Tomorrow we will get to choose who
will oversee the continued social, moral and cultural decline of
Ireland during the next few years.
That the decline might be stopped is
unlikely – at least if stopping it is dependent on anything that we
are being promised.
What are on offer are some goodies
in return for quietly acquiescing to the long dark night of decay. A
tax concession here or there, shorter hospital queues, better
infrastructure… none of it will stop the rot that is eating away at
the moral and social fabric of this country.
Even if TDs could deliver on their
lavish promises, they amount to no more than short term material
benefits, and come at the high price of longer term cultural decline.
No candidate knows what the future
holds economically. Those who claim they do are not being honest.
Who knows, for example, if
introducing a new tax will raise the desired revenue? It could just
as easily lead to social unrest, new tax avoidance schemes or other
unforeseen consequences that would nullify any projected benefits.
In the end, not only abortion,
definition of marriage and the like are moral issues. Pretty much
everything in politics, as in other areas of life, involves a choice
between what is morally right and what is morally wrong.
Even economic policies boil down to
moral choices. We generally don’t know whether they will work or
not. So the question is, or at least should be: are they morally
right or wrong?
Of course there are certain policies
that lead to foreseeable consequences – spending money we don’t
have and that we can’t repay will only lead to bankruptcy.
And that is a moral choice too. To
borrow what we know we can’t repay is stealing. Dumping the
repayments onto future generations is stealing from those future
generations – generations that might never be.
Property tax provides a good example
of the moral choices involved in tax issues.
It was estimated that it would raise
a certain amount of revenue for the exchequer. And maybe it did.
But it is impossible to isolate its
impact in order to calculate the knock-on effect in various other
areas of the economy, such as VAT revenue, property values and Stamp
Duty. There are too many factors involved to make this calculation
accurately.
What we do know is that it is an
immoral tax. A home is the fruit of a person’s labour, paid for
with after-tax income. So for starters property tax is
double-taxation.
Property tax is effectively an
income tax, and an unjust one at that. We can’t give 0.18% of our
home to the Revenue Commissioners. Instead we have to give the
monetary equivalent which, if we are fortunate, comes from our
income. But the €315 tax that the average home owner pays is a much
larger percentage of the wages of someone on low income than of the
wages of high earners.
Furthermore, it is confiscatory.
Imagine the outcry if the government decided to take 0.18% of all
money in the bank – not just on interest, but on capital as well.
It would clearly be seen as theft. Isn’t property tax the same?
So the choice is a moral one rather
than an economic one.
Our almost obsequious compliance
with the EU’s every directive is something that is decided by our
political elite. And a morally baneful decision it is, too. Do we
benefit from it? Financially: some do; some don’t. Morally and
culturally the whole country suffers.
As it is for politicians, so it is
for us, the electorate. Our decision in the polling booth is based on
a moral choice.
We can vote for someone who pretends
to know how to extricate Ireland from the looming world economic
downturn, and who will continue the disastrous social policies of the
current government. Or we can choose to vote for someone who sees
politics from the perspective of morality.
Candidates with a moral conscience,
in so far as they are available, are our best bet for the future.
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