On legitimizing the currency: Why use dollars for transactions in the USA instead of euros or pounds or gold or silver? The immediate answer is because that's what other people ask for, but why do they ask for it? Why not bitcoin? Because in the end you have to pay your taxes in dollars.

On Redistribution of wealth. Taxation allows the government to change the real relative wealth of people by having different tax rates for different people.

On inflation: The government doesn't need taxes to fund itself, it can always print money. But printing money creates inflation. Taxing allows the government to pull some of that money back out of the economy.

Besides the obvious, that Laffer's curve is largely bullshit, it makes an important point on the purpose of taxes. Specifically, raising taxes has the following effects.

1. Fights inflation.
2. Redistributes wealth.
3. Legitimizes the currency.

This is why I ended my subscription to WaPo last fall, and it's a reminder to everyone to check the owner(s) bias of any news organization.

We are a democratic congressional federal republic.
democratic: power is derived from the people
congressional: power is invested in a congress and president who have separate duties.
federal: power is split between states and the national government.
republic: Our executive office is elected.

The point is that the government runs via consent from the governed. The alternative to democracy in this case would be an oligarchy or autocracy. These can also be Republics, Monarchies, etc. The difference is that power comes from the consent of a much smaller group of 'elite' people.

A democracy can be a Republic, if your population is very small (like Athens in 300 BC, what these people always point to as a 'real democracy') it can be a Direct Democracy, it can be a Constitutional Monarchy (such as Great Britain).

Yeah, that's a problem. My kids regularly go to the LFL in our neighborhood, sometimes unsupervised, to drop off or grab books. If this was in my neighborhood I would probably be calling the police.

If you want to look through my full forked ruleset for D&D 5e, check out the website: www.ddrefinedreforged.com #DnD #Homebrew

I'd rather slouch

Just like it's weird that we can mass-produce and distribute sliced bread for an equivalent value of a few minutes of labor. Have you tried to make bread? It takes hours! It should cost hundreds of dollars! /s

There will also be shows March 15 and 16 at the Forward Club at Breese Stevens field. Come support a local theatre company performing at local venues! The cost is $15, payable at the door (via cash or app).