The Tenther Grapevine
Amy Kremer, who chairs the Tea Party Express, told FOX News the other day, “Whoever the Republican nominee is will have to have the support of the Tea Party movement, the entire Tea Party movement.” She went on to say that this included Mitt Romney. (Thanks to Anthony Gregory for the link.)
Some kind of sociological law is being illustrated here. Here’s an organization that in terms of political action really coalesced around opposition to the bailouts, and set its sights on Republicans who favored them. It played a decisive role in booting Bob Bennett out of his U.S. Senate seat in Utah. A horrified CNN reporter asked the founder of the Utah Tea Party whether it was fair that Bennett’s career should end just because of that one vote. “His career will end over that one vote,” came the answer. Heroic.
And now it is prepared to throw its support behind someone who holds them in obvious contempt. What in the world is the point of taking that kind of political strength — throwing a sitting U.S. senator out of office is next to impossible — and blowing it on Mitt Romney? Yes, Obama is bad. Duh. But absolutely nothing will change under Romney, or indeed most of the GOP’s offerings. (How funny it was to hear Sean Hannity say, before the first GOP debate, “All eyes are on Tim Pawlenty.” Tim Pawlenty, the establishment bore? All eyes were on him?)
The country is headed for a severe fiscal mess. Any difference between Obama and Romney is far too trivial to be worth arguing over, much less actually to avert the coming crisis. Obama is merely pushing the country faster along a path it is obviously going to travel down anyway. In exchange for heading down that road ten percent more slowly, Tea Party Express is prepared to throw away whatever features might have made it worthwhile.
Thomas E. Woods, Jr. [send him mail; visit his website], a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, is the author of eleven books, most recently Rollback: Repealing Big Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse and Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century, as well as the New York Times bestsellers Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse and The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. He is also the editor of five other books, including the just-released Back on the Road to Serfdom.
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Most people on the left have socialist tendencies and want to tax the 'right people' for the sole purpose of weath redistribution. Most of the taxes are confiscatory in nature such as an income tax for the top level of 99% (which what it was in the 50s). Lincoln imposed a small income tax on the wealthy at something like 7% and the money collected always remained in public property. It was never taxed for the sole purpose of giving it to someone else and never at an amount that was designed to destroy someone's wealth.
This is what you get when you tax the wealthy at 99% and then hand that money to private citizens which is wealth redistribution. The entire income tax should be scrapped all together. There will be complaints that the tax burden is more equalized but an equalized tax burden makes wealth redistribution impossible.
I know that most income taxes are designed for wealth redistribution because not a single 'liberal' I know will never agree to taxing the rich more and ending all private payments to persons. That would not redistribute wealth in anyway which is why they will never agree to that. The welfare state and high taxation for the rich are deeply connected to each other and are a part of the same scheme.
You should really study wealth distribution. It might help you immensely. You write as if there is no correlation between wealth and liberty. Well, I assure you there most definitely IS a correlation, and it is an inversely proportional one.
Louis Brandeis: "We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
Plutarch: "An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics."
You can start researching at this article and follow some of the links in it: http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/04/190...
Read the second article down about China saying we've already defaulted on our debt. Be sure to check some of the links that talk about pilfering by the top .1% and about the false, left-right dichotomy. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/
You will see that governing and directing the flow of wealth are one and the same. Money makes the world go 'round. (And you thought it was about theories of law, justice and politics). It's always about the money. Follow the money.
How are those two related to each other? Isn't a person's wealth private and not public? I don't understand how the mere existence of a wealthy person threaten someone's freedom. There is no connection between laws and wealth other than laws that protect property, contracts, and theft. Are you against those?
I guess I'll have to pull a "Nancy Pelosi" on you.... But are you serious?
You can't see how wealth distribution affects freedom?
Rich guy sells insurance. He goes to Congress and takes influential members to operas, cruises and steak dinners. He gives them campaign money and throws fund-raisers with $10,000 per plate tickets. What do you think this guy wants? He wants a law to increase his revenues.
The legislators become convinced, after thinking long and hard, that this country will be better if everyone had insurance. They make the pitch. They get the law passed. Thou shalt buy insurance.
What just happened to your freedom?
That's just one way. The examples are too many to possibly count. Everything..... everything revolves around money, and politics is not exempt from those forces.
So, when you have a systemic influence of wealth - and I mean absolutely systemic, which it is - what happens to freedom and liberty in general? If people weren't having to "buy this" and "be taxed for this" and told that "if you want to be in food production, you need this," or "if you want to build toys, you need to do that," what do you think the differences would be?
Eventually, the barriers set by the wealthy elite become so high that would-be competitors can't even enter the market because they are too broke to afford to compete. They are taxed too much at the lower levels to have enough discretionary income to compete with the big boys. And on top of that, the big boys lobbied for endless regulations to make sure the costs of entry would be prohibitive, except for only those who already have deep pockets.
Sure, you are "free" to compete on the terms set by the wealthy. But come on. It's a rigged game.
Your question can't really be serious, I hope. I mean, for example, do you REALLY think it was pure coincidence that capital gains are taxed at a mere 15% (with no FICA and medicare liability attached), whereas ordinary income for working slobs is taxed at 20%, plus 6.25% for FICA and medicare and another 8.25% as the employer's contribution for same?
The game is rigged against working slobs. If you are rich and flip stocks and bonds, your effective tax rate is less than HALF that of the guy who gets up and works overtime to make $75k a year.
This is no accident. Yet, unenlightened people defend it by saying "it's the same rule for everyone." It is not. It is a lower tax rate if you have enough wealth to flip stocks and bonds. It's a higher tax rate if you don't, and that higher tax rate is precisely the impediment that tends to prevent the working slob from ever accumulating enough wealth to enjoy reduced tax rates on income from capital gains.
Slobs work for a living and pay higher taxes. Elites get theirs by managing their portfolios and paying lower taxes.
Life works like a slower version of monopoly. The rich can only remain rich so long as they have working slobs to pay them rents and to produce things for them that they can flip for a profit. You can't let the slobs become too poor to survive, or the game ends for everyone.
So, wealth distribution is absolutely in the public interest. There is nothing private about it. That's why laws are written to direct the flow of wealth. The wealthy write those laws to make sure that the vast majority of working slobs go through life cleaning their toilets or making widgets on their assembly lines and die broke, or close to it. A small segment somewhere around the 60th-80th percentiles will actually accumulate a little - maybe enough to pass a modest home down to the kids or pay for their college educations.
But the guys at the top have dynastic wealth. They will pass their wealth and their power on to their progeny for generations and generations. The process will continue. The masses will die broke or close to it. There are some exceptions, and we can all point to some, but this is in fact the life of an average American.
The more disparate the wealth is, the more police-like the state becomes. That's why Mexico is messed-up. Now, compare Mexico's wealth distribution to ours. Then, look at the trend of ours, and you will see it is growing.
Were those things really created by wealth or were they created by government? How can the wealthy actually do any of those things (which are wrong) without the assistance of government? The solution is not to kill the wealthy but to take away power from government to regulate property which will end most corruption since there would be no reason to be involved in politics.
This allows economy to be a private affair of the people instead of a public endeavor. Let me quote: "There is nothing private about it. That's why laws are written to direct the flow of wealth. The wealthy write those laws to make sure that the vast majority of working slobs go through life cleaning their toilets or making widgets on their assembly lines and die broke, or close to it."
A problem that wouldn't exist if government didn't have the power to direct the flow of wealth in any society. You said it yourself that governments make sure that the flow of wealth goes to the rich which can't happen when government is out of the economy since it has no power to direct anything.
Every government directs the flow of wealth. There is no such thing as a government that does not. It is government's purpose. How can you possibly conclude that government can exist mutually exclusively from the flow of wealth?
In every society that ever existed - capitalist, socialist, and yes, even communist - wealth ALWAYS equals (i.e., IS) government. Can you name any exception to this rule?
This is why I hate social conservatives. They have the same disease as liberals do but the only difference is that you substitute socialist utopia with christian orthodoxy. Most of these people do not believe in individualism per say. It make me want to skip the 2012 election and allow Obama to win. Perhaps this will teach the GOP once and for all.
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SOME of the programs of the conservatives are worthy in my opinion, just as SOME of the liberal programs. The difference to me is who is to administer those programs. The central (federal) government should NOT get involved in any program or area not specifically assigned to it by the Constitiution. I personally believe in aid to the poor....but on the LOCAL government level.... I believe in free education....but on the STATE government level.
The tea-baggers have one thing ALMOST right. We're not just "Taxed Enough Already", but rather we're taxed too much, but the wrong people. I've sent many people to visit the TAC, both conservative and liberal and have had positive feed back from both. Once people realize that the object is to reduce the burdonsome central government and bring the decision making closer to home they begin to get the idea.
I have high aspirations for the TAC.... keep up the great work.
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