The Patriot Post® · Death & Taxes

A while back, Theodore VanKirk died in Georgia at the age of 93. His death would have gone unnoticed except by friends and relatives if 69 years earlier he hadn’t been the navigator on the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

As the last living member of the historic crew, he was interviewed in 2005. At the time, he said that his experience showed that wars and A-bombs don’t settle anything. I would have understood if he’d said something about the terrible emotional toll that delivering that bomb had taken on him personally. But to have suggested that it didn’t settle anything was absurd. That bomb, along with the one dropped on Nagasaki three days later, ended World War II. The two bombings led to Japan’s unconditional surrender and eliminated the need for the allies to invade the islands, which, according to reliable sources, could have cost a million lives.

It so happens I had friends and relatives who were stationed in the Pacific, dreading what everyone knew would be a long and bloody invasion, and fell to their knees, thanking God and Harry Truman, not necessarily in that order, for sparing them the inevitable bloodbath.

There are times when you have to wonder if a prerequisite of working at the State Department is proving yourself to be an anti-Semite. The latest example was the Department’s decision to honor Samira Ibrahim as a 2014 Woman of Courage. Ms. Ibrahim, you see, supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Far from being courageous, her own statements show her to be a sewer-dweller. She has not only contended that Jews are behind every evil act committed anywhere in the world, but in the wake of the 9/11 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, said that every 9/11 should be celebrated in similar fashion, with America burning.

It’s only because the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, acting as a referee on behalf of basic human decency, threw a flag that the State Department backed off at the last second. And in case you were wondering if Mr. Kristol had a secret source of information, he didn’t. All you have to do is Google Ms. Ibrahim, which, one presumes, the State Department already had.

Although I have made a point of cutting down on my Fox viewing habits, in part to avoid wasting time with Alan Colmes, Kirsten Powers, Bob Beckel and Geraldo Rivera, so long as I continue watching Bret Baier’s “Special Report” and Chris Wallace’s Sunday morning show, I can’t seem to avoid Juan Williams.

Barack Obama has no more ardent defender than Mr. Williams. He is always Johnny – make that Juanny-on-the-Spot – when it comes to denouncing those who oppose Obama’s policies as racists. But never do I hear anyone suggesting that his kneejerk defense of everything Obama does, no matter how blatantly unconstitutional it happens to be, is race-based.

A reader recently let me know that he disagreed with my contention that the rich and poor should pay their income taxes at the same rate. His far more radical plan is that everyone should pay the same amount. That struck me as so bizarre, I wrote back to make certain he meant what I thought he meant. It turns out he did.

He actually felt that if a poor person paid $100 to the IRS, that is also what Warren Buffet and Bill Gates should pay.

As politely as I could, I pointed out that was sheer lunacy, and that the federal government couldn’t survive on that pittance. He, in turn, dared me to come up with federal departments that deserved to exist. I explained that the military would vanish under his system. I added that there are agencies which should continue to function, but on a limited budget and without the Gestapo-like powers Obama has given them.

For openers, even under my reader’s plan the IRS would be required to ensure that Gates and Buffet mailed in those $100 checks. Also, there is nothing intrinsically evil about the EPA. I mean, do any of us really want factories to be free to poison our water and pollute the air simply because the factory owners want to maximize profits?

To which, my reader replied: “Where in the Constitution do you find any mention of these agencies?”

Well, there are any number of federal bureaucracies that I would immediately shut down if I could, including the Commerce Department, Education, the “Human” part of Health and Human Services, and even the Justice Department so long as Eric Holder is taking his marching orders from Barack Obama. But, instead, I replied: “The Founding Fathers were a remarkable group of individuals, but just because they lacked the foresight in the 18th century to imagine jetliners, radio stations and TV networks, doesn’t mean that the FAA and FCC are unconstitutional.”

To which Reader replied: “This is what amendments are for. If something is to be added, amend the Constitution. The Founders did foresee modifications to address new items; that is why Madison included Article Five.”

To which I countered: “Amending the Constitution is a long and laborious process. Commonsense would dictate that Congress creates legislation and agencies to deal with new inventions, and that we don’t start amending the Constitution every time someone like Steve Jobs comes up with a brainstorm.”

Finally, I just saw a show produced in 2007 that dealt with the Mayan Calendar. Back then, in case it slipped your mind, there was a lot of attention focused on the mysterious fact that the last date on the ancient calendar was December 21, 2012. The pinheads took that to mean the world would cease to exist on that day.

When the show ended, I found myself wondering if those who were convinced of the world’s end awoke on the 22nd of December happy to still be alive or miserable because they knew that anyone in their circle who was anything like yours truly would never stop teasing them.

But then I found myself wondering if perhaps those Mayans foresaw that six weeks prior to that date, Barack Obama would be re-elected, and that for millions of Americans, although the world hadn’t really ended, it sure felt like it had.