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We Need A New Word

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

What do you call it when the government takes money from one person, through taxation, and gives it to another – robs Peter to pay Paul?  There really isn’t a word for it.  The phrase, “redistribution of wealth” doesn’t make it clear that the wealth is being taken from the first person by force, and, besides, a phrase is very unwieldy.  “Generosity” also is not accurate, because a person can only be generous with his own money on a voluntary basis.  I have decided that, if we are going to be accurate in describing much of what is happening in the world around us, we need a new word to describe it -- “FLEECEROSITY”. 

The prefix “fleece” refers to the manner in which the resources are taken by the government – through taxation or fleecing of the taxpayers.  The suffix “erosity” comes from “generosity” and refers to the giving part of the action.  Thus, “fleecerosity” involves the fleecing or taxing of one group of people in order to give to another group – exactly what governments do.

For example, President Bush exercised fleecerosity when he created a whole new drug entitlement program for senior citizens.  Congress has been fleecerous in bailing out the airline industry after 9/11, and it is fleecerous when it gives tax money to farmers, corporations, universities, and storm victims.

Of course, there are many other related words that can be used along with “fleecerous” and “fleecerocity”.  For example, the politician or IRS agent who takes our money is the “fleecer”, and those of us who pay the taxes are the “fleecees”.  The people who receive the money are the “fleecipients”, and people who want to figure out how to extract more taxes from us will do “fleeceability” studies.  Isn’t this fun!?

The prefix “fleece” creates the image of the people being a bunch of sheep in the process of being shorn by the government, which is pretty accurate, and it has a relatively neutral connotation as compared with some of the other synonyms I found, such as vampire, blood sucker, leech, nab, bag, sack, loot, pluck, dip, seize, pounce, snatch, and strip.  When you shear sheep, you forcibly take away what they have produced, leaving them less able to take care of themselves in the cold weather, but not directly killing them, which is exactly what happens to us when we are forcibly relieved of our money through taxation. 

I hope this new word will catch on and people will begin to use it in order to describe with greater accuracy what is happening.  After all, just like an alcoholic, we can only begin to solve a problem when we name it and admit to it.  Of course, not everyone will think fleecerosity is a problem; some people strongly support it and think we need more of it.  Others will think we should be fleecerous in some situations but not in others.  In any case, there is much to be gained by speaking accurately.    

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