Posted by
RepublicanEvangelist on Friday, October 17, 2008 9:51:17 PM
Barack may not reduce the size of government but plans on at least ignoring two of the Ten Commandments namely : Thou Shalt Not Covet and Thou Shalt Not Steal.
PJ O'Rourke makes the case here
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/141kgagb.asp?pg=1 which includes the passage : The Tenth Commandment sends a message to all the jerks who want
redistribution of wealth, higher taxes, more government programs, more
government regulation, more government, less free enterprise, and less
freedom. And the message is clear and concise: Go to hell. Scott Johnson of powerlingblog writes a good piece about envy here :
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1017/p09s02-coop.html
Thou Shalt Not Steal comes into play as the government steals a person's labor in the form of taxation. Now I am not one of those nuts with the foil hats who thinks Elvis is alive and that no taxation is legal or even preferable. We need taxes to provide for the military, build the roads and do the things we cannot do individually. This does not include charity. Charity is much more effective when not done by government. Even a poorly run one probably gives away 60 percent to the people they are serving and only keeps 40 percent for overhead. Government overhead can be as high as 70 percent or even worse. It also is so detached from the people being served that it often doesn't help them but turns them into government dependent junkies or as Mark Steyn says it redefines the relationship between government and citizen into something closer to pusher and junkie.
http://www.ninme.com/archives/2005/11/the_state_of_we.html . But Barack is proposing to be Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Back in the day, however, the poor were poor and the rich were rich and there was no way for someone to move from one to the other. In America, people start out poor and become extremely wealthy and rich people have some bad luck or make some poor choices and can become poor. We don't need Obama Hood to facilitate the process. The fact of the matter is the more taxed a people is, the less free it is. Economic freedom is every bit as important as the other freedoms we hold dear. As PJ O Rourke says here : The Bill of Rights protects freedom of speech, freedom of religion and
freedom of assembly, of course. You could hardly call yourself free
without those freedoms. But even more important, the Bill of Rights
protects your money, car, house and stereo. The Fifth Amendment says,
". . . nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just
compensation." Some alleged defenders of liberty look down their noses
at property rights, believing them to be the sordid, mean and grubby
side to freedom. But think how little time you spend worshiping idols
your neighbors abhor or gathering in mutinous crowds. And when was the
last time you said anything more controversial than "Evan Dando sucks."
Now think how much time you spend using your Visa card.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/817337/posts
The problem here is the regressive nature of the progressive tax code that rewards the people at the bottom with booty from the treasury and punishes the people at the top to pay for it. Economist Arthur Laffer remarked that if we tax rich people to pay poor people, we will have less rich and more people. Common sense isn't common particularly in Washington. I recall a couple of years ago when some ballot measure which failed in California was voted on to tax millionaires to pay for mental health care. Does being a millionaire cause insanity? So the sad sight of homeless people who are bad need of mental care must be millionaires and just don't know it? No, this like all liberal proposals regarding taxation are envy and theft, pure and simple. This is class warefare and has been used by the left to demonize people of even modest success. Do you notice how the only people who aren't demonized who are wealthy are either celebrities, athletes and lottery winners? In other words, people who are rich by the sweat of hard labor, delayed gratification, and a series of correct choices in life, they are the problem.
Well, 2 down 8 to go. Well, maybe 7, I think President Clinton took care of one already.