To live in the US means to pay very high taxes relative to the services received. In some cases, the US has decided that some people – mainly successful, hard-working business owners – should be punished with tax rates usually associated with hard-core socialist countries.
50% and even 60% tax rates are not unheard of for some people in some states (combined fed and state).
But what do they get in return?
A smoothly functioning and highly supportive regulatory environment? Free health care? Free college tuition? Unbelievably awesome infrastructure?
No, they get none of that, in fact nearly the exact opposite in each case.
It’s time to demand better, and to reject punishing taxes on our most productive. If we don’t, they’ll leave for better habitats, which California is already experiencing as people flee the state to the tune of 500,000 over the past few years.
Don’t worry. Starmer is paving the ground for something horrifying too.
(I selected a shorter video as opposed to an 18 minute one that has 20 seconds of Kier’s speech and 17:40 of some beardy milennial waxing on about it)
It’s the way it goes at the moment. Get a tiny % of the vote, then impose whatever the f you want. See France too.
I say to all. Do something to quietly protest. No need to say what it is. Just do something to disrupt. I do allsorts. I’ve been putting sticks in the spokes ever since Royal Mail started putting (paid for) junk mail through my letterbox. I put it back in the postbox. If everyone did it, their costs would be more than the money they get for the junk. But I’m only a % or 2.
That’s a great idea. I’m sure the UK Government will make that illegal soon enough and you’ll be looking at 6 to 24 months in prison for such an offense. Perhaps they will confiscate your house or cut off your arm. They will call it vandalism and they will label you a terrorist for life. And as we have come to learn, other governments will copy this idea as well.
Don’t forget the guy who created labels and posters and provided the templates free for others to use and paste these stickers on lamp posts etc. I can’t remember the name but it might have been something like “Follow the White Rabbit”. He got 2 years in jail. However if you are one of the exalted illegal migrants from a religion we cannot mention, you can commit rape and child sexual assualt and you’ll get off with less than a slap on the wrist and perhaps even some government compensation.
These are the worst times in my life. Censorship. Surveillance. Taxes. Two tier policing and justice system. Priority for illegal migrants. More taxes. Thought crimes. Forced medical interventions.
Luckily, the junk mail is “unaddressed mail” - its leaflets that go in every door - so no address, so no one knows who put them back in the postbox.
Oh, if you ever get an SAE from a company (rare these days) put glitter in it. Mess up the auto opening machines - or just get glitter all over the office floor. Hehe!
Subscribe to my TikTok for more low level ideas for protesting the way things are!
In deed what do we get for our collective system? We have a semi free Health system, thankfully if your in an accident you will receive a level of emergency care. Everything else comes with a price tag, Education etc. (That’s the situation in Australia)
I dont tiktok but maybe I should subscribe to your TikTok. I’m not triggered. I’m just tuned into the nonsense world in which we are living and in which only seems to be getting worse by the year, the month, even sometimes the day.
I can see the government installing more cameras around the post boxes just to make this illegal. Thinking is illegal. Speaking is illegal.
A lot of people say that taxation is theft and or slavery, and I partially agree.
When the money is taken to fund wars and other things that don’t benefit most people and to add insult to injury, taken without consent or even input from the people.
" I don’t understand why we have to build a ray gun to aim at a planet I never even heard of."
If the people democratically agree to proposed tax structure and condition it is all used to invest in things that benefit the population, then no. This doesn’t mean voting for a candidate/party every 2 to 4 years and they do what they want, it means actual referendums on all tax and spending proposals. More direct democracy.
Anyone can always protest. Disrupt. Always.
Turning up in a mob in a city centre is all risk and no benefit.
In contrast, if enough people persistently act alone and put sticks in spokes, it gets tiring. I’d posit that everyone owning a battery powered angle grinder is more powerful than everyone having 20 guns, in terms of resisting the state. Especially as the angle grinder is more likely to be used.
I agree completely. As we saw from the peaceful truckers in Canada, if everyone just put down their keys and refused to go to work the whole mess would unravel within days.
They caused the problems we are experiencing now. Your form of resistance is perfect and I also do the same. The evil is around us. I like your methods.
An agreement is an agreement, and I’m even willing to admit that there can be a “social” agreement - no one asked me if we should drive on the right hand side of the road, dag nabbit! - but I feel like ‘democracy’ is used more as a consensus making cudgel than fishing for the wisdom of crowds. The village voted, and agreed by a large margin that Becky has to jump into the volcano to satiate the angry volcano gods. Or at least her house is in an excellent spot for a new highway, and eminent domain and all that. There are levels where a single person - even if he be a nobody - should be able to veto a decision that impacts him so heavily.
For a look at the fundamental principles, we are looking for good governance. There are times it is best obtained by democracy, sometimes by a decisive leader, sometimes by everyone minding their own business, and sometimes by shaking a Magic 8 Ball.
To one of the central questions of tonight, I would posit that 80% taxation is slavery. I admittedly don’t have much study of history here… but it seems like slaves were provided food and lodging by their masters, and the masters wanted X work done by Y day. If the work was done sooner, then generally the slaves could pursue some leisurely interests and crafts of their own, as long as everyone was docile enough. They wouldn’t have a lot of time, and not much energy to cultivate it, but they would have had some. With a eye that New World slavery was different than Old World slavery, too.
In a truly democratic situation, no one would vote themselves a 80% tax rate - they would make sure the money is being used appropriately and the tax is reasonable, not crippling.
Protecting the minority individual from the majority is important which is where a good constitution comes into play.
When there’s a “decisive leader” shielded from the consequences of actions, that’s when you get really crappy policy.
If deficits were illegal, taxes had to go up every time a government decides to spend more money and people voted more directly on those decisions → I’m sure many wars and wasteful spending programs would be avoided.
If Americans collectively has to pay an extra $1+ trillion to bomb iraq into the stone age on their taxes with a special “iraq war tax” line on their returns and deducted from their paystubs, think they would have supported the iraq war? I don’t.
When you have a government voted in every 4 years or whatever, they can loan money into existence to wasteful wars and programs, the citizens have no real control - > that’s when you get really bad management including bribing people to vote for politicians with money loaned into existence with the masses not understanding -“Nothing is free!”
What is a slave? The standard definition is someone who does not get paid for their labor BUT, does get free basic food, shelter and clothing.
So what if, at the end of the month, you went into a room and got paid, then went into the next room and gave every cent you just received to pay for your basic food, shelter, clothing and taxes? Is this any different? (what if you actually paid more then you received and were in debt for the balance?) Based on this definition, MORE than half of Americans are slaves!!! (and it’s getting worse every year!!!)
Well, there are exceptions - I think the Kibbutz and early Christian church were examples. But they were voluntary associations.
Going old-traditional again, even some forms of slavery were voluntary, but with noblesse oblige to the masters. Striking out on your own is difficult, but serving this household is prestigious. (In Exodus, the Jews complained to Moses that they knew where their next meal was coming from with Pharoah, but this pesky freedom stuff is hard!) Serfs are considered essentially slaves, but they also had a LARGE amount of autonomy. I feel like we should have more words for low tier workers. Wage slaves, serfs, prisoners-who-are-being-literally-worked-to-death, chattel slaves. We are obviously not in gulag or chattel tier slavery, but there are historical slaves who had more independence than some wage slaves today. There’s a lack of granularity in our language here.
Chris:
I felt the same way you did after hearing about this. I’m in Canada, and heard recently on the news that Toronto government is thinking about implementing a similar policy, though offering much less money.
I wonder…could this be a small part of the Great Taking? If these migrants “buy” houses, many might not have the work ethic/job experience/language skillsto be able to maintain the finance payments. Wouldn’t those homes just quickly get repossessed by the banks? As in most cases we deal with here, I think it’s important to follow the potential future money trail.
Literally happened to my mum’s family when she was a little girl. They had an extra floor in their house, so that got a family. But they were still over quota, so they found another person for that floor, too. Communist Czechoslovakia, c. 1955.
Here is Andrew Henderson, the Nomad Capitalist, talking about this same issue of “legacy countries” taking more than they are giving. His advice? Oddly echoed by Chris in this video, “Go where you are treated best”
An angle grinder will cut any standard material. They install spikes/gates to corral you, you cut them. They install surveillance to monitor who is cutting it, and you sneak up and cut it, too. If a tall camera or monitoring robot, start with silly string to blind it, then you can begin cutting. Careful if there is AC power involved.
