Entries Tagged 'United States' ↓

Soon to be President Barack Obama has a plan that involves how much of your money the government will take away, by force if necessary. Some people won’t pay anything. Some people will pay a lot. The plan, like those that have come before it - the only constant being that tax rates have grown vastly since World War I - is based not on common sense or fairness, but on economic voodoo.

Senator Barack Obama declared recently that he wants to “reform our tax code so that it rewards work and not just wealth.” We think that is a great goal if it means a simple tax system with low marginal tax rates. Unfortunately, a close inspection of Obama’s proposals reveals something disquieting: he would raise marginal tax rates for many middle-income taxpayers, a bad move for anyone seeking to promote economic growth.

Although Obama is offering a new series of tax breaks, they undermine rather than improve economic incentives. First, whether or not you get those breaks will depend on your income. In Washington, taking away tax breaks as families work harder to make more money is called a “phase-out.” Economists have a different name for it—we call it a tax. Reducing a person’s tax credit as his income goes up also reduces his incentive to earn more income.

The keys to our current tax system are manifold. Although touted as voluntary, our tax system is based on force. If you don’t pay whatever the government determines you should pay then force comes into play. First you are threatened. Then your wages are garnished. If you continue to try and avoid paying whatever “fair share” the bureaucrats say you owe the rest of the country, you’ll end up in jail, with all your real property forfeit to the Fed. If you ask questions about the laws that entitle the government to seize however much of your money it wants, you’ll soon find yourself surrounded by armed goons.

Just ask Edward and Elaine Brown of New Hampshire. You’ll have to visit them in jail to do so. The couple is currently sentenced to 63 months in federal pound me in the ass prison for refusing to participate in the “voluntary” tax system because the government wouldn’t answer their tax questions honestly.

The law they were accused of violating was the personal income tax law and the Browns asked to see the law before they handed over any more money. Their quest for proof of the existence of such a law began over 10 years ago when they first found out the income tax was being misapplied to include taxing all Americans labor. Once the browns realized they, along with the rest of us, were being defrauded of our hard worked labor by the irs they decided to make a stand and challenge the government, not only for themselves, but for the rest of the people in this country, so that they also will be made aware of the terrible injustice being carried out on each of us every day.

You may agree or disagree with the Browns methodology. That’s your right. However, I would strongly encourage you to take a few moments to understand how the upcoming Obama presidency is likely to affect your pocketbook.

While Obama has publicly embraced a tax rate of 40 percent for couples earning over $350,000, his tax policies would result in a staggering 45 percent effective marginal rate in the $110,000 to $120,000 income range for this family. That is 11 percentage points higher than under current law.

Here’s a graph:

Bear in mind that if you ask to see the current tax law, no one will be able to show you anything that a) is Constitutional or b) vaguely resembles a coherent, interpretable English document. The current federal tax code is purposely obtuse and also completely against the highest law of the land, the United States Constitution. At least, that is my opinion.

One question I’ve always asked those who feel it is OK for the federal government to skim money off of every paycheck I’ve ever earned is: if God himself only requires 10% why is it OK for people I’ve never met to take more than that? No one has ever given me an answer that made any sense.

Fighting the tax man may be difficult and dangerous, but it is also a moral imperative. I have the audacity of hope on my side.

Scientists sometimes introduce a predator into an ecosystem in order to take care of a pest that is threatening say, the potato crop. These experiments often go wrong - the predator turns out to be more dangerous than the pest. Social engineers do the same thing as scientists, except with human beings. One example is China’s one child policy to control overpopulation. The jury is still out on whether or not that policy will benefit the world or China in the long term. It certainly doesn’t benefit human freedom.

In the United States, our greatest social engineering experiment is something most people called The War on Drugs. The War on Drugs is actually a war on freedom, when thought about literally. It is also an experiment in introducing a predator to take care of a pest. What do you do when the predator you introduced to take care of the pest turns out to be much worse than the pest?

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The violent assault on Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo’s home late last month was certainly not the first bungled raid by a government SWAT team, but the bad publicity it generated should make it the last time these trigger-happy squads target innocent civilians. Tracking a 32-pound package of marijuana that had been addressed to Calvo’s wife, Trinity Tomsic, Prince George’s sheriff’s deputies forcibly entered the mayor’s home on July 29 and killed his two dogs before handcuffing him and his mother-in-law.

But like so many other SWAT team raids across the country, this one turned out to be a big mistake. After reviewing the case, State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey acknowledged that the Calvos were victims of a multistate drug ring that used innocent people’s names and addresses to hide shipments of contraband drugs. But the mayor and his family were also victims of a home invasion by the SWAT team, based entirely on what turned out to be a false premise.

Some of you who read these words may want to argue with me. The police are here to help us you’ll say. Yes, some of them help some people some of the time. Unfortunately the helping is on the decline and the abuse is on the uptick. Survey 100,000 random citizens of the United States before the so called drug war began on their level of trust in the police. That would probably be a pretty high number. Survey 100,000 random citizens now. Most likely the numbers will be pretty low. Chances are that a lot of these people know someone who has been locked up for a consensual non-violent crime. You only have to be beaten up once by uniformed authorities to develop a lifelong distrust of all authorities. You only have to be locked up for a few months to learn to lie to the cops when they come around. After all, they are not your friends. They protect and serve only themselves. That is the lesson many have learned.

Public servants do not shoot family dogs. Peace officers do not initiate violence, they are supposed to prevent it. SWAT teams should be used so sparingly that when they are used, people are amazed. Instead, they are used so frequently it is almost like a car alarm going off - no one pays any attention. We’ve learned to ignore the sights and sounds of our freedom going away.

When the men in masks come to your neighborhood with concrete barriers and rolls of concertina wire just remember that they are there to protect you from yourself. If your family dog gets shot or you get beaten while trying to stop them from raping your daughter or your wife it is your own fault for questioning the authorities. They are just here to deal with pesky drug addicts and you got in the way.

Hmm. Maybe you shouldn’t have been so willing to give away the Constitutional rights of others. Maybe it is time to stand up and let your government know that you aren’t going to tolerate this sort of behavior.

The U.S. has courted the country of Georgia for some years now. But why? It’s a tiny nation of only five million. One part of the complex answer is simple - oil.

Georgia sits in a tough neighborhood, shoulder to shoulder with huge Russia, not far from Iran, and astride one of the most important crossroads for the emerging wealth of the rich Caspian Sea region. A U.S.-backed oil pipeline runs through Georgia, allowing the West to reduce its reliance on Middle Eastern oil while bypassing Russia and Iran.

The dispute makes the Bush administration the middleman between a promising ally it wants to help and the powerful former adversary next door whose help it needs.

Washington praises democratic development in Georgia, delights in its contribution of combat troops for Iraq and acknowledges valuable intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation.

As usual in this region of the world, when conflict erupts, there are deep seated reasons on many fronts.

The conflict is so one-sided that Georgia has already submitted a request to have at least some of its 2,000 Iraq based troops flown back to their home by the U.S. to help fight in the conflict.

The ball was lobbed into Russia’s court by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Where that ball will be played is now anyone’s guess, but the potential for a regional conflagration is high. The United States could become involved at any moment if the diplomats don’t do their jobs.

If hundreds of banks are going to fail, we need to be asking why. Who is responsible?

NEW YORK, Aug 3 (Reuters) - The United States is in the second inning of a recession that will last for at least 18 months and help kill off hundreds of banks, influential economist and New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini told Barron’s in Sunday’s edition.

Taxpayers will pay a big price for helping bail out the rest of the financial services industry as well, Roubini said — at least $1 trillion and more likely $2 trillion.

The banks will become insolvent because of mounting losses as a result of the housing bust and because they have only written down their subprime loans so far, he said. Still in front of them are their consumer-credit losses, for which they lack the reserves, Barron’s reported.

The entity responsible for oversight of banks (a self-appointed entity) is the federal government.

U.S. consumers, meanwhile, are “shopped out” and saving less, while the Federal Reserve’s performance in handling the crisis has been poor, Roubini said, because it failed to see that the problem extended beyond subprime mortgage debt.

Now, Roubini told Barron’s, the government is overregulating, bailing out troubled participants and intervening in every market.

“The regulators should investigate themselves for bailing out Fannie Mae (FNM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Freddie Mac (FRE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the creditors of Bear Stearns and the financial system with new lending facilities. They have swapped U.S. Treasury bonds for toxic securities,” he told Barron’s. “It is privatizing the gains and profits, and socializing the losses as usual. This is socialism for Wall Street and the rich.”

We should be demanding that a bailout be off the table as an option. We should be demanding jail sentences for those officials responsible for this fiasco. A bailout will mean that the half trillion dollars in new debt the government is currently projecting will grow to an even larger number. It boggles the mind. Do we really want to saddle future generations with this sort of a ball and chain around their economic ankles?

The age of easy credit may be drawing to a close. The age of bailouts needs to die with it.

Michelle Obama doesn’t strike me as a person I would get along with. She’s got the air of someone with a huge chip on her shoulder. To be fair, some people might say the same thing about me.

Interviewed by Ebony magazine, Michelle Obama was in no doubt about life after the November election when voters will decide between her husband and Republican John McCain.

“My first job in all honesty is going to continue to be mom-in-chief,” she said, “making sure that in this transition, which will be even more of a transition for the girls… that they are settled and that they know they will continue to be the center of our universe.”

Malia Obama, 10, and her sister Sasha, seven, are being brought up with the help of Michelle’s mother as their parents campaign. They would be the youngest residents of the White House since president Jimmy Carter’s daughter Amy.

Michelle Obama’s certainty of tone could rile some on the right and foster charges by the Republican Party — which has set up a website called “Audacity Watch” — that her husband is arrogantly assuming the election is won already.

Obama, who is a style icon for her admirers and a lightning rod for conservative critics who question her patriotism, said she embraced the challenge of answering any concerns felt by voters.

I’m in agreement that this election is already as good as won for Barack Obama. I also think Barack Obama is highly likable. That’s why he’s going to win. Michelle Obama is not likable. She seems mean and grumpy. I am not looking forward to being exposed to her opinions for the next four years.

Seven more City of Philadelphia employees suspended in neglect case that ended in death of teen with cerebral palsy.

In announcing the discipline at a news conference Monday, Mayor Michael Nutter choked up while noting his own daughter is just a year younger than Danieal was when she died.

“I am fully, thoroughly and completely pissed off,” the normally reserved Nutter said angrily. If any city employee neglected his child the way Danieal was, he added, “I would kick their ass myself.”

An ass kicking seems kind of after the fact. The kid is already dead and buried.

“The fact that so many workers failed Danieal, however, speaks to a larger problem than some profoundly negligent DHS employees: it reveals an agency that is broken,” the report said.

One of the now-suspended employees was even promoted to head the agency committee that reviews child fatalities.

“We’re establishing a new culture of accountability,” said Nutter, who was out of the state when the 258-page grand jury report was released last week. “There’s not a shadow of doubt in my mind that this department will turn around.”

A culture of accountability huh? Let’s see where that promise goes. More dead welfare cases is my guess. Government can’t solve apathy because government creates apathy.

Nine people have been charged in Danieal’s death, including her parents, three family friends, two private employees and two city social workers. The city employees, who face charges of child endangerment, were suspended last week and face disciplinary hearings this week that may result in their dismissals.

Culture is the problem. That’s for sure. But the culture is a culture of big government. It’s a culture where personal responsibility is not taught and we’re not willing to talk about that fact.

What lesson are we supposed to learn from the story of a Thai teenager who robbed and murdered a taxi driver while trying to live out the fantasy world of Grand Theft Auto IV?

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A Thai video game distributor halted sales of “Grand Theft Auto” on Monday after a teenager confessed to robbing and murdering a taxi driver while trying to recreate a scene from the controversial game.

“We are sending out requests today to outlets and shops to pull the games off their shelves and we will replace them with other games,” Sakchai Chotikachinda, sales and marketing director of New Era Interactive Media, told Reuters.

“We are also urging video game arcades to pull the games from service,” Sakchai said. An 18-year-old high school student, now in custody pending further investigations and a trial, faces death by lethal injection if found guilty of robbing and killing a 54-year-old taxi driver with a knife at the weekend.

There are several lessons to be learned.

1. Governments are reactionary - when something bad happens, government’s solution is generally to limit individual choices, which is not a solution to the problem.
2. Individuals make choices, video games do not. Video games will get blamed anyway.
3. Parents have no responsibility for their children. They are not even mentioned in the article. It is the state’s job to raise the young, discipline them and inculcate moral values into their young impressionable minds.

Grand Theft Auto is a morally bankrupt game. That much is true. But the inability to distinguish between a software product developed to entertain adults and reality has little to do with Grand Theft Auto. People play Grand Theft Auto precisely because they can do things in the game without the same consequences that take place in real life. Pulling the game from store shelves will only create more buzz and a black market for the game. No product in the history of humanity has ever been successfully banned by authorities. Grand Theft Auto isn’t going to be any different. Teens who want to play the game will still find a way.

One thing is certain - more teens are going to want to play Grand Theft Auto IV now that the game has been banned in Thailand. If you’re a parent, take the time to pay attention to what your kid is using as a moral compass. If you aren’t giving him or her a complete education, chances are good that he or she is lost and wandering, and absorbing values you might not think are healthy.

If border agents decide to seize my personal laptop, they better be willing to throw a whole lot of resources at the thing. I’ve encrypted the entire hard drive. Hopefully it will make them suspicious - I’d welcome an opportunity to sue the feds over this policy.

As part of border search policy, government agents are now authorized to seize electronic devices and inspect documents in them, the document states. The electronic devices might include laptops, cell phones, portable music players or storage devices such as portable hard drives.

Agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection will also be allowed to translate and share documents with other government agencies.

The DHS document, issued July 16, appears to state publicly a policy that has already existed. Laptops and electronic devices have been subject to search in the past, and travelers have reported not getting their devices back. The policy has drawn strong criticism from lawmakers and nonprofit groups, who charged that the searches were invasive and a violation of an individual’s privacy rights. Computers contain a vast amount of private information about family, finances and health, which could be easily copied and stored in government databases, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has complained.

The new policy is not only directly in violation of the United States Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, it is anti-common sense. In the long term, the jack-booted agents of the borders of “the land of the free and the home of the brave” will do little to nothing to make Americans more secure.

What will border agents accomplish by seizing people’s private computers as they attempt to travel into or out of the United States?

• Train citizens that private property doesn’t actually exist in the U.S.
• Give people reasons to avoid traveling to the United States
• Waste time and money
• Speed up the decline of the economy
• Encourage civil disobedience

Americans just 30 years ago would never have tolerated this sort of behavior. Of course, the government has an excuse. It is “protecting us” from evildoers. Yeah right.

The policy document states that being able to examine documents and electronic devices is crucial for “detecting information concerning terrorism, narcotics smuggling… contraband including child pornography, and… other import or export control laws.”

Osama bin Laden has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. By attacking the twin towers, bin Laden created a virtual police state in less than a decade. Where is the outrage? Americans should carry old laptops with encrypted hard drives full of useless junk repeatedly when they travel internationally. They should act suspicious and tie up the resources of the idiotic bureaucrats who are disrespecting us all with their new policy that spits on the Constitution.

If you think I’m just being alarmist or whiny, please read this person’s story of what I have to assume is a typical experience with crossing the border of the United States in 2008.

Anybody want to take bets on how long it will be before people are calling for a ban on camouflage? No one will, of course. People will blame the rifle for this tragedy, not the pissed off mentally ill guy with the rifle.

NIAGARA, Wisconsin (AP) — A man wearing camouflage clothing and carrying an assault rifle walked out of the woods and shot four young people who had gathered at a river to go swimming, killing three of them and wounding one.

More than 100 law enforcement officers from at least 10 agencies searched Friday for the gunman, a middle-age man who was last seen near the town of Niagara, across the state line from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Officers set up roadblocks and evacuated an unknown number of homes.

Nine young adults had gathered near a railroad bridge on the Menominee River when the gunman came out of the woods and opened fire about 5:30 p.m. Thursday, according to Sheriff Jim Kanikula.

Authorities have not determined a motive. The sheriff said there was no communication between the gunman and his victims.

What is clear in this story - we have a mentally ill individual with hostile intent who has an efficient killing tool. His victims are not similarly armed and are in a non-defensible position when attacked. Without more details, I can only guess that the attacker will a) have a history of violence and b) not be a concealed carry permit holder and c) would have used some other tool to carry out his attack had a rifle not been available.

We’ll see as this story develops.

Georgia resident Andisheh Nouraee writes about what it is like to exercise his freedom to carry a weapon for self-defense in the great metropolitan melting pot of the South - Atlanta. The article is worth reading and the pictures are inspiring - in particular because Nouraee is of Middle Eastern extraction.

If you intend to rob me, stab me or punch me in the neck because you think I looked at you funny, I recommend you glance at my waist before lifting the pull tab on that can of whoop-ass.

I may be carrying a handgun.

Nearly everyone in our state can legally keep guns in their home. I am one of the few, the proud, the Georgia Firearms Licensed – one of a reported 300,000 Georgians permitted to carry a gun in public.

I am also one of Georgia’s 300,000 gun carry license holders. I don’t really worry too much when I don’t have my gun with me (which is rare). I do find it extremely useful when I bike, run or travel by automobile. It’s reassuring to be packing heat when I’m practicing for a triathlon on the rural roads around where I live and a pack of wild dogs decides they need to chase me and nip at my heels - I haven’t yet had to fire a shot but it certainly reassures me to know that if I feel teeth sinking into my calf I don’t have to try and hop off and beat the mutt into submission while his pack mates chomp down on other extremities or worse yet, my throat. If you’ve never experienced the pack mentality, I suggest you watch some video of a pack of dogs attacking a human being. Not pretty.

Humans in packs are even worse than dogs. Enough said about that.

People have many reasons for self-defensive weapons carry. Most people only need to be mugged once to realize that police provide an illusion of safety but not much else - they generally won’t be there to stop whatever bad thing happens to you while it’s happening.

I got my gun license a year and a half ago after I was relieved of my wallet at gunpoint at my front door by a man who threatened to come back for me if I cancelled my ATM and credit cards.

Since he was clearly comfortable dropping by the house unannounced, police told me to take the threat seriously by carrying a gun myself.

I’ve had handguns for target shooting since I was a kid, but never carried one for self-defense. After the robbery, I applied for a permit so I could carry a gun without breaking the law. And even before the license arrived, I started to carry my gun from my driveway to my front door, which is legal; I was scared the guy would keep his promise and come back for me.

Amazing! Police told Mr. Nouraee to get a gun! That’s wonderful. Let’s move on to the meat of the story.

Nearly everyone I spend time with regularly has a visceral and fearful reaction to guns. Having so many gun-dreading friends and acquaintances has taught me to keep guns where no one will ever see them. Carrying a gun in public seemed like peeing in the sink of a public restroom. Not illegal, but definitely a first-degree jerk move.

I was also afraid of the reaction of strangers. I would hate to be the subject of this 911 call: “Hello, police, I’m at the Publix on North Decatur Road and there’s a swarthy bald man here with a gun. He’s headed for the Lean Cuisine.”

So, although I had a permit, I was less than thrilled that the General Assembly passed H.B. 89 in April. The new law would give licensed firearms permit holders the right to legally carry guns into places that used to be off-limits: city and state parks, public transportation, and restaurants that serve alcohol.

We Americans are allowing ourselves to be conditioned to just this mindset. Guns are bad, MMMKAY? If a dude has a gun and he isn’t in uniform he must be planning something nefarious, MMMKAY?

The truth about guns is that they are merely an extension of the mindset of the person who has control of the trigger. I have never understood why we cannot focus on changing the mindset and instead insist that the gun itself is the problem. But our bureaucrat class feels threatened anytime control is taken away from their clerks and myrmidons. Which is how we arrive at these sort of stupid press conferences.

Mayor Shirley Franklin and airport General Manager Ben DeCosta held a press conference at Hartsfield-Jackson to publicize their intention to keep the airport a gun-free zone. They were joined by the media and a half-dozen members of the gun rights group GeorgiaCarry.org, there to protest the city’s position.

Bearden and his gun never showed up at the airport, though. But later that day, he did file a lawsuit against the city for banning guns from the airport. A hearing is scheduled next month.

The city argues the airport and its parking lots are municipal buildings, and therefore not subject to the law’s public transit provision. In their speeches, both Franklin and DeCosta emphasized the 9/11 attacks as reason to keep guns out of the airport. The city’s found a powerful ally in U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who’s demanding that the Transportation Security Administration ban guns from all parts of major airports.

“I keep hearing the phrase ‘in this post-9/11 society’ and I’m so sick of that,” said Mark McCullough, a GeorgiaCarry.org member who was at the press conference. “What 9/11 showed me was that the government has no ability to protect me. I don’t want to be walking around the parking lot here with [my cell phone] being the only device protecting me.”

While I was at the airport, GeorgiaCarry.org treasurer Michael Menkus invited me to a party. To celebrate their newly granted right to carry guns in restaurants that serve alcohol, members of the group planned to meet at Christos, a Greek-style pizzeria in Marietta, to eat dinner with handguns strapped to their waists.

I hope you’ll take the few minutes out of your life to read the rest of the story. I hope this because I hope to one day live in a place where guns are not the problem. I hope to live in a society that values rational discussion enough to realize that it is what lives in your mind that is important. A society that values individualism and self-determination will inevitably also value the life of the individual and allow individuals to defend themselves from aggressors. Societies that ban guns just end up with lots of stabbings. They also tend to end up with lots of people who cannot think for themselves in life threatening situations.