After The Fair

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

I collect expressions like other people collect stuff for their scrap book, and I’m very fond of the British expression “Well, that’s after the fair.”

I also know exactly what it means, because I grew up with fairs. They’re open air markets (except when they’re roofed over) where everything is available for sale, and often the fish is right next to the pottery, which is right next to– And some of them are annual, or monthly, most are weekly and some are permanent, like the one in Downtown Porto, in a multi-story building.

They’re basically markets that attract people from the entire region. Think of them as year-around farmer markets that, sure also have knock off Disney merchandise, books, permanent stalls for the local butcher, and some really good linen sellers and you’re kind of there.

When we visit there is usually an attempt to go to one or two depending on how long we’re there for. In fact I need to go to one urgently next time (?) I visit, because I need pottery, my son having accidentally broken my oven-going-red-clay-roaster in the move. (I forgot to mark the box fragile. I was SO tired.) And anyway, these are massively useful and so expensive in the US (from Amazon.) and there they’re much cheaper (of course you then have to bring them over. Sigh.) And there is often some consternation, because we came in say June or July and therefore missed the “fair” for whatever it is we’re looking for. So, we’re after the fair.

But recently I’ve been under — I thin it’s spam, unless they’re the world’s dumbest — a barrage of emails for another kind of fair.

I’ve been emailed from the “Fairtax” initiative.

Here I should confess that it hit me at a very bad time. I was feeling weird all day yesterday, and it turned into excruciating pain in all my joints by evening. This is one of the rare manifestations of my auto-immune, and usually comes when the other two are very bad which is not the case right now, so it’s a little puzzling. I’m going to assume it has something to do with weather, but what I don’t know, since our weather is okay just now. (But I know these things are usually at a weirder level than what I see. Barometic pressure or something. My last few years in CO I’d have blinding headaches two days before snow, and it didn’t show in anything outside.)

Anyway, I sent back an all caps thing saying fairtax was like fairtheft. I don’t care how fair it is, it’s still morally imbecilic and I want nothing to do with it.

I don’t know if these are the highly specialized “right” idiots who want a national sales tax (possibly less intrusive thing of all) but also a VAT. And for that last, they should be held by their heels with the rest of their body under water until they get over the stupidity or bubbles stop coming up, whichever comes first.

VAT is not just a horrible Marxist “tax” but it is particularly poisonous due to becoming “invisible.” I.e. every product is taxed at every step from rawest of materials through distribution for assumed “added value” so that when it gets to the consumer it’s massively more expensive, but you cant’ tell it’s because of the government dipping in. I saw how this worked in Europe, and of all theft, value added theft is the one I hate the most. Killing is too kind for people who advocate this. They should be kept alive and forced to eat live scorpions for their sustenance while being beaten with sticks with nails in them all the days of their lives. Compared to them rapists and murderers are relative innocents, because they don’t wish to blight the lives of every single innocent stranger within reach of their polity and make future generations poorer and less free world without end.

But let’s discuss the concept of taxes as theft.

I know some of you think I’m joking when I put those memes up, but I’m not. And yes, I am conversant with “it’s a fee you pay to be a citizen.” BAH.

Taxes are an involuntary taking from citizens who might or might not have voted against and whose vote in the present crazy is irrelevant anyway. I mean, I don’t think enough Americans — real, living ones — voted for the regime that bragged about how they were going to raise our taxes during campaign to make them have a mandate.

At any rate, given the speed at which they’re running the printing presses, one wonders why raise taxes, except to make us hurt.

We are in for real “taxation without representation” territory, but to an extent we always were. Why? Well, guys, let’s talk about it. WHY in heavens in name do they come to me and take money to buy hardware to give to the Taliban? Or to distribute to their favorite aggrieved victim class du jour. Or any of that. Do you think I have voted FOR THIS? Or that any of this makes any sense? Why are they taking money from people who are fiscally responsible to house and educate aliens who are then encouraged to consider themselves victims, after breaking into the country? Does any of this make sense to you?

But it never did. There was never any sane justification for taking money from people against their will and under threat of imprisonment to do things that some vague “collective” — but mostly — government wanted to do.

Let’s stipulate that money is needed for those things that the Federal Government (Feral Government) HAS to do by constitutional mandate, like you know, defend the borders (Oh, hello!) or provide for the common defense (under which you can, yes, slide military defense founding) or avoid inter-state war (I leave as an exercise whether the highway system slides under this or the common defense) or any of that. So, the federal government needs SOME money to function, even if not the crazy bunchaton amounts for all their favorite insane projects, such as donating to their friend lefties and/or financing the boondoggle of “green energy.”

Even if you stipulate they need money — why does it have to be taxes?

And don’t tell me it’s how it has always been done. We know. But until the US it had also always been done that nations were blood and soil and that your “betters” had power over you.

We are a radical experiment. Why are we borrowing any trash from the stupidity of the past?

There are ways to finance the government other than taxes. One that comes to mind is a federal lottery. Yes, yes, sure. That isn’t “fair” because it takes from the poorest. But note it’s voluntary. On a scale of theft, is it more or less moral than going to little old ladies and demanding money to pay for housing illegals who have no skills and no reason to be here?

“At least it’s voluntary” and “The odds are printed right there. If people choose to believe they’ll win, it’s their problem” are two good beginnings to stop taxes being theft.

Heck, we could have the lottery fund different branches of government, so if you disagreed with something, you didn’t buy their lottery. Say “welfare lottery” or “armed services lottery” or “green energy lottery” or whatever. Lotteries at least have an upside. You can buy the ticket for the right to dream for two or three days. (Which I’ve been known to do, knowing that’s what I was doing) at the most depressive and broke phases of our lives. Because I could spend all those days dreaming of how I’d spend the jackpot. (And I knew how unlikely it was.)

In addition to that concerned citizens could do other things. There could be bake sales and clubs in every small town in America to provide for the armed forces (or illegals. Snort. Giggle. better luck with the Opera exhibits for that, in NYC and the like.)

Point being it wouldn’t be theft. It wouldn’t be the government assuming they’re entitled to your money and are benevolent for letting you keep any. It wouldn’t foster the idea that it’s their right to spend your money and that they’ll do it better than you.

It won’t be funding the government by sticking a gun in the faces of every productive citizen and demanding their rightfully earned property. (Or unrightfully, for that matter. Probably still less theft than what the government is doing. Private citizens don’t have the same guns.)

Above all — ABOVE ALL — I want people to stop buying into the Marxist idea of progressive taxation: the idea the rich owe more and that’s “their fair share.”

The entire bullshit of “You didn’t earn that” is just that. And it stinks. Sure, it would be really hard to sell my books without an internet, but you know what, Darpanet might have started the ball rolling, but if you looked deep into it, you’d find it also retarded other, private initiatives. Because the government always does.

The idea that if you make more you owe more is an abomination that ignores the fact that most people who make something of themselves worked much harder than those who don’t.

Sure, there are exceptions, and luck (and assets other than work) must be taken into account. But generally those who make more work harder, smarter, and more assiduously.

However, beyond that, the entire idea of taxation as constituted and used in the rest of the world is the idea that you owe the government money for existing, and you can ‘sign’ into this compact simply by being born or living in a country.

This is clearly stupid for a country where we’re supposed to own the government. We need another way to do this.

There is no fair tax, for the same reason that there is no fair theft.

We’ve all heard that democracy is two wolves and a sheep discussing what’s for dinner.

There’s no need to make this even stupider by having the sheep try to make it fair by arguing which cuts are tenderer and should be taken first, okay?

Stop it, just stop it. There is no fair tax, for the same reason there is no fair theft.

And all you do when you try things like this is make statists think they’re justified.

You’re after the fair. We see through the game and we’re not amused.

166 thoughts on “After The Fair”

  1. And it doesn’t “Help” when there is a sizable percentage of people who “want” the government to “give them things”. 😦

    There was an old Huckleberry Hound cartoon where Huckleberry was the “rebel” against the king.

    Huckleberry won and was cheered when he told everyone what he was going to “for the people” but then he talked about “how he was going to pay for these things”. IE More Taxes.

    The cartoon ended with another rebel going after Huckleberry. 😆

    1. Stuff just naturally appears. That’s why renters could just stop paying rent and life would go on, only they wouldn’t have to pay rent. . . . .

  2. Leftroids seem to believe that the primary purpose of government is to take money from people who earn it and give it to those that did not. Particularly to their ‘donors’ and cronies.

    Maybe Professor Bernardo de la Paz was onto something when he suggested that those with a compulsion to govern pay for their antisocial habit out of their own pockets.

    I know I didn’t vote for that $32 TRILLION debt. Who did? I say the 535 assholes that took the money should pay it back. Personally.
    ———————————
    Most days, I suspect that we could get a better government by picking 535 people at random. On bad days, I’m certain we’d get a better government by picking 535 people at random from lunatic asylums.

  3. Before the damned 16th amendment the Fed Gov couldn’t just come and take your income. Of course, there were other ways. I read somewhere not long ago about farmers in the 1840’s having to pay taxes on their mules. The greed of politicians throughout the ages has been an insatiable scourge on the common man.

    1. The Whisky Reberllion was an early example; Neil Smith’s “Probability Broach” detailed the better outcome of that episode.

    1. LOL 😆

      The Whiskey Rebellion Won!

      Congress removed the tax because nobody was paying it.

      1. Perhaps you’d explain that to the ATF.

        In my opinion no they did not win. This was the first tax on a domestic product, the foot in the door.

        In the early 1900s alcohol tax accounted for 80% of federal internal tax collections.

        1. Didn’t say that it was a Permanent Victory.

          Yes, it was a “Step In The Wrong Direction”, but the Tax was removed by the Congress that passed it.

          The fact that later Congress’s succeeded in taxing alcohol doesn’t change the Fact the earlier Congress failed.

          1. A lot of room for argument & discussion here as well as room for agreement and disagreement. Congress removed the tax because, in my opinion, it was too hard to collect, not because of the Rebellion squelched by Washington.

            I’m not faulting your opinion though my take’s a bit different and I suspect we’re both in agreement that we would not consider government today high on our list of trusted organizations.

            1. Agree about government today.

              Of course, government in general has to be watched very closely.

        2. That statistic causes the Reader to ponder the connection between the 16th Amendment and the Temperance movement that lead to the 18th.

          1. As well it should. The Temperance Movement was explicitly for the income tax amendment because it was a way to enable Prohibition without effectively defunding the federal government.

      2. Well, that 9 cents per gallon ($2.80 today) for small producers (6 cents/gal for larger, crony capitalism!) seemed pretty onerous at the time.

  5. The Progressive Income tax isn’t a tax on the rich.
    It’s a tax on people who are trying to become rich.
    The rich pay capital gains tax, and have loopholes to avoid even that.

    2. This. Let me give an example. In 2011, Mitt Romney (spit) made $11 million, on which he paid 12% Federal income-income (as opposed to Social Security income) tax. In that same year, I made $110K (1% of what Romney made)…and paid 18% Federal income-income tax.

  7. “We’ll replace income tax and estate taxes with a 3% VAT!”

    Today – 35-95% income taxes for most, plus estate taxes, plus vehicle fees et al, plus a 22% VAT. In some countries, there’s also higher taxes on things like dining out vs. cooking at home (because getting take-away is a luxury so you must be rich) and so on.

    No thank you!

    1. Well NZ they pretty much did what they promised on bring in GST.

      Except then they jumped GST to 15% from 10%.

      the main rationale seems to be they dont want any money spent or earned and not getting there slice,

  8. I’m rather fond of arachnids and I’d hate to see them eaten alive.

    Perhaps a better use for them would be to put a politicians head in a box and fill said box with scorpions.

    Up to you whether the box has an observation window or not.

    You could even let the politician pick what they’d like their box to be filled with. Rats, scorpions, fire ants, concrete.

    1. And after 2 days we could open the box; the modern version of the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment! 🙂

  9. Tariffs, duties, and imposts, like it says in the constitution.

    And maybe a head tax according to the census, paid by the states, like it says in the constitution.

    No more of this “From each according to his ability” bracketed income tax.

    1. From each, according to their “pull” with the Party, to each according to their “pull” with the Party.

      Marxist Realism

      1. More succinctly: “From each, according to their need, and to each, according to their ability.”

  10. On the matter of taxation — I bristle every time my two senators and congressman boast about government investing. Government isn’t an investor, government taxes and appropriates! Investment implies that you have ‘skin in the game’ and something to lose.

    1. When politicians brag about the government making “an investment”, it’s always in their portfolios.

    3. Well, if by some chance some government agency actually solved a problem, there would be no need for it any more. All those bureaucrats would have to look for honest work.
      ———————————
      The government subsidizes failure. Successful enterprises do not need subsidies.

      1. That’s my argument, as a former Federal employee. Even assuming an agency that actually wants to solve a problem, once they realize the agencies that fail get more funding, while they get cut, they’ll go into self-preservation mode…and stop solving the problem.

      2. The Resolution Trust Company. They did their assigned task and disbanded. That’s the only one I can think of, other than some of the New Deal agencies that were absorbed into larger agencies.

  11. I want people to stop buying into the Marxist idea of progressive taxation: the idea the rich owe more and that’s “their fair share.”

    From time to time I’ll call out someone who talks about “fair share” and get them to specify what is their “fair share”, how much would it take to satisfy them. Usually it’s either some vague “more than they’re paying now” but once in a while they do specify something. And usually once they do that, it’s pretty easy to show that the rich already pay more than what they just specified as “fair share”.

    Does that get them to change their position?

    Do bears live in antarctica?

    1. The hardest thing to explain to people is that there are different ways to be “fair.” Which means any tax that is “more fair” one way is “less fair” in another.

      But then again, it’s impossible to get people to realize that taxes are not a moral instrument.

      1. Once upon a time, one of them was honest enough to answer “What is fsir?” with

        “More.”

  12. Two demons run amok amongst us with the power, if not the purpose, to destroy our way of life and the principles we were founded upon.

    Taxation is one. If you do not pay your, arbitrarily determined “Fair Share” of taxes the god-given rights of “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness (property in a previous iteration)” will join you in Club Fed. But we’re told that taxes are the guarantee of our cherished liberty and must be paid up or it’s off to the Lubianka, comrade. And if you skip paying property taxes you’ll find out you never owned that property, after all.

    The other is the effective gutting of the 5th Amendment “Takings Clause”. After disposing of the “public use” verbiage, the courts have held that a government can take property at its own discretion for any reason justified as “the civic needs”, whether its to be given to developers for a new industrial park, a new shopping mall, low-income housing, or whatever.

    Lots of room in the Lubianka cellers for us. They can’t take that away, thank goodness. But they’re sometimes willing to trade your cell for a 9mm bullet in the nape of your neck.

  13. Any government goes after its own people either first or exclusively. It is so much easier that way.
    I am old enough that when the revelations that the FBI had taken over the radical groups and the most vicious and best connected member of the group was always the direct agent not just a stoolie….our attitude was the group shouldnt have FA. Now of couse they do ot to our side and we are offended.
    Whirlwind, reap.

  14. Technically, I don’t think it’s accurate to call taxes “theft.” If two guys come into your store, lean on the counter, and say, “You got a nice business here. Be a shame if something was to happen to it,” what they’re doing is extortion. And that’s really how taxes work. The government isn’t sneaking in and taking your money by stealth when you aren’t looking. (Well, that sort of describes inflation, but that’s a different issue.)

    Ayn Rand wrote, in “Government Financing in a Free Society,” that involuntary taxation had no place in a free society, and I’ve agreed with that ever since. On the other hand, I think that user fees are entirely legitimate, if you have the choice of doing without the service they’re charged for.

    So according to De Soto’s The Mystery of Capital, one of the most valuable things government does in countries like the US is provide title records for real property. If you live somewhere without title registration, the only way to secure your property is continuous occupancy and readiness to evict anyone who tries to move in; and it’s very hard to borrow against the value of your land and buildings, because those loans aren’t secured. So why not have a fee for title registration, one proportionate to the gain in value from having good title? That might well pay the ongoing costs of law enforcement on your land, and contribute to its military defense (though in a real invasion, people are likely to donate money to raising an army). And you wouldn’t be compelled to pay . . . but if you don’t pay, then there’s no record of your ownership and the courts will require a lot more evidence before letting you evict someone.

    So I think that current real property taxes are questionable, but I think they’re fairly close to something that could exist in a free society. Whereas income tax strikes me as more dubious, because I don’t think the government should be saying you don’t conclusively own your own body and labor if you having paid into some sort of life registry!

    1. why not have a fee for title registration

      There are several of them, already. My favorite is that one must pay for a title search to find any existing liens and then pay for title insurance, in case they screwed up the search.

  15. To be fair about it…

    The fair tax folks want to replace income tax with a point of retail sales tax ( not a VAT tax), the % calculated to balance current collections, so “revenue neutral” . The idea is by taxing spending, we inherently encourage thrift, investment, savings, and growth.

    Some very poor “fair” advocates tried to pitch the tax rate as “x cents of every dollar” instead of “y cents added to every dollar”. I have never, ever seen anyone at retail claim that a 5% tax meant “95 cents cost plus 5 cents tax”. That actually works out to a buck getting a 5.26ish cent tax added. No one is going to hide that tax by that 95+5 crap.

    And I believe, last someone pitched to me, years ago, it was 17 cents -of- every dollar. Which I call 20.5 added -to- a dollar. I walked away when the advocates I heard kept using that lower number as their pitch.

    Supposedly, had to be everything and anything sold at retail, regardless of what. Food, house, vices, bars of Latinum. Else we wind up endlessly widgiting who actually pays on what.

    Flat tax is same idea but income tax at one and only one rate, on every dollar regardless of how earned or gained. Some then bifurcate “capital” gains from wages, and off we go to how we got here. “One for all” and no exceptions or it too falls for the widgiting effect.

    Bottom line: if the legislature can change it, they will do so to benefit their patrons, not you. Whatever we decide, put it in the Constitution, and be done. Else it inevitably gets widgeted to F the non powerful. Once is bad enough.

    Once upon a time, we financed the entire federal mess by tarrifs on imports. At least you can kinda dodge that, by careful shopping, or a small fast boat.

    Er, ahem. Or so I imagine. (Grin)

    I like the lottery idea. I call it “the stupid tax”. Thus, I probably should not be the spokespeep for it.

    We gotta pay for government somehow. TANSTAAFL. And if we do not properly fund and limit a freedom government, we will get a much more expensive unfree one.

  16. In Neverwinter Nights 2, there was a section where you ended up in charge of rebuilding a town and its associated castle.

    In the guides, the guide author pointed out that the higher the tax rate, the slower the town growth, but if the character had a high enough trade skill (I forget exactly which one) they could do a hidden tax by adding sales taxes to the inn, and the guide said it wouldn’t impact growth.

    I ended up not being even able to implement it, but I also noticed that my town growth was actually better than what the guide with the “invisible” tax rate was seeing.

    Even if taxes are not viaible, they still impact the economy.

    Personally, I’d be ok with a single tax, be it a pure income tax, or a pure sales tax, or pure tariffs, that were clearly visible and the only tax the system used. But I know it would not stay that way, so I’d push for simpler and more transparent tax laws.

    Even our current graduated income tax would be more reasonable if the swarms of exceptions, special cases, exempt, double taxed, and time dependent things were simplified into something less insane.

    Instead, it has become something all but impossible to determine how to comply with it in more than a few cases, and the cost of compliance is as much as the tax itself.

    1. I sometimes think it would be a good idea to “burn down and start over” with taxes every couple of decades or so. Sure, loopholes would develop, but all of the baked-in ones would get thrown out with the required revamp.

      (No, it wouldn’t last beyond an iteration or two. Idiots would just say “Let’s institute the system we already have” and pat themselves on the back. But hey, as long as I’m dreaming, may as well dream big.)

  17. “Heck, we could have the lottery fund different branches of government, so if you disagreed with something, you didn’t buy their lottery. Say “welfare lottery” or “armed services lottery” or “green energy lottery” or whatever. ”

    Sarah, this approach has a fundamental flaw: how do you deal with free riders? “Border security” benefits everyone who lives within the border. It has to because of the nature of “border”. You can’t have the protection apply to only those who pay. It’s a big reason fire departments aren’t by subscription any more.

    1. Sarah didn’t say if you don’t play you don’t benefit. Just if you don’t believe in that service you don’t play for that service. Any service that can’t get enough people to voluntarily play, is out, regardless of who benefits or not.

      1. The problem is the incentives you create. Peole can get the benefit without paying so long as somebody does. You rely, then, on people who are willing to put themselves out for the benefit of people who benefit but don’t pay–the free riders. More people get disgusted with spending their own hard-earned gelt to protect folk who don’t pay and start opting out. Kind of a reverse “tragedy of hte commons..

        It’s a difficult problem from a liberty perspective that both Friedman and Sowell wrestled with.

          1. Even as slim as the odds are, there is a better chance of getting something of value back then just simply sending the money in to government as a tax. If people didn’t spend money on the lottery, the government would just grab that money by other means.

            1. The irony is, the Kalifornia state lottery is used to fund education. If they actually succeeded in educating people, they wouldn’t be stupid enough to buy lottery tickets.
              ———————————
              If the government sells millions of tickets and gives some of the money to a few randomly selected ticket buyers, they call it a State Lottery and say it’s a wunnerful way to raise money for the gummint. If a few private citizens do the exact same thing, they call it a Numbers Racket and throw them in jail.

        2. There was a story (last year?) about a fire department as a subscription service, with a reasonably low annual fee.

          If you didn’t pay, they would still put out the fire, but you would be invoiced the full cost. And a callout by a couple dozen dudes, trucks, etc ain’t cheap.

          1. And unless they can summon men with guns to enforce that decision, it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. If they can, they are simply government.

            1. I was thinking about that in my comment below. Yeah, there’s not a lot of legal standing for the private FD. Beyond “Yngvi is a louse” name & shame, there’s not much. And then, there’s a good chance the non-payer would take legal offense to that. Sigh.

        3. Agree. Didn’t say it was the best option. Just stated my opinion of what Sarah stated in the blog.

          There needs to be a balance. There are certain governmental level stuff that has to happen, that is not an option, that everyone has to pay.

          Do I know how to accomplish this? No.

            1. My concern is that lotteries won’t raise enough revenue. Looked it up and it seems the lotteries in the US, combined, make about $98 billion. Now, that sounds like a lot but if you reduced the military by a factor of six it would just about pay for it. Now, if we brought the military home and let the rest of the world go to hell in its own way we could reduce it a bunch but the results would be…unpleasant at best for citizens of the US. The Barbary Pirates gave an early example of how not having an overseas presence leads to bad outcomes for the US. Maybe we could say to folk engaging in trade “you’re on your own”, which would mean trade would really plummet with a concomitant standard of living here.

              Then there’s if we had a military that much smaller, would somebody be willing to try us then? Win or lose, that would be very costly and painful.

              Would more lotteries raise more money or would people still spend about the same amount on lotteries, just spreading it around? I don’t know and that is a concern.

              So, while I get what you’re saying, and even agree with you in principle, I’m not sure it works in reality.

                1. But all of them combined don’t add up to but a fraction of military expenditure (let alone other legitimate functions of government). Expecting that people will suddenly start spending so much more on lottery tickets by creating more lotteriss is…extrapolating well outside of data. Maybe. Maybe not. But the cost of being wrong is rather on the high side.

                    1. We don’t play the lottery. When lottery got big, hubby used to pool with whatever crew was working a specific site (other crews would do the same). Haven’t done that in a decade (since retirement). Never won anything (maybe a buck or two that was pooled into the next big lottery). Our joke is “Gotta play to win. We don’t play.”

                      I’d fund play a lottery where the majority of funds went to military, even if it meant keeping bases overseas (I think those companies should pay the US the privilege of keeping bases. There would still be expenses for the US.) We’d play other lotteries too.

                      We already choose to pay extra to fund the National Park system, with most the money going to parks we frequent (because that is how the system works).

                  2. Beware of the single factor analysis.

                    Everyone being wealthier and with the ability to buy/build more advanced weapons systems means they will be cheaper.

                    A smaller government which is forced to give a crap about economics will be more efficient in it’s procurement.

        4. What about all those “free riders” that won’t enlist in the Army? That won’t work on sewer pipes and septic tanks? Wont prepare and bury the dead?

          “Free rider” usually means “someone won’t do what I want done by them.”

          If one makes a habit of defeating muggers, unasked, one does not obligate anyone else to pay for one’s bail or bandages.

          If one was not asked by them to act for them, one is not acting on their behalf, but are instead acting on one’s own behalf.

          Alleged altruism, absent actual assent, does not convey actual obligation.

          1. Then are you an actual citizen? Shouldn’t you be sent to Coventry, and a replacement interviewed that will support those things?

            1. Of course I am a US citizen. Also a veteran. Neither compels anyone else to enlist.

              Just because someone defines an alleged societal good does not obligate anyone else to pick the cotton.

              If something really is beneficial, reason and self I terest will persuade enough to do it.

              If not, probably means someone didn’t actually understand what actually happens. Or, they don’t care and simply want others to obey their “betters”.

          1. It is certainly an argument MADE by closed shop unions. Without the government to force the owner to agree, it falls apart in the face of the owner’s right to associate freely with those he desires to hire.

      2. It’s kind of hard to have an army that protects part of a city against foreign invaders, but allows the foreign invaders to attack specific houses and businesses that didn’t pay their defense fees.

        1. Which is where you get the tragedy of the commons. Those that pay (play the lottery voluntarily), benefit those who don’t pay (don’t play that lottery). Eventually no one pays/plays, because everyone expects someone else to pay/play. Because there isn’t a way to determine who paid/played and who didn’t. All one knows is if no one plays that lottery, there is no money, the benefit isn’t funded. In your example, no defense of any house or business.

            1. Yep. This is undoubtedly true. My worry is they’d do to the lottery what they do to elections. Imagine democrats in control of the lottery bureau. What would our enemies do, when they inevitably get control?

              Because people are idiots, they would eventually elect a Clinton. Probably not another Biden. Maybe an Obama. But I think they learned their lesson with the latest disaster of a human being.

              It’d have to be a Constitutional amendment, I think. Otherwise they’d keep screwing with it. Somehow. Make the amendment essentially “thou shalt not impose an income tax, Vat tax, national sales tax, or anything that looks even remotely like it. And we really, really mean it.”

              I’d still like to see Congress forbidden from meeting more than three consecutive days in a row and no more than thirty days in a year, AND every proposed law have to be read aloud by one person taking no more than ten minutes of time, and sunset after about ten years, and…

              Yeah. I have lots of wants. That will never happen. I know. But a man can dream, right?

              1. > Constitutional amendment

                They already ignore the parts of the Constitution they don’t like.

                The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had a pretty decent constitution, too. But it was just for show, and had no bearing on Soviet life. As the Supreme Court keeps whittling ours down, ours is becoming similar.

      3. Which is precisely the problem. We’re not going to stop providing the “service” of national defense; even if half the population doesn’t pay anything towards it while enjoying the benefit.

        1. Do you want Liberty, or an orderly fair tyrant?

          Free people -ask- others to act, seek mutual consent, and accept “no”.

          What part of another man’s life, raising no hand against you, do you claim to own?

          1. I don’t claim to own any of their life. The question is what are their obligations that come with the privileges of citizenship, such as voting?

              1. As long as they choose to accept the benefits, that choice has been made. “America: support it or leave it” might need to be the model.

                1. Right. So. We can totally tell the IRS we don’t want social security, right? Also pol taxes are illegal. ALSO and more importantly, with the voter rolls we have? are you for real?
                  Please stop with the coercion.

                  1. Sarah,

                    You have said that America is not based on “blood and soil”; that it is a creedal nation based on believing in a shared set of ideals.
                    How does one believe in anything without choosing to do so? You may be born into a Christian or Jewish or whatever family, but at some point you have to make a choice for yourself what you will follow. See Confirmation.

                    I’m having a hard time reconciling

                    “Ah. But the privileges are extended to everyone. let them tax illegals and cemeteries. WHAT obligations? Do people get a choice?”

                    with rejection of “blood and soil” “being born on a patch of dirt makes you American” in favor of “America as creedal nation” based on “choosing to be American”.

                    And that choice comes with both rights and duties. How do you handle people who are happy to take the rights while shirking the duties?

                    1. What rights, Steve?
                      I’m not talking about some shining ideal. I’m talking about how putting a gun in our faces and taking our money by right of conquest has got us.
                      The government doesn’t give me rights. It sure as hell can’t charge me for rights. Natural rights is the American thing. Have you forgotten??
                      What part of “You must pay the corrupt people because you owe them?” IS AMERICAN?
                      Do you love supporting the fraudsters in power, is that it?
                      Is the deep state your people? I know they’re not.
                      So stop and think.
                      Sure, the state needs support. The LIMITED state we want.
                      The current state needs to be starved to death.
                      BUT the state we want needs support. Should that support be in the form of taking money from our paycheck to pay for whatever strikes their fancy?
                      Why? Is it the king’s penny?

                    3. You continuously assert duties.

                      Would you mind defining them at some point instead of just throwing out airy mouth noises that people are supposed to agree with absent argument?

                    4. I am in the process of putting this together, Fortunately, it’s a long weekend.

                      Sarah, it may reach the length of that essay you proposed I write. If it does, I’ll send it to you via e-mail. Feel free to forward it to Mr Bruene, since I don’t have his e-mail address and the website under his user name doesn’t either.

                  1. Funding the Deep State?!???? I thought we were discussing what would be involved with restricting the government to its’ proper sphere (Hint: that ends the Deep State right there), what that sphere IS, and how the resources for effective action within that sphere would be provided.

                    Sarah, if you don’t want to engage with what I ACTUALLY said, that’s fine. Tell me to shut up and

              1. OK. How do YOU define a nation, or citizenship? What laws actually apply? And absent compulsion, what do you do about those who are harming others? We’ve seen that absent some outside force, not everyone is harmless. Examples: San Francisco, NYC, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, or Lisbon AR (a wide place in the road with a population of 200 where we’re dealing with an attempted break-in at my grandparent’s old farmhouse committed by persons unknown suspected by the Sherriff to be illegal immigrants).

                “If Men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.” — James Madison

    2. You can’t have the protection apply to only those who pay. It’s a big reason fire departments aren’t by subscription any more.

      There was a scandal in Oregon when a subscription private fire company refused to work a house fire because the place wasn’t on the subscription list. I heard the house was destroyed.

      As a result TPTB said non-taxbased fire services could not be called out by 911, and were no longer eligible for publicly-owned surplus equipment. This was a problem for us. We asked for money yearly and did multiple fundraisers, but were not tax based. The nearest FD ended up taking over our territory (and got the equipment and station), but because of other issues, was not able to get annexation passed for over a decade. Not fun.

      I never heard the details, but assume there were more than a few overinflated egos at play in that scandal. Possibly some well-connected homeowners, too, and/or media with axes to grind. Not sure what a reasonable approach would have been.

      1. Had a similar problem with city FD in our mixed city, not city, in the urban growth boundary. What was pointed out is the volunteer rural fire department was there regardless. The city “solved the problem” by merging with the city next door and incorporating all the outlying rural volunteer FD. Might have been a bit of the problem with the non-tax based FD too. Problem solved.

        1. There was a story recent of a rural area that incorporated. Not that they truly desired, to, but that way the surround areas areas would be unable to annex them and screw them over.

          “You’re a city!”
          “Only in self defense!”

          1. Funny story that. Mom & dad built the house in ’63, moving in Dec. 1964 Santa Clara, area north of Beltline (might have included south along RR to the current farms still existing between neighborhoods of RR and Whiteakar neighborhood, in Eugene (1st Ave). It passed. Is this area now Santa Clara Oregon? ROFLOL … No. Eugene took the results to court and won. Area has been resisting incorporation into Eugene since then. Last dance was forcing incorporation to hook up to the sewers that were federally required. Eugene lost that fight in the courts. Latest is declaring that all schools, churches, and neighborhood public parks, are in the city (unless officially county park. Most the new neighborhood parks are in newer developments which are are city since within the urban growth boundary.) What the city is trying to do is encircle existing properties in the urban growth boundary to force incorporation. Problem they haven’t though of is enough of us, for all that I was 8 (Nov ’64) remember what Eugene pulled to void Santa Clara vote. Eugene will “win” eventually. But it has been almost 60 years, and counting. Eugene can’t go any further north. Urban growth boundary is smacked up against Junction City urban growth boundary for all that Junction City will probably leave it rural farmland.

          2. There are a number of small towns around Memphis, TN, some of which are now islands in the sprawl of Memphis. Memphis taxes are high, and there are lots of them. Tennessee lets cities annex surrounding areas “democratically.” You have 5,000 or 15,000 people in an “unincorporated community” who vote “no”, and 500,000 in Memphis voting “yes” (well, the city council does) and poof! You’re paying Memphis taxes.

            Some areas incorporated before they were absorbed. I suspect similar things happened in Denver and Los Angeles, from looking at the maps.

    3. “You can’t have the protection apply to only those who pay. It’s a big reason fire departments aren’t by subscription any more.”

      Dude, professional fire brigades only existed in big cities at that point. And this was a time period where an out-of-control fire could burn down the whole damn town. Nobody was letting fires burn, because fires spread. The only way to protect the insured homes was to put out the fire as soon as you could.

      The poor schmucks without insurance didn’t get reimbursed for the fire damage, but the firemen did their best to put the fire out.

      1. Also, if it’s a lottery, who in heck knows what tickets you bought?
        Also, that I know of the federal government does NOT run fire departments.
        And I have ABSOLUTELY no doubt the lottery for the armed forces would be healthy, though they might have to drop the pronoun obsession.
        The lottery for the green energy, OTOH….

        1. “Also, that I know of the federal government does NOT run fire departments.”

          The Forest Service might disagree. More importantly, that was an EXAMPLE of the problems with free ridership where the choices are increased danger for those who pay unless they provide protection for the non payees gratis. Defense spending would be the example for the Feds.

            1. The discussion on what can and can’t be tracked given modern technology and how dots can be connected would fill up the blog, so I won’t go there.

              The free rider issue is not solved by anonymity. The protectees have to pay the minimum amount necessary; it’s a fixed cost. However, there is a variable cost as well, based on the extent of what’s being protected. Force to space ratio is the military term, I believe.

              If 100 people are being protected, the amount per head is larger than if 1000 are being protected. If those 100 people are spread out over 100 square miles intermingled with 900 who are not, then that amount of force must cover that space.

              1. People buy it with cash.
                And Steve, are you going to discuss free riders on taxes? Are you serious? Look at our system.
                you wish to have everyone pay their “fair share” is nonsense. I don’t see how a lottery would have MORE of a free rider problem, or MORE trackability.

  19. The virtue of a uniform national sales tax (NOT a VAT) is precisely that everyone sees it, and that double and triple taxation via corporations is gone. But especially that everyone sees that they are being bled to death. Of course the Constitutional authority for any federal income tax must be withdrawn.

    Taxing consumption could also make our exports more competitive. Right now every product exported bears the hidden income taxes on its production, while imported products often do not. Exporting without taxes and taxing the imports the way we tax locally made goods would move us closer to true free trade.

    The Fair Tax proposals include a prebate to offset their effect on the poor. But that misses an opportunity: the prebate should be a fixed fraction of the take, so that even people who don’t invest will feel the effect of bad policies, and have less incentive to vote for them.

    1. Yes. I don’t mind a national sales tax, though I still think it’s conceding what we shouldn’t — that they have a RIGHT to randomly take our money. I MIND the VAT that they’re coupling with it.

      1. Unless the Fairtax proposals have changed drastically since 20 years ago when I read them in detail, they are NOT the idiots proposing a VAT; they are proposing a sales tax, applied ONLY on the final sale, and explicitly NOT a VAT.

        My objection to the proposal is that I don’t believe the income tax would actually get repealed and stay repealed, and then we’d end up with the worst of both worlds: an income tax and a 23% federal sales tax. Which would amount to shooting the economy in the head.

        2. I don’t believe the income tax would actually get repealed and stay repealed, and then we’d end up with the worst of both worlds
          …..

          So. What we have with Oregon.

          TPTB want a sales tax. Sales Tax must go to the general vote. Sales Tax won’t pass without the repeal of the income tax. Has to be (by law, not that that law stopped them on 114, but back to topic) two different initiatives. Which TPTB won’t do. TPTB are afraid that repeal income tax will pass (not wrong), but the sales tax will fail (also not wrong). Granted TPTB have made somewhat an end run around no sales tax by the “vehicle luxury” and “dealer vehicle” percentage fees that dealers can just pay or pass on to customers buying vehicle (like the dealer margins allow them to absorb the fees LOL).
          …………………………
          (          ) If it looks like a sales tax, it is a dang sales tax.

    2. And honestly, it’s fatuous to try to “mitigate the effect on poor people.” No, seriously. Is anyone trying to mitigate the effect of current taxes on anyone? And if you think there aren’t a lot, you’re not thinking.

      1. Especially when you consider that EVERY regulation is a tax: the government is compelling you to spend your money as it directs, as the cost of compliance.

    3. And there will be endless legislation on who exactly gets how much “prebate”. The votes villain go to the most profligate “prebaters”.

      And without a fixed hard currency, that prebate and its inevitable voted-for-excess will be highly inflationary, since everyone gets it, effectively raising taxes via the increased-numerical / decreased-value currency. This also tips the economic balance of advantage from investment to debt spending, paying with devalued dollars tomorrow what we obtained today.

      Didn’t spot that flaw, eh?

  20. Well, off topic, but thanks for the reminder of regular fairs and markets. In Greece, there was a rotating one in neighborhoods, wherein all the vendors set up for the day on two or three blocks of a particular street. In my neighborhood, the market day was Tuesday, the next ‘hood over to one side was Thursday, and on the other – Saturday. Fresh vegetables and fruits of every kind, seasonally, eggs from a vendor who packed them into a newspaper cone, a merchant with a trailer who turned up with beans, rice, and other dried food items. Another with boxes of live snails, whose’ shells made a clicking sound as they crawled around. Good Times.
    In Spain, the regular farmer’s market was downtown, in a large Beaux-Arts open-sided iron pavilion, where all the best vendors of comestibles had regular stalls.
    Again, good times and fond memories.

    1. When I lived in Germany, the meat trucks and fish dealer came on Wednesday, and produce and “random edible stuff including strange but tasty cheeses” was on Saturday. No bread dealers, because the bakers in town had objected. Alas, my ‘fridge was the size of a large shoe box! (We had cubbies in the communal fridge in the student apartment building.)

  21. The root of the problem is the federal government giving itself the power to take money directly from the serfs. That’s how it got so bloated and tyrannical.

    What? You’re not a serf, you say? Have you been paying attention?

    So the federal government takes, and takes, and then exercises control over state and local governments, schools and colleges, hospitals and contractors by doling that money back out. Money is taken from the residents of one state to bribe the rulers’ cronies in another state.

    The federal government’s power to tax must be permanently taken away. They’ll scream like 3-year-olds deprived of their favorite toys, but tough shit. The government is destroying the country, and the people, and it must be stopped.
    ———————————
    Why do so many idiots believe that our problems will be solved by the same shitheads that caused them?

  22. Knew a “good government” conservative who objected to “taxation is theft” with the idiot objection “that’s what government is.” Had I been in a more cantankerous mood, I would have replied that by that logic, the Holocaust wasn’t murder, because government did it and approved it.

    If a thing is a violation of rights between individuals, making it a group versus individuals and slapping a label on it doesn’t make it magically not a violation of rights.

  23. “I leave as an exercise whether the highway system slides under this or the common defense”

    That’s why it’s formally named the National Defense Highway System. Eisenhower sold the notion by telling the tale of how it took him a month to move a unit from California to the East Coast in 1917…and how the autobahns had served the Germans in 1944-45.

  25. I wonder if you could do some sort of tax like school districts do when they want to build a new gym or school building. They have to put it up to a public vote and if it doesn’t pass, no moolah.

    Our district wanted a new gym for quite a while. It went to a vote every year until it finally passed.

    No taxation without representation. They had to keep trying until they got enough people on board to do it.

    Right now we have these thousand page omnibus bills passed in the dead of night that no one has read or discussed. It’s why people are so disgruntled.

    1. And from what I read today, the latest $1.7 trillion dollar one is under suit; apparently they didn’t have a quorum actually present when it was passed ,and the argument is that the Constitution doesn’t allow for proxy voting for revenue bills. Popcorn time! 🙂

  26. According to Pothole Pete, the problem is not the train wrecks, it’s ‘all the attention’ they’re getting. So, if everybody would just ignore the train wrecks, everything would be fine, right? Like ignoring crime, yeah, that’s working out great.
    ———————————
    ‘Progressives’ believe everybody else is even stupider than they are. This explains a lot.

      1. The Reader believes Atlas Shrugged holds a decent stake in the Venn Diagram of fictional dystopias that comprise our current reality.

    2. Pete (the Transportation Secretary, dammit!) ignored the train wreck for days; he was concentrating on something apparently more important for a Transportation Secretary. Racism?

      1. The Department Of Transportation had much more important concerns than mere train wrecks, environmental catastrophes and near-collisions between airliners; they had to promote Racial Grievance!

        Somehow, the Biden* Regime has managed to assemble an entire administration without picking a single remotely competent individual, even by accident. That could not have been easy. Simple stupidity is not an adequate explanation; they had to be stuck-on-stupid, and then they had to work at it.

        Sadly, a female Supreme Court Justice that can’t understand the word ‘woman’ is not the worst example… 😦
        ———————————
        The government can mandate stupidity, but they can’t make it not be stupid.

  28. Lots of states are also in the regulations made without representation, as so many Democratic Party run states have written laws regulating vast sectors of society to standards set by unelected officials in California. Some states, because California regulators are issuing bans on all sorts of things powered by fossil fuels, etc., are imposing the same bans, without any independent review or action, because those standards are imposed automatically.

    Needless to say, these regulations impose vast costs and burdens on citizens of states who have no say in what California officials do. In essence, they have come up with a scheme to impose widespread disenfranchisement of the citizenry in order to impose their agenda.

  29. First, fire half the government workers . . . and disband a whole lot of government departments. Start with Education, please.

    Not that I expect it to happen.

    3. “First, fire half the government workers…”

      I recommend the technique used by the Brits in the Sepoy Mutiny.

        1. Yep, that’s it. They hanged some and “blew off from cannons” some others (“FIRE!”). All in all, very picturesque.

    4. Fun fact — Education is the smallest cabinet department — only about 3,000 personnel — and it’s one of the youngest. It would be a great Proof of Concept for liquidation, including the publication of all documents/emails.

  31. The whole idea that you SHOULD pay taxes is one of the weirdest ideas that the Left has ever espoused. Beyond that you can point out that the USA already has a VAT. Someone harvested raw materials (corn, minerals, lumber, intellectual property, etc) they are taxed for their work. The buyers make something from the materials and sells whatever it is, they are taxed for their labor. Depending on what the finished product is, the labor is taxed at each transaction. So, the government taxes our income which depends on the value we add to whoever we work for.

  32. There are jobs the federal government has to do. National defense (including border security) — the War Department. Negotiations with foreign governments — the State Department (just not the commies we’ve got now). Administering Constitutional law — the Supreme Court. Dealing with interstate crime, and crimes committed by government officials — FBI and Justice Department.

    The federal government needs enough money to do those jobs, and no more. Where should it get the money? Tariffs on international trade make some sense. That would be self-limiting; raise the tariffs too high and nobody wants to pay the prices. Fines collected from convicted federal criminals. Voluntary contributions? But how to prevent abuse?

    Federal and state governments must be prohibited from taxing interstate trade. Axe the Commerce Clause.

    Well, that’s about all I’ve got for now.
    ———————————
    How can imperfect people create a Perfect World? How could imperfect people live in a Perfect World?

      1. I probably should append this elsewhere (N.B.: this is not an invitation to tell me exactly where to append my opinions), but it’s on topic, so I’m using it.

        A lottery is a tax on stupidity, or in a version I’ve heard elsewhere, a tax on people who are bad at math. For a government funded by lotteries to receive its baseline of revenues, there has to be a certain pool of stupid people in the country. This means that there is a disincentive to make people smarter, and indeed, that there is an incentive to broaden and deepen the pool of stupidity, so that they can pull in more revenue. If you think government is incapable of acting on these incentives, I am forced to ask you, what have you done with the real Sarah Hoyt?

        I now find myself contemplating the irony of certain states funding education programs with lottery revenue, and whether it is all just a titanic scam. I am trying not to contemplate what a federal government, dependent on revenues derived from bad math skills at best, would do to the education apparatus of the whole country. (Though I’m tempted to say it couldn’t be worse that what they are doing to it right now, it’s a safe assumption that things can always get worse. Shakespeare even had words on the subject, and he’s usually pretty reliable.)

        This is not to pick on you, Sarah. I’m just taking your thoughts the next step ahead, which a lot of politically powerful people seem never to do. And we’re better than that, right?

        1. It’s a cute way to put it, honestly. “A tax on people who are bad at math” BUT it’s not the truth.
          A lottery is the ability to dream. Which is why the bigger the pot the more the buy ins. I’ve been where I’m broke VERY BROKE with no hope in sight. Spending $2 which frankly these days buys NOTHING gives me the ability to spend three days or a week pleasantly spending money I’m unlikely to have but COULD happen.
          I submit to you most lottery players are of that kind, though yes, there is a fund of the stupid too.
          AND?
          The stupid, dear sir, shall always be with us.

          1. Texas won’t let people buy lottery tickets with credit card. You have to know exactly what you are spending, and that it is right-now cash leaving your pocket. It’s a dream for 95% of the people who buy in, and a gamble for the other 5%. Yes, my odds of winning are low. So are my odds of a lot of other great things (getting a huge bonus at work, a book turning into a best-seller, finding Mr. Right.)

                1. You know what, given the actual shit show of taxation AND representation right now, I refuse to go down rabbit holes of “it could be SOOOOOO bad.” It’s not like people on EBT cards don’t already trade stuff for cash. AND NO ONE IS SAYING those who don’t buy the lottery can’t vote. There’s not even any way to track that.
                  I’m just sick and tired of being told it’s my “duty” to pay taxes for the privilege of being a citizen, when my taxes mostly go to non-citizens invading the country at a clip, and to support a government that has rigged itself into power and refuses to do its constitutional duty while doing all sorts of other crap.
                  When one of you comes up with a scenario that’s WORSE than that for “let’s runt he government on lottery money” I’ll believe it.
                  Also, note I’m not opposed to a national sales tax — JUST NO VAT — but it’s way more intrusive, as most purchases are on line or credit card, so it’s much easier to see who paid what and 25% is giving the drunken sailors double the money we should, to be begin with.
                  I’m opposed ON PRINCIPLE to the idea that they’re ENTITLED to taking our money because we’re Americans.
                  Shouldn’t it be the other way around? What are we? French? English? “You were born, you owe us” No. And also f them.

          2. 100%

            We don’t play the lottery as much as because we forget to buy the tickets. But the few times we have, we aren’t stupid. We know the $2.00 in cash change is essentially wasted because the odds are so tiny that we win anything, let alone the big pot. (Although the last big pot, and do not ask me which one, was so huge that someone, in Oregon, with a partial match, again do not ask what that meant, won $1 million. Somewhat reduced if they took the immediate payout, and after paying taxes. But still would be left with > $500k. I could live with that. Again. Gotta play to win anything. We don’t play.)

          3. Fair point on the chance to dream. I am no regular player, but I will spend on a few tickets when the jackpot is big enough.

            There’s a point at which expected return on a ticket does exceed what you pay for it, though with reduced lump-sum payouts, the chances of multiple winners, and the bites of income taxes, we may never have seen a jackpot big enough to hit that mark. It’s the thrill of the play that helps bridge the gap between what you’re paying and your expected return. I guess the value of the thrill is pretty low for me (though that may be because I understand the odds of winning are in the “struck by lightning while riding a unicycle” range). If it’s higher for others, well, I may not think it’s smart, but that circles us back to the “tax on stupidity” thing, which I won’t do now.

            The stupid we will indeed always have with us: half of all people are necessarily below average. I was just worried about there being an incentive for stupid people in power to lower the average.

      2. Maybe the government could be funded by donations? A permanent GoFundMe for the federal government, now there’s an idea.

        If the government makes itself unpopular, donations go down. Bureaucrats get sacked.

        Even better, give each donor the option to dictate how the donation is to be divided up between the various government departments. Unpopular departments lose their funding and have to be shut down. Social Justice Wankers can put their money where their big mouths are and pay for what they want the government to do.

        Corporate donations should probably be restricted to the General Fund only. Don’t want mega-corps funding government departments for their own benefit. Public disclosure of all corporate donations.

        Government advertising for donations? “Defend the country! Give to the War Department!” “Help the environment! Give to the EPA!”

        Each Congresscritter’s pay could be funded by donations, too, up to a specified limit. Anything over that amount goes to the General Fund. If they get less…tough. I suspect AOC would have to learn to live on about $15,000 a year. 😀

  33. My new library where I work is part of a place that held an election to add a tax to pay for the library. A majority had to agree, and they did, and I know what you are thinking.

    If you voted no, you aren’t taxed. If you voted yes, you are. And it’s easy to look up who paid. And you can buy in short term AND you can change your mind and vote yes, and also “unvote” (admittedly the legal hassle is a bit off-putting, but not terribly hard).

    And there’s a charitable group that funds 1 year scholarships for kids and unemployed. Pretty much a shoe-in, but you have to explain yourself every year…

    If we weren’t being bled white by state and fedgov…

    Ah well. If Ifs and Ands were pots and pans there’d be no work for tinkers’ hands

  34. I have been known to call the Democrat Party the party of those who get money sent to them in the mail, their base are trust fund babies and welfare recipients. In the reality they live in, money does just grow on trees. They do not perceive that money is generated either from the sweat of their grandparents brow or the sweat of the working classes. It is logical to them that it is unfair that trust fund babies get more money than welfare recipients.

    From reading the ‘righteous mind’ I realized that the left thinks fairness is everyone gets an equal sized piece of cake. The right thinks fairness is everyone gets a cake mix so everyone has the opportunity to make a cake. And then that cake is now yours to do with as the you see fit.

    When I have encountered a lefty that actually does some labor they are the most selfish and ungenerous people I have ever met.

    Thank you for explaining how insidious the VAT taxes are. I have a friend who is into the fair tax movement big time, so now I have some discussion point to talk with her about.

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