From the Edmonton Journal comes news that some Greenpeace members rappelled off the top of Calgary Tower to hang a banner that read “Separate Oil and State.”
Scott Blasken got this shot from his office window Tuesday morning after Greenpeace unfurled a banner from the Calgary Tower.
Hey, I’m all in favor of separating oil and state. But that means no strategic oil reserves; no taxes, including carbon taxes; no cap-and-trade; no regulations; no moratoriums or bans on offshore or other drilling; no special protections of any kind, including caps on liability for actual damages to private property caused by oil companies;1 no eminent domain (ab)use; and no mercantilistic and imperialistic wars to make the world safe for domestic consumption of foreign oil. But somehow I don’t expect all of this is what the Greenpeace activists confusedly mean by “separate oil and state.” Alas and alack.
I’m not talking about limited liability for shareholders here. I’m referring to caps like the $75 million liability cap that has received so much attention in the wake of the BP oil spill, enacted in 1990 as part of the Oil Pollution Act following the Exxon Valdez spill. ↩
I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify statists and I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you statists do not. You move to an area and you tax and regulate until every natural resource is ruined and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Statists beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. (Apologies to Agent Smith.)
His political positions and personal life are even less coordinated than he is.
In the former Soviet Union, which is a workable model for forecasting where the United States is headed, there were de facto two sets of rules: one set for the proletariat and another for the Politburo. Nothing exceptional about that, of course, as the political class always enjoys privileges which the masses do not — it’s been that way since, well, the inception of government. The Romans even had an adage to describe this inequality before the law: quod licet jovi non licet bovi (What is permitted for the gods is not permitted for the cattle). Lovely, huh?
Sen. John Kerry, who has repeatedly voted to raise taxes while in Congress, dodged a whopping six-figure state tax bill on his new multimillion-dollar yacht by mooring her in Newport, R.I. Isabel – Kerry’s luxe, 76-foot New Zealand-built Friendship sloop with an Edwardian-style, glossy varnished teak interior, two VIP main cabins and a pilothouse fitted with a wet bar and cold wine storage – was designed by Rhode Island boat designer Ted Fontaine.
But instead of berthing the vessel in Nantucket, where the senator summers with the missus, Teresa Heinz, Isabel’s hailing port is listed as “Newport” on her stern. Could the reason be that the Ocean State repealed its Boat Sales and Use Tax back in 1993, making the tiny state to the south a haven – like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Nassau – for tax-skirting luxury yacht owners? Cash-strapped Massachusetts still collects a 6.25 percent sales tax and an annual excise tax on yachts. Sources say Isabel sold for something in the neighborhood of $7 million, meaning Kerry saved approximately $437,500 in sales tax and an annual excise tax of about $70,000.
The senior senator’s chief of staff David Wade denied the old salt was berthing his boat out of state to avoid ponying up to the commonwealth. “The boat was designed by and purchased from a company in Rhode Island, and it’s based in Newport at the Newport Shipyard for long-term maintenance, upkeep and charter purposes, not tax reasons,” Wade told the Track. And state Department of Revenue spokesguy Bob Bliss confirmed the senator “is under no obligation to pay the commonwealth sales tax.”
Well, since he’s not docking the yacht in Rhode Island to avoid the taxes, why doesn’t he go ahead and pay Massachusetts what he’d have to if he were docking it there? David Wade is 12 times more likely to drown in his bowl of Cheerios at breakfast tomorrow than Kerry is of paying Mass. for that yacht.
Which brings us back to the double standard which is omnipresent with these guys. Public schools are good enough for your kids, but their kids attend the finest private schools in the country. You can get by using a small, energy efficient house with minimal air conditioning, but they’re gonna go ahead and own 3 or 4 or 5 energy-guzzling mansions. Feel free to get yourself a Smart Car or avail yourself of “public transportation”, but they’re gonna fly around in private jets or sail their massive yachts. Do you live in an exclusive, gated neighborhood or compound with private security? They do — and they have servants’ quarters, too. And most importantly, you pay the oppressive tax rates they burden you with, but they always find a loophole for themselves, like the yacht fiasco cited here or the Kennedy family trusts. Typical plutocrat behavior. Quod licet jovi non livet bovi.
The pertinence of the quote I launched this post with is via the observation that Kerry and his ilk have so ruined Massachusetts that he opts to maintain (some of) his significant assets outside of that state. I hope Rhode Islanders are paying attention. Here comes the virus.
This stupid Dodge commercial–which shows a Dodge Challenger arriving bearing American flags to save the day against the British Redcoats in 1776, ending with the narrator saying “America got two things right: Cars and freedom” is a sad statement about America. We have given up our freedoms and cling to mere words and slogans. We think we are the land of the free, when we have, like the frog in the slowly warming pot of water, allowed the state to ratchet up its depradations of us; and to cheer on, like redneck Wayne’s World rubes when we bomb innocent brown foreigners in the name of “freedom.” In fact, we haven’t gotten freedom or cars right: the former was sacrificed for the sake of the US auto industry in any number of ways–extorted taxes handed over to the auto companies as “bailouts,” protectionism, and the like.
In college, I quickly learned that working at a restaurant is a great way to guarantee you’ll get at least one free (or drastically reduced) meal per shift. I always vied for the Sunday buffet brunch shift because even though I had to show up early on Sunday after a late Saturday night, buffet brunch meant 1) I only had to take drink orders, bring fresh rolls, and bus tables, 2) I could enjoy a huge plate of brunch leftovers once the restaurant was closed, and 3) I could pack a to-go box with rations for my now-husband. During the rest of the week, the long hours on my feet and difficult customers were well worth the 1/2 price dinner and shift drink that came with each night on the floor.
Of course, leave it to politicians to destroy this small but crucial perk. Michigan State Representative Mark Meadows (D-East Lansing) has introduced House Bill 6214, which would tax restaurant employees on meals they receive while working. Let’s be clear here: when I was a server in Alabama, the minimum base pay was $2.13/hour. Yes, servers get tips and depending on where they work, they could be making well over $100 per night in tips alone. But if the restaurant is dead, you go home with a few measly dollars and the knowledge that your weekly paycheck will be enough for a tank of gas and a few staples from the grocery store. I counted on my shift dinner to be my meal of the day–supplemented with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or cheese on crackers.
Now, Representative Meadows wants to take more money from the pockets of restaurant employees. I’ve known some fine “professional” servers who have worked in the food industry for the majority of their lives. These people generally work at high-class establishments and make more than I do in my 9-5. However, the majority of folks working in restaurants aren’t doing it for the big bucks. They are busting ass by night at Chili’s after working their day jobs, they are folks without extensive training or educational opportunities, and they are people with a nice smile and warm demeanor that can hustle a few extra dollars from a table. It’s unfortunate that Representative Meadows now wants to target this population with this terribly greedy plan. More money for the state of Michigan, less for you!
SPOILER ALERT: I try my best not to “spoil” the movie, but some plot elements are revealed.
There are lots of things to like about the movie Prince of Persia: Jake Gyllenhaal‘s abs, the parkour, Gemma Arterton‘s attitude and beauty, or Ben Kingsley’s well-proven ability to portray the bad guy. But I like the libertarian themes.
The movie is inspired from the video game franchise of the same name. All of the important elements of the movie are directly from the video game: the parkour, the street rat, the princess, the dagger of time. The fact that videogames are perhaps becoming in our age the leading form of art for the young is well explained in the lecture series Commerce and Culture by Paul Cantor. Many libertarians have underscored this essential link between market and art, and especially the way that copying is at the heart of artistic development.
The plot itself has libertarian themes. The antagonist, seeking political power, lies the Persians into a war of conquest on the false report of weapons manufacturing and collusion with a known enemy. After the invasion is over and won, there is a scene where the king admonishes one of his sons for his act of invasion, which could be interpreted as an unintended allusion to the foreign policy fiasco perpetrated by George W. Bush over the counsel of his father George Bush, among others.
But the overt libertarianism in the movie is a running gag throughout the movie delivered by Alfred Molina‘s character Sheik Amar, whose role in Raiders of the Lost Ark we cannot forget. The gag is that Amar is the proprietor of a community whose reputation is crafted to prevent tax collection, reminding me of Ralph Raico’s point (I believe he raises it in this lecture) that the Arab stories of caves full of wealth were likely based on the reality of businessmen hiding their wealth from the tax man. Molina/Amar makes many anti-tax comments throughout the movie, which were cheered in the theater where I saw it. As another homage, Molina’s famous scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark is replayed in Prince of Persia between the male and female leads.
Not only for its libertarian themes, but also for its action, characters, plot, and overall impact, I highly recommend the movie. Great summer movie for the family, rivaling the likes of Pirates of the Caribbean.
For my family it had an additional appeal, since the setting was the Persian Empire, and we’re preparing to leave for Turkey in a few days. PFS meeting, here we come!
