perhaps a necklace of ears

Italics mine.

"Hundreds of dollars in taxes over my lifetime." I don't know about you all, but so far, this year, I have paid $3353.15 in federal taxes. I'm a resident of Texas so I don't pay a state income tax. By the standards of the entire Earth I'm a very wealthy man. As a matter of fact I'll bet that many tin pot dictators and petty crime lords the world over would drop their positions of relative wealth and status to live my life of blissful middle classdom. However, by the standards of America I'm no where near wealthy, and yet I pay thousands of dollars in taxes. Heck, I'm probably at tens of thousands in taxes over my lifetime.

Now I understand why Mr. Brown is so upset. Us "morally retarded" "bunch of idiots" make signifigantly more money than he does. It's jealously, pure and simple. Even as a private I was having more than "hundreds of dollars" taken from me in taxes. Alan Brown is a juggler and a writer who was on SNL back when it was really, really sucky. He's now been reduced to raising lions somewhere in southern Texas, which apparently pays him so little that his tax burden is under $1,000.

I wonder if he's under 42. If so, I know where he can go to get a better job.