Big Goverment, Big Taxes, Big Problems

When government creates taxes for the purpose of changing your behavior, your freedom of self-determination has been violated.  Do you understand this?  Do you care?

Shouldn't you be making the choices which shape the way your life story unfolds?  Should government be choosing the correct path for you instead?  Which would you prefer?  Does either of these two options sound scary to you?

One political party in this country is particulary in love with taxation.  They want to tax practically everything.  And they'd like to coerce your behavior whilst imposing said taxation upon you.  It utterly amazes me that there is any popular support whatsoever for a political party bearing such a platform.  Basically, their message is "We'll take what's yours, and tell you what to do."  Oh, how inviting.  Yet there are advocates for this.  They are known as the liberal leftists.

I often see articles with reader comments afterward wherein "tea-partiers" are immediately referred to with the most vile derogatory terms.  Descriptions along the lines of "moronic", "racist", "stupid", "uneducated", "backward", etc.  Sometimes it's not just in the readers' comments, but the author's prose as well.   It's quite frustrating, because I just feel like I've missed the logic altogether (it seems so natural and automatic in their writing, how could I not draw the same conclusions?).

For the record, the Tea Party Movement stands for the following principles:

• Fiscal Responsibility
• Constitutionally Limited Government
• Free Markets

What's wrong with any of that?  Is there something there which isn't really a good idea?  So why all the insults and name-calling?  Aren't those three points all good things? 

According to Paul Krugman  "... among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it."  Well, uh, yes.  I'd say our government displays a "belligerent sense of entitlement" -- to its citizens' money.  Once laundered through the purifying act of conversion into "tax revenue", your money becomes government property.  Never mind how they got it, right?

Let us not forget that the Soviet Union provided for us a brilliant example of what happens when you erase economic incentives from your society.  When an engineer earns the same wages as a bus driver, innovative technological inventions are far less common.  When a doctor earns the wages of a trash collector, the quality of your health care (and enthusiasm on the part of its provider) tends to decline.  Your local grocery's shelves are poorly stocked with a bland selection of minimal choices, as deemed necessary by the central-planning administrators (who are also poorly motivated and completely uninterested in your level satisfaction with said choices).

Maybe the folks doing that name-calling have something to hide.  Perhaps this strikes a raw nerve.  Maybe they're insecure in their own beliefs.  Why anyone would want to have less freedom and property rights is beyond me.

Benjamin Franklin wrote:   "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."  Thus, the benefit of constitutionally limited government should be readily apparent.  And yet we have an army of Krugmans out there, professing that exactly the opposite is true.

As we near the expiration of the oft-maligned "Bush Tax Cuts", I am reminded of one of my axioms for civilization:

Taxation should not be used as a tool for coercion.

Never have I found a case in contradiction of this rule.  Test any tax, proposed or enacted, against that.  Will it serve a purpose with rational basis, or is it a punitive tool by which the government seeks to alter your personal decisions?  Examples:

• Soft drinks taxed, because "they make kids fat."  You're making the wrong choices for yourself.  Watch out for that trans-fat, too.
• Carbon taxed, because of "purported environmental damage" based on dubious scientific claims from Al Gore.
• Tobacco taxed at ludicrous levels of 400% or more, because of "increased costs of the resulting healthcare needs."  Oh, and by the way, government just assumed responsibility for administering your health care.  Conflict of interest, anyone?
• Ammunition taxed because, well, "it's for guns, and of course, they're just bad."  Only the government has a need for weapons, pal.
• Gasoline taxed, "to pay for infrastructure development" that never actually happens.  Oh yeah, they spent that money on a boatload of other budgetary pork.  Sorry.

Now, since all the taxes in place still aren't enough to feed the gigantic bureaucratic monster's hunger, California is mulling handing out IOUs again.  Isn't that just wonderful.

Grilled Korans

 Oh here we go again, the sad sobbing tears of liberals. Weeping for the murderers and sadists.  Somebody's going to burn a few books, and we're all worried what those nutty muslims will do in retaliation for that.  Nevermind that the muslims are frequently seen burning our own bibles, flags, and effigies of leaders.  Maybe, if the muslims spent more time working to CREATE rather than finding new ways to HATE and KILL, they'd get a better reception here.

But I don't think that'll happen. I'm just not buying all the "religion of peace" nonsense brought on by politically-correct robots. Just listen to the muslims, watch them cheer for death and mayhem. Watch as they torture and maim one another in the name of allah; see the extraordinary intolerance and bigotry on display. Women are subjugated as sexual accessories for men, and denied the right to education. They encourage children to detonate themselves in crowds of innocents, with subsequent praise and gratitude. They enthusiastically run car bombs into buildings and markets. And they've single-handedly revived the practice of using beheading for restitution.

 

But oh no, don't you dare to defile their book.  That's absolutely intolerable.  The Taliban tells CNN:   "If in Florida they were to burn the Quran, we will target any Christians, even if they are innocent, because the Quran is our holy book and we do not want someone to burn our holy book."  So sad, it really tugs at your heart.  Of course, the Taliban were killing Christians anyway beforehand, as a matter of routine.  Remember this?

 Islam is an evil and murderous death cult, not a religion.

So burn a koran for me, while you're at it, Rev. Jones.   But if I may ask a favor, please laminate it with bacon and urinate on it first, then feed the ashes to goats afterwards -- just for me.

Yahoo News article
Wall Street Journal article

Environmental Insanity

So this guy, James Lee, finally snaps under the weight of his environmental lunacy.  He grabs his weapons and heads over to the Discovery Channel to fix their program linup, and takes hostages. (WTOP article here)  (Washington Post article here)

Did you happen to look at this guy's manifesto?

• All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants.
• Programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed.
• Talk about ways to disassemble civilization.
• Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation. If you think it isn't, then get hell off the planet! Breathe Oil! It is the moral obligation of everyone living otherwise what good are they??
• Find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies.
• Find solutions for global warming, automotive pollution, international trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy. Find ways so that people don't build more housing pollution which destroys the environment to make way for more human filth! Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using oil in order to REVERSE gobal warming and the destruction of the planet!
• Saving the planet means saving what's left of the non-human wildlife by decreasing the human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies! You're the media, you can reach enough people. It's your responsibility because you reach so many minds!!!
• You're also going to find solutions for unemployment and housing. All these unemployed people makes me think the US is headed toward more war.
• Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what's left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture.  THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! All human procreation and farming must cease!
• It is the responsibility of everyone to preserve the planet they live on by not breeding any more children who will continue their filthy practices. Children represent FUTURE catastrophic pollution whereas their parents are current pollution.
• War must be halted. Not because it's morally wrong, but because of the catastrophic environmental damage modern weapons cause to other creatures. FIND SOLUTIONS JUST LIKE THE BOOK SAYS! Humans are supposed to be inventive. INVENT, DAMN YOU!!
• Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.
• The humans? The planet does not need humans. You MUST KNOW the human population is behind all the pollution and problems in the world, and YET you encourage the exact opposite instead of discouraging human growth and procreation. Surely you MUST ALREADY KNOW this!

It's a very thorough and cogent thesis, yes, but I think this fellow needs a few extra points, like these:

• And as human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids. 
• Have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rain water, and only pure-grain alcohol?
• Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?

Folks, this here is what happens when the environmentalism gets completely out of hand.  Madness ensues... Someone from PETA, please help.  Come get your boy.  One of your overly-enthusiastic minions is getting out of hand.