“I love the NHS because we pay for it with our taxes, and because the care we receive is the same whether we’ve paid a million pounds or nothing. If we want to save the NHS, we need to celebrate tax. We need to think of it not as money the Government steals from us, but as our contribution to a safe and just and healthy society. It’s thanks to the NHS that my wife and our youngest son are still alive. But the true worth of the NHS is not that it saved my family. It is that it would make the same effort for every family, even if that family were destitute. The true worth of the NHS is that those of us who are lucky enough to pay tax can go to sleep at night, knowing that we have helped make that radical kindness possible.”
(A letter from Mark Haddon to The Guardian)

An Epicurean letter indeed.  Unfortunately, Mr. Haddon’s sentiments are not shared by hard men for whom money and power are the drivers in life.  As a follower of Epicurus I believe in tax based on the size of your income, and I never strive, as some do, to minimize it at all costs and in a manner that affects integrity, honesty or compliance with the rule of law.  Some of those running the country ( almost any country these days) must think this is just liberal phooey.  I think it is it is common sense, and communitarian.