Who cares if it's a tax?

It's money out of my pocket, I don't care if you call it a tax or a penalty, it's still money taken away from me.  I don't like that no matter what you call it.
  Newsies and other twitterati get all excited about "precedent", claiming that a "precedent" might win a future court case.  Yeah right, but we lost this one now and we lost it big.  No amount of "precedent" can make up for that.  Plus the courts rule any old way they want to.  They don't pay attention to "precedent" in real life, although they claim they do.
  So let's drop the "is it a tax or is it a penalty" talk.  Every time I hear the TV start in on it again, I reach for the remote control.