This is your Government. This is Your Government on Taxes. Any Questions?
*The New Face of Uncle Sam*
Lick any of these stamps lately? Well, if you're breaking the law, you should be. Our friends at NORML have stumbled upon what might be the most telling example of just how warped your government's priorities are.
The ethics of criminalizing victimless crimes aside, let's look at this logically.
You see, Ronald Regan's potrait of a Government's view of the economy
"You can't do it to begin with. But you have to pay taxes on it when you do."
Once again.
"You can't do it to begin with. But you have to pay taxes on it when you do."
And these are the people we trust blindly to educate the yout of America. Right. If you break the law, you must comply with a law regulating activity illegal to begin with. The State of Kanasas politely sums up this legistlative schizophrenia as,
If you need more proof that the government believes it effectually owns your ass, than you should probably not be troubling your pretty little head with this blog and go read more timely and important information you might find at Feministe, Democratic Underground, or Spawn Hannity.
This insidious germ will spawn many more clones that will encompass things far more pedestrian than evil drugs. Or perhaps worse, it'll apply to things that our truly evil. Hear me out. Just as property is now primarily a neo-feudal debt insturment to lease to the highest bidder, you can now expect your utter time to be, as well. Rest assured this is the first budding of yet another scheme for public servants to ravage the carcass of property rights. After all, if drug dealers are liable to "pay their fair share" for their proscribed labors, why not tax murderers for the loss of economic viability of their victims? Why not tax careless drivers for the loss of economic viablity created by traffic pile-ups? Why not tax the diversion of all law enforcement resourcs? And that's not even thinking hard.
You see, this isn't just about finding some other way to effectively deter criminal behavior. It's about demonsrating, a la Foucault, the power the government has over your very existence on this Earth. You see, rather it be mobocracy or plutocracy, the state can only serve one master. Those interests belong either to the living individual, or some vauge abstract of collective and/or gestalt authority. This collective justification has, in living memory, been labeled "democracy" in places as divergent from North Korea to Norway. "The Will of the People" is the heady cry to righteousness in these secular days that "Jesus and all the Saints" was before Christianity became an anarchronistic hanger-on. "The Will" of the people, as justification, smacks of an obscure irony due to its significance in Hegelian ontology. Hegel, the ideological father of the modern state, was a German Idealist and alleged some nigh-pagan "World Spirit" was guiding opposing forces, trapped in a dialectical circuit, towards a fruition of history. Nieztche and Hegel's highly abstract concepts of "World Spirit", "End of History", and "Will" start to become interchangeable in their stratospheric implications, especially in the minds of spoilt, listless, little shits who went on to found most forms of political evil that ruled the last century.
The problem with looking to the aggregate good for justification is that omlets are made out of broken eggs. The problem with that is only ill-expedience really prevents the eggs dearest to you from hitting the frying pan. After all, what are your concerns before that of the exalted good?
Another thing this illustrates is how firmly entrenched modern legistlation's scope and yeild is in Shakespere's addage, "more honored in the breach than in the practice". You see, laws primary goal isn't to protect you, it's to get you. looking to punish first and protect second. Because in rustling up a cottage industry of compliance or being got, you can assure a captive market.
"Getting you", of course, has many facets and gradations. The first defense of this is that it incidentally protects you. But the problem with incident is that it cannot be measured, only inferred inductively. So regardless, of incidental benefit, you're stuck with something that's first purpose is to coerce you for its own interests. And when's the last time the government published an honest cost/benefit analysis of that?
The second defense of this is that it prevents doing the wrong thing, thus protecting you. But as the Paul points out, "the law is for the lawless." It's not for those will do the right thing, anyhow. Hence, the danger of regulating that which could can occur freely without it. This is why the U.S. Constitution empowers the set of weights and measures, but not feeding the masses.
Thus, the congenital pox that laws like these are in our society. It has nothing to do with drugs. It has to do with the fact you're public servants can rationalize this abject waste of money over something police officers and citizens die for.
Put differently, self-governance, much like sex and air, is little thought of until its absent. And like Chief Grady said, "Desperation is a stinky cologne..."
*The New Face of Uncle Sam*
Lick any of these stamps lately? Well, if you're breaking the law, you should be. Our friends at NORML have stumbled upon what might be the most telling example of just how warped your government's priorities are.
The ethics of criminalizing victimless crimes aside, let's look at this logically.
- Drugs are illegal to traffic and possess.
- Federal, State, and Local Law enforcement devote money, time, and sadly endanger human lives to enforce this
- Courts convict and imprision people for this behavior
- Departments of Revenue/Tax Burearus tax it.
You see, Ronald Regan's potrait of a Government's view of the economy
summed up in a few short phrases: if it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving regulate it. And if it stops moving subsidize itholds true, even when it's something the government declares you can't do, to begin with.
"You can't do it to begin with. But you have to pay taxes on it when you do."
Once again.
"You can't do it to begin with. But you have to pay taxes on it when you do."
And these are the people we trust blindly to educate the yout of America. Right. If you break the law, you must comply with a law regulating activity illegal to begin with. The State of Kanasas politely sums up this legistlative schizophrenia as,
Why tax illegal drugs?
There are two reasons why illegal drugs are taxed:
- Taxing the Underground Economy - The fact that the business of dealing marijuana and controlled substances is illegal does not exempt it from taxation. Legitimate business transactions are taxed. Dealing drugs is a large part of a previously untaxed underground economy.
- Providing a Source of Revenue - 25% of drug tax collections are allocated to the State's General Fund.
Who is liable for the drug tax?
An individual is classified as a drug dealer and is liable for the payment of drug taxes if he/she manufactures, produces, ships, transports, or imports into Kansas or possesses:
- more than 28 grams of marijuana (processed or marijuana plants)or
- 1 gram of controlled substance or 10 or more dosage unites of a controlled substance (K.S.A. 79-5201)
If you need more proof that the government believes it effectually owns your ass, than you should probably not be troubling your pretty little head with this blog and go read more timely and important information you might find at Feministe, Democratic Underground, or Spawn Hannity.
This insidious germ will spawn many more clones that will encompass things far more pedestrian than evil drugs. Or perhaps worse, it'll apply to things that our truly evil. Hear me out. Just as property is now primarily a neo-feudal debt insturment to lease to the highest bidder, you can now expect your utter time to be, as well. Rest assured this is the first budding of yet another scheme for public servants to ravage the carcass of property rights. After all, if drug dealers are liable to "pay their fair share" for their proscribed labors, why not tax murderers for the loss of economic viability of their victims? Why not tax careless drivers for the loss of economic viablity created by traffic pile-ups? Why not tax the diversion of all law enforcement resourcs? And that's not even thinking hard.
You see, this isn't just about finding some other way to effectively deter criminal behavior. It's about demonsrating, a la Foucault, the power the government has over your very existence on this Earth. You see, rather it be mobocracy or plutocracy, the state can only serve one master. Those interests belong either to the living individual, or some vauge abstract of collective and/or gestalt authority. This collective justification has, in living memory, been labeled "democracy" in places as divergent from North Korea to Norway. "The Will of the People" is the heady cry to righteousness in these secular days that "Jesus and all the Saints" was before Christianity became an anarchronistic hanger-on. "The Will" of the people, as justification, smacks of an obscure irony due to its significance in Hegelian ontology. Hegel, the ideological father of the modern state, was a German Idealist and alleged some nigh-pagan "World Spirit" was guiding opposing forces, trapped in a dialectical circuit, towards a fruition of history. Nieztche and Hegel's highly abstract concepts of "World Spirit", "End of History", and "Will" start to become interchangeable in their stratospheric implications, especially in the minds of spoilt, listless, little shits who went on to found most forms of political evil that ruled the last century.
The problem with looking to the aggregate good for justification is that omlets are made out of broken eggs. The problem with that is only ill-expedience really prevents the eggs dearest to you from hitting the frying pan. After all, what are your concerns before that of the exalted good?
Another thing this illustrates is how firmly entrenched modern legistlation's scope and yeild is in Shakespere's addage, "more honored in the breach than in the practice". You see, laws primary goal isn't to protect you, it's to get you. looking to punish first and protect second. Because in rustling up a cottage industry of compliance or being got, you can assure a captive market.
"Getting you", of course, has many facets and gradations. The first defense of this is that it incidentally protects you. But the problem with incident is that it cannot be measured, only inferred inductively. So regardless, of incidental benefit, you're stuck with something that's first purpose is to coerce you for its own interests. And when's the last time the government published an honest cost/benefit analysis of that?
The second defense of this is that it prevents doing the wrong thing, thus protecting you. But as the Paul points out, "the law is for the lawless." It's not for those will do the right thing, anyhow. Hence, the danger of regulating that which could can occur freely without it. This is why the U.S. Constitution empowers the set of weights and measures, but not feeding the masses.
Thus, the congenital pox that laws like these are in our society. It has nothing to do with drugs. It has to do with the fact you're public servants can rationalize this abject waste of money over something police officers and citizens die for.
Put differently, self-governance, much like sex and air, is little thought of until its absent. And like Chief Grady said, "Desperation is a stinky cologne..."
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posted by Abe at 5:27 PM
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