Oh, my Godwin. Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby, onetime scourge of left-wingers who compared George W. Bush to Hitler, now proudly reminds us that he once compared liberal tax-and-spenders to Hitler and Ivan the Terrible.
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Even for a neo-con, Jacoby is incredibly mindless. Take, for example, his contention that taxing Internet sales is unfair:
“If a company has no shops, offices, or employees within a state, there is no reason it should be obliged to charge sales tax when it happens to sell something to a resident of that state. That is why most Americans pay no sales tax when they buy a product from Amazon, which has an actual physical presence in only a handful of states, while those who make a purchase from Barnes and Noble or Walmart — companies with outlets nationwide in addition to their online sites — typically will be charged their state’s sales tax.”
How does Jacoby ignore, as he does here, that even the merchandise that isn’t purchased by a consumer physically lifting it off a shelf still relies on an extraordinary network of workers, roads, airlines, and other logistics that make up today’s supply chain? Does he think that products bought via a PC magically appear in your mailbox a la a Harry Potter spell? As Bugs Bunny — another fantastical character — might say, “What a maroon!”
Great job, Dan. Your diligent research exposed Jeff’s denunciation of “liberal hate speech” as, to say the least, specious. Please remind us of this the next time J.J. writes his annual column on the subject.
I enjoyed the Herald’s hypocrisy last week on the sales tax issue. They managed to run a banner front page headline screaming about how Deval and Mitt are supporting tax-evading, local business-killing Amazon.com and other online retailers. Then a few days later they editorialized in favor of allowing the online giants to keep evading taxes.
Sales taxes, of course, are a consumption tax on residents, and are legitimately owed on any item bought for use in the state. Ask Senator Kerry about his yacht.