Black Wealth Magazine

Taxes, slavery and a Tea Party rebel

Has Abe Lincoln been hijacked by the Confederacy? You might think so, judging by the latest over-the-top TV ad put out by Alabama congressional candidate Rick Barber.

Barber's a long-shot Tea Party-affiliated candidate in a July 13 runoff against Martha Roby to take on Democratic Rep. Rep. Bobby Bright in Alabama's second congressional district.

But he's made a national name for himself with ads like the one above, appropriately nicknamed "Zombie Lincoln" by some critics.

It features Barber asking the mysteriously resurrected dead president, "Hey Abe, if someone is forced to work for months to pay taxes so that a total stranger could get a free meal, medical procedure, or a bailout, what's that called?"
"What's it called,” he continues impatiently, “when one man is forced to work for another?"
To this, the actor portraying Lincoln bitterly responds, "Slavery."

On the other hand, what do you call a guy who uses his freedom of speech to exploit images of historic atrocities to take a cheap shot at health care and food stamps? I call him a guy who gives the Tea Party movement a bad name.

I prefer Oliver Wendell Holmes' view: "Taxes are the price of admission to a civilized society."

Civility is good. Let's have more of it.

UPDATE: Jason Linkins over at Huffington Post and Dave Weigel, formerly of Washington Post, helpfully point out, President Lincoln on August 5, 1861, signed the Revenue Act into law, imposing the first federal income tax in U. S. history, precisely to raise funds to fight the Civil War.

As I recall, things didn't turn out well for Alabama, among other southern states. Maybe that's why some of the folks in that neck of the woods sound so bitter about our most recent Illinois president.