Tiny Houses are Awesome

I agree with almost everything this guy is saying, except for the millions and billions of years, evolutionary crap. In my truck driving days, I passed this guys place about 8 or more times and always wished I could have stopped to check the place out. He's right on the Interstate 10 frontage road near Luling, Texas. I would seriously consider moving there. He is building a community.

Beer and Taxes Story

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
* The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
* The fifth would pay $1.
* The sixth would pay $3.
* The seventh would pay $7.
* The eighth would pay $12.
* The ninth would pay $18.
* The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.
‘Since you are all such good customers,’ he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.’ Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.’
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
* The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
* The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings) .
* The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings) .
* The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 ( 25% savings).
* The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 ( 22% savings).
* The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
‘I only got a dollar out of the $20,’ declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, ‘but he got $10!’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man. ‘I only saved a dollar,too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!’
‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man. ‘Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!’
‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison. ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!’
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Who Really Pays?

Leftists and statists live in a world of non-reality where they think they can believe in stuff that isn't true until the whole system comes crashing down on them.  The problem is, they want to drag everybody else down with them.

Maybe it's news to you, but corporations or companies, don't pay taxes.  Never have, never will. You can create the illusion that they do on paper, but it's an accounting gimmick that masks the reality of what is actually happening.

Milton Friedman explains it well.  I wish I had the entire lecture.

What Is A Right?

If there is one thing that can make my blood pressure go up and get me to ranting it is the abuse of the word "right."  That is, in the sense of what a human being is entitled to.  Nowhere is the leftist brainwashing of the government indoctrination system ("public school") and the media, more apparent than in this area.

Ever wonder why there are just three very intangible things listed as rights in the Declaration of Independence?  How many people are aware that in the Bill of Rights, which is a list of the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, only one,  -- Ahem --,  **AHEM**   only one thing, or inanimate object is referred to as being a right?  Notice that the definition of said article is really only about it's use and not the object itself.  But more about that later.

What is a right?  What's the difference between a right and a privilege? How can we determine this?  When you think of something as being a right, what does that mean?  Isn't it something that you believe that you are owed merely for existing? To put it another way, maybe you think it is something you are entitled to in order to exist. To an undeveloped mind, it would make perfect sense that if you need something in order to survive, it MUST be a right, right? Um, not so fast, Sparky.

 In what should seem silly and outrageous to any thinking person, there are actually people who think that housing is a right. Some people actually think that food is a right.  Some even think that medical care is a right. Such people have only engaged in what Thomas Sowell calls "stage one" thinking.  They have not thought it out completely.   In my essay on Peterson Syndrome I start to delve into how this came about, and it goes to the lack of education via debate and logic.  In this case the most useful tool in the logic box is reductio ad absurdum.  This means reducing an argument to it's most logical base.  We exercise the concept of "if - then" until we exhaust it to the conclusion, until there is no more "then."

I started getting the idea about this from seeing Joe Huffman's "Jews in the attic" test.  He developed this test for deciding whether or not a law could be considered Constitutional.   To put it simply the way I understand it, imagine you are in Nazi controlled Europe and you are trying to rescue Jews from the holocaust.  If a law was passed that directly interfered with your ability to protect those Jews or try to get them to safety, the law fails the test.  Go study it for yourself, and think about having to be in such positions. It may be coming sooner than you think.

Maybe you've seen the TV show "Survivor."  This was another piece of the puzzle for developing my rights test.  It didn't take long for me to grow disgusted with the show.  Survivor was a misnomer. However, the show did teach me a lot about human behavior.  "Reality" TV it was not.  The producers of the show manipulated everything, all in the effort to create tension, controversy and ultimately, ratings.  Let's really exercise our minds by thinking about what would happen if a small group of people were suddenly thrust into a genuine survival situation.  Plane crash in a remote area of South America or Canada.  Shipwrecked on a remote island.  Doesn't matter.  But there is no government, no rules, no infrastructure, no electricity, no shelter.  Doesn't matter if there are three of you or thirty of you.  All that matters now is survival.

This is where you had better hope and pray that the strong male(s) in the group have character and conscience, otherwise you'd better have enough survival skills to move out on your own and do your best. That goes double if you are female.

Now, think about what rights you have.  Do you have a right to food? Only if you hunt it down and kill it, or find it and dig it up or collect it. That applies to you as an individual or a group.  Do you have a right to warmth?  Only if you can figure out how to start a fire and maintain it.  The wood will not gather itself.  Do you have a right to shelter?  Only if you want to figure out how to build it or find a cave.  Do you have a right to a job?  Are you starting to see the picture here?

Let's say the group of "survivors" is about 20 or so in size.  It is a fairly diverse group when it comes to employment, vocation, education, etc. Why, there is even a physician in the mix. Does that mean you have a right to medical care?  There is no hospital, no beds, no medical equipment.  Only the knowledge that exists in that well-trained brain of that lady who spent the better part of her life, giving up any "life" as most people know it to acquire the knowledge she needed to be called "doctor."  But now, your little group is in a situation where everybody has to work hard to do just the most basic things to gather scarce food and water and try to maintain warmth and create shelter.  What about her rights?  Are you going to force her, just because of her knowledge, to have to care for anyone in the group who needs medical attention?  Any time that she sacrifices for that, instead of gathering or hunting or working on the shelter or gathering wood, takes away from the benefits of the whole group, let alone herself.  How are you going to compensate her?

Of course it is beneficial if everyone works together and finds a way to divide the labor and make the best use of everyone's skills. But it has to be on a voluntary basis.  Respect for each person's individual rights would be imperative. The cold, hard truth that each person would have to come to grips with, is that a right is only something that does not require any other person to have to sacrifice any of his own rights.

Private property has to be a fundamental right in order for any society to thrive.  That which you work to earn has to be respected by all the members of a community. This right was understood well by the founding fathers. It is understood from the main body of the Constitution.  It went all the way back to the Magna Carta, and had long been a part of English common law.

The bottom line is this: Nothing that requires that another person give up involuntarily, a part of his life, either in actual time or property earned, can be considered a right by someone else.  Go think on that.  We are quickly approaching a time in history when the looters are going to have to get their own hands dirty doing the actual looting and risk the consequences, rather than electing henchmen to use the power of government to do it for them.

Who Will Understand It?

You are about to experience the most devastating tax increase of your life.  It won't come out of your paycheck by your employer.  It won't come as a bill from the county or state, or even from the Federal government on some official looking paper.

It's going to come at the store.

It won't be a new sales tax or excise tax or usage fee.

It will be in the prices that you pay for groceries, for durable goods, for the fuel you use.  And it's going to be whopping.

A more in depth explanation of this can be found here.  I suggest you take the time to look at it carefully and try to understand it.