Everybody Hates the IRS

We have a good reason.  The IRS has long been tyrannical and intimidating.  You are guilty until proven innocent.  The rules and regulations are gargantuan, layered, and arcane, and almost anybody except the most standardized wage slave has the potential to run afoul of them.

Thus, when we hear that Lerner's emails have been "lost" due a "crash", even the most leftist of leftie talking heads can't help mocking this dreaded and despised cyclopean (to use an apropos Lovecraftian adjective) bureaucracy.  Anybody who has used a computer for any length of time knows your emails don't disappear if your hard drive goes toes-up.  We also know that any mail server will routinely and regularly backup all data to other drives and tape.  We know, above all, that the IRS would be required to have an extensive backup protocol.

So we know the IRS is lying.  If Lerner's emails can't be produced, they were deliberately destroyed.  There is a term for that, as the Other McCain points out -- obstruction of justice.  Lerner, her boss, and her immediate reports need to be jailed for obstruction of justice and contempt of Congress -- not to mention insulting the intelligence of and thumbing their noses at the American people.  They should stay in jail until they decide to cooperate and tell the whole truth, which most likely implicates some people the regime would rather not have implicated.

Using the IRS to harass political enemies goes way back.  It's clearly a byzantine system that needs to be abolished and replaced with something simpler.  I have always thought the Fair Tax would be good, although I understand the objections of those -- like myself who have already been fleeced by income tax over the decades and would rather not be hosed again with a VAT.  A Fair Tax-type solution would require the dismantling of the current income tax system and the retention of the IRS only as a clearinghouse for the minimum monthly refund checks for the taxes paid on basic expenses, as Neal Boortz used to explain.  But I would be happy with a true flat tax -- anything to diminish the destructive power and reach of the IRS.

Meanwhile, Lerner's pleading of the Fifth along with this ridiculous story about the emails shows that the IRS is indeed guilty of political targeting and that members of the regime might well have instigated and supported the attacks.  The question remains as to whether Congress really wants to do something about this and bring people to justice.  Republicans may have been guilty of using the IRS as well and would rather not lose their best bludgeon.  After all, they, too, are part of the ruling class and think the serfs must be kept in line.