Common sense for free people
Damn you, legislators. Damn you, government executives. Damn you, judges and lawyers of America. Damn you and your lobbyist and bureaucratic masters who concocted this evil system of redistributive taxation we have. I resent being controlled in this way. You perverse, conceited ignoramuses. And damn you ignorant voters who keep voting these thugs into power.
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Who loves his neighbor?
“I do!” replies the public educator, “I have spent my life teaching the child of my neighbor the wisdom of the ages!”
I would ask the educator: did you also love the man who never had children, from whom your wages were forcefully taken in the form of a tax on his personal life, liberty, and property?
“But, it was a noble cause, to teach the children! I was merely providing for the general welfare of the child!”
Heritage.org recently posted about a new nuclear reactor that is set to come online in 2013. About the size of a hot tub, it can power around 20,000 homes with an output of 25MW. Compare this to the recently opened solar array in Spain that powers the same amount of homes, yet requires 100 hectares (247 acres) of sunny land to spread it’s sails. Also compare this to the windmills Mr. Pickens is proposing. According to Wikipedia, the largest windmills produce about 6MW of power, but are massive (650 feet tall). It would take four of these huge machines to match the output of a single nuclear “hot tub”.
Wind doesn’t always blow, and the sun doesn’t always shine, but nuclear power runs 24/7. These units could be installed in almost any location thereby reducing the need for additional expensive and property-invasive transmission lines.
There are many talking heads that are trying to figure out the exact cause of the current economic woes we all face. They all have highly complicated explanations, quite beyond the understanding of mere mortals. In a recent discussion with my brother, I laid out a very simple explanation for the causes of our economic woes. If you don’t agree with my assessment, please feel free to comment as to why.
The reason for our current economic woes is simple. Too much government. As simple as that. Too many people look to government for their support. If people knew they had no government subsidies waiting to bail them out of their stupid consumption habits, consumption would never have gotten out of control. And if people were educated on financial matters, instead of social studies, they would know how to avoid stupid consumer debt traps. Simple. Get the government out of the markets, really. Let people freely interact. The government’s only legitimate role should be to prevent criminals from stealing my life, liberty, and property so that I can continue to freely interact. Unfortunately it is the government now which is stealing the American dream of life, liberty, and property; an out-of-control beast that is devouring our liberties at an unprecedented rate.
Over the past several months I’ve been looking at the proposed “Fair Tax” that’s being promoted around the country. It has some intriguing aspects, and I was immediately interested in how it could better serve individual Americans. In a recent chat conversation I had with my brother, I explained to him what it is. A transcript of our chat is as follows:
Free Troll: Did I tell you about http://www.fairtax.org?
Troll’s Brother: I think you did.
Free Troll: I think it’s gaining steam, slowly.
Troll’s Brother: so what is it in thirty seconds?
Free Troll: A national sales tax at 23%, repeal of the 16th amendment so Congress couldn’t pull a fast one and impose the national sales tax PLUS retain income taxes, elimination of the IRS and tax filing, and it takes care of the poor by effectively exempting them from taxes up to the poverty level.
So, if you don’t want to pay taxes, just don’t but new stuff. Tax only would apply to services and new product purchases.
Can you imagine how much wealth could be built if you didn’t have payroll taxes and April 15th?
Troll’s Brother: What would all the cpa’s do?
Free Troll: Do what CPAs are supposed to. Help companies manage money, not pay taxes.
Troll’s Brother: ahh. Do you ever have the opinion that things have to get bad before they can get better?
Free Troll: That’s because people generally are so caught up in trying to do things for themselves in the moment, they don’t have time to spend thinking about who is trying to take their freedom away.
So, why do I support the Fair Tax? Simply because it is so simple, it brings sanity and equity back to American taxation, and because the current tax system is one of ridiculous complexity and corruption. According to the Tax Foundation, Americans are estimated to have spent $265 billion in 2005 just to comply with paying their taxes. Imagine what Americans could do if that money were spent on productive activities.
This is just a very brief overview of the Fair Tax. For more information see their website at www.freetax.org. And thank you to my brother for his permission to publish our little chat. You can read his blog at www.minorsoft.com.
232 years ago a simple pamphlet was published in the fledgling United States. It’s title, Common Sense. It’s author, Anonymous. As I write almost two and a half centuries later, I feel it my turn to put pen to paper, as it were, and share a few of my feelings concerning “common sense” in America. Within these pages I hope to identify Common Sense, where it has gone, and what we can do to get it back.
What is the one thing that most Americans concern themselves with at this point in our history, above all others? Is it global warming? The war in Iraq and Afghanistan? The high price of gasoline? The natural disasters in Asia, the fires raging in California, the storms and tornadoes of the Midwest, or hurricanes of the Gulf Coast that tug at our tender mercies with images of dying and the dead? Or perhaps it is something quite simple, yet very, very close to home. (more…)
Once upon a time there lived a troll by the name of Standforth. This Standforth was one who had been much maligned in the press, the reasons for which I will lay out at a point a little farther on in my tale. He was quiet and reserved, and lived with his little troll wife in a small earthen cottage the pair had built into the bank of a lazy flowing river. His wife was known by the name of Sallyforth, and she was as lovely a troll wife as ever a troll could hope to be wed to.
He was the proprietor of a generous yet modest parcel of land which spanned the river, over which he had constructed an elegant stone bridge, of the type one might see in a story of lands far away, with knights on white horses tramping across to save their maiden fair.
His purpose in constructing the bridge was that he might carry wheat he grew more easily from his western parcel eastward over the stream and into a small barn which he had also built himself. He then would sell the wheat to a local miller, thus creating for himself a life of simple abundance and modest comforts. (more…)
