Tag: Government

When “Private” Isn’t

Gummint

Here’s an interesting story:

Jeremy Clarkson has been granted ‘urgent’ planning permission to build cattle shed – in time for his herd to calve in the New Year.

To any American farmer, this would cause a certain amount of head-scratching:  you need a new shed on your farm, you build it.

Not, of course, in Britishland, where ownership of property gives one no rights at all, except of course the obligation to pay taxes on it.

And if the “emergency” part hadn’t been granted, requiring an endless wait while the permission process wound its tortuous way around bureaucratic inertia, “public” input (objections from people who think farmers should be able to carry on with Saxon-era buildings) — resulting in Clarkson building an “un-licensed” shed to save his calves’ lives — why then, he’d be fined and forced to tear the thing down.

Government at its finest.

Quietly Seething

Resistance

After reading this, I think I can safely say that I’m with the author.

We Americans have been asleep for a long time now, failing to surveil our politicians and bloated bureaucracy. As our Declaration of Independence tells us, “…all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
In the very next sentence, however, this same document states that when the people suffer from “a long train of abuses and usurpations,” then “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.”

I think we’re getting very close to that point, but what interests me, from a philosophical standpoint, is whether we’re going to do the “Irish democracy” type of rebellion — whereby laws are just generally ridiculed or ignored:

I don’t think we’ll go for the French “Aux barricades!”  stuff;  that’s more the Pantifa style, and we ain’t them:

…which leaves the American kind of rebellion:

It sure is going to be interesting, and if I were our modern-day tyrants, I’d be hoping for the Irish kind.  The last would be… interesting.

Another Blood-Curdler

Crime, Gummint, Seen On Campus

As Glenn Reynolds puts it so often, putting your kids into the public school system is tantamount to child abuse.  Read this horrorshow:

The cops had the apartment building manager knock on the family’s door. Jade answered and the cops told her she shouldn’t be home alone. Jade started crying and asked to call her dad, McMurry says. But the cops wouldn’t allow it. They did allow her to change into warmer clothes, since they were going to take her away for an interrogation.
…
When McMurry returned from Kuwait, she faced two felony charges of child abandonment. She turned herself in and spent 19 hours in jail before being released on bail.
…
Long story short, almost a year later—she was suspended without pay the entire time— McMurry’s case came to trial. Brunner claimed to be on a prearranged vacation. McMurry, eager to get the case heard, allowed the trial to proceed without him.
…
The trial took four days. The jury deliberated for five minutes and found McMurry not guilty.

Unlike many stories of this type, this one ends well:  the mother is suing the shit out of the Stasi cops, and a judge has denied them “qualified immunity” (whereby cops can do whatever the fuck they want without fear of penalty).

But read the whole thing, keeping all guns out of reach.

“If You’ve Got Nothing To Hide…”

Gummint, Taxes and Theft

That was my reaction to this latest bit of Government bastardy:

The Biden administration has made clear its plan to beef up IRS auditing by expanding the agency’s funding and power. Biden’s latest proposal would require banks to turn over to the Internal Revenue Service bank account information for all accounts holding more than $600.
…
“There’s a 99 percent compliance rate on wages – because wage earners get their earnings reported to the IRS,” a fact sheet says that was handed out by the White House to lawmakers to sell them on the plan. “But the super wealthy who get their income from unreported sources are able to hide their income and avoid paying the tax they owe. In fact, each year the top 1 percent chooses not to pay more than $160 billion in taxes.”

Just out of curiosity:  if the “super wealthy” are not paying those taxes, how is the IRS able to put an actual number on that “uncollected” amount?  Or is it just an estimated, i.e. invented number?

I note that there’s been some pushback:

“While the stated goal of this vast data collection is to uncover tax dodging by the wealthy, this proposal is not remotely targeted to that purpose or that population,” the letter said. “In addition to the significant privacy concerns, it would create tremendous liability for all affected parties by requiring the collection of financial information for nearly every American without proper explanation of how the IRS will store, protect, and use this enormous trove of personal financial information. We believe that this program is costly for all parties, not fit for purpose, and loaded with potential for unintended and serious negative consequences.”

That’s telling them.  And it will be roundly ignored, as usual.

I don’t even want to talk about the intrusiveness of this motherfucking proposal because it just makes me want to sharpen my bayonet and oil the rope.  As it is, my bayonet is sharp enough and if I oil the rope any more, it’ll be too difficult to tie the knot.


(for information purposes only)

At what point do we say, “Enough is enough?”

Asking for a friend.  Read more

Quote Of The Day

QOTD

From Insty’s post on the Swamp’s “insurrection” fable:

“The narrative being fed to us is that the FBI had an insider of a far-right group feeding information to the FBI, but given the repeated lies fed to us by the FBI and federal officials it seems more likely the FBI had people undercover inciting a protest group to riot.”

Just like, for example, the Feds’ creation of a crisis when their agents pretty much compelled Randy Weaver to manufacture an illegal firearm, then besieged his cabin at Ruby Ridge.

That was local, the other more global, but the essential methodologies are identical.

Don’t even ask me to go there.

Overload

Drive Time, Gummint

With all the bollocks surrounding the miracle electric cars and how they’re going to Save The Planet, etc., anyone with half a brain knows that a.) electric cars need lots of juice to run and b.) the current electricity grid — in any country — would not be able to handle the surge in demand should a country (foolishly) decide to abolish gasoline-powered cars by x date (sooner rather than later).

So how would government handle the problem?  Step forward the BritGov, with a wonderful idea:

Charging points for electric cars will be preset to turn off for nine hours a day amid fears they could cause blackouts with the government pushing the switch from diesel and petrol.
From May, every new charger will automatically not function at ‘peak times’ to ease the pressure on the national grid.
There is also set to be a ‘randomised delay’ of up to 30 minutes if there is high demand from motorists.

Yeah, that’s going to get just everyone to dump their Jaguars for Priuses, won’t it?

Fucking morons.