Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Hard lessons unlearned.

According to some accounts, Emerson visited Thoreau in jail and asked, “Henry, what are you doing in there?” Thoreau replied, “Waldo, the question is what are you doing out there?”
At least I'll have good fellow jailbirds.

25 comments:

  1. I think there'll be LOTS of good company. We'll clog the court system. We'll DEMAND that the ACLU do the job that they're named for and defend us (yeah, right).

    B Woodman
    III-per

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  2. Lack of health insurance is the new jaywalking.

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  3. LOL. No prisoner's dilemma with Mr. Beck. He'll take his own interest every time. And tell you about it. Loudly. At length.

    Not that that doesn't have it's own charm, to be sure.

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  4. No worries, though...

    Three hots and a cot, access to a law library and, of course, free health care -- all in a clean, well-lit, minimum security facility filled with all sorts of interesting folk.

    What's not to like? At least they'll have the "universal coverage" they want and you'll have the security of knowing that you can never be denied health care as long as you refuse to pay for it.

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  5. hang on, you only have to pay the tax if you're earning ... so how about giving up work ... certainly less inconvenient than going to prison.

    What do you think would happen if every employed person who was against this health care plan quit on the same day?

    ****
    vw: "submeta" - isn't that just ordinary?

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  6. This is the Federal health care system in action. Any questions?

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  7. "Three hots and a cot, access to a law library and, of course, free health care -- all in a clean, well-lit, minimum security facility filled with all sorts of interesting folk."

    Not only that, think of the endless supply of blogfodder.

    Uh-oh. Small Problem. I understand most slammers are non-smoking these days; could make the first three weeks or so interesting for Tam. Or those people around her.

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  8. I will not pay their tax. Or go to jail. The property line will be respected, at least until I run out of ammunition.

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  9. I somehow doubt there will be enough room which will invoke the law of unintended consequences.

    Gmac

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  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  11. Oh, no way this is getting through the Senate.... or the SCOTUS. They couldn't be that suicidally naive.


    ... right?




    Oh, this is gonna be fun!

    for..um... certain values of fun.

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  12. remember folks: It's kinda hard to Waco some schmuck if the fellows in black find an empty residence.

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  13. No more runnin'......

    ...... "They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave."

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  14. TIA: no, sir. I mean it.

    Tam understands what this is about.

    This is the last moral thing that I can think of before the whole thing really blows up, and everybody had better pray it never actually comes to that.

    This is past being cool, all the way out to ice cold.

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  15. Whoa!

    A bright-line issue on which the Threepers are willing to stake their principles! At this point, it'd almost* be worth it to see ObamaCare pass just to find out whether their words will be backed up by action.

    I have my doubts, but it'd be interesting to be proven wrong once things get worse than online name-calling.

    *Not actually, but close.

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  16. "... could make the first three weeks or so interesting for Tam. Or those people around her."

    'I'm not locked in here with you; you're locked in here WITH ME!'

    "They couldn't be that suicidally naive. ... right?"

    Wrong. The current Congress is channeling King George III. Or Louis XVI.

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  17. Only the self-employed would have the option of not paying the tax as a form of protest. The vast majority of us who draw a regular check from an employer will have it automatically deducted just like the rest of the taxes.

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  18. BryanP has a really good point. Most Americans work in organizations with less than 50 employees. How hard would it be to talk your boss into letting you work on contract, paid through a 1099?

    It makes more sense anyway, as you get to pay your taxes quarterly, with Uncle Sugar's bucks sitting in a bank account or 90 day CD making money for you until it's time to pay the piper.

    Think of the heartburn the bureaucrats would have if forced to audit 20 million or 30 million more 1099 accounts:-)

    And if they had to set up accomodations for only 20% of those new 1099ers, the enforcement costs would bankrupt them. Gee...

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  19. As Rick R said, maybe it's time for Atlas to Shrug. . . . .

    Damn! I've got to hurry up and finish reading that book.

    B Woodman
    III-per

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  20. "And if they had to set up accomodations for only 20% of those new 1099ers, the enforcement costs would bankrupt them. Gee..."

    Whose world you livin' in, Ed? The Treasury would just deflate the currency even more by "printing" more worthless scrip to upstaff, then stick future taxpayers into infinity with the bill.

    [Fred Rogers Voice]"Can you say 'Weimar Republic', boys and girls? That's right, I thought that ya could!"[/Fred Rogers]

    But the notion of swamping the system has its obvious attractions.

    'Berg

    wv: pellizi -- BURN HER!!!

    Oh, wait . . .

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  21. Nancy "Antoinette" Pelosi: "Let them have CAT scans!"

    TIA: I think Billy is calm enough to make it to the stage where he gets to mock the entire system in the courtroom, if for no other reason than he'll be way more effective there. I'm not sure I've got the patience for that stage though.

    OTOH, I probably won't get the opportunity. MY skillset isn't well suited to "under the table" working conditions, so my employers will just kindly remove the required payments from my paycheck ahead of time.

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  22. "...Whose world you livin' in, Ed? The Treasury would just deflate the currency even more by "printing" more worthless scrip to upstaff, then stick future taxpayers into infinity with the bill...."

    And Mark B. wins this thread by a mile.

    That's an incredibly astute observation, sir, and one that everyone should take serious note of. There IS no bankrupting these knaves, in any real way, since they already ARE bankrupt, and HAVE BEEN for almost 30 years (when was it we went from greatest lender to greatest debtor?). They spend money they don't have, RIGHT NOW, so how is it that we can pull off this '60's style sit-in bullshit and make it work? The premise is flawed, and it's pretty obvious to me.

    Sorry, but I'm not built for prison. Billy might get by, but I'm not having that shit. We'll all just sit in those cells, or whatever they decide to stick us all in, and let us rot. It's not feasible to sit idly by and try to take down this system with inertia (or whatever you want to call it), and definitely not with some sort of appeal to their consciencness of right/wrong. These cretins do not possess that value. You don't comply, they'll see to it that you die.

    "YOU WILL ASSIMILATE!," is their mantra at this point, and they are incredibly close to getting it to be law.

    I say fuck 'em.

    The only way to make these zombies stop what they are doing is turn off their brains. Violence is the only thing these monsters understand, and THEY are the ones who are initiating it.

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  23. I'll play devils advocate. At 2.5% it'll cost me $140.00/month, or about what I was spending on smokes before I had the open heart surgery. The out of pocket I can live with.
    What I can't live with, or won't live so long with, is the kind of R&D that developed the heart valve I got (replacing the defective one I was born with - it had nothing to do with smoking) is not going to happen under the new health care system. It just won't, there won't be any money in it. So the next big thing I'm going to need in 20 years, whatever that is, may not be there and I'm going to be crippled and/or die.
    Tha part pisses me off.
    Phil

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  24. Just so you guys know, we don't even have it yet, but they're already short on cash. The "company" half of the payroll tax is paid by "rich" and non-rich alike, including the company's clientele.

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