Civic Duty

Andrew Sullivan has a good post up responding to the idea of Joe Bidens that its patriotic for the rich to to pay more taxes at this time:

what Obama and Biden are saying is that we are in an emergency and the collapse of middle-class security may make a pragmatic violation of such a principle defensible. I have to say I'm open to that idea - as a pragmatic move. No conservative should be indifferent to the collapse of the middle class. No stable constitutional democracy survives without one.

Whilst Sullivan argues such pragmatism is the mark of Conservatism, I think theres also a stronger argument here that Ramesh Ponnuru misses

You could just as well say "good people should support tax increases." You would merely be dumbing down the debate in a way liberals usually find objectionable.

Biden says its patriotic, perhaps its more accurate to say its a sign of Citizenship. We tend to see Democracy as a way of giving the people the government they want. But its much more than that : It invites the people into the process, management and invests responsibility in them for good governance. Whilst Osama Bin Laden is surely wrong to claim this involvement justifies targeting civilians of democracies (See Bobbitt, P - Terror and Consent 2008,p81), the responsibility to see that their government faces the problems it must (the media is critical here), puts the right people in charge to face them (hence the importance of voting), and gives it the resources and tools to fight (a burden that must fall progressively according to citizens ability to sustain costs without damaging their own lifestyle)

Biden correctly recognises that in this war, like all before it, we can not simply leave it up to the military and spies to win. It also needs concerted civic duty. To sign up to fight, to volunteer to help, and to pay for those who are in the fight.

With their desire to shrink and smash government, and descent into childish ideas of how the market works, many conservatives have lost the ability to rationally consider the idea of changing tax rates in anything but a downward direction. Whilst ideally taxes are always kept at their absolute minimum (for their impact on action and the economy is very real), it is not only pragmatic to realise the need to change them at times, but also a basic duty of the citizen body to keep their government funded to protect and fight for them.