23 Thursday May 2013
Tell me one of these politicians up here who doesn’t minimize their taxes. Tell me a chief financial officer you would hire if he didn’t try to minimize your taxes legally. Tell me what Apple’s done that’s illegal.
Answer: nothing.
23 Thursday May 2013
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After Maryland, long a land of restrictive laws, passed SB281 restricting firearms magazines to 10 rounds for all MAryland residents, including FFL holders. That means Beretta cannot import or store magazines for most of the firearms lines — from the venerable M9 (92SF 9mm and 96 .40 for civilians), to their Storm line, to the new ARX rifles that are to be released this year. “Assault weapon” restrictions mean their newest product, the ARX-160 5.56mm and ARX-100 .22LR carbine will be illegal to own in the state…and this includes FFL holders. They won’t even be able to service the products that American residents have because they will not be able to return existing weapons to their factories in Maryland.
Now Beretta is looking to decamp at least a portion of their production from Maryland to a state that recognizes your civil rights (I guessing it will be Virginia, but they’d be better off in Texas.) I’m sure all those Maryland residents about to lose their jobs thank their elected officials.
17 Friday May 2013
Whence does [the State] draw those resources that it is urged to dispense by way of benefits to individuals? Is it not from the individuals themselves? How, then, can these resources be increased by passing through the hands of a parasitic and voracious intermediary?
Frédéric Bastiat
09 Thursday May 2013
Posted in Economics, Technology, Science
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All of the structures that we use to run the world today— our civics, our politics, our legal systems, healthcare, education— are all structured for a world 100 or 200 years ago, not for the world of today.
07 Tuesday May 2013
As the state grows, one’s sense of self-ownership is destroyed, liberty is traded for ‘security,’ the human spirit diminishes, and the citizenry increasingly thinks and behaves like dependent children.
Eric Englund
06 Monday May 2013
President Obama gave a commencement speech to students of Ohio State University, yesterday. The students were not allowed to bring liquids into the stadium (Dehydration be damned!), umbrellas, or anything that might remotely be considered a weapon. Because the president’s safety is paramount, after all — it’s not like we would have someone to replace him, or could elect another man in his place.
During his speech, Obama proved the size of the chasm of perception between the political class and the average America:
Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices…
How could tyranny be lurking around the corner, just because the only area with economic growth is the Washington area, or that we’re killing Americans without due process or a trial using drones, or passed a law that made Congress exempt from the same trading laws as businessmen (and were working on exempting themselves from the Affordable Care Act before they got caught), or can deem people terrorists through the NDAA of 2012 and hold them without due process or charge indefinitely, or there is an active push to disarm the American people?
Why would people think the government might be worrying against your interests with asset forfeiture laws being applied to travelers, their money effectively stolen as a road tax by police? Or that police are being armed with military weaponry, armored personnel carriers and MRAPs, and are applying as fast as they can for DHS grants to get drones?
Why might people worry about tyranny?
Because what they suggest is that our brave, and creative, and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.
Actually, the brave, creative, and unique experiment in self rule, is not an element of the federal government. It was create to protect that self-rule, by keeping the central government from growing too large and powerful. Hence the “negative rights” the Constitution gives the government.
We have never been a people who place all our faith in government to solve our problems. We shouldn’t want to. But we don’t think the government is the source of all our problems, either.
We may not have been a people that place our faith in government to solve our problems, but that’s what’s being sold to us with the push to get more and more folks on food stamps and welfare programs. Isn’t that what the Affordable Care Act is all about? And you are absolutely right, Mr. Obama…we should not want to, but if we did that, you and the rest of the bought-and-paid-for in Washington wouldn’t have as much access to our money, and as much power over us as your have now.
Because we understand that this democracy is ours.
Is it? Or is it the property of the bankers you bailed out for failing to do their jobs diligently and well? Or the foreign interests that keep our gas and oil industries hamstrung, and federal grant money — our money — from going to Chinese solar companies? does it belong to the big box stores that are pushing the internet sales tax? Or the international aristocrats that want Americans disarmed?
So don’t look behind the curtain, graduates of 2013, half of whom are staring down the barrel of un- or underemployment, heavy student loan debt, and a restricted chance of success — because it’s not about what America can do for you, it’s about how much you can make for the political class and their monied friends. Vote Democrat!
30 Tuesday Apr 2013
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We have rights, as individuals, to give as much of our own money as we please to charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of public money.
Davy Crockett, former congressman and king of the wild frontier.
30 Tuesday Apr 2013
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501 (c)(6), corporate welfare, cronyism, government corruption, national football lague, professional sports leagues
Do you really think this massive money engine would sputter if it weren’t tax exempt..? Nah, me neither.
The National Football League alone avoids $91 million by being classified a 501 (c)(6) “charitable” organization. The idea that the NFL (or any other sports league) are in it for the love of the sport, and not the profit of merchandising, advertising revenue, and branding is laughable. Senator Tom Coburn recently pushed to revoke their tax status. What do you think the chances of that are..?
29 Monday Apr 2013
If you surround property with state restrictions, interfere with free trade and any part of the open market, interfere with free contract, make compulsory arrangements for tenant and landowner, allow the present burdens of rate and tax to discourage ownership and penalize improvements, you will weaken the motives for acquiring property, and blunt the edge of the most powerful material instrument that exists for your own advancement.
Auberon Herbert
But it does make for good slaves…
25 Thursday Apr 2013
Posted in Economics, Health Care, Politics
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Politico is reporting that Congress is working on trying to exempt themselves from the Affordable Care Act. It’s not uncommon for our would-be aristocrats to exempt themselves from the laws the rest of us have to live by, and it was one of the reasons for the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress. Of course, nothing happened to hold these worms to the same standards as the rest of the nation. It became so egregious that after the collapse of the economy and the revelations that our elected officials were cleaning up on our pain, Congress had to play CYA and pass the STOCK Act (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge)…which they surreptitiously repealed two weekends ago.
There are two major issues with the underhanded move to cut themselves a deal on the law: 1) If Obamacare is so bloody wonderful, why aren’t they rushing to sign up? Oh, that’s right, this is insurance for the proles. 2) Should you elected officials and their staffs be able to slip outside the same law you have to live under? Is this not a violation of the equal protections clause? Is this not simply a bunch of eminently-replaceable people pretending they are a superior class of citizen?
How much longer before you stop putting these people back in office?
Here’s a small piece on exactly how Medicare and Obamacare stand to harm the poor.
