If we disagree on religion, we may both suspect the other will be in trouble with the Almighty, but at least in our culture we do not feel it is a personal invasion into our space. But when we disagree on economic organization, then we fear the other is going to alter the very fabric of our existence. I'm sure you feel this way when you perceive someone is going to take away your property. So do I, by the way. Just because I'm a liberal doesn't mean I love paying taxes any more than you do. And what I feel I am entitled to receive from the community, and what I owe to it, also is something I give a lot of thought to, and which I must constantly negotiate with the community I belong to.

I think this is the heart of the issue. When one person's position demands something of the other person, it isn't just favorite flavors of ice cream any more. Religious disagreement isn't normally an issue until one religion pulls a gun.

When someone is taking money from someone else, only one person in that equation is really getting their "fabric" altered.

My basic theoretical principle is that I do not believe one person's needs give them the right to take what they need by force. Operative word being "take" here. In the real world, it's a bit fuzzier of course, but that's the baseline. It does NOT mean that if someone is in need, it is a good thing to laugh at them and tell them there are poorhouses. But it also does NOT mean that if you don't want to help a person, he gets to pull a gun.

This discussion, which started around socializing our medical system, goes beyond basic moral ideas, if that isn't enough. It's about practicality. Our government's responsibilities cannot become infinite. There isn't enough productivity, or people willing to sacrifice everything they've built, to cover all the wet dreams of "progressives." Again, I've seen nations where all wealth is considered the property of the State to distribute. IMO, we're a lot closer to that then we are to a true free-market society. So where is the stopping point? Or even the braking point? I'm not seeing one, even on the horizon.

Wealth redistribution, i.e. using taxpayer money to simply subsidize someone's needs as an entitlement, is now well over half the Federal budget. This is unsustainable, and every economist you talk to will tell you that entitlements are what are going to kill the Federal budget in the next few decades. Medicare is going broke, right now, in a major way, and yet we are now asked by some to put the entire country on the program.

Why won't anyone believe that maybe good intentions do not drive feasibility? Someone can have a heart big enough to carry around in a wheelbarrow, but that won't make 2 + 2 = 7. Nor should someone be labeled a heartless bastard for pointing it out.

The Federal budget is now four times--in constant dollars--what it was in the 1960s--the height of the Cold War and defense spending. Am I unreasonable to think that maybe, just maybe, we don't need to funnel as much of our lives through Washington as we are?

Defense spending in 1966 was 43 percent of the budget. Human resources--social spending--was 32 percent. In 2008--during a war--national defense will be 21 percent of the budget. Human resources will be 63 percent. By 2012, the numbers are predicted to be 18 and 68 percent respectively.

I pay taxes, and in fairly impressive amounts in good years. I also have no objection to paying gas taxes to keep the roads repaired, fees to enter national parks, or many other things. I have even less objection to paying local taxes for specific things in my community like fire departments and schools. I have actually voted FOR tax increases on more than one occasion--local sales tax increases for capital work on our schools, one increase to fix a major highway interchange in my area, and one other that escapes me at the moment. Such things sometimes need a 2/3 vote to win, which I find eminently reasonable, and turn out to make it happen when I think it's a good cause.

In a nutshell, I'm not saying nobody should eat at my table. But I'm tired of being asked to feed 400-pound sumo wrestlers.