The First Rule of Holes: If you find yourself in one, stop digging.  Earlier this week I went after Joe for not being charitable, now he is going after people who's tax bill is lower than he thinks it ought to be as unpatriotic:

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Thursday that paying more in taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans.
...
"We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people," Biden said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Noting that wealthier Americans would indeed pay more, Biden said: "It's time to be patriotic ... time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut."

So if paying more is patriotic, is the inverse true?  Is paying the current amount unpatriotic?  This of course also smells of wealth redistribution.  It's patriotic to simply give your money to other people for no other reason than the government pointed a gun at your head and said, "Do this or go to jail."  Or as Dave Casper put it:

Wouldn't putting the money "back" in someone's pocket imply that it had been there once before?

And if it was, are rich folks just going around taking this money from the middle-class at will?

I really need to start locking my doors and windows at night. I think I saw Bill Gates and Warren Buffet lurking around the neighborhood just the other day.

I would add that an act cannot be considered patriotic if you are forced to do it... as you are forced to pay your taxes.  Just as being altruistic requires a choice by the giver to be considered truly good.  But good ole Joe didn't stop there.  He had to try to "explain his earlier comments":

"Catholic social doctrine as I was taught it is, you take care of people who need the help the most," Biden said in Akron.

Ann Althouse responded with the best line:

Imagine if Sarah Palin backed up one of her political opinions with the assertion that it comported with the doctrine of her church. I will wait and wait for Andrew Sullivan to denounce Biden as a Christianist.

And one of her commenters had this to say:

The government is a lot like the Catholic church: an unaccountable, mystical authority that issues unquestionable edicts from a faraway domed temple ministered over by unelected robed clerics who announce their decisions by occasionally blowing smoke through their chimneys.

But of course, Catholic doctrine doesn't say that people should be forced by rule of law to help those who needed it the most.  Charity is something that is done through voluntary action.  You'll notice that Joe Biden gives very little to charity compared to the average American.  So while his tax bill may make him patriotic by force, it makes him a horrible Christian by choice... at lease by his own definition.

David Harsanyi has much more on the subject.