I won't bore you with the details of how it happened but the hospital messed up my appointment last week. My new shoes didn't arrive and they only called to tell me an hour before, when I'd already left the house. Taking in a little shopping on the way, I took the call standing in the crime fiction section of Borders and, I can tell you, was annoyed enough to end up in the true crime section- as a subject. They rescheduled for today.
I have a disability - talipes plus the usual complications - that is pretty painful and, as I have reached an advanced age merely 'coping' with being crippled, the bespoke shoes are part of a little programme to try and improve my lot.
Okay, so they messed up the appointment. But the fact remains that we in Britain are pretty lucky. Even when the NHS doesn't operate as we'd like, we still have universal free coverage, which is more than any American has. Of course, it isn't really free - we pay for it indirectly throught tax.
As far as I can gather, Americans hate tax. We can't disavow the fact that taxation was a pretty important kicker in The War of Independence, but lots of Americans seem to fear and hate tax more than than they fear and hate life's other certainty, death.
If you Google it, there are hundreds of websites and articles that list all the waste and unnecessary expenditure. Where do your tax dollars go? How many are thrown away or spent on things that you wouldn't yourself buy? All this anti-tax complaining assumes two things.
1. That government seems to be held to different standards than individuals and companies when it comes to wasteful expenditure. (This thought came to me as I hung another shirt on my year-old exercise bike.)
2. That your tax dollars are spent only on pointless modern arts programs and other things people don't like.
But the thing that the Tax Freedom Day kind of people forget to mention is that lots of tax is spent on stuff that is pretty useful and sometimes excellent. Roads, for example, are generally thought to be pretty useful (A quick straw pll amongst my friends concluded that 3 out of 3 - 100% thought they were crucial or essential and useful at worst)If there was no government and no tax then road building would be left to individuals. If you wanted to drive to Walmart, you could build yourself a road. Hmmm. I guess for convenience, people might get together to pay for a road that goes past all their houses, and then because it's time-consuming and a hassle to actually build and maintain the thing, I guess they might pay someone else to build and manage it for them. Everyone could contribute a bit of the cost and everyone could then enjoy the benefits of driving to Walmart. In fact, given time, people wouldn't worry about roads, they'd kind of just expect them to be there. Coo-el! And armies and police? We are all scaredy cats, but it might be prohibitively expensive for everyone to hire a bodyguard. So people could share them. But then again, wouldn't it be better to have a group of bodyguards that everyone could share? Tell you what, it's time consuming and a little tiresome dealing one on one or two on one with our bodyguards. How about we get someone else to actually deal with recruiting, paying, housing, training and equipping them and we all contribute a percentage of the cost? That'd be cheaper and less time consuming, surely.
And bespoke shoes. Hypothetically speaking, what if someone needed some bespoke shoes because of an injury or a disability but just this month couldn't pay for them? How about we all put a bit of our income in a big savings account, and then when someone needed something pretty essential they could dip into the account and get it when they needed it? I mean, you never know when you might get ill. It'll be like an insurance policy that everyone puts into. What a splendid idea.
Of course it could be more efficient - couldn't everything? But lets not be too down on tax. It's okay really. Honestly, you haven't got the time or the energy to exercise your 'greater choice'. Everyone knows that if it was a toss up between a shiny new 46 inch plasma TV and 12 feet of new sewer, you'd get the plasma everytime.
I have a disability - talipes plus the usual complications - that is pretty painful and, as I have reached an advanced age merely 'coping' with being crippled, the bespoke shoes are part of a little programme to try and improve my lot.
Okay, so they messed up the appointment. But the fact remains that we in Britain are pretty lucky. Even when the NHS doesn't operate as we'd like, we still have universal free coverage, which is more than any American has. Of course, it isn't really free - we pay for it indirectly throught tax.
As far as I can gather, Americans hate tax. We can't disavow the fact that taxation was a pretty important kicker in The War of Independence, but lots of Americans seem to fear and hate tax more than than they fear and hate life's other certainty, death.
If you Google it, there are hundreds of websites and articles that list all the waste and unnecessary expenditure. Where do your tax dollars go? How many are thrown away or spent on things that you wouldn't yourself buy? All this anti-tax complaining assumes two things.
1. That government seems to be held to different standards than individuals and companies when it comes to wasteful expenditure. (This thought came to me as I hung another shirt on my year-old exercise bike.)
2. That your tax dollars are spent only on pointless modern arts programs and other things people don't like.
But the thing that the Tax Freedom Day kind of people forget to mention is that lots of tax is spent on stuff that is pretty useful and sometimes excellent. Roads, for example, are generally thought to be pretty useful (A quick straw pll amongst my friends concluded that 3 out of 3 - 100% thought they were crucial or essential and useful at worst)If there was no government and no tax then road building would be left to individuals. If you wanted to drive to Walmart, you could build yourself a road. Hmmm. I guess for convenience, people might get together to pay for a road that goes past all their houses, and then because it's time-consuming and a hassle to actually build and maintain the thing, I guess they might pay someone else to build and manage it for them. Everyone could contribute a bit of the cost and everyone could then enjoy the benefits of driving to Walmart. In fact, given time, people wouldn't worry about roads, they'd kind of just expect them to be there. Coo-el! And armies and police? We are all scaredy cats, but it might be prohibitively expensive for everyone to hire a bodyguard. So people could share them. But then again, wouldn't it be better to have a group of bodyguards that everyone could share? Tell you what, it's time consuming and a little tiresome dealing one on one or two on one with our bodyguards. How about we get someone else to actually deal with recruiting, paying, housing, training and equipping them and we all contribute a percentage of the cost? That'd be cheaper and less time consuming, surely.
And bespoke shoes. Hypothetically speaking, what if someone needed some bespoke shoes because of an injury or a disability but just this month couldn't pay for them? How about we all put a bit of our income in a big savings account, and then when someone needed something pretty essential they could dip into the account and get it when they needed it? I mean, you never know when you might get ill. It'll be like an insurance policy that everyone puts into. What a splendid idea.
Of course it could be more efficient - couldn't everything? But lets not be too down on tax. It's okay really. Honestly, you haven't got the time or the energy to exercise your 'greater choice'. Everyone knows that if it was a toss up between a shiny new 46 inch plasma TV and 12 feet of new sewer, you'd get the plasma everytime.
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