Interesting post by Clara just below this one.
But what I find most distressing (I find a number of things distressing, but this is #1) about the income tax has nothing to do with the distribution; rather, I find the government's intrusion into personal lives that is necessitated by such a tax system to be loathsome.
Now, you have to tell the government (under penalty of fines or imprisonment if you don't; in short, the guys with the big guns show up at your house, so when push comes to shove it quite literally is a form of coercion):
-Who you work for (implicit in that is whether you were hired or fired at any time)
-How much they pay you
-How your money is invested, any shares you hold, and how much you gained or lost in your investments. This includes retirement investments
-Your marital status (implicit in that is whether you are gay or straight, forcing you in many instances to disclose your sexual orientation to the government)
-With whom you cohabitate (although this is already known through the census), but more troublingly who is financially dependent on whom in that household
If you wish to take advantage of any of the generous deductions or tax deferments (sarcasm?) you must also declare:
-What church you go to (i.e. to what religious denomination, if any, you belong), and how much money you gave them
-Any charitable organizations or causes which you support
Also (although this is for slightly different reasons) the government knows what political parties and candidates you support.
Of course you could simply neglect to deduct anything, and potentially pay hundreds or thousands more in taxes than you're "supposed" to, or you could take "standard deductions" (but if you get audited you'll have to disclose all the above anyway). You could also file zero single, in which case you do not have to disclose marital status (to my knowledge) or dependents, but you're going to pay MUCH, MUCH (extortionately so, if that's a word) more than if you did disclose.
(In fact, if you have sizable deductions or multiple dependents which you do not disclose, your tax burden could end up becoming larger than your take-home disposable income. This will land you in a situation somewhat analogous to that of Joe Louis, who donated his prizefight winnings to military support groups during WWII, and was later billed by the IRS for his tax responsibilities, despite the fact that the money had already been donated in its entirety to the war effort. Joe Louis ended up having to fight well past his prime simply to pay his debts, and take up menial jobs until the day he died; some of his later expenses and in fact his funeral were paid for by one of Louis' opponents, a German who represented the Nazi regime and whose loss to Louis was seen as a great moral victory for the American cause.)
Speaking of audits, isn't this also a potential tool that government agents can use to abuse political dissidents and other people they don't like?
And lots of other things as well.
I find this absolutely reprehensible, that we are forced to open our lives to the government's inspection and approbation.
It befuddles me why there isn't more outrage over this from civil libertarians and other members of the Left. If the J. Edgar Hoovers of the world are looking to keep little dossiers on all of us (particularly those of us they for whatever reason don't like), doesn't this just play right into their totalitarian fantasies?
Perhaps it's just because the system's been like this for so long that, like a fish swimming in the water around it, we are simply unaware.
The American people keep saying they want "Change." How about we start by changing this?
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Monday, January 7, 2008
Paul Krugman Has a Rich Fantasy Life
Paul Krugman, New York Times, 1/7/2008:
Meanwhile, Greg Mankiw reproduces an image from the Wall St. Journal on his blog, indicating that the richest 5% of U.S. taxpayers in 2005 paid 60% of all income taxes.
You see, for 30 years American politics has been dominated by a political movement practicing Robin-Hood-in-reverse, giving unto those that hath while taking from those who don’t.
Meanwhile, Greg Mankiw reproduces an image from the Wall St. Journal on his blog, indicating that the richest 5% of U.S. taxpayers in 2005 paid 60% of all income taxes.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Yet another botched raid
Link above, and blogged by Radley Balko of Reason here: http://www.reason.com/blog/show/124240.html
This time it's in Lima, Ohio, resulting in the death of a mother of six, and injuring one of the children. They were looking for the mother's boyfriend, who was being investigated for - you guessed it - selling drugs (as opposed to violent crimes like murder, rape or armed robbery), and had reason to believe there were children in the house, but that didn't stop them from shooting the place up.
On the bright side, they did catch the bad guy. The charge - you guessed it again - possession of narcotics.
This was considered a "high risk" warrant, and that makes the use of military-style entry and rules of engagement de rigeur for law enforcement.
Long gone are the days of "Just the facts ma'am" and "Why don't you come down to the station to answer some questions." Nowadays it's more likely to be a guy with a machine gun and a ski mask threatening to blow your fucking head off if you move an inch, or shoot all your fucking kids' heads off if they move an inch, or some other use of four-letter words and the threat of lethal force, that's serving a warrant on you.
This is, after all, the "post-9/11 world," which generally used as an excuse for anything. Sorry to disappoint you Clara, even more so than global warming.
As Balko points out, what's troubling is that the police aren't specifying what happened. Normally, if the suspect or someone else in the home shoots first, presents with a weapon or attacks an officer, and they have to fire in self-defense, they'll immediately say that. The fact that they have instead gone down the "No Comment" road speaks volumes: It's quite likely that the police fired first, and were not doing so to defend against an imminent threat. It's too early to draw conclusions, but this should be enough to give you pause.
I hate to be overly cynical, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they try to cover this up or falsify documents to support their position, like APD did with the Kathryn Johnston case (which I posted on this blog a while back).
You see, this is what happens when the job of policing is transmogrified into a first-person-shoot-em-up game like Quake. Dressing up in paramilitary gear is fun, and those automatic weapons just kick so much ass, don't they? Especially when we disregard the Second Amendment so most civilians (especially those of the law-abiding persuasion) are disarmed. Collateral damage (a euphemism for "killing innocent people") sucks, but hey, it's part of the job.
Now, please don't confuse me for Al Sharpton. I'm as big a supporter of law enforcement as anybody, and appreciate the dangerous, heroic and thankless jobs that our police officers perform every single day. I myself work in EMS, and have worked side by side with police officers, and when I need their assistance on a call, boy am I glad when they show up.
But let's inject some sanity here.
What ever happened to the good old days where, if you were looking for a suspect, particularly if you believed there were children in the house, you'd stake out the residence, and when the guy came outside, you'd nab him as he's getting into his car?
Or, send the "Prize Patrol" to tell him he's won a brand new plasma HDTV, and to show up at _____ to claim his prize. When he does so, make the collar.
The officers in this case were thrust into this by their superiors and were following their orders, and their orders were to conduct a military-style raid.
Well, in military encounters mistakes are made. That is simply the nature of the beast.
Shots are fired by accident. And when one shot is fired, often many more follow in the confused aftermath. Who just shot at who? Is someone shooting at me? Did one of my partners get hit by that shot?
Split-second decisions need to be made. Sometimes those life-or-death snap decisions don't stand up to the cold calculating light of day or the aseptic courtroom analysis of a prosecutor or defense attorney. But that is the nature of split-second decisions.
Sometimes body language, particularly in the heat of combat, is confusing and an act of surrender is interpreted as an act of aggression.
Maybe the occupants don't know that the masked men in head-to-toe black pointing machine guns at them and saying they're going to "blow off your fucking head" are actually police, and act to defend themselves against what they believe to be an imminent threat by armed criminal intruders.
This is why it is key that such military-style encounters be used rarely, if at all, in favor of less aggressive methods that are less likely to turn into bloodbaths, particularly for innocent victims (like the examples I gave above).
And we must wait for the results of the investigation before we place blame on any individual officers. They may have simply had to make the best of a bad situation, one that they were thrust into for reasons beyond their control. Maybe they did have a legitimate reason to shoot the woman.
But excessive use of these methods is, however, is demonstrably a most impeachable strategy.
This time it's in Lima, Ohio, resulting in the death of a mother of six, and injuring one of the children. They were looking for the mother's boyfriend, who was being investigated for - you guessed it - selling drugs (as opposed to violent crimes like murder, rape or armed robbery), and had reason to believe there were children in the house, but that didn't stop them from shooting the place up.
On the bright side, they did catch the bad guy. The charge - you guessed it again - possession of narcotics.
This was considered a "high risk" warrant, and that makes the use of military-style entry and rules of engagement de rigeur for law enforcement.
Long gone are the days of "Just the facts ma'am" and "Why don't you come down to the station to answer some questions." Nowadays it's more likely to be a guy with a machine gun and a ski mask threatening to blow your fucking head off if you move an inch, or shoot all your fucking kids' heads off if they move an inch, or some other use of four-letter words and the threat of lethal force, that's serving a warrant on you.
This is, after all, the "post-9/11 world," which generally used as an excuse for anything. Sorry to disappoint you Clara, even more so than global warming.
As Balko points out, what's troubling is that the police aren't specifying what happened. Normally, if the suspect or someone else in the home shoots first, presents with a weapon or attacks an officer, and they have to fire in self-defense, they'll immediately say that. The fact that they have instead gone down the "No Comment" road speaks volumes: It's quite likely that the police fired first, and were not doing so to defend against an imminent threat. It's too early to draw conclusions, but this should be enough to give you pause.
I hate to be overly cynical, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they try to cover this up or falsify documents to support their position, like APD did with the Kathryn Johnston case (which I posted on this blog a while back).
You see, this is what happens when the job of policing is transmogrified into a first-person-shoot-em-up game like Quake. Dressing up in paramilitary gear is fun, and those automatic weapons just kick so much ass, don't they? Especially when we disregard the Second Amendment so most civilians (especially those of the law-abiding persuasion) are disarmed. Collateral damage (a euphemism for "killing innocent people") sucks, but hey, it's part of the job.
Now, please don't confuse me for Al Sharpton. I'm as big a supporter of law enforcement as anybody, and appreciate the dangerous, heroic and thankless jobs that our police officers perform every single day. I myself work in EMS, and have worked side by side with police officers, and when I need their assistance on a call, boy am I glad when they show up.
But let's inject some sanity here.
What ever happened to the good old days where, if you were looking for a suspect, particularly if you believed there were children in the house, you'd stake out the residence, and when the guy came outside, you'd nab him as he's getting into his car?
Or, send the "Prize Patrol" to tell him he's won a brand new plasma HDTV, and to show up at _____ to claim his prize. When he does so, make the collar.
The officers in this case were thrust into this by their superiors and were following their orders, and their orders were to conduct a military-style raid.
Well, in military encounters mistakes are made. That is simply the nature of the beast.
Shots are fired by accident. And when one shot is fired, often many more follow in the confused aftermath. Who just shot at who? Is someone shooting at me? Did one of my partners get hit by that shot?
Split-second decisions need to be made. Sometimes those life-or-death snap decisions don't stand up to the cold calculating light of day or the aseptic courtroom analysis of a prosecutor or defense attorney. But that is the nature of split-second decisions.
Sometimes body language, particularly in the heat of combat, is confusing and an act of surrender is interpreted as an act of aggression.
Maybe the occupants don't know that the masked men in head-to-toe black pointing machine guns at them and saying they're going to "blow off your fucking head" are actually police, and act to defend themselves against what they believe to be an imminent threat by armed criminal intruders.
This is why it is key that such military-style encounters be used rarely, if at all, in favor of less aggressive methods that are less likely to turn into bloodbaths, particularly for innocent victims (like the examples I gave above).
And we must wait for the results of the investigation before we place blame on any individual officers. They may have simply had to make the best of a bad situation, one that they were thrust into for reasons beyond their control. Maybe they did have a legitimate reason to shoot the woman.
But excessive use of these methods is, however, is demonstrably a most impeachable strategy.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Environmentalists' Motives Revealed!
What if greenhouse gas emissions from a particular sector were lower than predicted? Lower even than the government-implemented cap on such emissions?
Would the Greens greet this news with relief and rejoicing, because Mother Earth is safer and global warming won't murder us as speedily in our sleep?
You'd think so--but no. How do I know? Because Northeast power plants came in under cap in the past couple of years, and environmentalist interest groups were bummed about it.
Or is it? Cue scary music.
Linked from James Taranto.
Would the Greens greet this news with relief and rejoicing, because Mother Earth is safer and global warming won't murder us as speedily in our sleep?
You'd think so--but no. How do I know? Because Northeast power plants came in under cap in the past couple of years, and environmentalist interest groups were bummed about it.
"If the cap is above what power plants are emitting, we won't see any change in their behavior," said Derek K. Murrow, director of policy analysis for Environment Northeast, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization. "They just continue business as usual."
. . .
"If we are under the cap, what is the problem?" said Robert Rio, senior vice president of Associated Industries. "The goal of the program is to reduce greenhouse gases."
Or is it? Cue scary music.
Linked from James Taranto.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
More NHS success stories
This time, it's do-it-yourself dentistry.
Here's the primary problem, as I understand it.
In any health care coverage system, only certain things are covered since, if everyone else is being forced to pay for your medical care, there had better be a good reason why you need that care.
As an example, a necessary appendectomy, chemotherapy or other life-saving treatment would obviously be covered, whereas cosmetic surgery such as penis enlargement, breast enhancement, or other elective procedures would not. In that sense, only "necessary," and not "elective," treatments would be covered
The difficulty arises in so-called "elective" treatments. We'd all agree that penis enlargement is an elective surgery, but what about arthroscopic knee surgery, or hip replacement surgery? Clearly, one could live without having either of those, albeit at a dramatically reduced quality of life and increased levels of pain.
Who exactly decides when a knee replacement, or a rhinoplasty to correct breathing problems caused by a deviated septum, or a breast reduction to alleviate back pain, cross the border from "elective" to "necessary?" (One should also take into account the fact that the treatment's costs, while significant, may be offset by the increased future productivity of the patient if the treatment is successful in alleviating their symptoms.)
It seems to me that disagreements between the patient (and his or her doctor) and the government minder who decides what's covered and what's not, are the source of trouble here. (It certainly is with private insurance companies, so why should it be any different for a government-run system?)
What I don't know is how much of an issue this is. I hear horror stories about cases like the above, but really, how frequently does this happen? Perhaps someone from across the pond can fill me in, since all I have is media coverage, which of course tremendously skews in the man-bites-dog direction. Are these just extraordinarily rare cases that draw disproportionate attention, or a frequently encountered fact of life in a nationalized health care system?
Also, I hear horror stories of tremendously long waiting lists. Is there any particular reason why this is?
Another troubling issue is necessary treatments for conditions caused by lifestyle choices. Foremost would be life-saving treatments for lung cancer, the vast, vast majority (though not all) of cases of which are due to smoking. One could also (with a similarly strong causal chain) target treatments for cardiovascular disease and diabetes which are largely caused by obesity, poor diet and lack of exercise.
As for myself, I exercise regularly, try to maintain a reasonable weight, and while my diet is not stellar, I do what I can to eat right. I think that people who fail to do these things are stupid. Why should I be forced to pay for the stupidity and negligence of others?
Is there any way to single out these cases? A smoker's tax? And how would one enforce such a tax - cameras inside peoples' homes to make sure they're not smoking?
(Which brings up the ancillary issue... if knowledge that the things you're doing to yourself are known to cause a dramatically reduced life expectancy - you are quite literally killing yourself - is insufficient to convince you to change your ways, why are obesity taxes, or tickets for smoking in certain places, so feared? If knowingly causing your own early death isn't a sufficient demotivator, why is a $25 ticket so effective?)
Here's the primary problem, as I understand it.
In any health care coverage system, only certain things are covered since, if everyone else is being forced to pay for your medical care, there had better be a good reason why you need that care.
As an example, a necessary appendectomy, chemotherapy or other life-saving treatment would obviously be covered, whereas cosmetic surgery such as penis enlargement, breast enhancement, or other elective procedures would not. In that sense, only "necessary," and not "elective," treatments would be covered
The difficulty arises in so-called "elective" treatments. We'd all agree that penis enlargement is an elective surgery, but what about arthroscopic knee surgery, or hip replacement surgery? Clearly, one could live without having either of those, albeit at a dramatically reduced quality of life and increased levels of pain.
Who exactly decides when a knee replacement, or a rhinoplasty to correct breathing problems caused by a deviated septum, or a breast reduction to alleviate back pain, cross the border from "elective" to "necessary?" (One should also take into account the fact that the treatment's costs, while significant, may be offset by the increased future productivity of the patient if the treatment is successful in alleviating their symptoms.)
It seems to me that disagreements between the patient (and his or her doctor) and the government minder who decides what's covered and what's not, are the source of trouble here. (It certainly is with private insurance companies, so why should it be any different for a government-run system?)
What I don't know is how much of an issue this is. I hear horror stories about cases like the above, but really, how frequently does this happen? Perhaps someone from across the pond can fill me in, since all I have is media coverage, which of course tremendously skews in the man-bites-dog direction. Are these just extraordinarily rare cases that draw disproportionate attention, or a frequently encountered fact of life in a nationalized health care system?
Also, I hear horror stories of tremendously long waiting lists. Is there any particular reason why this is?
Another troubling issue is necessary treatments for conditions caused by lifestyle choices. Foremost would be life-saving treatments for lung cancer, the vast, vast majority (though not all) of cases of which are due to smoking. One could also (with a similarly strong causal chain) target treatments for cardiovascular disease and diabetes which are largely caused by obesity, poor diet and lack of exercise.
As for myself, I exercise regularly, try to maintain a reasonable weight, and while my diet is not stellar, I do what I can to eat right. I think that people who fail to do these things are stupid. Why should I be forced to pay for the stupidity and negligence of others?
Is there any way to single out these cases? A smoker's tax? And how would one enforce such a tax - cameras inside peoples' homes to make sure they're not smoking?
(Which brings up the ancillary issue... if knowledge that the things you're doing to yourself are known to cause a dramatically reduced life expectancy - you are quite literally killing yourself - is insufficient to convince you to change your ways, why are obesity taxes, or tickets for smoking in certain places, so feared? If knowingly causing your own early death isn't a sufficient demotivator, why is a $25 ticket so effective?)
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