"They just took my money."

That's what my 8-year-old son said about the sales tax on the ride home from Borders a few minutes ago. He had a $10 gift card from Christmas, bought a Clone Wars book for $7.99, looked at the receipt, and wondered why he still didn't have a full $2.01 on it.

This is how conservatives are made.

Er, except that conservatives are always crying for the elimination of income taxes, estate taxes and capital gains taxes, to be replaced (when they concede the revenue must be replaced) with a simple regressive VAT.

So if John J. Miller Sr had his way, little John J Miller Jr's Clone Wars book would be hit with state and federal sales tax.

The point is, we can disagree about how taxes are levied, and at what rate, and what the tax money is used for. But in any society, taxes in one form or another are inevitable.

A sensible father would see this as a teaching moment, and could explain that while taxes aren't fun, they are the price for living in a civilized society; they pay for the police and the fire department and the streets and the sidewalks.

Instead, I imagine that Miller just told his kid that all taxation is theft. And that someday, no one will have to pay them.

That is how conservatives are made.