[pc86]

This is important context, and people forget that "taxation without representation," which started a war, was about a tax of about 1.5%.

Why is it when people are against a tax they typically talk about it in terms of historical context, unintended consequences, interstate migration, while people in favor of the tax almost exclusively appeal to emotional blackmail statements like "paying your fair share" (when something like 40% of the country pays no federal income tax whatsoever) or "good conscience" or assume anyone with any money got it through borderline illegal activities?

[mothballed]

It took 100+ years of horribly repressive policies to start that war, including far worse tax schemes including things like straight up requiring burning half your tobacco or only selling it through monopolized channels that required paying tariffs to England before it could be re-exported anywhere else. Policies that resulted in mass starvation and death, sometimes resulting in failed rebellions (like Bacon's). So there's history of Americans being willing to spend decades starving to death to pay high taxes or economically destructive policies before they will successfully rebel against it.

[pc86]

Well we're decades in at this point.