Commentary
Oregon Daily Emerald
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
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■ In my opinion
No taxation without
aggravation
Ah, tax season. This is the time of
year when most Americans find
themselves face to face with the
sheer heavy-handed ineptitude of
federal bureaucracy. I’m certainly a
big believer in rendering unto Cae
sar, but we happen to live in a socie
ty in which we're allowed to dis
agree with Caesar. So, if it please
you, I have the following grumblings
when it comes to taxes.
Higher taxes mean just one thing: a
bigger, more wasteful government.
Though many conservatives talk
about small government as if Ronald
Reagan invented the idea, the majori
ty of Americans have always, for the
most part, supported smaller govern
ment and lower taxes. I know the bills
need to be paid, but I have philosoph
ical reservations about imposing a tax
on somebody’s very livelihood in or
der to support big government.
The federal government used a
temporary income tax to pay for the
Civil War. The income tax as we
know it today wasn’t implemented
until the Wilson administration. Un
til that time, the federal government
paid its bills primarily with tariff rev
enue. With the rise of globalization
and the attendant decrease in tariffs,
together with the increasingly glut
tonous appetite of government in a
post-Teddy Roosevelt America, a tax
on productive labor sounded like a
good idea to somebody.
So to those who oppose globaliza
tion, may I suggest you also oppose
the income tax, and maybe you’ll pick
up a few more supporters. It’s a reac
tionary idea, perhaps, but protection
ism itself is kind of reactionary, so
there you have it.
GABE BRADLEY
THE WRITING ON THE WALL
And I just can’t stand all the H&R
Block commercials this time of year.
H&R Block is the second biggest suck
er’s bet in the tax business.
If your tax situation is complicat
ed enough that you can’t just fill in
the forms by following the instruc
tion manual, then you probably
need a real accountant. If you don’t
need a real accountant, then there’s
absolutely no reason to pay some
one else to basically do the work of a
well-trained chimpanzee by filling in
the forms exactly the way the in
struction manual says.
But that’s not where H&R Block
makes its real money. It make its real
money from advance refund checks,
which is the first biggest sucker’s bet
in the tax business.
Speaking of refunds, sometimes I
think I’m the only person left alive
who isn’t happy to receive a big re
fund. People jump up and down in
excitement about their refunds. It’s
your money! You earned it a while
ago, but you’re just receiving it now.
Nobody’s giving you money.
They’re just giving your money back,
with no interest. The bigger your re
fund, the more of your own hard
earned money has been sitting in the
not-so-capable hands of the govern
ment being ravaged by inflation
without a penny of interest to show
for it. The joke’s on you.
On my W-4,1 try to get as small a
refund as possible. Even more prefer
able is to have no refund at all. That
way, you pay what you owe when
you owe it — not a penny more and
not a day earlier.
When you do have to calculate
your refund, though, notice how on
the Form 1040, Line 72a asks you
how much of the overpaid amount
you’d like refunded to you. Umm ...
all of it? Is this a trick question? Is
there anyone who really falls for this
and decides that this year they feel
like paying a little extra tax? Surely
they don’t really think we’re that
stupid. Do they?
For all my grumbling, I don’t agree
with those who advocate non-pay
ment of income tax as a form of
protest or civil disobedience. I defi
nitely do not agree with everything for
which the government uses my mon
ey, and governmental waste infuriates
me to no end. Nevertheless, whether I
like it or not, I’m paying no more and
no less than what our elected repre
sentatives have decided upon, which
has not always been the case for citi
zens of the American nation.
I may not like the tax; I may vigor
ously disagree with the tax and use
my freedom of speech to express this
view; but, come tax season, I pay up
just like everybody else. We do, after
all, have taxation with representa
tion. For my money, though, I’d like
to see a little less taxation and a little
more representation. But maybe
that’s just me.
gabebradley@ daily emerald, com
INBOX
Students need to examine
science behind transgender
On Feb. 16, the Emerald published
a news article, a column, and an edi
torial, all focusing on transgender
identity. Each piece portrayed trans
gender people as victims of bigotry. In
the editorial, advocating legal protec
tion for transgender people, The
Emerald wrote: “We must educate
ourselves about this issue.”
I agree wholeheartedly.
A full understanding of this issue
can only be gained by exposure to di
verse viewpoints, like that of Paul
McHugh, Director of Psychiatry at
John Hopkins Medical School.
McHugh states that, “We in the Johns
Hopkins Psychiatry Department even
tually concluded that human sexual
identity is mostly built into our consti
tution by the genes we inherit and the
embryogenesis we undergo” (First
Things, November 2004). He views
transexuality as a serious medical con
dition, writing that “We have to learn
how to manage this condition as a
mental disorder” (The American
Scholar, Autumn 1992). A mental dis
order? Such a statement would be de
nounced as hate speech on this cam
pus. But McHugh's claims do not arise
from hate, they arise from science.
If the Emerald wants to educate the
campus on transgender identity, it
will need to discuss the issue in
depth. And if that offends transgender
people on this campus, so be it. The
role of a university is not to tolerate all
ideas and lifestyles. Rather, the proper
role of a university is to examine all
ideas, celebrating the good and dis
carding the bad. Debunking the myth
that transexuality is natural would be
a good place to start.
Joe Bailey, Freshman
Columnist sympathizes
with the wrong gender
In AnneMarie Knepper’s commen
tary, “Perpetuating the Stereotype”
(ODE April 7), Knepper expresses her
sympathy for the images portrayed of
the “middle-class white guy” within
the media. According to Knepper,
these men “get no respect” with the
common portrayals of them being “all
fat, stupid, lazy and helpless.”
Is the white middle-class guy
worthy of respect? The stereotypes
of women portrayed in the media, as
well as in American society as a
whole, demand women to be thin,
sexy yet virginal, subordinate
and selfless.
These unrealistic requirements that
society and the media demand of
women are more destructive than those
imposed on middle-class white men.
In conjunction with recent events,
Terri Schindler-Schiavo’s unfortunate
condition and death resulted primari
ly from brain failure due to bulimia.
The media’s detrimental portrayals of
women prove to be just that.
What is so fatal about the lazy,
couch potato white guy? And just
who is responsible for these destruc
tive images and stereotypes of women
perpetuated in American media and
society to begin with?
Congratulations to some
of Emerald's ASUO picks
The Emerald endorses its picks for
ASUO (ODE April 6). I thought I
would never see the day. Way to go
Miles Rost for giving articulate
enough answers to earn the ODE's en
dorsement for Senate Seat 1, and way
to go College Republicans for getting
someone smart enough to challenge
the status quo!
Julie Higgs, Senior
:ott Austin, Taiwan ROC
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■ Editorial
Birth control
controversy
creeps into
pharmacies
Recently, the debate over abortion and birth
control has checked out of the doctor’s office,
and is now shifting around impatiently in the
lines of pharmacies.
Over the past six months, there have been
at least 180 documented situations in which
a pharmacist refused to fill a prescription for
birth control or similar drugs involving repro
duction. These are professional representa
tives of the medical industry refusing to give
women medications that they have been pre
scribed and, in some cases, even refusing to
give patients their prescriptions back so they
can go elsewhere to have them filled.
Different states handle the issue in different
ways. After a Chicago woman was unable to
receive her birth control prescription, Illinois
governor Rod Blagojevich put out an April 1
emergency rule stating that pharmacists must
fill contraceptive prescriptions, with “No de
lays. No hassles. No lectures.” If the pharma
cist absolutely will not fill the prescription,
they must immediately find someone else
who will.
In an opposite move, the Arizona House of
Representatives recently approved something
called a conscience clause, meaning that any
pharmacist who does not wish to fill a partic
ular prescription because of moral or religious
ground is not required to do so. That pharma
cist is also not required to refer the prescrip
tion-seeker to another pharmacy.
This nationwide situation brings to light a
serious a problem: the placement of morals,
usually religious, within the medical sphere.
Doctors in many states are also subject to a
different type of conscience clause that allows
them to refuse abortion procedures based on
moral principles as long as they refer their pa
tients to other abortion doctors. In this case,
the conscience clause usually makes sense.
Pharmacists, however, are in a different po
sition. A doctor opposed to abortion would
not enter a field of specialization that required
the performance of such a procedure; phar
macists do not have this luxury, they distrib
ute all forms of drugs. For a pharamcist to re
fuse to fill a prescription for birth control, a
commonly prescribed drug, would be akin to
a physician refusing to see patients with sexu
ally transmitted infections.
It is important to consider the meaning be
hind Arizona’s decision: a pharmacist’s belief
that sex before marriage is wrong overrides a
patient’s decision to prevent unwanted preg
nancy. A pharmacist’s morals may dictate that
it is wrong to prevent oneself from ovulating,
but the woman’s morals probably dictate that
it is wrong to have unprotected sex before she
is ready to raise a child. To think that the
morals of the pharmacist, a third party, could
be valued above the morals of a patient under
any circumstance is ridiculous.
Regardless of their personal feelings, phar
macists are part of the medical profession,
and they have a job to perform. Those who
cannot bring objectivity to their jobs should
be barred from practice.
Oregon should take a page from the mod
ern Hippocratic Oath — prevention is prefer
able to cure. The state must require phra
macists to fill patients’ prescriptions,
regardless of their personal ethics. We need
proper conscience clauses here to hold phar
macists to the standards of objectivity we ex
pect in the medical field.