One of my favorite writers, Dr. Thomas Sowell is coming out with a new book "Black Rednecks and White Liberals: And Other Cultural and Ethnic Issues" as such; he's on C-Span (he rarely is on TV). An expert on economics who studied under Milton Friedman, his books "Race and Culture" and "Inside American Education" introduced a whole different way of thinking compared to what I learned in high school and college.
If there is anything antithetical to the ideals that this country was founded on and to the Constitution itself, it is the way that the income tax is enforced in this country. This week, millions of Americans will send to the federal government their tax returns. These returns contain information that reveal to the government the most intimate details of its citizens. Everything that is put onto these returns can be used against you in the criminal and civil sense. Information gleaned from these tax returns can and have been used to intimidate, blackmail, and ruin people. Demonstrations have shown professional tax preparers given the same conditions in which to prepare a return, can come up with different tax liabilities. The tax system is a mess, and it gets worse.
What has this income tax created? A multimillion dollar industry for tax lawyers, tax accountants, and tax preparation services. A government bureacracy that continues to grow (when government spending grows less than the rate of inflation its considered a good thing). An intrusive, abusive, and out of control Internal Revenue Service that uses as its primary weapon not "due process" or the law, but intimidation, and the ignorance of its citizens to perform its function.
Now, America is a great country, the freedoms that we have in this country are unheard of in some parts of the world. I distinctly remember asking my mother, when I was a child (she lived under a dictatorial regime) "Why couldn't you vote the way you wanted to?" "Soldiers would stand there to ensure you voted properly"!!!??? And she came from a somewhat privileged background. Well, I didn't understand what she meant when I asked her at the time, the subtlety was lost on me. But now, I have a greater appreciation for what my parents went through to get to this country. I also understand that a stand must be taken to keep our country free. (Some would say all hope is gone)
But is this country as great as it once was? No, it is not, the United States at one time was the worlds greatest creditor nation, today it is the world's greatest debtor nation. We function and our economy is considered growing when we consume (which is ridiculous on its face, assets cannot be accumulated when you have liabilities that outpace them). Right now, our government spends money like a once prominent family trying to keep up its "airs". As sure as the sun will rise, there will be a day of reckoning. President Bush sees it and to his credit he has tried to bring the spotlight on it with attempting to reform Social Security and the income tax code. At the same time, the spending that has occurred under is Administration is out of control. Look at Medicare, the Department of Education, any other "social program" you can name.
Whatever reforms that do happen are probably going to do nothing more than kick the can down the road so to speak. It is going to take something major that really hits home for most of our citizens to realize the dire economic straits we are in. It could be that all of these countries that buy US Bonds stop buying them. Or, the government might default on its payment to the national debt. Or, we go into a depression that is even greater than the "Great Depression" or all of the above.
Bob Schultz of We the People scored some points when the 2nd Circuit Appeals court ruled that IRS summonses amount to no more than "requests" for information. Their ruling is here. But wait, look at what the government wants to do. They filed a motion asking the court to amend their ruling. Read that here.
The Court wrote (regarding an IRS issued summons) :
...absent an effort to seek enforcement through a federal court, IRS summonses apply no force to taxpayers, and no consequence whatever can befall a taxpayer who refuses, ignores, or otherwise does not comply with an IRS summons until that summons is backed by a federal court order.The governments position would be comical if the issue at hand weren't so serious. Here's a little gem from the government in their motion to amend:
By creating the false impression that taxpayers are free to simply ignore an IRS summons, the Court's opinion threatens seriously to impede the effective administration and enforcement of the nation's tax laws.It's not a false impression, because the summons cannot be ignored if it's backed by a court order. But the kicker of this whole thing is that the US Attorney stated in a memo to the court that:
as indicated in oral argument, the IRS does not have the power to compel the taxpayer to obey an administrative summons without obtaining an order from the proper district court...the IRS must seek judicial enforcement of the summons by bringing what it refers to as "a summons enforcement action" in district court.Has anyone at the DOJ thought that maybe the threat to the "effective administration and enforcement of the nation's tax laws" isn't what the focus should be on? The Constitution allows for the imposing of taxes but what Schultz and others believe is that whatever federal government does should follow from our "living document" (quoted for sarcasm).
"I'll get a bunch of monkeys, dress them up, and make them reenact the civil war..."
Homer (Simpson) - his idea of what he could do to help people wielding his power as head of the secret Society of Stonecutters
Hey, on ESPN they announced that the NHL is cancelling their season...wait, I really don't care. Really, the NHL had an opportunity to become one of the elite sports leagues in this country, up there with the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball and yes, Nascar(I'm not kidding). Moving franchises from Canada to the United States(Why does Nashville have a franchise?), getting lots of publicity . Looks like the NHL will be going the way of the AVP, MLS, and that golf game that they play with frisbees. Hasta NHL go back to Canada and take Dan Rather with you.
...This show "Medium" on Monday nights is actually pretty good. The fact that Patricia Arquette sometimes delivers her lines in a way that makes Jerry Seinfeld look like Olivier kind of adds to the show. At first I couldn't help laughing whenever she would talk. But her quirkiness is kind of mesmerizing.
...It doesn't matter if I have a universal remote. I still have 7 sitting in a basket sitting on the coffee table. And I use every single one of them.
I was going through my DVD collection and popped in one of my favorite movies of all time "The Sound of Music". Maybe it's because one of my first memories was it always being on television during the holidays. Maybe it's the visuals and the music (jeez that's gay). Could it be because they used Nazis as villains? Nah, I think it's because Liesl is such a hottie plus the whole subtext of a nun leaving the convent to recieve the "business" is something that the academics don't discuss enough.
Oh, and why even bother getting the last 2 Matrix sequels on DVD. If any franchise ever went downhill after such a seminal first edition it would be this one. And no, Rocky doesn't count because Clubber Lang was awesome in Rocky 3. I pity the fool who thinks otherwise.
It would appear that another group out there has won a victory against the IRS. We the People is a group out there that was started by a guy named Bob Shulz who gained a little bit of notoriety a few years back for going on a hunger strike since the government had failed to redress his grievances with regards to the income tax. 9/11 happened and his hearings were cancelled. You can read the complete article here. There is a contingent of people who are questioning the nature of the income tax, is it voluntary? Irwin Schiff has been saying yes for nearly 30 years. Sherry P. Jackson and Joe Bannister are ex-IRS agents who believe that the income tax is being enforced illegally. Websites like "Truth in Taxation" and "PayNoIncometax" exist precisely because the government refuses to answer some very basic questions. Former Senator William Roth (progenitor of the Roth-IRA) wrote a book called "The Power to Destroy" which details horrible accounts of the IRS against it's citizens. Vernice Kuglin was a pilot for Fedex who wrote letters to the IRS to find out what made her liable for the income tax. They never answered her and based on her reading of the law she determined no law made her liable. The IRS charged her with tax evasion and they lost, badly by all accounts. Is there something to the claims that the income tax is voluntary? How come the IRS can't answer simple questions like "What law makes anyone liable for the income tax?" I would say discover what the law says and decide for yourself.
Is there anyone who believes that "Professor" Ward Churchill even deserves half of the press that he's gotten? The First Amendment is supposed to guarantee his right to free speech, but does the taxpayer have to pay his salary? Ann Coulter provides an always amusing analysis here but check out Churchill's commentary at "Socialism and Democracy Online". His observations, (I'll be honest, I lost interest about two-thirds of the way in and didn't finish his piece) are colored by this claim in the second paragraph:
(my point of view is influenced) with the fact that I am myself of Muscogee and Creek descent on my father’s side, Cherokee on my mother’s, and am an enrolled member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians. I’m also married to an Ojibwe woman of the Lynx clan, from the Onegaming Reserve in Northwestern Ontario. The truth is, although I’m best known by my colonial name, Ward Churchill, the name I prefer is Kenis, an Ojibwe name bestowed by my wife’s uncle.Yeah, that's the ticket. Good job Kenis. Of course if you ask any American Indian tribe out there none of them recognize him as belonging to them. Worldnetdaily inquires about Kenis's Native American roots here.
Nearly everyone knows about the Bill of Rights, or maybe a more correct assertion might be: Nearly everyone knows about certain parts of the Bill of Rights.
There is the 2nd Amendment, which enumerates the right of individuals to keep their guns. The 4th Amendment which gives an individual protection from government taking and searching their private property unless there is a good reason (probable cause) and the proper paperwork has been filled out and presented. My personal favorite is the 3rd Amendment, probably because I can't think of one instance where the government has violated it.
The First Amendment is the amendment that gets the most press. Some high school in Texas wants to have a prayer before a graduation ceremony? Some judge in Alabama wants a copy of the 10 Commandments in the courthouse? Sorry, the ACLU might have something to say about that (incorrectly asserting the "separation of church and state" and "establishment of religion" clause in Constitution). Dr. Alan Keyes (yes, the one who got creamed by Obama in their Senate "race") wrote an excellent piece awhile back about it called "On the establishment of religion: What the Constitution really says"
But I digress, here is what the First Amendent says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a
redress of grievances
Check out this news report about some of the interrogation techniques used at Gitmo to "break" the Muslim detainees. "They used sex to break me"
Here's another account from an Englishman who spent 2 years in Guantanomo. "My Hell in Camp X-Ray"
An interesting sidenote is how the writer of the article describes how Mr. al-Harith ended up in Cuba
The website designer, a convert to Islam, had gone to Pakistan in October 2001, a few weeks after September 11, to study Muslim culture.
He accidentally strayed into Afghanistan - believing he was being driven to Turkey - and was arrested as a spy, perhaps because of his British passport. He was held in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and fell into US hands.
Social Security, like abortion, gun control, pornography and the "Blue Thunder" versus "Airwolf" debate has proven to be a polarizing issue. Depending on who you listen to you will get one opinion or another or something in between. The Social Security Network gives us 10 myths about the program and why there is no "crisis" http://www.socsec.org/publications.asp?pubid=507 . Professor Thomas Sowell weighs in as well (in 2 parts) http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20040928.shtml and http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20040929.shtml . The CATO institute also has done ALOT of research on the subject http://www.socialsecurity.org/ .
Speaking of pornography, I had no idea there was so much out there on the internet (Imagine my chagrin when I found out there were gay people in the arts). Here is an editorial written by Caitlin Hall from the University of Arizona. It's an elegant opinion piece on how porn demeans and objectifies women. http://wildcat.arizona.edu/papers/98/83/04_2.html . After reading that, feel free to spank the monkey guilt free.
While I haven't drunk the whole glass of kool aid on our newly re-elected Commander-in-Chief. I have to admit that there are certain things that are commendable in the way he has handled his job the past 4 years.
Yes, I'll concede that a lot of people will say Iraq has been a failure (at least the members of the mainstream media who tell us what to think will say it has been). But the jury is still out on that. The country is on the verge of having elections where we know that Saddam Hussein will not get 99.999% of the vote (which is the margin of victory I believe he had over every single opponent he ever ran against). We won't know for maybe a generation, maybe two if the money spent and blood that has been shed will pay off. I do know that the reports I've read recently regarding terrorists capturing and murdering fellow Iraqis tell me that the "insurgents" are getting desparate.
And for those of you out there that say "What about the WMD's???" Well, it looks like the administration has given up searching for them. To that I say "Better safe than sorry" Look at the options that were available to the president at the time :
A. Leave Saddam Hussein "contained". He threw the UN weapons inspectors out and wouldn't let them back in. He gave sanctuary to terrorists like Abu Nidal AND there are proven connections with Al Qaeda. The inability of the weapons inspectors to do their jobs and confirm that Saddam was not making nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons means having him in power becomes a liability for us infidels. And the only proof that we might have that he had developed WMD would be a mushroom cloud over a major metropolitan area near you.
B. Go into Iraq and look for yourself. In the process, get rid of a dictator and maybe send a message to other terrorists "Don't fuck with us" (see Khadafi).
I would've chosen option B.
Finally, for the people out there who think we are less safe from terrorists now than prior to the president taking office I call "scoreboard". We haven't had a major terrorist attack on our soil since 9/11.
Are you an information and news junkie? Is the Drudgereport http://drudgereport.com usually the first stop when you get online? Do you usually read your entire newspaper, front to back? What about the back of cereal boxes? Are you a pop culture literati? My answers to those questions are: Yes, yes, yes,twice on Sundays, and yes, I am. This blog is my attempt to put into words what I see every day (or when I get around to it).
A little bit about me, I'm a Gen X'er. I actually did get a college degree; and I decided today that I would share my worldly views as a thirty-something, white-collar job holding, son of immigrants (legal). I'm not presumptous enough to think about how other people would describe me but the thing about our country is I don't have to care.
My "Jerry Maguire" epiphany came to me this weekend when my 67 year old father underwent heart bypass surgery. Initially, it was supposed to be "just" a triple bypass. While they were in there, they doubled that number (I don't even know what the medical term for it would be).
What amazed me was how routine the process was. My family and I met the surgeon and head nurse at 5:30 am this past Friday so they could answer any questions. They cracked his chest open at 9 am and 4 hours later the surgeon came out and explained what he did. The hospital is looking to discharge him this Tuesday. On top of that, his procedure was one of 3 scheduled that day. Now, that type of medicine is being done in an area of California which wouldn't exactly be considered urban. Semi-rural would be a more apt description. What a country! My gratitude to Dr. Mayer and the staff at Kaweah Delta Hospital in Visalia California. http://kaweahdelta.org
The hospital experience reminded me of a column written by Dr. Thomas Sowell regarding the benefits of living in a wealthy country. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20031230.shtml
