Some Odds and Ends After Our Absence

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     The cats helped a bit with the cold episodes.   They are adept at waiting for El Gringo Viejo to nod off on his slightly undersised recliner during the Houston Texans game, knowing that heat travels upward and is to be dedicated to the comfort of felines.   They, as I, have long ago determined that even if the temperature is comfortable, there should be no waste of warmth during the Winter.   As we are situated quite close to the Tropic of Cancer, the period near the Solstice on the Calendar tends to be very cool during the nighttime hours.  We were out about a month (we haven't counted up the days) and almost every night was in the 40s...ending up with Thursday's early morning reading being 35 degrees F.

     The last blast from the north came in just before and brought winds of 50 - 60 miles per hour sustained, and gusts up to 80 during the first moments of passage.   It is pleasant to report that throughout the area of our part of rural Mexico, there was not one power outage.  Excellent when it is considered that the sustained winds endured for a period of over 18 hours.

     We call attention to the fact that our little place is very rustic.   Some new readers might not want to dig through our 600 previous postings to read about the "mud hut", or to visit  our webpage (linked on this page), but even with the cold nights and slightly coolish days, the temperature inside stayed a constant 72 degress....a tribute to the really old fashioned adobe and plaster approach to forming the lobster shell of a house.

 

     It is also of note that the "situation" has improved to the point that people are actually speaking confidently that a reasonable semblance of the old imperfect order has seemed to return.   On our return yesterday, the highways were super over-saturated.   Extremely heavy traffic accompanied this traveller for the entirety of the 239 mile route that was followed this time.  Traffic coming, and going.  Busses heading south must have numbered 200 common carriers of the 1st class and deluxe variety.   Thousands of motorcars, 90 percent of which were families returning from buying expeditions in the Commerce Cathedrals (shopping malls) in McAllen and other places in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.   Another number were those Mexicans who live in the United States legally and make the Christmas trek in SUVs and station waggons, with and without trailers, loaded up like some kind of adjunct delivery service for Santa Claus.

     This whole phenomena is a result of the perceived improvement in the  security situation.   While the chance of being involved, in actuarial terms, in some kind of crossfire or other related event was always very low in real terms, it is now perceptually, truly, obviously, and undeniably very, very diminished.   There is the apparent perception and understanding as well that the new administration is not going to move in the direction of "adapting to a reasonable alternative"(benign neglect of the cartels).   We are hopeful that what is essentially an imperfect victory will not be squandered by yielding to the notion that  sociological rot will not finally overtake an entire huge nation if left unchecked.

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AN IRRITATION:

     It disappoints, as always, when FOX News decides to join into and reinforce the popular perception created by the leftist press about the situation in Mexico.   The whole picture is not that much different than here in the United States.   In many ways, quite frankly, things are better South of the Border.   So when O'Reilly, or the voices on The Five, and others on FOX News were admonishing that Mexican prisons are Hell Holes where the cartels run the show, and that especially Americans are targeted by the criminal and general population of Mexico, and that everything is corrupt.....it brings to mind motes and beams and eyes, kettles, pots, and black.   While O'Reilly, for instance, was warning that if "President Nieto" did not release Corporal Hammer, that Mr. O'Reilly would "take care of Mexico's tourism industry".   Mr. O'Reilly is such an expert on matters Mexican, that he is unaware that it is President Pen~a....not Nieto.   The paternal surname immediately follows the given name(s).

     The Hammer case was already essentially resolved.   The Mexican Secretary of the Navy had declared the issue to have been warrantless and that no crime had been committed because the person involved had voluntarily revealed the shotgun in question and requested permitting for said instrument.  The telephone calls received by the family were from prisoners and/or their family members who commonly attempt to extort money from family members of other prisoners, especially the newly arrived.   American prison gangs do the same thing.

     The fear held by this observer was that what ground had been covered might possibly have to be re-ploughed because Mexican arrogance is similar to American arrogance.   If they are pushed, they tend to push back, sometimes to their own detriment.  O'Reilly fell into this category in a way.

      Many things about this case that were commonly known in Mexico were not reported.   The most vigorous operator in this matter had been the the Tamaulipas State Chamber of Commerce.   The final attorney in Mexico City had served well.   The usually useless Human Rights Commission (totally pinko) served well.   Various State and local elected officials had also been pointing out behind the scenes that the Secretary of the Navy's position was totally accurate.  The federal customs and immigration official had overreacted to some personal affront, and "behaved stupidly" in the words of a great American leader.   It was all but unreported that  Corporal Hammer's friend was not detained during this same incident.   And, while even Laura Ingraham had to pile on, please be assured that of the 1,000 Americans behind bars presently in Mexico, somewhere between 950 to 1,000 are not the type of person with whom you would like your teenaged daughter to be spending time.  As well, of the 140 Americans killed in Mexico during the last year, O'Reilly and Laura and the rest of the choir seem to leave out that 130 or so were very, very probably involved in the drug trafficking business.   Here, there is something usually stated about fleas, dogs, and lieing down with, etc.

 

     It is my judgement that the full weight of the blame....at least 99% of the fault in this issue....lies with the Mexican customs officer.   All he would have had to have done, at worst, is to have ordered the individual back to the American side.    There is some blame to be spread onto the American border agents who apparently told the boy that there would be no problems, just to declare the gun and get the permits.   The permits have to be obtained before going in.

 

      And while all this is going on, there is a 340,000 tonne elephant sitting there on the FOX News set, minding its own business.   "Don't go to Mexico, it's dangerous and corrupt, and they are always doing things all the time to everybody...especially Americans", they say.  While we have Benghazi unresolved....Fast and Furious left unresolved....20 dead children in Newtown, Connecticut....overwhelming corruption at all levels in the United States Government....Solyndra ignored....expropriation of General Motors and Chrysler....and some jackass from Chicago talking about reasonable new firearms legislation, like, you know, Chicago....where "One a Day" would be a substantial improvement.   Thank the Lord that Chicago has stringent firearms control.  That solved all the problems.

 

     Please allow us to include that during El Gringo Viejo's professional and business life, he conducted, permitted, licensed, escorted, guided, scouted, and otherwise attended to the issues of hunting game birds in Mexico involving hundreds upon hundreds of hunters, and thousands of shotguns, scores of thousands of importations of rounds of ammunition.   Never had one man detained.

 

Thanks for the opportunity to unload, perhaps inform to a level of greater understanding, and swim upstream.   These might be the last days for contrarians and other sorts of folks who have knowledge and opinion that is true but not part of the common understanding.

El Gringo Viejo

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Immaculate Concussion, indeed!

In the Complete Guide to the Commandments, Canons, and Orders of the Church of Be'elzebub (the original grandfather of Be'elzebubba), one is required as follows....."Being certain that no good lie be left untold, all confirmed must be dedicated to the mastery and practise of the Holy Whopperistical Mysteries."

 

     We have signed the White House Petition urging immediate re-canonisation, beatification, and embalming, and spraying of gobs of gold upon the person of Queen of the Universe (Sir Edmund) Hillaryabubba.

 

        To one lower order we give Susan Riceabubba dishonourable mention for her perfectly miserable holy grovelling,  mendacity, race-baiting, and generally despicable deportment, which brought us much pride and pleasure.

 

 

Que los Santos intervengan!

El Gringo Viejo

Fiscal Cliff?

As everyone here knows, and it is stated only to confirm to all that  many, many normal people are aware, the fiscal cliff was breached when the Great Society programs were enacted.   The building of the cliff was the biggest We Piddle Around program enacted by the "progressive" administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt.   That does not refer to the sidewalks and park monuments, most of which are gone by this point.   It refers to the massive bureaucracy and invasion of privacy caused by the establishment of the Social Security System. This is the first and greatest Law and the Second is like unto it, the twins Medicare and Medicaid.

     El Gringo Viejo remembers Mrs. Brown's American History class during his junior year in high school.  It was 6th period, followed by our Debate Club session, an after school affair.  Mary McMoron said that Democrats were the party of the poor and the Republicans were the party of the rich and that was why she was a Democrat.  I responded that if Democrats were dedicated to the poor, I would rather be rich, and that is why I was a Republican.

     Out it flowed.   "If it hadn't been for Roosevelt, my whole family would have starved to death.   The Republicans took all the money and caused the crash because they wouldn't let any poor people have any money and Roosevelt made them give it all back."

     John Morris, a fellow Episcopalian, rolled his eyes and moaned, "Save me, Sweet Jesus!  Roosevelt instigated the biggest explosion of bureaucracy in the nation's history.  This nation will be strangled in red tape in 20 years, and half the country will be on welfare."

     "That's easy for you and David to say.  You are rich, rich, rich...you don't know anything about suffering!"  Mary McMoron declared triumphantly.   Picture to-day's Sandra Flukie and add 30 pounds and you have Mary McMoron.

 

   The oddity, of course, is that Mary McMoron's parents and grandparents were country club Democrats who spoke loudly and longly about how they hated "meskins" and the "coloured" and who also were well positioned in a Democrat-dominated  banking and land-scheme industry in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas.   The hypocrisy, at a minimum, was whelming...perhaps even overwhelming.

 

Lyndon Johnson and Harry Reid preparing their free-moeny

spiels before being sent up to do their work among the

American gullible.

     We argued that day, without much supervision, about a new idea being bantied around by the "progressives", about how now seemed to be the time to help our senior citizens, the most vulnerable among us with just a little assistance in their declining years so that they wouldn't have to die forgotten, frozen to the sheets, in some skid-row hotel.....dead from the consumption or a flu that could have been cured but for a small investment in their continued good health.   Various names for the Program were things like ElderCare ( a liberal GOP misnomer), and Senior Care, and MediCare and such ridiculous, meaningless, socialist terms.

     El Gringo Viejo postulated that, like all programs established by the central government, it would, if enacted, become another of the great fountains of corruption since the establishment of something-for-nothing, free-goodies governance., and that the Democrats would use the program to demagogue against the Republicans until the cow froze over the moon and thawed again.

     Miss McMoron stared aghast!  Mouth agape!  "What kind of perverse animal would even dream about such a possibility?   Only a Republican could conceive of such a thing.   DO YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVE THAT ANYONE WOULD EVER TAKE ADVANTAGE OF A FEDERAL PROGRAM THAT IS DESIGNED TO HELP OLD PEOPLE?   HUH?   HUH?"

     Nine fellow debate class members were vigorously shaking their heads yes, as was Mrs. Brown.   The three Democrats (all pinkoes) were astounded.   Mrs. Brown said in her famous, cigarette-gravelled voice,"Mary, a federally funded social program is no good unless it is corrupt.  That is why they are put in place.   They shovel money from corrupt politicians to corrupt bureaucrats  who do no actual work, who shovel the money to businesses and services who come to depend on the bureaucrats who then put the money in the banks, and then the bankers give some money to the politicians.   That is the purpose of "helping people" with other peoples' money.   Now, let's get on along with to-day's exercise."

   Therefore, let us not ask for whom the bells toll.   They toll for all of us.  Since the beginning of free money, and "helping" and "safety nets" the bells began to toll, ominously ringing a one note, dull carillion "Weimar, Zimbabwe, Argentina", and a hundred other governments and countries who tried to "paper over" the reality that one plus one is two, and three minus one is two.  Spend more than is taken in spells economic death.   Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SSi, Social Security Disability, FHA-underwriting of mortgages, Section 8, AFDC, Food Stamps, Free Cellular Phone, everything is free, especially if the rich would only pay their fair share.  

 

Great lessons. Great Old Teacher, Dorothea Brown.   Will be in touch down the road.  Tomorrow, our little place on the Rio Corona.

El Gringo Viejo

Shovel Ready

     As a child, while living on the farm, among the animals and the mess, we noticed that there was a goodly amount of shovel ready material.   Our neighbour had a dairy farm.   Shovel ready was abundant there as well.

     Listed below is what those of use who follow the markets day in and day out...who have a modicum of understanding about the international business scene...have seen increasingly since Obama's regime came into power.    Bush and Clinton and Bush were bad enough.  Especially Clinton, but Obama and his gang of marxists and compliant "American Business Men Useful Idiot Running Dogs (standard terms used for Americans and American business people in Red China)" are in a league of their own.  

     The especially vile hypocrisy of "defending American 'jobs'" with the expropriation of General Motors by the White House Agrarian Reformers....and the use of such a campaign plank by the UAW and the Obama Re-election team....can be shown for what it has been, is, and will increasingly become.   Lots and lots of shovel ready stuff....all in foreign areas....like Red China.

General Motors and its Chinese venture plan $1 billion auto plant for 2015

New York Daily News - 56 minutes ago

TEXT - Fitch may raise General Motors Financial Co 'BB' rating

Reuters - 20 hours ago

GM Plans Thailand, Indonesia Dealership Expansion to Drive Sales

Businessweek - 18 minutes ago

GM opens China research centre to focus on "new energy"

Reuters - 9 hours ago

GM venture in China plans $1 billion auto plant

The Associated Press - 4 hours ago

'Green' program

 

     None of these "investments in shovel ready jobs" will keep Detroit from being shuttered and  turned into a landfill in ten years.  This is even being considered now...by the governor of Michigan.   And the factories and outlays in Red China will have cracked walls, weeds, and broken windows....lieing vacant like almost all of their facilities they have put up with great fanfare in Mexico over the years.  There they put up a little operation, build some stuff and ship it out, and then disappear overnight.  People come to the factory in the morning and find the offices empty, all files and computer records gone.   It happened so much that they really aren't involved any longer in on- shore production in Mexico and a number of other Latin American countries.

    Obama plays the UAW workers for the fools they are. Not the Union bosses...they know the game.   They are all crooks and marxists playing the labour union shell game, counting on the predictably intellectually dull, selfish, small, easily-led, mainline union dullard who compose the majority of the ranks of the UAW. (Yes, we know that 34% still vote Republican, and we are referring to the majority of the ranks)

 

     Even with recent gains in the stock's value, the chance of General Motors ever climbing out of the bottom of the canyon is nil.  They will not let go of the VOLT and they are having their lunches eaten by labour costs in the United States and their "advances" are dated, at best, even as they roll off the assembly.   Dealerships are inundated and sales are sluggish even with all kinds of incentives, financing promotions, and "discounts". 

 

    Where's the light switch?   It's startin' to be that time.

 

Continuing to Come Out of the Closet

Yes, we are coming out of the closet.   We have mentioned it in the past, hinted at the fact, but we now have the luxury of being an old fool who is relatively independent of any linkage.   We can say and do things that could not be said or done years back...and certainly not in public.

 

     Below the red line is a letter written to some very dear friends with whom we have had, albeit at a distance, business and social relations for some time.   We communicate about family and the socio/political situation at times.  During recent days we were urged to communicate by them with our elected representatives about a pressing issue before the American Congress.   We had already done so, and now have re-done so...our political inclinations are very similar.

    However, we felt that it was time to tell them that we had fallen off the wagon, flipped our lid, cut off our nose to burn the bridge ....or is it burned our bridges to spite our face?   Can't ever seem to keep those things straight.

 

     In any regard, so that more will know...these things are going on throughout the Republic of Texas at this time.   Thousands of such conversations, informative communications, confessions, re-thinkings and contemplations on the part of a people who woke up on the morning of 7 November past and realised that the United States of Ameria had seceeded from Texas.

     The American Republic has put us in the position of paying for them....of sending us their problems...and then ridiculing us for being rubes.

 

     So, the OROGs are informed of the final decision of El Gringo Viejo.  I'm not taking my flintlock to the mountains to fight off the blue coats...or any variation of that.   I am, however, going to spend what little time an old man has to re-establish what David Hawkins Crockett knew had to be done.   We owe it to the Cherokee Nation...to the sons of Lexington and Concord...to the hundreds upon thousands of Confederate dead who had no slaves and/or loathed the "peculiar institution" and should have been allowed to deal with it in their own way...we owe it to all American dead who fought against tyranny of behalf of the people of the Orient and Europe....all of this is being wasted.    Wasted...on a naked Emperor who has no magnificent raiment....and a hopelessly addicted ....increasingly addicted.... populace that is more and more disposed to chant..."I need!  I want!  I deserve!" and to expect someone else to pay for those needs, wants, and desires.

 

     Much of our ire is reserved for the effeminate, marshmallowy GOP, which brings a piece of wet, cold spaghetti to a fight where the other side uses any and every means, including crowds of  filthy, perverse, anarchistic vermin who shriek falsities and threats...and otherwise do "God's work" (according to Nancy Pelosi).    Any political party whose leaders can speak in respectful terms about a marxist in the presidency or about either or both of the Clintons, is lost in a haze from which they can never return. 

 

Here is my "coming out confession" to our friends.

 

 

 

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Hello to all,

We sent a refresher to various of our hapless representatives and senators. We have another close friend without contact for two-score years with whom we co-ordinate attacks on the various Constitutional imperatives required in any true republic.

We had become somewhat deflated after the election. We have a string of liberal Republicans who have lost elections now....and this last one even lost to Obama when Obama's vote count fell by over 3,000,000 votes as opposed to his count in 2008. Romney had more votes than McCain in 2008, Obama had 3,000,000 fewer, and the "moderate" Republican still lost. And of course the party poobahs and shamans blamed the Tea Party, the Rightwing Crazies, and the Constitutionalists for the GOP's own lackluster performance.

We are genuinely of the opinion that 5 to 8 million of "our types" just 'kinda drifted off into the darkness'  after Romney began to go pinky in the debates...("Yes, I agree that you did a good thing in getting rid of Mubareck")....and when the Romney people kept on with the line of ...."First we'll rescind Obamacare and then we'll redo it with the things that were good about it"...and so forth. The failure to openly connect with our snake-handlers, foot washers, and alleluia people also was a kick in the face to them....after they made overtures aplenty that they would go ahead and support a "cultist" over a communist....But they didn't. The whole campaign was limp-wristed, like the two week victory lap before the election and the failure to warn Christi that if Christi were to kiss Obama's big toe with reference to the "Queen for a Day Hurricane Relief Effort"...then Christi would certainly face vigorous opposition in the primaries coming up for governor of New Sludgeburg.

It became apparent, and fairly well disseminated, that Romney's "team" would make sure that the "Michelle Maulken nuts" would never darken the door of the White House and that a Romney Administration would be more involved in "reaching across the aisle" than either Bush II or Obama. So that is the unspoken story. Our own people...among the whom of which is I...are the ones who just drifted off down the beach, collecting shells, and humming Dixie....until by voting time, they had drifted unseen into the fog.  The Better Half and I did vote this last time for Romney and the complete Republican ticket, especially Mr. Cruz.

000000000000

 

        Folks, You all might as well know. We are dedicated at this point to commit to the Welsh and Scottish solution....except to take it a step further. There is an increasingly active and an increasingly sophisticated movement to re-establish the Republic of Texas. Texas has a bigger GNP than Canada, and a larger GNP even than Mexico. It is sinking in even on our Texas liberal element that the welfare state is going to cause ruin for Texas and their "constituent groups". It is sinking in with our psuedo-conservative, country club Republicans that the business-control group will be the first to be sacrificed to the guillotine when the bakeries run out of cake in Washinton, D.C.

      The United States looks upon Texas as a goose that lays golden eggs. That is not a good thing to be when the 47% decide that 17 meals a day is not enough for the We Breed 'm, You Feed 'em R'Us group. We might can still control that group here, and tell the HEB's and other parasitic businesses that live off of food stamps and subsidies that they need to change keys and octaves on their pianos. It is the only hope we have to maintain any sense of an English Common Law - Natural Law Civilisation on the North American Continent.

     Mexico and Canada are edging to the Right, while the United States is hurtling into the abyss of national socialism faster than Germany did. It just leaves no alternative for an old man. So...my 16 minutes a day in politics will be spent in the Texas Nationalist Movement. As you know, our grandchildren through the Boss are 13th generation Texian, and by my line they are 6th generation. We are studied, but we choose to be parochial. The Republican Party views us as bullet catchers and cannon fodder and rubes. They do not take active measures of any kind to defend and promote basic liberties that are required in any free country. And they hold us up to ridicule, even within our own ranks. Time is up. The game is over.

       We shall continue to support the right-most candidates on the American national theatre, but our efforts will be spent in withdrawal and in fostering support for a non-socialist, non-public welfare society within these borders.   The borders of Texas.

We remain trusting in your good health and prosperity. It is always a pleasure to hear from and we think and speak of you all often.

El Gringo Viejo

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Thanks as always for your time, patience, and attention.

El Gringo Viejo

New Truisms

     Anyone who thinks that the government can do a better job with money than can a normally well-off individual with a higher wealth and/or income level than the majority of the population is a fool, a slug, a syphilitic paramecium, a jackass, or a marxist.  Anyone who demands that those who are better off than the norm be taxed in order to "pay their fair share" is delusional, an intellectually dysfunctional amoeba, and a brain-damaged seed wart, who is devoid of the most basic sense of moral reason.

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     The insidiousness of the progressive notions that led to the income tax is now presenting itself.  It is based upon a strange notion that a person's income first belongs to the central government.   The possessions, including the money, of all true persons belong to their owners.

 

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      There is no quicker way to establish a peon class than to make a slothful person comfortable in his sloth. To attend to that person in his necessities...his feeding, his medical needs, his accommodation, is a death sentence.   It kills the soul.   Without a soul, the homo sapien is a lower life form, but certainly not a descendent from the Orderer of the Cosmos.

 

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      A mother gives a child his heart.   A father give a child his soul.

 

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      All ills affecting the American condition at this time have either been worsened or caused by programs authorised and/or administered by the central government located in Washington, District of Columbia.

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      How can FEMA help?   What can FEMA do?  How did Anyplace, USA ever get on with life after a disaster, in the days before FEMA?  FEMA is another agency designed to make the citizenry beg The Great White Father for a few crumbs of largess provided by people who were forced to pay for said largess at the point of a gun and/or by the certainty of prison.

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      Were the Social Security Program to be operated by a public agency or by a private person or business within the confines of the Republic of Texas, the operator, or public entity, would be charged and without doubt convicted of felony fraud.

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    If only we could legalise marijuana consumption and tax its purchase, then all of our budget problems would be over.

    If only we were to have a small Statewide sales tax, that alone would pay for all the State's operations, along with the royalties on oil production from State-held royalty rights; that solved all of our problems forever, back in 1961.

    It worked forever again,  when we legalised parimutual betting on horse racing and dog racing, thereby funding the operations again for all eternity, in 1987.

    It worked even better when we secured public funding for public education by Ann Richards's pledge to save the public schools with proceeds from a State Lottery.   Right? School funding solved, forever, in 1991.   

     If only we could legalise liquor by the drink, those taxes on that vice alone would pay for 30% of the State's budget.  That solved the problem forever....back in 1970.

     If only we had just a minute tax on tobacco, no one would even notice it,  the operation of the State's finances would be solved forever.  So we have a tobacco tax, and a tobacco tax law-suit settlement.   Both have produced billions and billions of dollars to feed 300 pound sixth graders.  We should be proud.

     Now...if only we could just edge the camel's nose just a little further into the "business gross margin tax" Tent,  to a more realistic level, and institute Casino Style Gambling along with it...now that really would solve the funding problem for all those people in need out there in TV land.

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     Each of these ideas are made to sound good to the dolts of us who compose the dolts who compose the non-political body politic.   Think of all the jobs it will provide!  Think of all the economic impact it will cause!

    The last truism is a combination of lies...purposeful lies.   In all cases, liquor by the drink, pari-mutual race betting, Texas lottery, and even the stupidity of a sales tax  (taking money out of an area so as to be commended when it is sent back)....the result is always dirty buildings with grey defeated people coming in to buy liquor by the drink, lottery tickets that never pay and even when they do, wind up destroying the winners 80% of the time, leaving them as the losers that they always were, and ever will be.   Hence, the term "idiot tax".

     If we want these things, let's just do them...in private business.  Enforce the laws of fraud and theft.  But why tax them?   So as to hire accountants to count the money that is derived from the tax?   To pay for some previously unheard of "urgent need?"..."Head Start"?

     Folks, we have to re-establish the idea that the government is not here to create jobs, business, or to help people have a safety hammock.  In so doing, it simply provides the road to perdition, selfishness, class warfare, and the dull, grey reality of 1957 Eastern European drabness.    It was called  'social democracy', which translates into realspeak as  "everybody's poor".  Lots of dirty parks, buildings, and filthy rest-rooms.   Governments are for providing a public record, a judicial system that provides equal justice before the law to all who come forth, domestic peace and tranquility, and in thq cases of home-rule cities, an orderly provision of water, sewer, and garbage pickup.   Paved streets with curbs and gutters if the people want them as well.    The central government's job was to be to provide for a common defence and a postal service.

 

We've come a long way, baby!

El Gringo Viejo