Endangered species

It isn't often that you come upon that rarest of breeds, the "intelligently-written blog". But I found one today! It's called Left2Right, and they wrote a fantastic three-part series about "How Not To Complain About Taxes". I'll let them describe their argument:

I hasten to add that this still leaves plenty of room for reasonable dispute about proper levels of taxation.  For all I've said so far, it's fine to argue that current levels of government spending are excessive, so that the levels of taxation required to support those levels are unjustified.  It's fine to argue that the tax system we have unfairly distributes its burdens on the rich (I'll be posting later on that subject).  It's fine to argue that our tax system stupidly rigs incentives in unproductive ways.   It's even fine to argue that government welfare entitlements are illegitimate in principle, and hence that taxation to support them is unjust.  (For my point here is narrow:  merely that one can't get any support from Locke's theory of natural property rights, and hence not from the general idea of natural property rights, to argue this point.  I'll be posting later on why I reject theories of natural property rights.  My answer will surprise you.) This post is simply a plea to focus on real arguments about taxation, not silly rhetoric.

If you're at all interested in politics, economics, or philosophy -- conservative or liberal -- make sure you read these three blog posts.