There's actually a whole other way to think about it. Taxes are what you pay to be an American, to live in a civilized society that is democratic and offers opportunity, and where there's an infrastructure that has been paid for by previous taxpayers. This is a huge infrastructure. The highway system, the Internet, the TV system, the public education system, the power grid, the system for training scientists — vast amounts of infrastructure that we all use, which has to be maintained and paid for. Taxes are your dues — you pay your dues to be an American.
I love this, and hope the Democrats adopt this strategy. It begs the natural question: what do the welfare recipients pay to be Americans? Nothing; in fact, their contribution is negative. Transfer payments aren't simply un-American, but anti-American.
Run with it, liberals.
Notice how he couldn't bring himself to mention our wonderful military ?
Unfortunatly he's informed by the reality that liberals lothe any and all things military.
Taxes are your dues — you pay your dues to be an American.
It is way past time that all Americans pay for the programs that they have forced upon us. No exemptions!
As usual with the left, there's a failure to distinguish between utopian libertarianism, and true conservatism, which is based in a system of checks and balances and a recognition that government is necessary, but that it is also necessary that government be limited in certain powers in order to keep things in healthy working order. Lakoff has done important work in cognitive linguistics (his Where Mathematics Come From, written with Rafael Nunez, has influenced me profoundly), but he obviously hasn't studied basic economics much...if at all.