NoSSN NewsLetter issue 8.02
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Disclaimer: Nothing in this Newsletter is to be taken as legal or tax advice. For that, you need a lawyer or CPA. This newsletter is for informational purposes only. What you do with this information, is your responsibility.
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In this Issue:
Massachusetts, the Moron State
Downsizer Dispatch - Regulating your Gas Stove
A Democracy is Temporary
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I was actually planning on writing something like this but Larken Rose said it better than I could have. Suffice it to say, it never fails to amaze amaze me how stupid most of the people of Massachusetts are.
Massachusetts, the Moron State
Well, an important question is about to appear as a ballot
initiative in the state of Massachusetts. The question to be on the
ballot is this: "Are the people of Massachusetts the biggest morons
on the planet?"
Okay, that's not the exact wording, but that question WILL be
answered. The real question is whether the state income tax should
be abolished. If the people of Massachusetts answer with a
resounding "No, we LIKE being extorted and robbed blind!" then it
will be confirmed once and for all that the majority of people in
Massachusetts are dumb as stumps (as if the constant re-electing of
Ted Kennedy wasn't proof enough).
Of course, the control freaks are having hissy fits about the
possibility of losing their extortion racket, predicting doom and
gloom, and using words like "chaos," "devastating," and
"catastrophe." Well yes, it certainly would be a devastating
catastrophe for the parasite class, but it would obviously be a
huge boon to the people in the state who are actually productive.
So the megalomaniacs of Massachusetts have formed the ridiculously
named "Coalition for Our Communities," which is trying to convince
the rabble that being robbed is GOOD for them. And the idiocy the
crooks use in an effort to persuade people is just amazing.
For example, the control freaks claim that abolishing the state
income tax would (in the words of a recent news story about it)
"stem the flow of money to cities and towns." Wow. Are there
actually people stupid enough to fall for such utter lunacy?
"Golly, if we stop robbing you, we won't be able to give you
money!" For the slim majority of folks in Massachusetts who voted
AGAINST a similar initiative in the past, I have some news:
"government" takes your money, and gives only some of it back. They
can't, overall, give back more than they take (duh), and everything
they have, they took from you. If someone takes $2 from you, and
gives you back $1, you're worse off than if he hadn't taken
anything. I apologize if this complex math is beyond what the
government-funded schools in Massachusetts teach.
And yet the politicians speak as if all goodness comes from them.
Just listen to the fear-mongering bunk spewed by Massachusetts
Senate President Therese Murray. (If you're capable of thought,
have a barf bucket handy.)
"When people are being squeezed, when their energy costs are
rising, gas costs are going up, food costs are going up, they're
going to say, 'That's a good idea. That would be good for me.' But
when their child has no school to go to and they can't get out
their door to go to work because the street hasn't been plowed in
the winter, I think the public would be back here really quick
saying, 'Please, fix this.'"
So, you see, unless your money goes through the hands of control
freaks like Ms. Murray, you stupid peasants couldn't get anything
done. You're far too stupid to just PAY for your kid to go to
school, or to just PAY to have your roads plowed. No, only if the
Nanny State runs the show--while taking a nice big chunk of your
wealth for itself--will life be able to go on. Are the people of
Massachusetts really so stupid that instead of just PAYING for
services they want, via voluntary commerce, they will run to the
politicians, crying "Boo hoo! Please tax us and then (after you
take your cut) YOU decide what our money should be spent on!" We'll
know soon enough if they are that stupid.
To state the painfully obvious, the PEOPLE already pay for every
government service that exists. Only, instead of just paying for
the service, or just paying for what the people actually WANT, they
also pay for government bureaucracies, expensive offices, cars and
houses for all the politicians, and for the corrupt and inefficient
bidding methods that governments ALWAYS engage in when they're
handing out the loot they swiped. They have no incentive to get the
best deal, because it's not THEIR money they're spending. It's
YOURS. Their goal is to see how many favors and how much power and
influence they can acquire by throwing your money around. And THAT
is why they don't want to give it up.
Let's put this on a level that any simpleton can grasp. Somewhere
is a guy with a snow plow. You could, by yourself or in conjunction
with your neighbors, hire that guy to plow your area. OR you could
let a politician take two or three times as much money from you (at
least), waste most of it on himself, his buddies, and his
bureaucrats, and then HE could use what is left over to hire the
SAME guy in the SAME truck to plow your street. Which sounds like a
better deal? Last time the people of Massachusetts were given such
a choice, the majority (though by a thin margin), answered with,
"That second one, because we LIKE being forced to pay a huge,
unnecessary overhead, in order to receive an inferior service at a
drastically increased price!"
It's bad enough when the schemes of greedy politicians are foisted
upon you, but when you're given the choice and you CHOOSE to be
robbed--well, it's hard to get any more idiotic than that.
Sincerely,
Larken Rose
http://www.larkenrose.com
(P.S. Ballot initiatives in Massachusetts are supposed to be
binding law, but if this one passes and the Massachusetts tyrants
just thumb their noses at the law and at the people, it won't be
the first time. After all, why should the royalty care what the
peasants think?)
(P.P.S. My apologies to any rational people residing in
Massachusetts--if anyone residing there could be said to be
rational. But if you're rational, you'd admit to the stupidity of
the majority of your state. For example, I don't mind admitting
that most of the people in Pennsylvania, where I live, appear to
have the mental capacity of turnips.)
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D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h
CORRECTION: In our rush to keep up with the Senate yesterday we provided you with the wrong bill number for the "cap and trade" legislation currently pending for a vote. This won't matter for those of you who sent messages to Congress. The politicians knew what bill you were talking about. We've corrected the number in our campaign. It is S. 3036.
Quote of the Day:
"While commonly known as cap-and-trade, which sounds pithy and free-market oriented, a more accurate but less sexy-sounding name would be a system of tradable rationing coupons. In plain English, that would mean putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions, which would raise costs for anyone burning fossil fuels, whether in a gasoline tank, a coal-fired power plant, or a natural gas stove."
-- HYPERLINK "http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/energywire/2008/06/climate_bills_dress_rehearsal.html"Steve Mufson, energy reporter for the Washington Post
Subject: Regulating your gas stove
Notice the last words in our quote of the day: "gas stove." This gives you a good idea of how far-reaching and intrusive the so-called "Climate Security Act" could be. In the short run it may only regulate fossil fuels at their source. In the long-run the regulations are likely to extend to every aspect of life, from the large to the small.
Notice also the name of the bill, and its use of the word "security." This name reflects the politician's standard operating procedure. First they incite fear, and then they promise security. It would have been more honest to call it something straightforward, like the "Anti-Global Warming Act."
More honest still would be something like the "Total Control Act." If the government must sell, and you must buy, an emission permit for your gas stove, or your lawn mower, and perhaps your fireplace too, then we are very close to a state of total government control over the economy.
Is this hyperbole? Possibly, but probably not. The bill is 344 pages long, and you can bet that almost no one in the Senate has actually read it. Later, unelected bureaucrats will craft many hundreds or thousands of additional pages to establish specific regulations.
Still more trees will be killed to add even more pages in the years to come, as exceptions and new restrictions are added to completely unrelated bills, and passed without deliberation. The pages of regulations will grow to keep pace with this.
At every step of the way lobbyists will be meeting with Congressional staffs, seeking special provisions that will benefit them, and/or hurt their competitors. Many politicians will work to provide these favors with an eye toward future positions on boards of directors, or million dollar lobbying contracts with this or that carbon emitting industry. This could explain part of why so many politicians favor the complexity of "cap and trade" over the relative simplicity of a carbon tax (combined with tax cuts in other areas).
Are we saying that a carbon tax wouldn't be subject to the buying and selling of exceptions? No, it would be. But the complexity of "cap and trade" makes it far, far more suitable to the purpose of selling favors -- in large part because it would be much harder to detect favoritism in a complex, bureaucratic "cap and trade" scheme, then it would be in a simpler carbon tax plan.
Sadly, this issue isn't going to go away any time soon. All of the major party presidential candidates favor "cap and trade," so we're going to have to fight this for a long time. We took a big step in that direction yesterday, sending nearly 4,000 messages to Congress.
If you haven't yet sent a message against "cap and trade," HYPERLINK "http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=93"you can do so here.
If you did send a message yesterday, we still need to keep reminding Congress that we do NOT want a bill permitting warrantless spying, and granting immunity to the telecoms that participated in previous warrantless spying. It would be very helpful if you would send a message on that subject today. HYPERLINK "http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=81"You can do so here.
Please also consider making a contribution to help us grow. We made budget last month! Thank you to everyone who contributed.
We also have a big head start on this month. Our monthly pledge program has grown and generous DC Downsizers have pledged to give $3,600 if others will join together to donate an equal amount. This means every dollar you give up to $3,600 will be worth two.
You can contribute by starting a monthly credit card pledge. It could be a micro-pledge of $3, $5 or $8, or a larger pledge of $15 or $25 per month. One-time donations would also help us to earn that $3,600 matching pledge. HYPERLINK "http://www.downsizedc.org/contribute.shtml"You can contribute here.
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Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.
Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h
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A Democracy is Temporary
At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinborough) had this to say about "The Fall of The Athenian Republic" some 2,000 years prior.
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning a recent Presidential election:
Counties won:
Gore = 677 Bush = 2434
Population of counties won by:
Gore=127 million Bush=143 million
Square miles of land won by:
Gore=580,134 Bush=2,427,039
States won by:
Gore=19 Bush=29
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore=13.2 Bush=2.1
Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare..."
Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the "apathy" and "complacency" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy; with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase
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I have to apologize for the mostly "Cut & Pasted" Newsletter. I like to add my personal touch to it. I've been getting back on my feet after being hospitalized and dealing with health issues. Just so you know, I am back to my old self. I will be sending out NewsLetters on a regular basis again. I apologize for letting it slip.
By the way, since it's clear that Ron Paul will not get the Republican nomination, I am planning on writing him in. I will not vote for the best looking turd in the toilet.
I also got roped in to an MDA Fundraiser. Myself and my son will be "Locked Up" soon. If you would like to help raise my "Bail" you can visit:
https://www.joinmda.org/2008douglasnorthbridgema/jeff
They set my bail at $800 and I already have $125.
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