being self-employed may or may not be turning me into a libertarian. i feel like i'd rather take 20% of my income and just hand it over directly to my elderly neighbors than send it to the pilfering sociopaths in washington. ... i'm currently researching the best ways to commit tax evasion.

A brief analysis of anarcho capitalist rhetoric:

Anarcho Capitalists oppose both democracy and taxes, which is a tough position to take, because democracy has vast, widespread support, and because taxes, though unpopular, are an accepted and commonplace part of modern civilization. In order for the anarcho capitalist to proceed, he needs to reframe the debate with emotional and fear inducing terminology. 'Democracy' is transformed into the scary sounding 'statism'. 'Taxation' is transformed into the scary sounding 'coercion under the threat of violence'. No one wants to argue in favor of violence, which forces smart sifters like psychologic to say things like "That's far too broad of a question for me to give a single answer." In my opinion, I'd score that response as 1 point to blankfist, just like I give myself 1 point every time an ancapper can't answer one of my questions. It really isn't that broad of a question, it's just framed in a way that is purposely designed to fuck you up.

Now let's break down the 'coercion under threat of violence' a bit more. You will not be shot for tax evasion. You might get fined, or in extreme circumstances jailtime, but you will not be shot. Not even Al Capone was shot for tax evasion. There is no threat of violence until you initiate it, by, say, pointing a gun at a police officer. Anarcho capitalists would sound pretty silly if they said 'We are coerced into not pointing guns at police officers under threat of violence' directly, but in essence, this is exactly what they are saying.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

[Genuine reply]
The state has the right to collect taxes, but I agree with you that tax evasion should not be punishable by death or physical violence. I don't think you have anything to worry about, because any politician who suggested the death penalty for tax evasion would probably be recalled immediately. >> ^blankfist:
Here, you've all asked me a number of questions, let me ask all of you one. Do you believe goods and services should be offered by force under the threat of violence or death?



So, is that a no? Or a yes?

Goods and services offered under threat of violence or death. That would mean roads, schools, police, fire, military, continued wars in the middle east, the drug war, corporate subsidies, eminent domain, keeping gays from marrying, etc. You must fund these or else men with guns will show up at your home, they will kidnap you and throw you to a cage. And during this "tax extraction" process they may very well shoot you.

Do you agree with this? Do you think this is an acceptable and moral way to offer services and goods?

[Sarcastic reply]

Yes, I think our government's non-violent, non-lethal approach to tax evasion is wimpy. Death penalty to all tax evaders!>> ^blankfist:

Here, you've all asked me a number of questions, let me ask all of you one. Do you believe goods and services should be offered by force under the threat of violence or death?

[Genuine reply]

The state has the right to collect taxes, but I agree with you that tax evasion should not be punishable by death or physical violence. I don't think you have anything to worry about, because any politician who suggested the death penalty for tax evasion would probably be recalled immediately. >> ^blankfist:

Here, you've all asked me a number of questions, let me ask all of you one. Do you believe goods and services should be offered by force under the threat of violence or death?

Living here now. In general, Japan is a great place to live... for a foreigner. Extremely low crime rates. Okay medical insurance (National Health Insurance here, which has both pros and cons).

It would suck hard to be native Japanese though. Everyone here is working crazy hours--my friend who manages a restaurant literally works 7 days a week, from opening at 2PM until well after midnight. Lots of people doing mandatory unpaid overtime because the economy has been tanked for over a decade now.

The government here is a frickin' mess. The corruption that goes on here is just mind-boggling. They're thinking of electing as Prime Minister a guy who just a couple a months ago was facing prosecution for millions of (US) dollars worth of tax evasion. His secretary took the fall for for it and he claimed he didn't know anything about it--uh huh.

Women's issues are behind Western standards, but it's changing for the better rapidly. My wife will get 6-months paid maternity leave when she gets pregnant and we'll get boat-loads of cash from the government to offset the cost of the OBGYN visits and hospitalization costs. The government has been offering coupons for free health exams for women for common issues like breast and uterine cancer. Women almost always get solitary custody of kids in a divorce and have the right to deny the father access to the kids.

Still, there's a way to go obviously as this video shows. We have a friend who's an 18-year old single mother. Pretty tough, but she's got extended family that help her through it. A lot of my university students come from single-mom families and they tell me about how hard their moms work to pay for their education (most of them are working part-time jobs to help pay for school too).

In Japan, it's all about your connections. Japanese society places a huge emphasis on your personal connections--friends, family, and extended family. I imagine that part of the problem of why very little is being done for these people (single mothers or otherwise) is that there is something of a stigma against people who don't have those connections... Maybe from the Japanese perspective they feel there must be something wrong with a person who can't rely on family to help them when the chips are down.

"The Chinese pay zero capital gains tax."


China has a capital gains tax, so maybe he's talking about tax evasion? Their income tax also tops out at 45%, vs 35% in the US (I think I read that correctly).

Either way, the capital gains tax rate in China is not zero. Perhaps he's getting his financial data from the same place conservatives normally get their "scientific" data.

The only problem with the "have at it, we'll see how that works out for you" approach is that we are constantly bombarded with proof that a whole hell of a lot of people out there are stupid. And not just "tragic twist of fate" stupid but full-on, willful, contradiction-embracing, double-standard promoting stupid.

Anyone that would have voted for a ban on gay marriage in Texas would be extremely likely to either:
A) Fail to realize that literal enforcement of anti-sodomy laws would criminalize straight oral sex also, and/or
B) Correctly understand that enforcement of such a law would be very selectively applied, and only to gay couples. Unless law enforcement needs some equivalent of a "tax evasion" charge to incarcerate the next Al Capone.

So I guess we'll find out what happens when an unstoppable stupid force meets an immovable apathetic electorate.

I hate judge judy.

Always have, always will. This was no exception.

It was two evils battling in this video, and Judy actually seemed to be the worse of the two. Don't call someones parenting skills into question based upon a court appearance. Don't call their spouse or significant other a coward, when she probably volunteered to go instead of him.

Honestly, a list of what she made fun of.

Weight? -Check.
Intelligence? -Check
Kids? -Check
Parenting Skills? -Check
Spouse? -Check
Insinuate possible tax evasion? -Check
The fact that she signed something her husband handed to her? -Check

All those assumptions made in less then 5 minutes. The only thing she didn't call into question was the girls hair colour.. As a judge, you can't DO that, you have to be impartial in all situations, and that's why court-room dramas like this are always such complete bullshit.

I won't downvote this, but my complete hatred of judge judy prevents me from upvoting it.

Greece has been paying people more to do less than other countries for decades, add to that the corruption that makes other corrupt countries seem honest (Ireland I'm talking about you here) and the rampant tax evasion.

The people have a right to be pissed for the poor state of the country, but they've been choosing the governments that sleep walked them into it.

Other taxpayers in broke nations will be giving tens of millions of Euros towards helping Greece, be nice if we werent paying for their civil servants to retire in their 40's.

smart gen xer's like myself, get on with the business at hand....develping new and creative alternatives for their own worlds, loved ones, and livelihoods...Black Markets and Income Tax Evasion anyone?? Civil Disobedience is the only answer, work within their system and lose it all.

>> ^blankfist:
Restaurants cannot levy a tax. It's a charge, it's a gratuity, it's a tip, it's whatever you want to call it, but it's not a tax. I'm not quite sure what people aren't getting about this.
Also we're arguing semantics if the argument is based on whether gratuity or tips can or cannot be compulsory. There is no written law I know that says they must be one way or another. If you agree to pay a gratuity before service, then you should be ready to pay it after service is completed.
If I buy a massage for my girlfriend, they ask if I'd like to add a gratuity to the gift certificate. Obviously I don't know if the massage is going to be rubbish or fantastic, but I add it ahead of time so she doesn't have to tip them. At that point, I've agreed to the price before service. Same thing here.


I was being facetious but you should have caught that when I called it a tax. In the terms of everything however that is what it boils down to. If something becomes mandatory it's no longer a respect for service, but a mandatory pay for a job on top of a service already expected. In most places for something mandatory gratuity(I suppose I could call it something else, such as a store based levy) it has to be openly visible for the customers to see as well.

Tipping for all things can and can't be compulsory depending on where you are and the laws. If it's compulsory it becomes something else depending on your tax code, and they actually have to file and provide you with a different receipt for it as well. The funny thing is, depending on where you live you can be nailed for tax evasion on it. As demanding tipping in this manner can, and can't be recorded via the normal way.

The rest of your post doesn't apply.

Liberal Lies About National Health Care: First in a Series

by ANN COULTER


(1) National health care will punish the insurance companies.

You want to punish insurance companies? Make them compete.

As Adam Smith observed, whenever two businessmen meet, "the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." That's why we need a third, fourth and 45th competing insurance company that will undercut them by offering better service at a lower price.

Tiny little France and Germany have more competition among health insurers than the U.S. does right now. Amazingly, both of these socialist countries have less state regulation of health insurance than we do, and you can buy health insurance across regional lines -- unlike in the U.S., where a federal law allows states to ban interstate commerce in health insurance.

U.S. health insurance companies are often imperious, unresponsive consumer hellholes because they're a partial monopoly, protected from competition by government regulation. In some states, one big insurer will control 80 percent of the market. (Guess which party these big insurance companies favor? Big companies love big government.)

Liberals think they can improve the problem of a partial monopoly by turning it into a total monopoly. That's what single-payer health care is: "Single payer" means "single provider."

It's the famous liberal two-step: First screw something up, then claim that it's screwed up because there's not enough government oversight (it's the free market run wild!), and then step in and really screw it up in the name of "reform."

You could fix 90 percent of the problems with health insurance by ending the federal law allowing states to ban health insurance sales across state lines. But when John McCain called for ending the ban during the 2008 presidential campaign, he was attacked by Joe Biden -- another illustration of the ironclad Ann Coulter rule that the worst Republicans are still better than allegedly "conservative" Democrats.

(2) National health care will "increase competition and keep insurance companies honest" -- as President Barack Obama has said.

Government-provided health care isn't a competitor; it's a monopoly product paid for by the taxpayer. Consumers may be able to "choose" whether they take the service -- at least at first -- but every single one of us will be forced to buy it, under penalty of prison for tax evasion. It's like a new cable plan with a "yes" box, but no "no" box.

Obama himself compared national health care to the post office -- immediately conjuring images of a highly efficient and consumer-friendly work force -- which, like so many consumer-friendly shops, is closed by 2 p.m. on Saturdays, all Sundays and every conceivable holiday.

But what most people don't know -- including the president, apparently -- with certain narrow exceptions, competing with the post office is prohibited by law.

Expect the same with national health care. Liberals won't stop until they have total control. How else will they get you to pay for their sex-change operations?

(3) Insurance companies are denying legitimate claims because they are "villains."

Obama denounced the insurance companies in last Sunday's New York Times, saying: "A man lost his health coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because the insurance company discovered that he had gallstones, which he hadn't known about when he applied for his policy. Because his treatment was delayed, he died."

Well, yeah. That and the cancer.

Assuming this is true -- which would distinguish it from every other story told by Democrats pushing national health care -- in a free market, such an insurance company couldn't stay in business. Other insurance companies would scream from the rooftops about their competitor's shoddy business practices, and customers would leave in droves.

If only customers had a choice! But we don't because of government regulation of health insurance.

Speaking of which, maybe if Mr. Gallstone's insurance company weren't required by law to cover early childhood development programs and sex-change operations, it wouldn't be forced to cut corners in the few areas not regulated by the government, such as cancer treatments for patients with gallstones.

(4) National health care will give Americans "basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable" -- as Barack Obama claimed in his op/ed in the Times.

You want to protect consumers? Do it the same way we protect consumers of dry cleaning, hamburgers and electricians: Give them the power to tell their insurance companies, "I'm taking my business elsewhere."

(5) Government intervention is the only way to provide coverage for pre-existing conditions.

The only reason most "pre-existing" conditions aren't already covered is because of government regulations that shrink the insurance market to a microscopic size, which leads to fewer options in health insurance and a lot more uninsured people than would exist in a free market.

The free market has produced a dizzying array of insurance products in areas other than health. (Ironically, array-associated dizziness is not covered by most health plans.) Even insurance companies have "reinsurance" policies to cover catastrophic events occurring on the properties they insure, such as nuclear accidents, earthquakes and Michael Moore dropping in for a visit and breaking the couch.

If we had a free market in health insurance, it would be inexpensive and easy to buy insurance for "pre-existing" conditions before they exist, for example, insurance on unborn -- unconceived -- children and health insurance even when you don't have a job. The vast majority of "pre-existing" conditions that currently exist in a cramped, limited, heavily regulated insurance market would be "covered" conditions under a free market in health insurance.

I've hit my word limit on liberal lies about national health care without breaking a sweat. See this space next week for more lies in our continuing series.

I just want to make sure you have the facts straight.

Bill Clinton
John Edwards
Eliot Spitzer
Gary Condit
Gavin Newsom
David Paterson
Barney Frank

These are the most famous politicians that I am actually familiar with. I didn't do any research on obscure politicians from the sticks. I'm sure we can all agree that I could go on, but what's the point. Same as the republican party - there are more than have been previously mentioned.


Paterson is still Gov of NY so he obviously didn't resign
Newsom didn't resign
Clinton didn't resign
Edwards didn't resign or get pushed out of anything. He had already removed himself from the Presidential race before anyone knew about his infidelity.
Condit didn't resign even though there was more than just cheating involved in his scandal.
Barney Frank is still "spraying it, not saying it" to this day.
Only Spitzer resigned.

Edwards and Clinton have continued to be active in politics since their affairs were made public. Clinton remains popular among some democrats (he was very active during the last Presidential election) and Edwards gave an interview last week in which he stated, "What happens now? If you were to ask people during the campaign who's talking most about [poverty], it was me. There's a desperate need in the world for a voice of leadership on this issue. . . . The president's got a lot to do, he's got a lot of people to be responsible for, so I'm not critical of him, but there does need to be an aggressive voice beside the president."

I guess he thinks the world needs him. Doesn't sound like a resignation to me.

And don't get me started on all the TAX evasion scandals this year: Charlie Rangel and Tim Geithner to name the two biggest.


You guys are all so cute with your delusions and wild imaginations, though. It was a nice attempt at winning the game of "partison politics."

It's pretty clear to me who has a "holier than thou" attitude here on the sift and on the news.

so if you work hard, stay healthy and hold a decent job....you get to pay for the guy who drank until his liver exploded, smoked until his lungs turned black, who sat on his ass without getting a job - to not only live and eat (you can easily pay rent and food for $674 a month) but to have a cellphone and pay his monthly bill?

10 years ago cell phones barely existed so don't even try to claim they are "necessary."

do you like big corporations? CEOs who make millions a year? that is who this benefits - they are tapping into a new market (poor people) by stealing from everyone else.

the only solution to this statist bullshit is tax evasion...