Explanation: Tax collectors were, historically, often hated because of abuse of their powers. Roman provincial tax collectors (at least before large-scale reforms during the Empire) were especially hated because their entire position was predicated on the abuse of their powers.
A bit of background for both Rome and the Christianity reference here - in the Late Roman Republic, there was no massive bureaucracy available to administer Roman provinces. Things were just kind of dealt with ad hoc - one means of doing so being the enlistment of private companies/businessmen to fulfill public services that were covered by offices in Rome but unorganized in the provinces, such as maintaining roads or collecting taxes. These folks were known as 'publicani', and were incentivized in their task by being allowed to keep all the 'excess' once their job was done. In the case of building, this encouraged cutting corners - in the case of tax collecting, it encouraged... well, outright extortion. Every coin in excess of what the Republic expects from you is your's to keep - so squeeze those provincials for everything they're worth!
For obvious reasons, these publicani were disdained by ordinary Romans (and politicians), and utterly despised by provincials. In the Christian Gospels, Jesus Christ convinces one of the publicani to turn over a new leaf and become an honest man - a much more difficult and compelling miracle than water into wine! Who could find a good man underneath the skin of one of the publicani!?
As the Roman Empire replaced the Roman Republic's ad hoc provincial system with a more structured and formalized one, many of the functions of the publicani, especially tax collection, were devolved to local cities who were loyal to Rome instead of private companies. A much more tolerable situation for the provinces.
2,000 years later, it evolved into the American political system, which runs on the faith of almighty wealth, dressed in the cheap linens of religious morality.
I was looking for a way to shoehorn american politics in here but couldn't think of anything, thank you
... could we get that water-into-wine miracle back instead? I think I might need it.
All magic comes at a price. For one honest publicani, Jesus sold the souls of a thousand televangelists to Mammon.
Explanation: Tax collectors were, historically, often hated because of abuse of their powers. Roman provincial tax collectors (at least before large-scale reforms during the Empire) were especially hated because their entire position was predicated on the abuse of their powers.
A bit of background for both Rome and the Christianity reference here - in the Late Roman Republic, there was no massive bureaucracy available to administer Roman provinces. Things were just kind of dealt with ad hoc - one means of doing so being the enlistment of private companies/businessmen to fulfill public services that were covered by offices in Rome but unorganized in the provinces, such as maintaining roads or collecting taxes. These folks were known as 'publicani', and were incentivized in their task by being allowed to keep all the 'excess' once their job was done. In the case of building, this encouraged cutting corners - in the case of tax collecting, it encouraged... well, outright extortion. Every coin in excess of what the Republic expects from you is your's to keep - so squeeze those provincials for everything they're worth!
For obvious reasons, these publicani were disdained by ordinary Romans (and politicians), and utterly despised by provincials. In the Christian Gospels, Jesus Christ convinces one of the publicani to turn over a new leaf and become an honest man - a much more difficult and compelling miracle than water into wine! Who could find a good man underneath the skin of one of the publicani!?
As the Roman Empire replaced the Roman Republic's ad hoc provincial system with a more structured and formalized one, many of the functions of the publicani, especially tax collection, were devolved to local cities who were loyal to Rome instead of private companies. A much more tolerable situation for the provinces.
2,000 years later, it evolved into the American political system, which runs on the faith of almighty wealth, dressed in the cheap linens of religious morality.
I was looking for a way to shoehorn american politics in here but couldn't think of anything, thank you
... could we get that water-into-wine miracle back instead? I think I might need it.