Thursday, February 26, 2009

In Defense of Robin Hood

The media are all atwitter about Obama's new tax proposals to soak the rich, and I've heard more than one of the media talking heads allude to Robin Hood, which happens to poke me in one of my pet peeves.

Robin Hood did NOT "rob from the rich and give to the poor".  

Robin Hood robbed from the tax collectors (the Sherrif of Noddingham and his henchman) and the government (the local nobles), and gave the money back to the tax payers (the peasants).  He did this because taxes were oppressively high.  

To describe increasing the tax rates as being akin to Robin Hood is to miss the entire point of the story.   Robin Hood was anti-tax (duh!)

3 comments:

  1. That's great point that needs to be highlighted. The confusion comes from the fact that, at that time, just about the only rich people WERE the tax collectors.

    ReplyDelete