Perpetual Commotion

A government needs things done. It needs labor performed. Any tax scheme invented satisfies this need. Therefore, in taxing its citizens, the ultimate burden of the government will be on the backs of those people that actually do productive things: the farmer, the builder, the designer, the trucker, the mechanic, the janitor, etc.

Taxing businesses that do not export their product or service increases the tax burden on the productive. Businesses can't pay taxes and stay in business. They must pass the increased cost along to the consumer.

Taxing all of the "rich" people will not make them less rich. They will, as a class, strive to regain their standard of living, and pass along their tax burden to those that work for them. If you want to make rich people less rich, you have to compete with them in their business. Strong competition will spread the wealth.

I am fully in favor of abolishing all sales, use, value added, goods and services, personal property, intangible, transfer and "income" taxes. I know that sales taxes were enacted during World War II "to help in the War effort" and were never repealed. However, no government will willingly give up a tax. And when it comes to taxes, government abhors a vacuum. They WILL be taxing the Internet. Right now, we have the opportunity to push for an alternative that would pressure governments to adopt the lowest tax possible. It's like starting a fire to control a fire. What's the lowest tax? Zero. It happened to New York City when New Jersey lowered their sales tax and NY didn't. People went to New Jersey to shop. Here in Michigan, our shopping centers were filled with Canadians because certain thing were so highly taxed in Ontario. (We fixed that by raising our sales tax 50%.) If they could only tax at the point of sale, Internet sales companies would move to where there was no sales tax. Then, where you live, they would have to lower their tax to compete.

My tax philosophy: Governments need things done. Only productive people get things done. The ultimate goal of any tax system is to confiscate labor from the productive. The only relief is to shrink the government.

When interpreted correctly, it is clear that the sole purpose of the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, is to limit the power of the federal government.

When people do not pay directly for goods or services they consume, they will have little concern for the cost. This is what has happened for many people today. The solution to the problem of escalating health care cost is to introduce competition to the health care system.

The modern health care insurance system was created by physicians to increase the pool of people able to pay for their care, and in so doing, increase the income of physicians. It's a clever plan. Since healthy people rarely go to their physician, they only get money from the sick people. But, if you can get the healthy people to pay into a "pool", you can charge the sick people more for the care they receive. Since the "pool", or insurance plan pays the physician, the patient goes home with a smile.

This is not evil. This is not "wrong". If people want to participate in such a plan, there should be no government action to stop them.

During World War II, the government enacted wage controls on direct compensation. However, companies were able to offer several fringe benefits that they were able to offer employees. Company paid health care was one of these. After the war, these benefits were continued. They had an interesting characteristic: they were not considered part of an employee's direct income, and were therefore not taxed. Companies and labor unions were quick to jump on this as a way of increasing an employee's actual compensation (increase their standard of living) without increasing their taxable income.

This is what created the problem we are living with today. Many people do not see the actual cost of their health care since their employers pick up the cost. The price of health care has risen to the highest level that the system will allow. How big will a fire get? It will get as big as it can.

The solution is to bring back competition to the system. One way to do this is to allow people to deduct the full cost of any health care or health care insurance they pay directly off their income before any other deductions are made. This would put the self employed and those without employer paid health insurance at the same level as those with employer paid health care insurance. At some point, employees would start demanding that their employer give them the equivalent money spent on their insurance, and the employees would decide how best to spend it. Those that wanted better insurance would buy it. Those that felt confident in their health would not.

The insurance companies would hate this. Physicians would hate this. Competition can be painful.

There exists in this world people who believe, for one reason or another, that they are intrinsically better than you. They believe, in their very core, that they know how to direct your life and how you should behave better than you do. Sometimes this is due to greed and a desire to benefit materially at your expense. Sometimes this is due to a firm belief that they are superior by birth, by genetics, by education, by social status, or because a beam of light shot down from the sky and a voice told them so. Whatever. These people exist, and all too often they gravitate to positions where they can exercise control over the mundanes of the world.

Remember back to the days when you were in high school. You probably knew some then. These people would pick a selfish agenda and then support each other to get their way. That was a long time ago, and their accomplishments are long forgotten. But these people have not gone away. Some may have found positions in government, and now instead of deciding what the theme of the Senior Prom would be, they are deciding how much of your income to tax away.

Elitism is bad enough, but a Leftist Elitist is perhaps the worst kind. These people not only "know" better than you how to run your life, they try to con you into believing that [giving up, denying] your inalienable rights is a noble thing.

"Liberals" use "the poor" as pawns in a power grab. Their objective is not to promote a liberal government dedicated to the empowerment of the individual and protection of inalienable rights. The objective is to empower the elitists.

Whether one actually is superior to others, or they just think they are, this never gives them the right to take advantage of another human being.

Try this at work: Ask everyone on pay day to pile their money up in the parking lot, then each of you will take only as much as he or she needs.

Go out to lunch with a group of people where you know in advance that the bill will be split equally. Will you order a hamburger or the fillet mignon?

Conservatives want to carry the burden of their own weight. Liberals want someone else to bear the burden of their lives.

TANSTAAFL /tan'stah-fl/b [acronym, from Robert Heinlein's classic "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".] "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Environmentalism is the most dangerous threat to personal freedom ever to face mankind. It is far less concerned about protecting the "environment" than it is about promoting a globalist elitist fascist political agenda. This agenda seeks to deny people the right to own property and/or exercise their rights of ownership. When people are denied the right to own land and do with it what they wish, power shifts to the elitists.

Very rare is the day that I accomplish by evening what I set out to do in the morning. I believe that this is a common affliction. Those who believe in "conspiracies", when confronted with this most basic of human weaknesses will have to resort to some sort of supernatural power as the motive force behind whatever "movement" they believe in. From the Illuminati to extraterrestrial abductions, this is a common theme.

May I offer an alternative: The power of transnational fads. This is my call to a power greater than man. There have been many. The advent of machinery and the industrial revolution brought with it the movement to abolish slavery. Sub Saharan Africans just happen to have been the last group to be enslaved, but if it were not for the inventions of machines to do the hard work, there would still be slaves, and slavery would still be an accepted practice. Machines also freed up women from many laborious household tasks. This allowed the average woman to pursue other aspects of social involvement that lead to a worldwide movement for political power. Somewhere along the line, elitists saw their influence waning as machines made the common man more and more independent. They invented income tax and socialism to counter this independence, and it has swept the world. But these things are not the result of supernatural intervention. These are just transnational fads.

[for topic "conspiracy theories"]
Human control vs. supernatural control--I can't control my life, how could I control anybody else's?

Satan wins more converts during good times than bad. Why would he want to cause us distress in which we might turn instead to God?

Abstract: Labor unions claim credit for improvements in our standard of living. However, at the same time that the power and influence of labor unions waxed, so did automation and machines. Specifically, the automobile and the network of roads to drive them on. The automobile enabled the average person to "choose" their employer to maximize benefits, working conditions, and wages. In short, the automobile and the road system forced employers to compete for employees. The labor unions are actually an unfair burden on those NOT in a union, since those not in a labor union must pay more for the inefficient processes that unions engender due to lack of competition. Some believe that they must have an improved standard of living and income before automobile ownership can increase. But in reality, the ownership of automobiles and access to reasonable cost fuel and good roads leads to people being able to travel outside of their neighborhood in search of better employment. This forces employers to compete for workers. Competition maximizes wages.

The United States has lead the world in personal transportation ownership and building roads to handle the traffic. Therefore, the United States enjoys the highest standard of living in the world. Some day, a new technology will arise that will surpass the automobile as a personal transportation device. I have no idea what this will be, but when that day comes, the country--the society--that embraces this new technology

Labor unions of government workers are most insideous since how can you avoid them? Their contracts are negociated with civil servants, bureaucrats, or, if you are lucky, an elected official. To make things quite fair, all contracts with government employees should be voted on by the public during a general election.

The Democratic Party has fooled working people into believing that the agenda of the Democratic party will help "working people". This agenda is basically socialism: From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. The Elitists, the masses of lazies in the world, and thieves of all descriptions are very needy, especially when they are the ones who define what it is they "need". At best, what these "working people" fail to understand is that in order for the "government" to provide "each according to his needs", the "government" has to confiscate labor from the productive sector of the "working people" to give to the non-productive sector. It is more likely that Democratic Party Chauvinists in labor unions know very well that their labor is being used to carry the weight of the nonproductives, but they know that their standard of living is higher than pure market forces could support. So, they tolerate this extra burden like a car dealer tolerates the burden of salesman commissions. This system works for those in a union. The union members push the burden of their lives off onto the backs of all those not in a union. (If everyone was in one union or another, how could one union let another be better off?)

The sole purpose of courts and peace officers is to settle disputes and ensure that the government and people do not infringe on the rights of the individual. It is not the purpose of courts and peace officers to raise revenue. This is the job of legislature. It is not the purpose of peace officers to enforce the law. They are not "law enforcement officers". The purpose of the law is to restrict the power of the government and its agents, and to identify an individual's limitations so as not to infringe upon the rights of other individuals.

If people feel that they have not agreed to society's codes of behavior, they will not govern their own behavior, and they will disregard "the law" whenever "the law" isn't looking.

The road to tyranny begins with writing up scads of laws to govern people's behavior, and then not keeping the peace. This leads the legislature to write more laws that are ignored. At some point, when there are enough laws on the books, the former peace officers become law enforcement officers, and the mundanes submit to elitists at the point of a gun.

Why don't we just make it easier for the law enforcement to do their jobs. We could all just be required to sign blank confession forms when we renew our driver's license. That way, the police wouldn't have to be bothered by inconveniences like the Constitution.

Nature is a harsh machine devoid of compassion. Yet, it is without malice because it has no feelings. Compassion is a human invention. (w.j.ward)

Human nature does not change, or, if it does, it is like the movement of continents: You will not perceive any change for countless generations.

Babies are born fully trusting other people. But they soon learn that they can not trust without evidence. (w.j.ward)

In the contest between good and evil, evil usually wins...unless good is very, very careful...for evil will use good's virtue against him.

Having children is a choice people make. If people make choices that make them poor, then they have made poor choices. If a man chooses to blow all of his money at a casino playing craps it is his fault, and if he then goes hungry, it is also his fault. With freedom comes the responsibility to choose wisely. The foolish must be left to their folly. (w.j.ward)

Charity doesn't begin at the end of a gun barrel, yet that is what socialism dictates: Take from the productive man and give to the nonproductive (but in doing so, drop a lot of cash in the coffers of the elitists in power.) (w.j.ward)

The Universe is not obligated to conform to wishes and desires of man.

Concentrate on what actually makes the grass grow and you will harvest a good crop every weekend. (w.j.ward) (errr... stay focused on what works and don't be sidetracked by what should but doesn't.)

The best thing you can do "for the children" is to make the world a better place for the adults they will become tomorrow, and the parents who have to raise them today. (w.j.ward)

The appetite of people who want something for nothing is insatiable. (Irwin Schiff, income tax protester)

The government needs things done. It needs roads built, food hauled, building designed, cement laid... you get the picture. Money is irrelevant. The government ultimately needs just one thing: labor. Since money represents labor owed in return for labor performed, money from people who don't do anything useful (or productive) is of no use to the government. Therefore, no matter how the tax system is sliced and diced, the full burden of the government will rest squarely on the backs of the productive worker. Tax the rich, and they will all increase their pay by having their companies charge more, or paying their workers less until their relative standard of living is recovered. Tax businesses more, and they will do the same. The only relief from taxation is to reduce the size of government. Unfortunately, most taxation these days is merely a vote buying scheme that takes real labor from the productive and gives it to the [got to come up with a better description] unproductive.

Taxation is the method liberals use to impose their core tenant: Give generously from the other fellow's paycheck.

The government needs a certain quantity of things done. The dollar amount and who they come from is immaterial. No matter how you slice and dice who pays what, the full burden of providing the services the "government" generously provides will *always* land on the backs of the productive members of our society. Labor from people who don't do anything or don't do anything productive has no value.

On the other hand, there are a few legitimate services that the government is best at providing. National defense, law enforcement, settling disputes, and maintenance of common transportation right of ways to name a few. These must be paid for by those who derive benefit from them. The point of divergence between first principle believers and all the rest is on the question: Is it ever right to take property of one person and give it to another?

Slavery went out of style in the 19th century due to the industrial revolution. If it weren't for machines, servants, serfs, and slaves would be far more common than they are today. Unfortunately, the mind that can accept slavery, or the involuntary confiscation of another's labor without compensation, is still very much with us today. Instead of slaves, we have "taxpayers". But these taxpayers have no say in how much of their income (their compensation for their labor in the abstraction of money) they get to keep. The economist Walter Williams says that it doesn't matter if a person is 10% a slave or 40% a slave, he's still a slave.

I have heard it said that medieval surfs paid less of their income (in the form of crops) to their lords than modern Americans. Figures.

Cultures develop in response to many situations throughout history, and they probably worked very well to cope with whatever situation confronted them. However, not all cultures equip people to thrive. The most successful cultures abandon practices that hold their people back. The culture of Appalachia Europeans from northern England did not equip these people to survive in the mountainous country of the eastern U.S. But when the immigrants from Germany arrived, these same people, equipped with a different culture, living on the same mountainous land, thrived.

Children often organize games in school playgrounds. It seems that they instinctively know that they have to set up rules of conduct, and they expect everyone to hold to those rules. Adults get sophisticated and seem to think that they don't have to play by any rules, or that certain rules don't apply to them, or that they can change the rules when they become inconvenient. Can you imagine if they could change the rules during a football game? For example, the field goal kicker launches a perfectly kicked ball heading right for the center of the goalpost, and the other team decides, while the ball is still in mid air, that, no only balls kicked with the left foot count. Sports would be chaos.

The purpose of all laws must be to make everyone prosper. Individuals can get ahead by stealing, killing, cheating, and abusing his neighbors. But if you make your neighbor prosper by getting out of his way, by not impeding his progress, by not trying to keep him back so that he, by his own wit and labor, does better than you, then you yourself will prosper. Most laws, it seems, are contrived so as to hold people back. What does this get you other than the satisfaction of seeing your neighbor frustrated in his attempt to make a better life for himself? There are eight lane highways with 35 MPH speed limits and traffic lights every quarter mile. What's the purpose of holding people back like this?

Free will means that we have the right to not help our neighbor if we don't want to, or don't feel we can. But it is in our own best interest if our neighbors do prosper. If you are fortunate to live in a culture where everyone wants to see his neighbor prosper, then all of you will prosper. One of the Ten Commandments addresses the case where you covet what your neighbor has and take steps to deprive him of it.

"Ignorance is no excuse." Or so they say. How many laws are on the books to govern what you can not do? (Laws rarely... and really shouldn't... say what you can do.) And then there is what they call "case law" where the precedent for how a law is interpreted is established by a judge during a trial, which may result in the same law being interpreted in several different ways depending on the judge. Is it possible for anyone to know all the laws and how they are interpreted? Is case law even available to the average person?

There is a basic set of laws that one can assume everyone knows. For instance, everyone should know that it is wrong to steal. It is wrong to murder. etc. But for all other laws, what could be called "minor laws", it should be asked, "Is it realistic to expect a person to know this?" There are many laws that are never enforced. It seems that there should be some sort of expiration date for all minor laws and regulations so that the government would have to reinstate each one individually every so many years.

Judges do not want people to defend themselves in court, prefering instead to deal only with lawyers. One has to question if the law is so complicated that it requires a formal legal education to comprehend, then the set of laws now over us must be too complex for the average person. It seems to me that it is not a good practice to allow those who make their living in the legal proffession, i.e. lawers, to become members of the legislative branch of government where they would then get to write... laws! Talk about the fox guarding the hen house.

No one should profit from a crime. That means that when a fine is imposed and collected by a court, that money should not go into the government. The courts, police, and all law enforcement must never be in the position to benefit from colleting fines from people. This might lead some judges, police, or government official to engineer situations to trick people into "breaking the law", just to collect the fine. Speed traps come to mind. Instead, all money collected from fines should go to so person or group that has absolutely no influence on making or enforcing the law. Perhaps the money could be given out as some sort of lottery prize to a randomly selected tax payer each year. Perhaps it should just be burned to prevent any temptation of corruption. Or, it could be given to the United Nations. That's just like being burned.

The purpose of law enforcement from the cop on the street to the judges behind the bench should be to settle disputes and keep people from harming each other. Today, much of law enforcement is used merely for the generation of revenue for the government by way of fines and confiscation. The greatest evil is using the road traffic laws as a way to make money. Very serious and egregious violations of the law occur at intersections, yet you will usually find the nearest cop sitting in a quiet subdivision on a straight section of wide highway waiting for some poor soul preoccupied with what he his going to buy his wife for her birthday to pass by without noticing that the speed limit has dropped from 45 to 35 mph. How can these cops be proud of themselves? See, the mind that can accept this seemingly insignificant abuse of the law, and breech of public trust, is primed for permitting even greater violations.

About all you can really ever expect of people is that they will act in their own self interest. This isn't necessarily bad since keeping their neighbors alive and healthy is usually very much in one's own self interest, especially if you happen to be fortunate enough to live in a neighborhood where most others think the same way. Unfortunately, there seem to be two different ways to see your self interest. These are the short term and the long term. The long term thinkers are the best. The short term thinkers often are your car thieves, racketeers, pimps, drug dealers, and the selfish. Liberals act in their short term self interest. Conservatives act in their long term self interest.

I'll bet you have never worked for a poor person. While most of those you have worked for couldn't be considered "rich", they most likely had more money than you. In fact, most people seem to think of "the rich" as anyone who has more money than they do. "Taxing the rich" or "make the rich pay their fair share" is awful appealing. But "the rich" comprise a surprisingly large portion of the population. Even you might be considered "rich" by someone's standard. But taxing the "rich" is futile since everyone wants to live at the best standard of living that they can and certainly your boss won't accept you living better than he does (or he won't do his job and you won't have a job either), so if you decrease his standard of living, he'll just have to charge his customers more, or pay you less in order to come up with the money to pay the extra tax. You won't win.

patents/copyrights: rewarding innovation to keep people inventing things...
example: town blacksmith inventor won't keep inventing because he gets nothing for it. Can't keep doing because he needs to feed his family and can't give away his time.

The mind that can accept discriminatory practices based on race, religion, sex, etc., can accept it for any other reason. The practice of racial discrimination is alive and well in the U.S., euphemistically called "affirmative action". The evil is that the practice is still the same throughout the ages, it's just that beneficiaries have changed for a season. Without killing the belief that discrimination in this sense is good, the season will change, and the beneficiaries will change. The evil will go on.

Everyone works for profit. You have to or you won't be able to eat or pursue your hobbies. Now lots of energy can be expended on hobbies that don't lead to any income. That's fine. But if you want to eat, if you want to pay for a house, apartment, car, or web site, you will have to actually work for a profit to support these endeavors. You really can't expect anyone to do something without getting something for it in return. And a business that doesn't take in more money than it has to pay out just won't be around long.

Profits are the life blood of business. A business that does not make a profit will die. A dead company can't do anything for anybody.

All interactions between men and all laws written by men to guide men in their conduct, must first pass the test of God's law, the Ten Commandments. If a law of man's creation violates the rules God has given us to live by, this law will lead the society that adopts it grief, if not total ruin.

Let's start by passing all laws through the sieve of the 7th Commandment, Thou Shall Not Steal. This means that we are not to take possession of any material object that belongs to our fellow man without his consent, either by force or by deceit.

This country, like most others, has institutionalized the violation of the 7th Commandment by forcefully confiscating the fruit of the labor of the productive and giving it to the unproductive in order to buy votes.

It is always wrong to steal.

No one has the "right" to another person's property, labor, time, or body.

The Ten Commandments are the First Principles that all other laws and policies governing the interactions of men must be derived from.

Closely related to labor unions, etc.

Labor unions must not cross corporate lines. Contracts for labor unions for monopolies like utilities, government workers, public school teachers, police, etc. must be negotiated with the voters as an item on the ballot of a general election.

There should be competition. No less than 7 companies. If there are 7 or less competitors, one can not buy out the other to reduce competition. Companies can compete only by producing the best product or service at the lowest cost, not by manipulating the competition out of the market by lobbying for government rules, regulations; exclusive deals with distributors, etc.

What is the definition of when someone is going "hungry" in the United States? Is it on meal a month (out of typically 90)? If not, then what is it?

"Public Education" has devolved into a racket whose first priority is to enrich the members of the public teacher union. "Educating the Public" is of tertiary importance after the secondary objective of advancing a "liberal" agenda.

Was not the original impetus behind the "public education" in England to nationalize the loyalties of young boys so that they would not object to being conscripted into the armed forces and sent off to fight and die for the "nation"? So I must ask, who, really, does public education system serve? Is it the goal to make the lives of young people better, or to mold them into useful tools for "society"?

There is a quote from J.R.R. Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings, that I find quite profound: ["Some deserve death. Some deserve life. Can you give it to them? Don't be so hasty to deal out death" need actual quote from book]

Err on the side of life, I say. While taking another's life in self defense, in battle, or as punishment for a crime does not seem to violate the first principle, Thou Shall Not Kill (i.e. murder), firing squads and death camps have been used far too often, as the history books tell us, by dictators and tyrants to rid themselves of troublesome dissenters for me to be confortable with the practice. Instead, I advocate life sentences of solitary confinement for convicted murderers. Political prisoners, including those convicted of treason, should never be put to death.

Legal immigration
Illegal immigraton

H1-B Visa Program:

The H1-B visa program is killing American kids interest in pursuing a technical education. I hear politicians all the time wailing and bemoaning the fact that American kids just aren't going into technical fields and they propose a solution of spending more money on education. These kids, if they will do well in a technical field, aren't stupid. Why spend four to eight years of your life studying a very challenging curriculum just to earn a wage slightly better than the average union wage? Why not use your talent to go into a field, like business or law, that you just can't import people to fill? Smart kids will go into fields that you have to have been a PART of this society for a long time in order to do well at. What's so wrong about having American jobs for Americans? No one expects that Mexican jobs should go to non-Mexicans, Brazilian jobs should go to non-Brazilians, Indian jobs should go to non-Indians. This H1-B visa program is insane. It's destroying American competitiveness in the world by removing the financial incentive for American kids to pursue a difficult education. Corporations that CAN leave the US will leave anyway, or they already have. The H1-B visa program is just making life much more difficult for those of us that have no where else to go.