What Would Robin Hood Do?

I’ve said before that I’ve always liked Robin Hood. There is usually an element of camp in the telling of his battle against the foppish Prince John. And that camp is usually something to do with one of the periods of history over which I am most keen.

It was… and is still… a startling connection of dots between the fantasy of that legend and the reality of the history. Or even that the legend features the very same Prince John from The Lion in Winter. Take the ‘truth’ of that history a little further… and it turns out that Prince John did eventually become King John. The King John that mucked things up so much the English were motivated to create the Magna Carta.

What was so bad about John? Well, there were a lot of things, sure. But thanks to Robin Hood and his merry band, I think most of the world has decided that his crime was taxes.

This is truncated history… but to give John some credit, there WAS a war that his brother decided was more important to spend time fighting than address the upkeep of his father’s empire. Thus, the royal coffers needed filling. To pay for battle costs (plus a ransom or two) and the costs of running a kingdom. Now, I never attended the Angevin court, so I can’t really tell you if that money was misspent. If John decided gold platted trenchers were the way to go and disregarded the needs of the starving serfs. Oh, wait, it was a feudal system. So… he probably didn’t really give too much thought to the villagers.

But… apparently enlightened or jaded by his venture to the Middle East, the Earl of Huntingdon did. He lost his title for whatever reason Kevin Costner or Errol Flynn or the BBC decides is plot fodder. Then he turned his misfortune into fortune by helping out those in a similar position of disgrace.

It’s a legend colored as much by our times as by the complicated history of Eleanor and Henry’s children. A good romp through Sherwood Forest, where in the end Robin gets Marian’s hand in marriage. A thrilling adventure. A sweet romance. And the timeless villain of TAXES.

But, you know, I’m starting to believe that taxes get the blame for a lot of ills that… really have nothing to do with villainy.

It is a catchphrase of the opposition. Lower taxes. Are they trying to invoke our favorite hooded hero? Yeah, no, I don’t think so. Somehow I don’t think that the people who retain the taxes are going to distribute those gains to the poor of Locksley. Not that… it really is that much of a difference.

In the course of my professional life, I have had to manage payroll records. See the gross pay, the taxes deducted, and the insurance deducted. You know… insurance companies take a lot more from paychecks than the government. And even when the government ‘gives’ us our taxes back, it still doesn’t equal what the HMOs take from our wallets.

Or the banks. Only, those are more subversive. Little annoying fees for using another ATM. For withdrawing too much on the debit card. For using the card as credit and not debit. OR you can waive all those fees with one lump sum every month. Um… yeah… that’s not… that’s not taking my money for no reason.

Oh... and let’s not forget the oil companies. Up and down. $.08 off on Mondays. Even though the price rises $.10 on Tuesday. But if you buy it all now for the winter, you will save money. And… of course… contribute to the capitalistic success of our nation. Not Prince John and his snake.

But the government still takes my money. So I should be enraged, right? I should demand it back. Especially when they misspend it. So much government waste. All those people on the government dime wasting time. Um… are you reading this at work? On your work computer? Whose dime are you wasting?

Okay, yeah, I have a personal interest in not wanting the government to stop spending and take that minor fraction of my income. I would like to not have to drive over potholes next spring and ruin the suspension on my relatively new car… and have to spend hundreds more than what the taxes will take from me. I liked living in the safest city in the country. But we have less police now. Less fireman. But, okay, yeah… I’m even more selfish there. Because I have friends and family who are police and fireman. People I don’t want to lose their jobs and livelihood because I can’t live without that extra $10 from my paycheck. Teachers… so many teachers who hold their breath every spring they won’t get a pink slip because the state has to cut the budget. Teachers who are my friends. Teachers with whom I cross paths in my daily life and have no personal connection other than admiration for what they do and give for less money than they deserve. I don’t want to see them lose a job. I don’t want to see their students lose them.

So… I wonder… if Robin Hood was here today, would he decide that taking the taxes back from the evil government is the way to go? Or would he be taking his band to hideaways of Bank of America or Exxon Mobil? Really. What would Robin Hood do?