Use tax fairness as a weapon against racism | Opinion
This column reflects the views of the writer, not of The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board or newsroom.
The irony was not lost on cable commentators that on the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington a young white man entered a Dollar General in Jacksonville with an assault rifle and killed two black men and one black woman. Most of the coverage, including that from the investigating police authorities, reduced the incident to race hatred.
As a Jew, and a psychotherapist, I understand that racism is a symptom of the need to identify a scapegoat upon which to blame the psychic pain suffered due to the perception that “life is not fair to me or to my tribe” and I can’t understand why. And so the Jews or the Blacks or the immigrants must be to blame.
There are reasons that hate of the other festers in the hearts of the haters. There are always reasons for human behavior, but reasons are not excuses. The reasons do not excuse the violence. Nevertheless, if we want to do something constructive about this reality, it is not enough to just focus on guns, although I believe most people will agree there is no reason for a civilian to have access to an assault rifle.
More: Editorial: Don't lower ownership age for long guns
To get at the underlying reasons and make a change, in my view, we must look first at the issue of economic justice and tax inequity. It’s rare that the children of the affluent go on a rampage against some scapegoated group. In our time the wealth gap in our country is greater than ever and growing worse. It is obscene. We must find ways to lift the burden of paying for government from the backs of the poor and middle class. If we do, these people will be able to stop living paycheck to paycheck and begin to accumulate some savings and assets of their own. The relative benefit of infrastructure provided by our society inures to our corporate and individual citizens in direct proportion to wealth. Without that infrastructure wealth cannot be accumulated, retained, and preserved.
Eliminating the burden to pay for government from the backs of the poor and middle class will not solve every problem. But I am convinced that so long as our laws exist to primarily benefit the wealthy interests and only tangentially the 95% of our citizens, scapegoating will naturally lead to violent acts against those blamed for the pain felt by those that can’t see a way to get ahead. They suffer with the pain of living in a society that is so obviously unfair to them, even if they don’t clearly see why.
I call upon my fellow citizens to actively support the cause of leveling the playing field for all so that the words of our Declaration of Independence, that all people are created equal and endowed by their creator with the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is the aspirational ideal of our representational democracy. If we do this, I am convinced that violence against the latest scapegoats will subside.
Dr. Mitchell Roth is a Florida licensed mental health therapist, and the author of the book, “A Taxing Problem. The Psychologist’s Prescription for a Just Tax System."
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: One weapon against social violence: fair taxation
