Palin 1, Biden 0

Letter to Editor as submitted

Paying Taxes is a Duty

Sarah Palin is smarter than Joe Biden. She showed this in the Vice Presidential Debate. Biden made about a dozen misstatements, one where he said paying taxes is patriotic, to which Palin objected.
An article bashing Palin, written by Thomas Friedman and published in the Statesman (10/11/08), defends Biden. Friedman is not very smart either.
If Friedman has his tax accountant find legal ways to minimize his taxes, has he just minimized his patriotism? If a French engineer with a green card works for a company in the US and pays his taxes, does that make him a patriot? If the struggling single mother pays no taxes, does that make her unpatriotic?
One can easily see the fallacy. Patriotism has nothing to do with paying taxes. It is the tax code that mandates taxes.
I submit that those who pay taxes do so dutifully but generally without swells of patriotism.