Are you a good citizen?

It strikes me that Americans have increasingly come to see themselves as taxpayers. That has implications. TEA party members, Taxed Enough Already, focus on reducing taxes for all. Fair enough. I’d like to keep as much of my paycheck as possible. And I hate wasteful use of my tax dollars. But how you define “waste” is quite subjective. If you’re a weak-kneed lefty pacifist, then the $600+ billion annual Pentagon budget is excessive and wasteful. If you’re a hardworking, loyal middle class American, then throwing good money after bad on questionable social programs is wasteful. Taxpayers have rights. Taxpayers’ voices deserve to be heard. But when did “taxpayer” replace “citizen” as how we define ourselves as Americans? And what is a citizen? If you look back nostalgically at the 1950’s, the “greatest generation” was busy building our nation’s (now crumbling) interstate highway infrastructure and positioning our nation as the bulwark against the feared worldwide Red Menace. Of course it was also the era of McCarthyism and Hollywood black lists. But I digress. Americans used to see themselves as citizens, first and foremost, of the best country on earth. Citizenship implies giving of oneself for the common good. Finding ways to get things done for the greater whole, even if you have to make compromises along the way. Because it’s the right thing to do to make all of us better off. Are we still citizens? Of course. As a taxpayer, I say to the sick, the cold, the hungry and the long-term unemployed: Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. And keep your grubby hands off my hard-earned taxes.