Sorry Elvis, You May As Well Come Back Home!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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We all know politicians and their bureaucratic lap dogs are stupid. We also know that they fanny around trying to find ways to steal more of our money and then waste it on laws and other interference we neither want nor need.

But sometimes their efforts are just staggeringly unnecessary and stupid.

Did you know, for example, that the morons in the US Congress wasted time, money, energy, not to mention paper and ink, discussing and clarifying that any income earned by U.S. residents while in space would be subject to U.S. taxes!

residents while in space would be subject to U.S. taxes

During the Apollo missions we already witnessed the nonsensical spectacle of national heroes like Neil Armstrong having to be processed through US Customs and Immigration when they returned from the Moon. Talk about bureaucratic jobsworth claptrap!

Now the idiots in Congress have declared that colonists on Mars, of whom there are currently, and for the foreseeable future, none, zero and nil, will be taxed on the income they earn while en route to, and living on, the Red Planet. I suppose to continue the madness, the US authorities will try to make the Martians themselves  –  if we find any  –  subject to US taxes too!

It’s enough to make you get your antennae in a tangle!

It’s all because the US government is broke and because it wants to have total control over its citizens (not the uber rich ones, of course, they can do whatever they want). Unlike most countries, the United States uses a ‘worldwide’ system of taxation, under which it taxes all income earned by U.S. citizens and residents, regardless of where it is earned.

The arrogance of a ‘worldwide’ catchment is apparently not enough, now America thinks it must have a ‘pan-galactic’ tax system.

tax burden

At seven times the size of the humongous novel ‘War and Peace’, and at around four million words and counting, the US Tax Code is already monstrously over-sized, but with the whole Universe to cater for it’s only going to get bigger and more complicated. For example, I foresee vast sections trying to explain how to cater for an Earth year of 365 days being factored into a Martian year of 687 days.

Make that getting your antennae in a knot rather than just a tangle.

But no doubt the bureaucrats back on Earth are already salivating at the prospect of drafting even more crap.

As for those with Martian ambitions?

Sorry Elvis, you might as well come back home. We miss you!

Elvis on Mars

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Pierre-Joseph Proudhon – What It Means To Be Governed.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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I had intended to indulge myself today with a bit of a Sunday Sermon about the increasing intrusiveness of government.

But then I found a quote from a Frenchman named Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and I decided to let him use my pulpit on this occasion.

He didn’t know about the “En ess a” snoopers who have been listening to our phone calls, reading our emails, and spying on the leaders of nations that are supposed to be friends and allies of the United States, because he was speaking about what it means to be governed more than two hundred years ago.

Nevertheless, his words ring eerily true.

Nothing, it seems, has changed.

In fact today’s technology has made things far worse.

This is what he had to say all those years ago….

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To be governed is to be

watched over,

inspected,

spied on,

directed,

legislated at,

regulated,

docketed,

indoctrinated,

preached at,

controlled,

assessed,

weighed,

censored,

(and) ordered about,

by men who have neither the right, nor the knowledge, nor the virtue.

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To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction,

noted,

registered,

enrolled,

taxed,

stamped,

measured,

numbered,

assessed,

licensed,

authorized,

admonished,

forbidden,

reformed,

corrected,

(and) punished.

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It is, under the pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be

placed under contribution,

trained,

ransomed,

exploited,

monopolized,

extorted,

squeezed,

mystified,

(and) robbed;

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Then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be

repressed,

fined,

despised,

harassed,

tracked,

abused,

clubbed,

disarmed,

choked,

imprisoned,

judged,

condemned,

shot,

deported,

sacrificed,

sold,

betrayed;

and, to crown all,

mocked,

ridiculed,

outraged,

(and) dishonoured.

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That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.

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The man knew what he was talking about.

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Portrait_of_Pierre_Joseph_Proudhon_1865

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, (1809 – 1865) was a French politician, the founder of Mutualist philosophy, an economist and a libertarian socialist. He was the first person to declare himself an anarchist and is among its most influential theorists. He is considered by many to be the “father of anarchism”. He became a member of the French Parliament after the revolution of 1848, whereupon and thereafter he referred to himself as a federalist.

(Bio source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Joseph_Proudhon )

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