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I talked with a friend Wednesday, who I had not talked to for a couple of years. We talked several times over the next two and he questioned why I had not sent him any rants lately. Truthfully, I have been stressed recently and big-picture-philosophy is bumped down on the priority list when life gets hectic. No one looks after one’s own best interest better than oneself. I can’t complain, but sometimes I still do. I am certain that I am not alone, and that any number of you would gladly trade stresses.
It occurred to me that much is happening in the big-picture-philosophy world that contributes to the stress of some people. (Could it relieve the stress of some?) I recently had a discussion with one such person about their attic and property taxes. Specifically, each reassessment brings a new discussion about a storage room in the attic. It seems that the building plans show an alternate room in the attic. The alternate room was not finished when the house was built, but plywood was put down so the area could be used for storage. I’m certain many of you have space in your attic where you store stuff, (for lack of a better term.)
The situation is that each time the property is reassessed, it is based on the generic building plans, purchased from one of those plan books you can get al Lowe’s, not the actual building constructed. It would seem that this is easier that way, for the reassesser. Each time, a trip to the local tax office, a short wait in line, and the explanation that the information is already in the file, resets the floor area which establishes the amount of tax owed.
For some reason, this stuck in my craw. I can’t seem to shake it.
The tax is based purely on the assumption that the more you own, the more you are able (and obligated) to pay, every year. There is an income/wealth test for property ownership. If you cannot afford the tax then you are obligated to sell the property to someone who can. This skews property ownership towards the ones who have and against the ones who have not. The haves must take some of wealth they already have to pay for the property they intend to keep. Those who have not, must earn enough to pay income taxes and use a portion of what is left to acquire property. Then they must earn enough to pay income taxes and still have enough left to pay the property taxes. A person of moderate means often cannot inherit property and afford to pay the inheritance tax, income tax on their moderate income, and have enough to pay the recurring property taxes. There is an income/wealth test for inheritance.
How is it that the government is somehow entitled to more tax money, based simply on the wall treatment of an attic room? There is no link between that room, and any service the government provides. There is no link to the function of government. But that is not unusual; there is no link between sales taxes and the use of those taxes. So it took me a while to figure out why I could not let this one go. My conclusion is that property taxes are immoral. I believe that all confiscatory taxes are immoral.
Yeah, yeah, I know, it is easy to say such, and just as easy to discount such with the argument that there are legitimate functions of government, and that they must be funded. Even so, this is my conclusion: Just as tyranny is the opposite of freedom, the taking of a portion of a person’s property, for the simple reason that it exists, is an infringement on the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Bear with me, this sounds a little like a math proof. You know the ones we had to learn in high school geometry? Ok, so nearly all of you just clicked the delete key. Kudos to you.
For the rest of you, show me where my logic fails. The founding fathers wrote the constitution, in part, to protect the ownership of private property. They believed, as I do, that the ability to keep the fruits of one’s labor is the basis for the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The short version, if a person raises crops, just enough to survive, and cannot keep them, that person will starve. If a person can just feed themselves and the government takes the smallest portion, that person starves. Today, if a person lives on their own land, their own property, and never leaves, takes no service from the public at large but stays on their property for their entire life, they would loose that property in the name of supporting the common good as defined by those collecting property taxes. Today, a person is not free to live of their own devices. Today, a person who raises enough food to support themselves, has to raise enough additional to sell at market to pay the property taxes or have the property confiscated to pay said taxes.
The break even condition is unsustainable for the individual. One must make enough extra, be wealthy enough, to support the programs deemed needed by the governing body (street sweeping, welcome centers, etc.) or become a ward of that body. In the example I have chosen, the person who owns enough land to feed themselves and never leaves the property or takes any service from anyone outside their property, must sell a portion of what they raise to pay the taxes, and then presumably sign up for food stamps to eat. This person would have to give up feeding themselves to support the program that would feed them. That is, of course if they could qualify for food stamps and own property. In theory, this person would have to sell a portion of the property to pay the taxes and each year, the ability to feed themselves would diminish and a portion would have to be sold to make up the difference. Eventually, the property would be gone, and the person would be a ward of the state. This additional burden on the state routinely requires increases in revenue, which makes it more unlikely that a have not could earn enough to own property.
I call this unsustainable because you must either create enough wealth in excess of what it takes to survive at the government manipulated standard of living and pay for your share of the care of those who do not, or be one of those who do not. In other words, you must either be an excessive wealth producer and support the programs of the government or be a wealth consumer and survive on those programs. You cannot survive in the middle, there can be no sustained middle class.
A person living by one’s own labor, burdening no one else, totally free from owing anyone, is in a downward spiral. They would owe a portion of their property to the government for the simple reason that they exist and own property. Someone in the past, who earned excess wealth, (more than enough to feed themselves), paid for that property with money which was taxed as income if it happened in the last 70 years. But if for any reason the excess wealth production slows enough, to less than roughly two times that needed to live, and if they ceased to produce excess wealth to be used for government programs, the government will confiscate said property and put it in the hands of someone who will. The government comes first.
This person could loose their property because the assessor classifies attic storage space as “livable” space which moves them from the just-barely-feeding-themselves and funding the government category to the soon-to-be-a-ward-of-the-state category. I could not show up on their door and insist that they support my social agenda with a portion of their property. If I showed up with an armed person and insisted at gunpoint, I would go to jail. If I organized a municipality and showed up with a uniformed tax official and insisted that they pay a portion of the official’s salary with their property, I gain the power to imprison that person and take their property. The taking of property to spend on causes not supported by the person who just had their property taken, does not become moral when more than half of us vote together to do so. Theft by proxy is still theft.
I ask this: Are you free? Can you live alone on your own property? Are you free to live your life regardless of the unrelated decisions of someone else? I suggest you are not free. You only own your own property, keep your own income, pursue happiness, so long as you are allowed to do so. Your property is only yours if you are producing tax revenue in which case the government will “allow” you to keep it.
Are we moving toward freedom or tyranny? Can you still sell it all and go bankrupt to pay for medical procedures to save yourself or a loved one? Will that freedom be lost because it is deemed “unfair” or the process too expensive for the single payer to pay? Tyranny is the opposite of freedom. Which is more moral, freedom or tyranny?
First, President Obama did not cause the oil spill. No one reading this believes he did and those who are spewing such things are blinded by Obama Derangement Syndrome. Second, President Obama takes advice from those around him and I cannot believe that for political purposes, they encouraged him to ignore the law mandating that his office coordinate spill abatement activities while the spill worsened. Granted, he listened to them when they suggested that standing on an oil tainted beach with bussed in “cleanup crews” who left with him, would make things better. These are all minor issues we all seem to have with his response to this disaster. In the end, we have to admit that there are few things President Obama can do, or could have done, to make things any different than they are.
Why then are progressives just as unhappy as conservatives with his reaction, or lack thereof? Is one perspective accurate and the other politics? The answer to these questions can be reduced to the heart of all the modern day debates about the appropriate roll of a national government in a modern society. In a word, it is about theology. This story serves to contrast the two apposing perspectives.
First, progressives believe that intellect and ideology are more important than experience. They believe that a person who has the greater good at heart, will draw better conclusions than someone with their own self interest at heart, intelligent or otherwise. They believe that all intelligent people come to the same conclusion, that serving the greater good of humanity always leads the intellectual to the correct answer, in other words, the perfect solution. Looking after one’s own personal interests seems not only selfish to the progressive, but inefficient as it cannot lead to more than an imperfect, self serving solution.
Second, conservatives believe, as the founders did, that individuals seeking to better their individual lives discover the best answers in a world where almost all answers are compromises in outcome. They believe the more complex the variables, the more likely the answer will be a compromise. In other words, there are no perfect solutions, but everyone can adopt the solution that minimizes the compromises most important to the individual while maximizing the benefits most important to the individual.
As it relates to the oil spill, the progressive believes that the collective intellect, concentrated in academia and national government, better considerers appropriate action than leaving private individuals and groups of individuals called companies to consider the risks of doing business and preparing to meet their responsibilities. Progressives passed a law, the Oil Pollution Act, et. al. which put coordinating oil spill discharge abatement and cleanup funding and coordination squarely in the federal responsibility column. They used the crisis of the Exxon Valdez spill as an example of the imperfect disaster response produced by the private sector. This act limited the liability of an individual company and put the responsibility on the taxpayer. The result is a skewed view of liability and responsibility and more potentially catastrophic, the view of risk tolerance. The EPA describes it like this,
The Oil Pollution Act (OPA) was signed into law in August 1990, largely in response to rising public concern following the Exxon Valdez incident. The OPA improved the nation’s ability to prevent and respond to oil spills by establishing provisions that expand the federal government’s ability, and provide the money and resources necessary, to respond to oil spills. The OPA also created the national Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which is available to provide up to one billion dollars per spill incident.
(Please know that I am sure this was written by some public relations liaison or similar who liked the way this sounds, without any concern that it gives insight into the liberal leanings of the writer or that taking it grammatically literally changes the meaning to one that could not have been intended. I suspect the writer was more interested in saying thank you for the increased funding than in stating liberal intent. But the hair splitter in me must be appeased. – Shannon)
Consider carefully the wording. It was in response to, “public concern.” It was not in response to cleanup technology or techniques, but in response to opinion. No politician ever poled public understanding of technology or techniques, they all pole opinion. The assumption was that the shortcomings in the Valdez spill response were not human or technological shortcomings or the best combination of compromises, but an imperfect response when a more perfect one obviously existed, evidenced by public opinion.
Second, and more profoundly, the assertion that the, “OPA improved the nation’s ability . . . by establishing provisions.” This statement asserts that such national ability improving provisions are affective by, “expand[ing] the federal government’s ability.” Can one really say that, “our nation’s ability to prevent and respond to oil spills” shows any signs of improvement? Just as confusing is the assertion that our abilities improved, “by establishing provisions that expand the federal government’s ability to prevent and respond to spills.” I read this as asserting that simply writing “provisions” to expand federal government abilities, increased the nation’s abilities. Remember for a minute that the federal government gets its “money and resources,” its abilities, from the nation. The presumption and blatant statement is that simply shifting money and resources, and by doing so transferring responsibility and authority, from state governments, individuals and companies of individuals to the federal government, improved the nation’s abilities to prevent spills. How is that working out.
Ok, so what does this have to do with the collective diametric ideologues’ agreement to be offended with the President’s response? There are two areas where big government is the appropriate blunt instrument. One is when a hindrance is wanted to deter some behavior, such as controlling immigration or the import of dangerous materials like e coli tainted lettuce from Mexico. The second is when we want something done which has no immediate economic justification but has general populace support, like putting a man on the moon or using the military to spread democracy and free markets.
The progressives believe that the President had everything he needed to save the Gulf region because he had authority and resources to do so, but did nothing. The President could have denied requests for safety waivers, perhaps preventing the spill, and could have commandeered cleanup vessels and started burning off excess oil after the spill, in accordance with the established safety plan. He did none of these things. The conservatives are unhappy because the blunt instruments of hindrance were not waived when the circumstance warranted it. The environmental hindrances to private development have been misapplied to disaster prevention and the Gulf state’s governments are awaiting permits pending environmental review intended to derail said private development. Oil skimming boats sent by other governments are being held pending safety inspections, not inspections to prevent damage or injury to Americans and our property, but to prevent danger to their crews. They are checking to see if they have enough life boats, life jackets, and fire extinguishers to be allowed into our waters. These people came in the boats they work in every day, to waters patrolled by the U.S. Coast Guard, a decidedly safer condition than they left behind, only to be stopped for their own safety.
Simply, progressives consider President Obama a traitor. He must certainly have access to the best liberal intellects and therefore must be able to determine the best solution. They decide the only reason he would not implement such a solution, must be to better himself politically at the expense of the Gulf ecology. This is not just traitorous, but blasphemous to their theology. They see him as having said the right (left) things to get elected but was not a true believer.
Conservatives see a President who surrounds himself with legal experts in legal hindrance, who refuses to talk to the experts in private industry because he does not trust them to be honest with him. Why would a private expert (even one working for BP) not be honest with the President, especially when it is their shinny hinny’s on the line? The conservative believes his reason is based in the theological belief that all oil industry employees are evil, selfish and insincere.
There are only two things in my opinion that President Obama could possibly do to help things in the Gulf. Both are contrary to his theology. Recognizing that they are nonetheless the most feasible compromise, could establish him as a great leader. First, he could suspend the hindrance culture and let the experts do their thing. Second, he could convene a group of BP-competitor experts to determine how to put the proverbial man on the moon. They have self interest motivation and expertise. The worst he could do, and I suspect will do with religious conviction, is to convene a group of Harvard Law professors to decide who’s ass to kick, and threaten criminal prosecution of those responsible. In other words, listen to his cabinet and advisors.
If he continues to float the idea that he might hold people on the lost oil rig criminally responsible post mortem, I predict he will be contemplating what went wrong, post Gulf economy, and ultimately post political defeat.
Check this out.
The company in China that produces many of the parts found in today’s Apple iPod and other electronics felt enough pressure from it’s employees that it needs to start paying a decent salary. Recent events at Foxconn‘s Shenzhen, China plant have forced some changes. A second pay raise has been given to it’s employees after numerous suicides at the plant.
While this raise amounts to a 70% increase in salary for some, I would be interested to find out whether this really amounts to a hill of beans for the average Foxconn employee.
This article on CNet gives more details. And the Voice of America has an interesting write-up as well.
I can’t help but think that the tide may be turning for China being the obvious choice for cheap labor. Actually, I realize that this is a pipe dream, but for the sake of us, I hope that pendulum is swinging back towards the US. I t will be nice to see more items with the “Made in the USA” tag.
I can dream, can’t I?
About the time I graduated from high school, I met a very likable girl. A friend of mine had a crush on her but I did not know her that well. Most everyone liked her. She was interested in others and they appreciated that. She rarely talked about herself, but could find something to say to most anyone. I admired that and believed that she could be a negotiator and bring people together who would not come together on their own. Later, when I was in Blacksburg, my friend still had a crush on her, and I got to see first hand what she was really like. A couple of friends of hers had a relatively small disagreement and she was on both sides. She would not say anything that she thought would be less than positive, nor would she recuse herself. It seemed that she would rather be liked than helpful. She was not able to bring them together, even thought they did not seem that far apart. In the end, neither of her friends had any respect for her and she lost them both. I lost my respect for her as well, because she had no principle of her own, she simply told people they were right because she like being agreeable. Conversation with her was shallow and unfulfilling. Although this was not a deal breaker for my friend, I quickly lost interest. Until recently, I had not given her a second thought. I am surprised that I remember her at all.
Continue reading Position Wanted, Have Nuke, Not Willing to Travel
Hank Suever, Washington Post Staff Writer, commented on the Sarah Palin special on Fox News called Real American Stories. The gist of his comments is, Duh . . . So . . . what’s your point? You can read it for yourself here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/02/AR2010040204207.html
Mr. Stuever is correct in the assertion that this is not news, but he misses the point that much of what is paraded in front of us is not news. Bald children claiming to need S-CHiP expansion to get treatment is news(?) but the revelation that the family could afford health insurance but campaigned for federal aid expansion so they would not have to, is not (?), ad. nauseam on both sides.
But, there is one point of merit, veiled as he points out, that we are told daily that we cannot do inspiring things like help one another. We are told that Massachusetts cannot provide health coverage for all, only the federal government can do that. We are told that Virginia cannot regulate drilling off her shores, only the federal government can do that. We are told that the state of Utah cannot manage her lands, only the federal government can do that. We are told, although subtly, that people cannot do inspiring things, until they go to Washington.
So, he is correct that this is not news to most of us. But, that this particular show got any comment at all, indicates that the author knows that someone was trying to say something, (political perhaps, it is Palin after all?) but the fact that the author lumps it in with all the sunshine being blown at us indicates that the thinly veiled point was lost on him. Or, perhaps not, perhaps he would like to think it will be lost on his readers if he simply wills it.
If you like the new insurance arrangement enacted by our elected officials, then you are happy. If not, then not. But there is one thing that is undeniable, the United States of America is at a cross roads predicted 235 years ago, and which will affect the next 235 years of most of the world.
The Great American Experiment followed the sacrifice of, “lives . . . fortunes . . . and sacred honor” in defense of an idea. The idea that individuals, free from the tyranny of central command and control, protected their individual interests better than any unrelated protector, no matter how kind, caring or otherwise motivated. The Great American Experiment was funded, fought, and died for on the promise that freedom led to higher standards of living for everyone, greater innovation in business, agriculture, and every other aspect of life for everyone it touched, successful and failing alike. The government would be as limited as possible, the people as free as possible. Continue reading Lead us Mr. President, even if you must run to the cliff ahead of us.
so – cial – ism [soh-shuh-liz-uh m] -noun
1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2. procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
There is a socialism rumbling in the media about President Obama. There are those who label him a socialist, and those who find this ridiculous. I will simply point to the facts, all of which you can check for yourself. Consider the following, and make up your own mind. Challenge my observations with your own or admit the facts do not matter.
First, what is a socialist? In laymen’s terms, a socialist finds preferable a system where the community as a whole should control the means of production and distribution of goods and services and the use of property and resources, as opposed to systems where individuals decide such things for their individual situation. A socialist thinks that the entity in control (government) decides best how things should be, and individual decisions waste resources. Continue reading President Obama is not our first socialist President
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Today I spoke with a friend on the phone while I waited to for a little Chinese restaurant to open and I could get lunch to take back to my desk. We talked about the idea of praying for a business miracle. We agreed that such powerful mojo should not be wasted to defy the laws of reason for such an individual serving end with limited mass market appeal. One has to consider unintended consequences and trickle down economics when pondering the effects, post-miracle. Please pray responsibly.
I just got a chill. I felt the collective eye roll as you read that. “Does this guy really think he is capable of ill effect from a poorly considered prayer”? I’m just saying, be careful what you wish for.
Continue reading Please pray responsibly (Be careful what you wish for)
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At breakfast this morning a friend lamented the state of things and how bad it would be before it would get better. I gave my standard, wore out, response that all democracies have dissolved when the populace voted themselves a larger share of the community grain than those left to harvest grain could provide. On the face, this looks like an economic principle and this is where our discussion wandered to. But it really is about individual rights. Specifically, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
When I was in high school, our history teacher, Rick Zeller, stated that the Civil War was a war for state’s rights, not a war for slavery. I remember him fondly. He was wrong, sort of, but right. Back to that in a minute. I have very strong opinions on the act of succession in terms of rights and the constitution, but generally keep them to myself. People cannot, and perhaps should not, separate the Civil War from the slavery debates of the day. This is especially pungent as that is the only succession in our nation’s history. But Chris Mathews equated succession with racism on his show on Tuesday and I could not keep this quiet any longer. If there were a predominantly Black state, and said state succeeded, would it still be racist? Certainly not. Because the right has nothing to do with the motivations. Speak freely without fear of persecution by those who don’t like your agenda. Continue reading We are under no moral obligation to be governed (You’re not the boss of me)
Posted from email list distribution August 2009 – President Obama told friendly pastors today that they are morally obligated as men of faith to let the government provide health care. If his logic is not flawed, then we are morally obligated to provide the best health care possible to all Americans, and all non-Americans. After all, morality does not end at the border. If his logic is not flawed, the generally agreed to moral standard of Man would be that everyone get “free” health care, everyone, not just those in the country of the moral person.
Continue reading If only the hens were less partisan.
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