motherjones:

Appropriate today, from “The North West London Blues”:

Some people owe everything they have to the bank accounts of their parents. I owe the state. Put simply, the state educated me, fixed my leg when it was broken, and gave me a grant that enabled me to go to university….

This describes so well how I feel. I have never complained about my taxes although I live in a country where the tax rate is among the top ten in the world. I pay well about half of my income in taxes, both directly and indirectly, but I am so much happier to know that every child gets a warm meal every day at school, that a friend of mine whose child has haemophilia does not go bankrupt because of the cost of the treatment (up to some 100 000 euros annually), that we have an amazing library system, that a master’s degree (in any field) is available to anybody independent of parents’ wealth, that there are regulations that protect the most vulnerable, etc.

I am not saying this system is the best ever, just that I am not complaining about paying my share for the above mentioned (and a lot of other) items.