Sometimes fair isn’t fair

  Fair.  My pops said fair is a place you go to ride a ferris wheel.  My pops can oversimplifiy anything, which certainly helped limit confusion as to where he stood.

   I’ve been embroiled in a discussion over the last couple of days about how numbers are the objective way to run a country.  Everything should be dictated to us based on math,  I think he’s an economist, and has spent to much time with his slide rule.  I’d tell you where it is so you could go read it, but to be honest I’ve sorta just been trying to drive him insane, and if it works I’ll clue y’all in.

   He keeps saying things like “what could be fairer than that?”  Well, sorry homie, but fair don’t get it done.  Fair is a myth.  There is nothing in life that is fair.  One of my favorite “fairness doctrines” of his is his tax idea.  No matter how much you make, you should pay the same 19% of your income.  This is fair.  Yes, to people making a reasonable amount of money, this is fair.  I think Ron Paul is a flat taxer as well.  Speaking of whom…if you go to vote smart .org you can read everything this sucker has said on the floor of the house since before 9/11. Aw hell, here’s the link.  It also has other public interviews and speeches, so you pauliacs can read something other than the schleppy speeches Lew Rockwell is spoon feeding you.

anyway.  Why flat tax isn’t fair.  Let’s start with an obvious model.  Bill Gates and say someone living on the minimum wage. 2080 times call it 7 bucks an hour = 14,560…less call it 20% =round it to $11,700.00.  Thats to live on…for a year.

Now I know you’re saying well, Bill Gates earned his money, and shouldn’t have to pay more.  But that’s not fair is it?  Bill Gates has a lot more access to services  than the person who is taking home 11K, now doesn’t he…therefore he should pay more. A lot more.  He also has a lot more access to all the places and things America has to offer.  The american dream just simply is not there for everybody.  You can in your elitist way say that it’s their own fault, but if you didn’t grow up in Cabrini Green you really don’t know whether one of its inhabitants is blameless or not.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t like what our government did by creating a dependancy on government handouts, but government did do it.  They have also run a lot of jobs out of America leaving even more Americans in the ever lengthening shadow of poverty.  It’s easy to sit in a position of advantage and look at those not in that position with a cynical eye.  That’s ok.  Look down on whoever you want.  but pay your FAIR share. 

  As far as the rich fleeing the country if you tax them fairly?  Let them…freeze their assets as they run.  The elite have fleeced America with the aid of their government cronies. I see no reason not to make them pay it back.  (I just want to see if that pisses off a guy I know) .

Authors note: these are not necessarily my views.  Fair just makes me a little irate, since in politics nobody seems to know what fair really is.  I do not live in Cabrini Green, do not take government handouts, and get paid a reasonably fair wage.  I should probably just be selfish, but can’t look at the weakest members of our society, and contemplate how to enrich myself off them.  It’s kind of sick that anyone can.  Interestingly enough, I still think Darwin had some good theories.

My 3 car day.

   Ever have one of those days where getting out of bed was precisely the wrong thing to do?  That’s not what happened today.  Had I not gotten up I wouldn’t have had one of those days that make me appreciate the mundane mediocrity of the rest of them.

    The menagerie was in fine form.  Mollie had to be let out three times before she could decide whether she wished to relieve herself or hang out staring at me while I shaved.  Front door, bathroom.  bark bark bark. front door bathroom. bark bark bark.  you get the idea.  I still managed to complete the morning ritual consisting of the most invigorating urination experience imaginable, shower shave brush tooth and head for the door.

    I stopped at the refrigerator because I’m on a fruit kick.  Not for health reasons, but because they don’t make you feel like you ate a Buick when you’re trying to work.  Plums, these wierd plum apricot hybrids that I think are going to make me grow a third eye in the middle of my forehead, a mess of grapes, a banana, and a bunch of blueberries.  All I need is a haircut and a latte and I’d be the oh so metrosexual MDVP’s midwestern soul brothah.

   Still right on time, but then I tried crossing the living room.  Roscoe was lying in wait.  He latched onto my foot, and no matter how I petted, treated and cajoled the fuzzball wouldn’t release me.  It appeared almost as if he was trying to tackle me.  I’m not what you’d call large, but the wonder bunny was seriously deluded if he thought I was going to play along.  I snatched him off and sent him on a little two yard roll across the carpet, and WHAM, before i could even straighten back up I again had a bunny shaped tumor on my foot.  This went on for several minutes before he finally gave up and wandered over to watch TV.  He sits sideways in front of it.  If he sits face on to it he can’t see it and is therefore either sleeping or plotting death for his infidel owner.

   And so it was off to work.  The sky looked like this Dali painting, and about halfway to work it decided to rain like hell.  I was doing the usual 60 in a 40 and doing commentary on my fellow commuters inability to exhibit even a modicum of motor control.  I get into this work zone where you have to slow down or they fine you 7 gazillion bucks.  they have those concrete barriers set up narrowing the road down to a lane you’d play hell driving a bicycle through, and there in the middle of the road is this honking big block and tackle with about 40 foot of logging chain attached.  It had apparently fallen off a truck.  This didn’t interest me.  It must have weighed 200 pounds.  This didn’t either.  It somehow tangled itself around the front left suspension of my car.  Again, no interest.  My car went from 45 to 0 in 8 feet.  Ok, now my attention was sort of riveted to the incident.

    I have just become the lead car in what would be a 10 mile long traffic jam before they finally managed to drag the thoroughly shot carcass of my entirely to low slung piece of shit out of the way.  I called my boss.  He was still laughing when I got to work, which I accomplished by catching a cab, hopping in the eclipse, and checking out the view of indy at mach 2 on I-70 west.  Indy is much prettier if you blur it just a touch.

   We’ll not talk about work.  Thats over for the day.

   So I’m heading home at what could only be considered a reasonably sane speed when this truck hauling some sort of aluminum shafts, we’ll call them spears,  suddenly loses part of its load.; to wit, one 12 foot long piece of perfectly balanced aluminum rod that took one absolutely beautiful to behold hop off the concrete prior to ramming itself through the fiberglass fender, the rubber tire, and the metal passenger door of the eclipse.  I should not have poked fun of the gold standard yesterday, metals seem out to get me.

   car, cab, car, that’s three.  I’m not leaving the house tonight.  Except to go either rent or buy a car.  I’ve yet to decide.

I’m thinking something in an armored truck.

6 a.m. hateful

god i hate fucking morning.  I pray some stupid pedestrian makes the wrong choice this morning.

preferably a republican president

that drinks diet soda

and likes cats

liberal cats

fuck where is a good libertarian punching bag when i need one?

what i really need is an ice cold coke, and about 7 advil

later

night is not 6 a.m.

  At 6 a.m. it’s easy to dredge up some hateful and toss it against the blog wall.  Not so at night.

Night is for relaxing, and being untroubled.  For listening to the sound of the bugs outside the window.

It always amazes me how driven people are.  How seriously they take everything.

There is almost nothing in our world that you can not find beauty in,

and there is almost nobody on our world that you can’t find humor in.

I like my life.  It’s designed to fit me.  i like the people that are in it, no matter what small part they may play.

I think what I like most though is that I am moments from a nice comfortable bed.

I just have to remove the menagerie.

goodnight.

Ron Paul’s Idea Usurped to Fight The War in Iraq

  This story is interesting to me.  Not because  I am either for or against, but simply because the mans Idea was stolen, changed, and used in a manner that I would think makes him cringe.  Ron Paul had a plan for fighting the war on terror that didn’t include U. S. Troops going to far away places and hunting down terrorists.  It was called the Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001.  He presented it to congress on 11 October 2001.

  Letters of Marque and Reprisal are authorized in the constitution and basically allow a government to authorize others to track down and kill those that are basically beyond the scope of a military application, i.e. terrorists protected by foreign governments.  For a full explanation use this link.

what piqued my interest on this bad boy is that while the letters were never authorized upon Ron Pauls request, they have been being used in a manner of speaking.  We are using private contractors in the war on terror.  Without congressional authorization, and with no letters of marque being issued.

For shame you say?  I know.  I have proof to.  George Bush has railed time and again on the war in Iraq being part of the war on terror.  There are currently estimated to be between 120,000 and 180,000 private contractors in Iraq.  How many of them are armed is not listed, but Private security contractors are generally armed in a combat zone.  These contractors are from a number of countries around the globe, including the U.S.  For lack of a better term they are mercenaries, and in many cases are authorized to perform combat roles.  oh yeah, here’s an article you just must read if this interests you at all..    http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070718/ts_csm/acontractors_1

    That makes them extra-military forces authorized to conduct actions against terrorists forces in Iraq.  Many of their firms receive financing from the U.S. Government.

No letters of marque, but if this is any different than what Ron Paul was asking for then it’sa shade of grey difference that can not be discerned by the naked eye, or the avid mind.  To make it even better, these troops can stay even if we pull out our military.