I Spy With My Little i(Phone)

With grudging apologies to Apple for the pun, I think it's time to set some people straight about the recent revelations about the acquisition of phone meta-data and e-mail account access on the part of the FBI and the NSA.

For those of you who don't bother watching or reading news, one Edward Snowden, a CIA contractor for three months, revealed the existence of two major investigative tools on the part of the U.S. Government to a foreign news agency – the Guardian. The first revelation was the FBI's use of "secret courts" to issue warrants to acquire phone meta-data records – times, numbers, lengths of calls, etc. The other revelation was the disclosure of a program called PRISM managed by the DoD (Department of Defense) and run by the NSA (National Security Agency) which has access to many major "public" e-mail servers to read people's e-mail.

Massive public shock, dismay and outrage ensued.  Some claim he's a hero and should be pardoned.  Others want a public trial so we can find out of the man's claims (that the NSA did what it did illegally) are true.

My take on all this "invasion of privacy"?

Meh... I was underwhelmed.

OF COURSE they're doing this. These programs were authorized by congress almost 12 years ago as provisions in the Patriot Act. They were strengthened over time. They've been doing it for more than TEN YEARS. The biggest shock I had was that anyone was actually shocked, let alone outraged. How could they NOT know this was going on? It was debated ENDLESSLY then and today. The provisions were highlighted by privacy advocates as questionable to terrifying (Depending on the advocates level of paranoia), and they ALL SAID THIS WOULD HAPPEN.

What the hell, people? Were you DEAF?

I didn't like what was happening then. I'm not exactly happy about it now. I don't like Mondays either, but there's not a damn thing I can do about either this program OR Mondays so I nut-up and deal with both of them like an adult. It's legal, it's been vetted by the Supreme Court, so it's constitutional. There's really nothing to bitch about.

But here's the thing I don't get, or maybe I get it too well (It depends on how much of a conspiracy nut you might think me to be). The loudest voices against this have been the RIGHTISTS. You know, the brainless, diaper-wearing, peeing-their-pants-in-fear fucktards who demanded the government DO SOMETHING after 9/11/2001 and didn't seem to mind the concept of universal spying THEN. After all, they were only going to spy on terrorists, right?

How the hell do you think they were going to FIND the terrorists in the first place? Ouija boards? Smoke signals? Tin cans and a string? You need to find them before you know they're terrorists. That means going through a lot of data to find them. That means access to that data. And you HAVE to do it LEGALLY because if you don't, your case is tossed. So that means do things in secret. They passed a law that lets them do that.

So why are the rightists so pissed about this? Yes, yes, I know that they think the "liberals" are taking over and this is how they do it. But what gets me is that the EXACT SAME BEHAVIOR was trusted by them when the rightists were in charge.

Let me repeat that: They were fine with rightists legally "invading the privacy" of everyone but not fine with leftists legally "invading the privacy" of everyone for exactly the same reasons with exactly the same results and exactly the same techniques.

Now, one, I suppose, COULD chalk it up to the inevitable outcome of years of demonizing the left by scapegoating them for 30 years, but let's look a touch closer at the subject.

Back in 2009, in February, I believe, the DHS put out a report on the threats to the security of the United States and declared that domestic "patriot groups" (Link is to the declassified DHS report) were at the top of the list.

Ever since Obama was elected there have been those who openly talk about secession, revolt, riots, death threats, revolution – all apparently in response to liberals (or a black man) being in charge of government. Bills were introduced to create an official "state religion" in defiance of the first amendment. Districts have been gerrymandered in states where the majority of the votes were for leftists but the majority of the representatives elected were rightists. They are even arming themselves (admittedly with pop-guns, but hey, they think they're Rambo).

It would appear that rightists are not exactly taking the results of democracy like good Americans. Quite the contrary, in fact.

So, what do we have? We have rightists who are the number one threat to the nation talking about revolution, secession, even civil war. Back in 1861, the U.S. didn't have the Internet or phone meta-data to find out who was conspiring with whom and to arrest the leaders of the revolt before they had a chance to start it. Doing so would have saved more than 700,000 American lives.

But today, we DO have the ability to ID ring-leaders before their rings can do much damage. And rightists have shown no regard for life or limb – other than for themselves, of course. So why are rightists so pissed about these newly revealed programs?

Because chances are really fucking good that they're part of a conspiracy to undermine or destroy the democratic foundations of the United States of America through civil war. I don't expect it's a coordinated effort – yet. But I do think it's happening.

Yes, these spying programs are going to filter out terrorists, but the fact is, the timing of the phone records searches indicate a summer offensive. Waging insurrection is best done during good weather (never mind that the U.S. military has all-weather capability) and they figure it will all be over before winter sets in because the rest of the nation will rise up as one and join them. They'd be wrong, of course, but they live in their own world as is evident by the fact that their chief flag waver – Karl Rove – lost it when Obama won the election ON NATIONAL TV. He couldn't believe it. He was so lost in his own little, made-up world that he didn't see the reality that was right in front of his nose, and refused to believe it until his nose was rubbed in it.

And this was a guy who was supposed to be on top of things? Imagine how deluded the rank and file are! So they actually believe they'll be joined by all the other Americans out there in waging war against their government despite the fact that a solid majority of Americans voted FOR that government, and a gigantic number of Americans were so put off by the rightist rhetoric that they didn't vote at all!

So, yes, there are a lot of highly deluded people out there in America who are now screaming about the invasion of their privacy by the government because they have been actively planning to attack it and now realize that they are basically fucked.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

As for the spying, deal with it. It's going to happen whether we want it to or not. Revolution isn't going to stop it. But consider this: If the terrorists can get us to fight among ourselves, why bother trying to kill us? Yes, this whole thing was masterfully manipulated by the enemies of the United States to get Americans to fight with their fellow Americans. From the unity we had on 9/12/2001 to the talk of secession and civil war on 6/10/2013, American unity has been shot to hell.

The moment any American shoots another American over a difference of political ideology, the terrorists have won.

Beating The Economic Horse - Again

ECONOMICS 101 - Class in now in session.  Turn off your cell phones.  Turn on your brains.

A healthy capitalist economy has a set amount of money circulating in it.  Taking money away from the system is supposed to increase the value of the money remaining.  Putting more money into the system devalues the money.

This should be obvious.  But only the latter happens.  The former does not.  The value of money remaining in the system does not go up when money is removed from the system.  That means there is less money available in the system to buy things.  Where did the money go?  Into the pockets and "investments" of the wealthy.

"So what?" you ask.  "It's their reward for working hard."

Taking money out of the system and parking it in bank accounts, investor accounts and such reduces the amount of money left behind.  Without a concurrent INCREASE in the value of the remaining money, the money flowing isn't enough to sustain a healthy capitalist economy.

"Okay, prove it," you say.

In 1980, the wealthiest 20% of Americans controlled approximately 65% of the nation's total wealth.  This left 35% or so for the remaining 80% of Americans.  Today, the wealthiest 20% of Americans control over 93% of the total wealth of America, leaving a paltry 7% at best for the other 80%.

"Again, so what?" you say.  "The wealthy got wealthier.  The money's still there."

Ah, but it is NOT there.  And in order to understand where "there" is, we need to look at how the money flows in a healthy capitalist in order to actually understand the ramifications of this shift in wealth. (Which, by the way, was the largest shift in human history).

Money only circulates when it reaches all levels of the economy from consumer to business and back to consumer, with some going up the tree to the wealthy to eventually come back down.  So Joe Average American, who spends the majority of his income, has to spend money.  That money goes into a business for their goods and services.  That money then goes into the pockets of another Joe Average American in the form of wages, to be recirculated again.  Toss in a few hundred million Joe Average Americans, and you have a healthy capitalist economy.  The money that goes up the tree is used to improve the business model to make things cheaper and more affordable.  (This is the THEORY behind supply-side economics and ideally what's supposed to happen.)  That then presents a boon for the Joe Average American's wallet and spending is stimulated.  The more people spend, the more demand is generated and the more demand is generated, the greater the chances of having new jobs open up, thus creating more wages to be spent and the great circle of Capitalism is put into action.

It's important to note one more thing: Although the wealthy do spend quite a lot (comparatively speaking), they do not spend enough in enough places to maintain the economy.  The overwhelming majority of their income is banked or invested.  Neither circulates money inside the economy by creating any substantial demand across a wide enough spectrum of businesses to impact overall economic growth.  It never has in the past.  It never will in the future.  The wealthy just aren't spenders like Joe Average American is.  If they were, money would be circulating and that wealth inequity would be a lot less unequal than it is today.

Let's now go back to what's happened in the last 33 years and how that impacts our capitalist model.
The money has been moved up the tree.  It isn't coming down.  The investments made in business mostly only pad the profits, or were used to off-shore jobs - especially in manufacturing and product support.  That put a lot of JAA's out of work.  They don't spend money because they have none.  Instead they rely on the unspoken third tier of OUR capitalist economy - the government - for unemployment and other public assistance to survive.  While this has a positive effect on the economy in the short-term, taxes are used to pay for it, and with more people out of work, taxes are needed most when there are fewer who can pay.

Except the wealthy, of course, who have been taxed as much as 96% during times of national emergency.


Without money circulating in the system, the system as a whole withers up and dies.  Austerity further cuts taxpayer assistance, reducing the money circulating in the economy. it keeps money that would otherwise flow in the system locked up because the vast amount of that circulating money is now not circulating the same way in the hands of the wealthy, who, as has been pointed out, aren't spending enough of what they have to do any good for the economy.  Increasing taxes across the board takes money away from those who actually do the spending, leaving them with less to spend and further locking up more funds in the accounts of the non-circulating wealthy.    In today's dollars, the difference that 28% of total national wealth which went up the tree from the 80% to the 20% and stayed there amounts to about $54 trillion dollars that Joe Average American no longer has control of to spend.  That's a lot of money not circulating anymore.  If you put even 10% of that into the pockets of Americans, the economy would take off like a rocket.

Let's face it, if businesses actually hired more people when they have money to do it, we'd have no unemployment problems today.  Right now, it's an unsustainable circle-jerk where the wealthy gives money to businesses for investment returns and the businesses basically give it back to the wealthy.  Howsoever you care to envision it, that money is NOT being spent in a way that generates demand.  The money doesn't flow that way in investment or even banking.  Unless it's paid out in wages to be spent, it never circulates in a way that helps the economy.

And without money being spent to generate demand, this economy will not go.

This is why austerity is not a sound economic principle.  And all evidence proves it.  Further, the prime "evidence" conservatives have been endlessly using that austerity is better than deficit spending in an unhealthy economy has been busted.  It had a major math error in it.  And this has caused a lot of consternation among the Europeans who have been using that evidence upon which to base their economic policies while watching the EU disintegrate around them.

The other side of the coin here is that if people have a lot of good, well-paid jobs (which are NOT opening up these days), and with reasonable government spending, deficits can be eliminated by prudent budgets, and debts can be paid off, because more taxes than ever before will be generated.
As it appears, "tax and spend" is a much more sound economic policy for a capitalist economy than cutting taxes or advocating austerity.  But it must be done with proper moderation in both who and what you tax and how and where you spend to be most effective. Putting money into the pockets of the primary spenders on a reliable basis will do it best.  The best proposition is, bluntly, wealth redistribution.  Take the non-circulating money and put it back into circulation - likely through an increase in capital gains for above a certain income and by eliminating the maximum taxable income cap on social security, while concurrently lowering taxes on taxpayers below the upper 20% threshold.  Business are cash-flush now.  They don't need the investments.  Capital gains can be increased massively to help put more money in the pockets of the WORKING poor, and stimulate the economy.  As for the elimination of the Social Security caps, call it helping your fellow Americans who have also paid into that and, by getting paid from it, helped the wealthy become wealthy in the first place through their spending.

This ends the class.  You must know and research this material on your own time.  There will be a test in the future.

I now offer for your consideration, the following observations:

Whether future congresses will be responsible and pass socially progressive, fiscally responsible budgets is arguable, but best evidence is that if we get a moderate like Clinton (Bill, not Hillary), during times of prosperity, the deficit can be eliminated and the debt reduced.  He did it twice in his presidency.

What makes me wonder about the conservative commitment to the idea is why the conservatives haven't done it - ever - in the history of the nation.  Maybe because when you eliminate sources of spending revenue through austerity, and favor tying up circulating (as in spending) funds through favoring the less economically helpful wealthy, you kill a capitalist economy.

This is, however, reminiscent of another kind of economy - a dictatorship.

Extra credit will be given for anyone who can successfully, and intelligently, refute any idea or theory posted above.

Good luck with that.

Class dismissed.

Why The "Terrorists" Have Won

Once upon a time, I used to live in a country of laws and rules that were supposed to never be broken. Then along came some rich, white men who re-wrote the rulebook to in effect say that the rules don't apply to anyone whose net worth is above a certain amount and who only acquire their wealth by fixing the game and taking from the poor. (As Bernie Madoff learned, not manipulating the system first and just taking from the poor will get you prison time.)

Then along came an airplane (or four) and suddenly life became much brighter for these Wealthy, White Men. On 9/11 the wealthy, white men of America had a chain orgasm. They suddenly had a tangible scapegoat upon which they could heap all sorts of justifications to create the perfect master/surf state in the country which used to be based on laws and rules that were supposed to never be broken.

Before the "terrorists" struck, the scapegoat was the evil "Liberal". This is all well and good, but it required a major and laborious spinning of the liberal policies to make them sound evil. "Terrorists" had a built-in lingo that sounded pretty evil without the bother of spin. After all, you really had to work at it to spin "We want to give people a hand up" into "Death to America!". But the terrorists were skipping the spinning part and going straight to the "Death to America!" part. Even BETTER, the other groups already IN the country of laws and rules that were never supposed to be broken that were saying "Death to America!" (which were made up of people who tended to support the professed agenda of the Wealthy, White Men, mostly because they didn't have a damn clue what the Wealthy, White Men were REALLY up to) – the Timothy McVeighs and others who plotted to destroy the country – began to drop off the radar because the "Terrorists" were of a different race (which really isn't true), from a different country, and, more importantly, were of a different religion! That could bring out all sorts of hatred and fear!

After 9/11, the evil "Liberal" was mostly replaced by an even more evil "Terrorist".

The Wealthy, White Men who, by that time were almost impossible to be rid of, embarked on a new tactic: To make America afraid. Fear is an important thing, both to life and manipulation. Catering to prejudices works in manipulating people, but making them AFRAID, then seeming to offer them solutions that almost, but not quite, addresses that fear, turns crafty, scheming politicians (who, of course for anyone who's read my book, know are merely the lapdogs of the Wealthy, White Men) into "war heroes" who can do photo-ops in front of gigantic "Mission Accomplished" signs which proclaimed things that weren't true.

"Terrorists" think creating fear will work by bombing and shooting people. Well, if Palestine and Israel (or any two sides) are any example of how well this works to actually influence things positively toward one's goals, terrorists should have spent more time in History class. France notwithstanding (because it almost never did in the last century or so), when applying violence to a society, they don't react with fear. They get angry and unite.

This is a Very Bad Thing to the Wealthy, White Men of America. A united country is impossible to control without stripping away all of the framework upon which the country was founded – liberty and democracy. While this IS a goal of the Wealthy, White Men, it's further down the road once they own everything and the rest of us own nothing.

Unfortunately for the Wealthy, White Men, the United States was united in the months following 9/11 in a way it hadn't been since World War II. The Wealthy, White Men (Hither-to to be known as WWM's because it's getting tiring typing out Wealthy, White Men all the time) had the perfect scapegoat, but had to deal with this whole "unity" bullshit standing in their way of USING that scapegoat to their own ends and seizing ultimate power over all of us.

What better way to bring about a fear mentality than to declare "War on Terror", as if dropping GPS-guided munitions on an emotion was POSSIBLE, let alone practical? But we have a long history of saying if you hurt us, we will hurt you back even more, so it seemed like the thing to do at the time. War means fighting which means money pumped into the military-industrial complex by the trillions while the fear-mongering propaganda machine churns out stories and reports that are designed only to instill terror in the hearts of the average (VERY average, even BELOW average) American.

Of course, one of the main WWM goals in seizing ultimate power over all of us is the suspension of all liberties and freedoms, but it can't be done overnight, even though they made their first steps toward breaking the laws and rules that should never be broken. The extremely inappropriately named "Patriot Act" comes to mind as an example of this.

No, violence isn't necessary to instill fear in people. Just the threat of violence. Making it SEEM like your life is about to be suddenly and senselessly taken by some angry stranger at any second, driving that point home over and over and over and over and over again, creating useless "Terrorist Threat" systems that can be easily manipulated for political gain (Remember who the politicians work for!) to keep the fear going. Putting out news as propaganda designed to keep people afraid helps. THAT'S what creates "terror".

So, why fear?

Simple, fear makes it easy to make people do really, really stupid things. And when you're dealing with a large minority of abysmally stupid people to begin with, it makes the job that much easier. Now, truth be told, this group is already afraid, even though the cause is indoctrination (environmental) rather than genetic. Recent physiological studies have proven that most conservatives have a high reaction to fear and tend to seek simplistic answers. The more of a part of a brain that is stimulated, the more it tends to develop, apparently. Historically, the United States has been center-right politically, which means there are a lot of conservatives out there who have a high reaction to fear and tend to seek simplistic answers. They are a ready-made resource for manipulating.

Why terrorism?

The WWM's of the country recognized one major thing about the 9/11 attacks: They were directed at the financial centers of the world – the World Trade Centers. They also targeted the Pentagon and, likely, the White House (or possibly Congress).

Let's look at these acts from a somewhat different perspective – that of a terrorist. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that terrorists are actually fighting AGAINST the WWM's of the world. Yes, yes, I know they say they aren't, and almost certainly aren't, but let's just go there for a second. We CAN go there because the WWM's are supported by a bunch of frightened people who wouldn't DISBELIEVE the possibility of them being specifically targeted by "terrorists" because terrorists hate WWM's. But on the off chance that it's true, what would be the result of WWM'S being targeted by terrorists actually be?

Well, a combination of things, actually. First of all, saying that we must rise up and combat terrorism so that a privileged few can contune to suck the financial blood of the world doesn't play well in Peoria. It's hard to get behind putting life, limb and conative ability on the line for a bunch of wealthy people who have never done the same and only want to get more wealthy. So make it about the country and protecting the country. Call it Patriotism. Try to shout down the people who rightly point out that it's nationalism, not patriotism.

Secondly, the WWM's want to keep their lives and toys, so they'll push trillions of someone else's dollars toward the Defense industry to create machines of war and armies to do their fighting. Why spend your own money doing that to keep your skin intact when you can make money by making other people spend their money and lives and reap the profits? Alright, step two done – take fiscal advantage of the situation.

Third, make sure to take other advantage of the situation. Play down the "Death to Wealthy Corporations and American Influence Here In Our Country!" rallying cry (which has been mentioned as a reason why terrorists hate us) and play up the much-simpler chant "Death to America!". This distracts the basic conservative from what the WWM's have been doing all along even better because they can get angry liberals to go along with it.

Fourth, keep an eye on the goal. The ultimate making lemonade out of lemons situation is that by putting this in terms of "national security", they can start to erode our civil liberties and rights without the bother of revolutions, insurrection and civil war. Do it an inch at a time and eventually they will have full control over everyone.

(But make sure those pesky liberals don't get any credit for anything good! God forbid THEY get anything done. It's important that if anything is to be done, it's the conservative way or no way at all! After all, if the liberals actually did something GOOD, the country would probably notice and it would make the conservative spin machine have to work THAT MUCH HARDER (remember, they're only good with simplistic answers) to spin a good thing into a bad thing.)

So there you have it, boys and girls. The WWM's of the world, who want to dominate the whole world, the are fighting the people who want to tear them down. The terrorists have won because they turned you into a fearful people willing to sacrifice your liberties and freedoms all for the sake of "security". They have turned the population of the United States into a bunch of simpering cowards "sheltering in place" with a whole city "shut down" because of ONE MAN, and who have the pitifully minuscule mindset of chanting "USA, USA!" when he's caught as if a whole country looking for one man INSIDE THAT COUNTRY was a challenge worthy of cheers.

And then, the pawns of the WWM's in this nation of laws and rules that should never be broken urges the President to break the most fundamental laws and rules for this one man – a citizen, no less – because they're afraid he's working with someone else who may hurt us.

A strong nation doesn't need to say it's strong. It proves it by adhering to its laws and rules that should never be broken. It doesn't change its way of life, its rules and laws that served for more than 225 years, for the sake of meeting a new challenge. EVERYONE will die, sooner or later. Whether in a bombing in Boston or crossing the street without looking both ways first, death comes for us all. People who are afraid shelter in place. They cower behind the illusion that if they are safe, so is the nation. But a nation is more than a chunk of land and a bunch of people. It is a collection of ideas and needs, of strengths and weaknesses and above all of laws and rules by which everyone abides. Those laws and rules give us the freedom to have ideas and needs and strengths and weaknesses. Without them, we have no country. Without them, we have anarchy. We can not abandon them and retain anything resembling a national identity.

Now, remember this all started off with the words "Once upon a time..." That means this is a fairy tale. But it doesn't mean it's entirely untrue. Every fairy tale has a moral. And the moral of this fairy tale is never let fear tell you what you think WE should do. Always think first and then do what's best for all of us. Expediency paves the road to hell and we're preparing the bricks to lay it now. And when we get there, the Terrorists will be grinning at us, knowing they won because we danced to their tune.

Debugging The Tax Code

 It should come as a surprise to no one that the federal tax codes are messed up.

Exemptions, percentages, deductions, taxable and non-taxable, EIC, interest earned... The tax "code" is named appropriately – it takes a code breaker for anyone to use, let alone re-write. Tax preparers – the people who are SUPPOSED to know what they're doing – get it wrong 56% of the time. Normal people actually do better, with mistakes on "only" 40% of tax forms.

But if tax codes are so hard to deal with that half the people out there can't do it right the first time, why do we have it so complicated in the first place?

The answer to that question isn't simple, but it's primarily based on the way we collect taxes. We take a percentage based on income. But we've defined income in odd ways. Some of it is employment income, Some of it is disability income. Some of it is capital gains income. And, of course, there are many others. Then we have the other side where you have a set numeric value for deductions without taking into account the cost of living in the region where someone paying taxes and taking deductions lives. Finally, you have varying tax rates with the shrinking middle class, having the most employment income with the fewest sources of "other income" and ways to avoid paying taxes, getting taxed the most (on an actual dollar amount and as a percentage of what they earn).

It's a major fuster cluck.

There have been calls to simplify the tax code, most of which amount to little more than a "flat tax". Yes, it's simple, but it's patently unfair. Herman Cain's infamous 9/9/9 tax code would have increased taxes dramatically on the poor and given an amazingly HUGE tax cut for the wealthy. If you overtax people who can't afford it, they do odd things like dump tea into east coast harbors and talk about revolution. Only today the dumping would be of luxury cars, with their owners locked in the trunk, and the talk would be about class warfare.

These things don't make for a stable country or a good economy.

Now, everyone who's read all of my posts here knows how I stand on economic issues. Tax the wealthy the most because (duh) they have the most money to tax, cut taxes for the rest so they go out and spend their money in enough places in enough amounts to get the economy going and keep it going. But until now I've not come up with a relevant tax plan that could actually do this FAIRLY.

"Until now" being the operative words.

Behold my simplified tax plan:

In a nutshell, the idea is to make all income taxable, to consider the "minimum liveable income" level for the taxpayer's region, to calculate tax levels proportionately to the cost of living in the taxpayer's region, and to tweak things with easy-to-understand, plain language deductions that will determine what taxes you owe on your income.

Tax fairness should be how things work. And by fairness, I don't mean everyone paying the same tax RATE. As I've already mentioned, that's inherently UNFAIR, and it's also too simple-minded. The idea is based on what we have now - a scale. And the simplification comes from two things: Deductions and income.

That's all you deal with.

Income is all income regardless of source. That simplifies everything right off the bat. Social security? That's income. Disability? That's income. Capital gains? That's income. IRA's withdraws? That's income. But these things are only income when you take control of it – however briefly. If you make a withdraw from an IRA, that withdraw is obviously income. If you sell stocks, even if you reinvest it immediately, if the sale resulted in a profit, that profit is income. Inheritance? There's major income. No source of revenue is safe from being tagged "income".

If this seems complicated for the wealthy, it is. Screw them.  The wealthy can hire people to figure out how much "profit" they had during the year, track the transactions and pay the taxes on them. They have the resources to do that and they are the only ones who would really NEED to do that. Most regular folks people have simple statements that show how much profit (interest income, etc.) they made that year and that goes into the "it's income" category. If you're a day trader, buying and selling every few minutes, and having to track the taxes on every transaction, I expect your head will explode. Then again, I also expect that it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out a simple way to keep account of what income was made for a tally of taxes due. And you don't get a tax break for LOSSES, so if you lose your shirt after making a fortune, you still had income. There will be no "net income" (which is just a way of subsidizing someone's risky behaviors).  In this way, investments once again add the risk they inherently have.  If you made it, it's taxable.  If you pissed it away, that's on you, you still owe the taxes on the excess you made.  If you never made money on that investment, there's no insult added to injury.

Insurance payments on paid accounts are considered payment for losses and are not considered "income".  Food stamps, welfare and other hand-outs ARE considered income.  The onus of reporting your income is on you, as it already is.  Only you report everything you made, whether you lost part of it or not, no matter the source.

Get the idea? If you made it, it will be income.

The next part will be relatively straight-forward. A table of deductions. LOTS of deductions.  Are you a student in college living on your own? A deduction per semester per six hours of study.  Kids? a deduction or three for each one (depending on what the deduction amounts will be). Disabled or Blind? Deductions. Senior? Deductions. The deductions are where the "breaks" come from, so that even if all sources of revenue are considered "income", the deductions change what you will pay in taxes. And the deductions are scaled so that they reflect a reasonable rate of taxation.  Add up your deductions so you know what number to put in the "deductions" line on the tax form.

Federal taxes would be based on where you live using the average cost of education for your region. What's a "region"? That depends, but I'm going to say it is based on zip code. And if you own more than one domicile, even if you rent it out or share it or keep it strictly as a vacation home, the taxes you pay will be based on the HIGHEST tax rate of all the zip codes you enter. "Legal residences" would be in the highest taxed regions. The cost of education reflects the cost of living for most places. An average cost of living should produce an average cost of education. If the cost of education is demonstrably lower or higher than the cost of living, then the cost of living will be used. Basically, the idea is to tie the taxes to the region where the higher costs of living will be taxed at a higher rate. If you can afford to live there, you can afford to pay the taxes.

Conversely, the cost of living means the "poverty level" is HIGHER in places where the cost of living is higher. So the last part of the puzzle is to start taxing at the point where you start earning a liveable income for your region. If you make below the poverty level for your region, you don't pay federal taxes. Your deductions tell you at what level of income your taxes actually start and it's scaled from there based on your income and the cost of living.

Although this SOUNDS complicated to set up, for the individual, its very simple. They add up total income from all sources. They add up their deductions. They look at a table that has their income in rows and deduction numbers in columns – all based on their region's cost of living or educational costs – and they'll see the taxes they owe in the column with their deductions.   This may prove challenging to print, depending on the number of deductions possible.  But the table method is simple and if it's numbers, it can be tweaked each year with relative ease.  Of course, this isn't that hard to set up to be done online. If online isn't an option, one could call the IRS and request printed tax forms for their area. On-demand printing makes this more cost-effective for the government. One could even have it done by PHONE, by entering one's zip code, their income (to the nearest dollar) and their deductions, then be TOLD what their taxes are.

But the simplicity comes less in what the government has to do than by what the taxpayer has to do.  They add up their income, add up their deductions, find the amount of taxes they owe, put in the amount they've paid and figure out if they get some back or have to pay more. That's it.

The "hard part" about doing taxes is done BEFORE the tax tables are published, and is done by the federal government instead of YOU. They would determine the liveable income level using the cost of living or educational costs of that region below which, as mentioned, no one would be taxed. They would then create a percentage of income to tax based on the COL's or EC's for each region using the liveable income level of that region as the starting point for taxes. Deductions would push up the starting level of taxable income, and would scale the same way.

This way, all income is reportable regardless of source or type. Taxes are fair based on this because if you don't make a liveable wage, why are you paying federal taxes? You already pay state taxes and sales taxes and both of those are hurting you. If you are making a liveable wage, your tax rate will always make sure you are taxed so that you make a liveable wage. The amount taken out in federal taxes won't make you suddenly be below a liveable wage for your region.

Nothing is complicated for the tax payer and it's all pre-calculated based on region COL's or EC's for the region and deductions. So your tax form would have five lines. Income from all sources, deductions, taxes due, taxes paid and the difference (if any), which is what's due the government or your refund. Your refund would not be considered income.

There are instances where some people will pay more – but they'll be more able to afford it than others. Medical expenses? We have Obamacare. You should have insurance. If you're making a liveable wage, that should include such expenses. If you're not, well, the most we can do for you is not tax you. Maybe they can scale deductions based on the KIND of medical expenses you have. But you don't do any more complicated math than adding up your deductions and figuring out whether you owe or are owed.

A lot of tax preparers will be put out of business by this, but I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. Most of them can't do the job right, anyhow.

But this idea addresses the notion of fairness in taxes (the wealthy pay the most, the poor pay the least) by basing things on income, liveable wages and region. Making sure those who can't afford it aren't taxed and making sure those who can, are, and dumping the whole damn mess of figuring out a fair tax onto the government instead of the people by using the cost of living or educational costs (whichever is the most accurate reflection of the region). By making all income taxable, and tweaking things via deductions (which should be easily understood which you can check off), it simplifies the whole thing for the people who are actually trying to DO their taxes.

No muss, no fuss, no tricky crap.

The government may get a headache figuring out how to tax people, but the taxpayer won't, and that's the whole point to simplifying the tax codes.

The Final Word on Gun Control

The violence with guns - especially assault weapons - goes on. Aurora, Sandy Hill(or Hook - some reports are one, some are another and it happened twice - a family slaughtered by the legal gun owner a couple of weeks after the more than two dozen adults and schoolkids were gunned down by the son of the legal gun owner - who was also shot to death by their family), the list goes on and will keep growing. Google "shot to death" and limit the search to the last 24 hours. The return results are appalling.

I wrote about the need for gun control before, of course. I also called for the second amendment to be repealed. I've pretty much beat this subject to death, but here I am with a stick beating it again because no one is listening.

The arguments have been put forth, of course. Repeal the second amendment because it's obsolete. We don't have well trained militias using their own arms. We have no will to mandate responsibility with gun ownership. Only cowards use firearms instead of cultivating their natural weapons: Wits and hands.

In response the NRA says put guns and armed guards in schools. Put more of the problem out there to deal with the problem. Yeah, that kind of delusional mentality is what we're working with here.

For example, we have an ultra-conservative (AKA Terrorist) hate-talk radio host, Alex Jones. He put up a petition to have Piers Morgan deported - a British citizen, liberal talk show host who had the unmitigated gall to exercise his right to free speech (Which actually is a right for everyone, not just citizens) by suggesting that the second amendment be repealed. He then went on Morgan's talk show, went ballistic and spouted the usual conservative bullshit about why we have guns in the first place.

Now, to be fair to right-wingers, Jones is a conspiracy nut, a libertarian (which means he's just plain fucking crazy for the same reason Ron Paul is fucking crazy - libertarianism, like communism and socialism, make utterly unfounded and delusional assumptions about changing basic human nature) and much like Rush Limbaugh, an egregious self promoter. He wasn't on the show to have a political discourse. He was there to pander to his audience.

But Jones said some pretty ignorant and moronic things which echoed the NRA's arguments about the reasons for justifying private citizen gun ownership.

The first was, "'Let me say, 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms. No matter how many lemmings you get out there on the street begging for them to be taken. We will not relinquish them ", and my personal favorite was, "The Second Amendment isn't there for duck hunting. It's there to protect us from tyrannical government and street thugs." Then after that, there's this point, "Take the woman in India, your piece earlier on CNN earlier, I was watching during Anderson Cooper's show, didn't tell you the women of India have signed giant petitions to get firearms because the police can't and won't protect them."

Now, keep in mind that this is all from someone who said, "I don't know, how many chimpanzees can dance on the head of a pin?" to the question, "Let's try again. How many gun murders were there in Britain last year?" We're not talking a cogent, rational human being here. We're talking about a bundle of hate, fear, self loathing and delusion. You know - a terrorist.

In any event, this terrorist did manage to articulate, in a stuttering, sputtering fashion, what the NRA seems to believe about the merits of gun ownership. So let us deconstruct these statements to show just how fucking retarded these people are.

First of all, "Let me say, 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms. No matter how many lemmings you get out there on the street begging for them to be taken. We will not relinquish them."

The last time I looked, we lived in a democracy. If all the lemmings want to take your guns, THEY WILL. That's how democracies work. The majority rules. But ever since the gerrymandering effect of 2010, it's obvious conservatives don't believe in democracy, so I expect them to fight. Were I a believer in god, I'd call it a sign that we have the opportunity to help clean up the gene pool by forcing the issue, but I digress...

Fighting against the duly elected government is called treason. Calling for people to do that is called sedition. Both are federal offenses, and, potentially, capital offenses. If you don't like what your government is doing, you leave the country. This is how rational, sane people act. So the bottom line is that 1776 it isn't simply because we live in a democracy. We have taxation with representation. We have representation. The righties may not LIKE how it's going for them, but them's the breaks in a democracy. We moderates and those liberals were none too happy about GWB's little assault on personal rights during his presidency, but the country didn't rebel against him (until the sixth year of his presidency when the congress went liberal again and told GWB to pound sand up his ass).

For righties, not so much. They're far and away far more likely to rebel. And I hope to all the powers of the universe that they do.

You see, another aspect of the debate was articulated in the second inane argument Jones put out there, "The Second Amendment isn't there for duck hunting. It's there to protect us from tyrannical government and street thugs."

Wanna bet?

Back in 1776 - Jones DID mention that date, by the way and it actually bears looking at - the "arms" available for the citizens did not significantly differ from those used by the military. Allow me to repeat that: The ARMS AVAILABLE TO THE CITIZENS WEREN'T DIFFERENT FROM THE MILITARY ARMS.

So, how many private citizens are open-carrying nukes around these days? RPG's? And we're only talking about 1940's tech there. That's 60+ years out of date with modern arms - which are NOT available to the average citizen. And guess what boys and girls? The U.S. military has those arms and these crazies do NOT. In fact, the presence of military-grade arms, or its lack, is why revolutions succeed, or fail.

In 1776, the U.S. wooed France and without her help, we'd never have won the Revolutionary War. In the South during the Civil War, the South tried to get British aid, but was successfully blockaded from that by the North. The result: The South failed to win. If one looks closely at revolutions across the years and countries - Russia, China, Yugoslavia and elsewhere - armed insurrection has only ever succeeded because of outside military-level aid to the rebels. It has never succeeded because of an armed citizenry. And as time goes on, with the disparity between the strength of arms available to the military and the citizens growing by orders of magnitude every year, the lessons of the past seem to be forgotten by the NRA and others.

The long and short of it is, if these "non-lemmings" fight, they'll get slaughtered - and that's why I hope to the powers of the universe that they fight. The human race could use a cleansing of the bottom of the barrel feeders on the IQ chain.

If one wants to really highlight now utterly retarded these people are, how disassociated from reality they are, how psychotic they are, keep this in mind:

In one breath they call the armed forces of the United States the most powerful military in the world. In the next breath, they think the armed forces of the United States will quail in fear because they have an AR-15. Yes, boys and girls and all the ships at sea, these morons can actually conceptualize taking on the most powerful military on the planet with an AR-15 and grim determination - and believe they'll win.

Well, I have news for them. After having had ten years of war to develop tactics that deal, rather effectively, with armed insurrectionists (not to mention the fact that Americans have killed more Americans than all enemies, terrorists or foreigners combined, making us pretty indifferent about slaughtering our own), I expect any insurrection they could POSSIBLY come up with to be met with more than sufficient firepower to turn them to ash. And the only tactics that could be even remotely effective is to surround themselves with civilians - you know, like any other terrorist in the world does - and engage in guerrila warfare (which the military has worked out how to deal with as well). The former will simply result in a lot of ashed civilians. The latter will be kinda fun doing a "hunger games" hunt for rebels and traitors.

What government is going to help THEM take down the U.S. government? Russia? China? After what they've called THEM over the years? Yeah, that's going to be a great plan. Maybe they'll get help from Mexico, if they can get over their racist, nationalist rants. In short, if they go against the U.S. government, they are going to be SO fucked.

And I'll be there, either eating popcorn and watching the short show, or taking up arms against those traitorous asshats and taking them out from 3000 yards myself. I expect to be joined by tens of millions of other patriotic Americans in this.

So as has been rather graphically illustrated, there is no stopping a tyrannical government with civilian-owned arms. No way. No how. I don't care how much ammo they've stockpiled. One RPG and they're done. One laser and they're done (Yes, they've developed them for anti-aircraft, but they work fine against people, too). One smart bullet and they're done. They don't have those, they don't have enough of those, they don't have enough people who are fucking stupid enough to fight WITH them. And there are a hell of a lot of people who will stand up against them that the government will gleefully arm with the latest and greatest weapons to take their traitorous asses out.

Now, that said, we haven't addressed the issue of "street thugs", or helping India arm its women because they're getting raped. This is another reason the NRA seems to think it's a good idea to have assault weapons in every pot or some such insanity. But let's look at history - modern history - for the sprays of gunfire by defenders of homes.

It ain't happened. Ever.

The police do it. Even the national guard. But Joe Average citizen will, at MOST, get off two shots. That's it. Almost all the time, they miss anyhow. Most Joes can't fucking AIM and since there's no regulation, rule or mandate for people to be competent with their firearms, most don't bother to learn anything more about their weapon than which end not to look down when pulling the trigger. Of course, somewhat over half of all firearms deaths are because the owner deliberately looks down that wrong end when pulling the trigger, but again, I digress...

The point is, two shots isn't a lot, but it's all that's usually ever done by civilians.

The only OTHER time you have multiple shots fired is when you have someone spraying a crowd of people with semi-auto or automatic weapons fire. If one thinks open carrying assault rifles will make people feel secure, think again. Yeah, it helps the fucktard carrying it because they lack the balls to actually learn skills to deal with situations, but no one knows what that fucktard is going to do with that firearm. And if someone is planning a "spray the crowd with gunfire" kind of tragedy, I suspect they'll scope things out first and make "Kill the asshat with the assault weapon" pretty much numero uno on their "to do" list.

Or they'll wear body armor as two men did in North Hollywood in 1997 and more are doing it today.

So much for your protection from the bad guys. Arming the home owner or the little girls in India ain't gonna cut it anymore. The criminal may be stupid, but he's not a fucking moron. They'll get body armor. The demand for it is WAY UP. And that defeats guns hands down.

As an FYI, a knife works well against body armor - better than guns, actually. Of course, if people could fucking AIM, almost no body armor covers the face and taking a round in the face is usually distracting enough to dissuade anyone from trying to spray gunfire all over the place, but that's way too much to ask from the spray and pray crowd of assault weapon enthusiasts. So what next? The right to keep and bear body armor?

Let's to back to the Sandy Hook School tragedy.

Will putting guns in to the hands of teachers, or even paying hundreds of millions to put armed guards into hundreds of thousands of schools, stop a gunman from killing a lot of kids again?

No.

Point of fact, any plan to take out a lot of people always includes dealing with opposition. Body armor would keep any gun-toting school guard or teacher from succeeding in killing or stopping the bad guy. Two men held off hundreds of cops in that North Hollywood bank robbery. One of the gunmen was shot in the leg eventually and bled out (likely on purpose) while the other shot himself in the head. He had no other wounds despite taking several dozen hits to his armor. And THOSE armed cops were actually trained to respond to situations like that.

Teachers aren't. Neither will putting retired cops or retired military personnel in schools solve the problem because they both rely on teamwork and support from others to react appropriately, and complacency WILL make its impact felt unless they undergo constant training - which makes the plan even LESS cost effective.

The problem is the American gun culture. At the same time, no one is arguing that we should repeal the second amendment as any sane nation that elects its leaders would do. So we're at a loggerheads in that unless the second amendment is dealt with in some way, we can not regulate guns because we have people who are stupid enough to breed with NRA members and pass along their defective genes and ideology.

However, there IS a way to deal with mass shootings that positively addresses every legal, legitimate excuse for gun ownership the NRA ever came up with without eliminating the second amendment as any sane nation would do.

Point of fact: The word "arms" is not explicitly defined in the second amendment.

As I mentioned, back in the 1780's the "arms" available to the military and civilians were pretty much identical. But even then, the nascent United States needed military-level help from an outside government to win the Revolutionary War.

Today, there are orders of magnitude of difference between them. The military can drop GPS guided munitions from miles away on top of a group of insurrectionists toting civilian guns. Historically speaking, no armed insurrection ever succeeded against a standing government without the aid of outside military arms available almost exclusively to governments. Governments are not afraid of an armed citizenry because governments have more, bigger and much better arms. So the idea that the citizens of the U.S. should be armed in order to "keep the government in line" is ludicrous and delusional.

Once one tosses out the notion that the governments of today are in any way intimidated by the popguns civilians carry, we can look at what "arms" really need to be in order to fulfill the other arguments the NRA puts forth - Sport shooting, hunting and personal protection - while at the same time addressing the notion of stopping mass shootings.

From that angle, what worked in 1780 will work today: Muzzle-loaded firearms.

We're not talking your great-great-granddaddy's blunderbuss here. Modernized muzzle-loaders are highly accurate, easier to maintain and more reliable than what was used in the Revolutionary War. But like what was available then - flintlocks and percussion caps - both require separate shot and powder to be put down the barrel to load the weapon, and a primer of some kind (the cap or powder in the flash pan for flintlocks), taking the three parts of a bullet used today and loading them separately.

This makes a muzzle loader's rate of fire about three to four rounds a minute. This instead of five to twenty rounds a second for more modern arms. Why do we need that high rate of fire? It's not accurate and has a much better chance of killing someone innocent than someone up to no good.

Muzzle-loaders are safer than modern weapons since they're harder to load and the "bullet" can't be made ready quickly. But a double-barreled muzzle-loaded shotgun will be just as effective in home protection as any other double-barreled shotgun. A two round derringer pistol (an over-under muzzle-loaded pistol) can back you up. The point is to ensure that rapid fire and fast reload can not happen while addressing the legitimate and legal arguments put forth by the NRA about why gun ownership is a good thing. If "arms" in the second amendment was explicitly defined as "muzzle-loaded firearms consisting of no more than two firing barrels capable of a rate of fire of no more than four rounds per minute", we could then heavily regulate more modern kinds of firearms.

This idea won't STOP gun violence, but if everyone is open-carrying a gun that fires just ONE round per barrel with two as the maximum you can shoot without reloading, then people will have to learn the word that the U.S. Revolutionary War army added to the then current phrase, "Ready, Fire!": AIM. Mass shootings like the ones we've had this year would be next to impossible.

I don't think it's too much to ask that a gun owner know how to aim their weapon instead of spraying high velocity rounds indiscriminately in someone's general direction. And if someone has an assault weapon, someone else only needs to aim carefully and shoot once to take them down. While body armor is highly effective against high velocity rounds, a low velocity, high mass round hitting them WILL leave a hell of a mark. (Most muzzle-loading rifles are in the .50-.65 cal range or about two to three times the weight of a .45 cal round.) Open carrying muzzle loaders wouldn't be as bad of a thing as open carrying a firearm that can be used in mass shootings. And you don't NEED a firearm capable of mass shootings to protect yourself - assuming you're concerned about your kids blowing their little heads off when you forget to put your gun away as any responsible gun owner would normally do.

Keeping in mind that on the incredibly rare cases of a homeowner defending their home from an intruder - at MOST - two shots are fired, anyone who can come up with a cogent, legal reason why this idea doesn't have merit, I invite them to try to rationalize why we shouldn't do this.

So in summary, we've proven the following:

- The notion of armed citizens standing up to the government is delusional bullshit.

- Open carry means "shoot me in the head FIRST" to the bad guys.

- When in doubt about a situation, wear body armor and you'll accomplish your goal because civilians won't react properly when you don't fall down after they shoot you and you can shoot them whereupon THEY will fall down.

- More people will be (and are) wearing body armor to do their crimes, so your little open or concealed carry pop-gun may as well stay holstered because if you shoot at them, they will kill you.

That pretty much leaves home defense (Still not going to happen very well against body armor), sport shooting and hunting. Muzzle loaders address every need there. If "arms" were explicitly defined as muzzle-loaded firearms, and any other type of firearm was heavily regulated based on a genuine need (home/personal defense isn't a genuine need) or banned outright then the incidents of mass shootings would go down. You're still going to have Billy Bob Asshat hanging on to his AR that his inbred cousin grabs to gun down the family, but I see that mostly as Darwin in action and really don't mind it that much as long as he gets ALL his kids before doing himself in.

But here's the funny thing about firearms, I've noticed. If you shoot every round as if you can only ever shoot just one, your aim improves. Practice makes perfect. A muzzle-loader MUST be practiced with in order to become proficient with it.

I can reliably hit a soda can from 300 yards. Out to 500 yards, I can hit it about 2 out of 3 times. Granted, this isn't putting a three round grouping the size of a quarter on the forehead of a silhouette target at 3000 yards (even if the caliber is the same) but it's not bad for hand-forged bullets and a much less precise weapon. We've already determined that even if one COULD do the latter, against a military it ain't gonna stop them (they have these nifty things that can accurately detect where a shot came from and return fire in under a second, after all). So how far away from a deer do you HAVE to be to make it sporting?

In the end, if we give up the delusional notion that guns are needed to "keep the government in line", we can actually begin to move toward defining the second amendment in such a way as to take modern firearms out of the hands of maniacs and morons and put in them something much less destructive that still caters to the "american gun culture". I'd rather see guns go away entirely, but that would never happen.

Call this a compromise. They can still have their guns, but they can't go around gunning down dozens of people at a time and the nature of the weapon is such that accidents, while still possible, are far less likely to happen than before. The death tolls WILL go down. And maybe the individuals who whoop and holler about how badass they are with their little AR's and Uzi's and AK's will become more like the backwoodsmen of our nation's history who had to be deliberate, careful and learn how to fucking aim for a change.

Tis The Season To (not) Be Gifting!

Once again the bell-ringers are out polluting the store-fronts with their organized, deafness-inducing begging. The stores are playing repetitious, canned renditions of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" so often, their employees are sounding like homicidal Ewoks and looking like Sméagol. The store's motif is red and green with some silver and gold all of which would look great in snow, but with less than 10% of the country having snow ("It's global warming!" "We call it Climate Change now!" "Whatever, it's because of that!" "No it isn't, we can't be sure, but maybe it almost certainly is!"), it just looks ridiculous.

I've done my "buy out the store then stay the fuck away from them" thing for the year so mostly I don't have to listen to it, but the one omnipresent, omni-oppressive, dominating thing about this time of year is the giving of the gifts.

Time recently ran an article about the "Worst. Gifts. Ever." one could get, which only highlighted the whole issue about organized gifting: It's a really BAD idea.

Let's face it, the anticipation of getting the gift is far and away better than the actual gift. The mystery. The suspense. That period of drooling at the packages and boxes that awaited the green flag of Christmas day to tear into like a pack of ravenous velociraptors, teeth bared in grins of gift-nivorous delight - only to experience soul-crushing disappointment when you discover that what you THOUGHT was the Mattel He-man action figure EZ-Fry oven with the kung fu grip turned out to be a cleverly wrapped package of socks and underwear.

To add insult to injury, you're SUPPOSED to be appreciative for this complete betrayal of a child's trust in Santa. It's the "thought" that counts, after all. Yeah, that kind of tripe works so well on a four year old who was expecting to be able to bake Skeletor Kookies and Battle-Cat Cakes later on that day. "What the hell," the child asks himself while modeling these bitterly disappointing gifts like some kind of financially-strapped super hero, "didn't Santa get the letter I mailed?"

So the season to be gifting is actually the season to be whining - a lot, based on the post holiday lines for the refund counters and the courthouse divorce windows.

So for one Scrooge (that's me, by the way), I've rebelled against the whole notion of organized gifting. It's such a sad practice, really. You are EXPECTED to get someone a gift for the holidays and their birthdays. And from that expectation crawls the gut-churning, nausea-inducing, "I'd rather crawl naked over broken glass and then swim through a mile long vat of boiling oil than get another shitty gift I need to smile about getting" moments we all cherish so much upon opening said gift.

I know other people think as I do. I think the fruitcake was intended to be a weapon one sent to their "frienimies" that would be broken up and eaten whereupon the recipients would choke to death. One has to beware of gift horses (or more to the point, they need to beware of the somewhat less than creamy filling of the gift horse). At the same time, you're not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth. Unfortunately, looking at it any other way means you're very likely going to be looking at a horse's ass for giving the gift in the first place.

The whole concept of expecting a "gift" is such a contradiction of the motives for GIVING gifts in the first place. Gifts SHOULD be appreciated. They SHOULD be given because a person WANTS to, not for some contrived reason where it's expected.

Gifts are an albatross around the necks of both the giver and the receiver. The giver has to put forth the effort of REMEMBERING who to gift, thinking of what the recipient may want (assuming they bother to think of that), trying to fit the gift into the budget, go out and buy it, wrap it and then has to consider the likelihood that the receiver won't like it, will re-gift it, or in some other way won't appreciate the effort that went into the giving.

The gifter EXPECTS gratitude for their efforts, be them large or small. Show me ANYONE who gives a gift who isn't upset by the words, "Is this it?" or a patently insincere, "Thanks." and I'll show you a person who is dead inside or so delusional they can't otherwise operate in the world.

And the person receiving the gift... What a god-awful burden the giver has just dumped on THEM! Most folks would be happier to have a truck-load of horse shit dumped on them! They have to think, "Was MY gift to THEM as good?" or, worse, "Oh, shit, they gave me this and I got them NOTHING!" or even, "What the fuck IS this piece of shit?" and then they have to smile and be gracious and try not to feel like a putz, offended, embarrassed or some other stress-filled emotion as a result of having been handed something for "free" during a period of obligative gifting.

Being handed "Just that I always wanted!" and hearing, "I can't believe you got this for me, it's FANTASTIC!" upon giving the giver your gift back DOES happen, but they're kind of like Bigfoot sightings. You know it happens, but you're never sure if it's real or faked unless you see each other in the same item return lines or someone fucks up and re-gifts you with what you got them the year before.

The size of the can of worms opened up by the very notion of expected gift giving is only exceeded by the lengths to which we go to promote it. Valentine's Day, Father’s Day, Mother's Day, Birthdays, Christmas... Every month or so there's some obligatory, socially mandated demand to go out and buy gifts. It's much less of a "want to" thing than it is a "have to" thing. And on the other side of that gift is someone dreading the likelihood that it's just a cleverly wrapped package of underwear and socks.

I'm NOT for giving gifts with a proverbial gun to my head. A gift shouldn’t be given because it's EXPECTED. That's called "Extortion" in my book. Society will punish you if you don't get the Suzie Slimdoll dancing leotard Rainbow Bunny for your child's second birthday by calling you an unfit parent. Your family will sneer and point and stop inviting you to gatherings...

You know, with a family like that, it COULD be a blessing to not give gifts on expected days.

And one of the things about these days is that they don't always apply or are inappropriately applied. Mother's Day and Father's Day, for example, mean SO much to an orphan and are stroke inducing in families where you can, literally, have FIVE PEOPLE to gift. (The biological mother who donated the egg, the biological father who donated the sperm, the surrogate mother who carried you to term, the adoptive mother you ended up with when Family services took you away because she beat you like a step-child, and the adoptive father who you never saw because he was disgusted with the notion of adoption in the first place). Throw in real step parents and you have a nightmare bordering on the ninth circle of Hell every year.

I always thought that celebrating birthdays was a touch gruesome and somewhat narcissistic. Now, I like the idea of celebrating someone's life. But the thought of, "Hey, you survived another year! Drink up!" seems a bit disingenuous. The giving of the gifts only makes it worse while the receiving of the gifts makes it worser. I've made it a tradition to celebrate things on New Years - everyone celebrating life together, hopefully without too many drunk fights along the way.

No giving of gifts. No receiving of gifts. No crushed hopes. No broken dreams. No resentments. No hurt feelings.

Just a hangover.

Beats the hell out of crawling naked over broken glass and swimming through a mile long vat of boiling oil...

Requiescat In Psychosis, Thea Cohors

Much has been said about the recent elections, but one thing has been the most apparent: Extremism is NOT going to fly in OUR democracy.

In 2010, after two years of increasingly strident hatred and rhetoric, a number of GOP freshmen representatives arrived on Capitol Hill. They managed to keep all significant legislation to address the (at the time) bad economic conditions from happening. From the very start of the Obama administration the goal of the GOP was to make sure he was a one-term President.

They did this with over-the-top rhetoric: The Birther movement. Obama is a Muslim. Obama is a terrorist. Obama is a socialist (Considering no single thing the Obama administration has done has in any way privatized businesses or threatened private property ownership, not only is the charge that he's a socialist so far off the mark, it borders on libel). Obama is going to steal our guns!

They did this with obstructionist tactics that went so far as to have the credit agencies which determine default risks LOWER the credit rating of the United States for the first time in our history (From AAA to AA+, then to AA then to AA-). This was because these Congressional Freshmen came to Washington to "change things".

Well, they did. And it detrimentally impacted everyone needing or seeking credit, among other things. At no point did any legislation come out of Washington that actually helped the common people of the country, except to extend the tax cuts initiated almost a decade ago. (Cutting taxes and waging two multi-trillion dollar, unfunded wars... Way to plan a budget and be fiscally responsible GOP!)

After two MORE years of this strident rhetoric, congressional stagnation and slow economic recovery (mostly because the middle class weren't saddled again with higher taxes), we arrived at the 2012 elections. Things are getting better (no thanks to Congress). And the GOP nominated a plastic, elitist prick who leaked his true nature when he thought he was among friends and who proved it in an AFTER the election sour grapes tirade when he had absolutely nothing to gain from it.

In the end, Grover Norquist's great "starve the beast" campaign to destroy the unity of the United States (while simultaneously accelerating the accumulation of wealth among the wealthy - which was the real agenda) failed because the majority of voters didn't like the attendant extremism of those who supported the idea. It's a flawed concept, of course, but because you could only sell that kind of infantile logic to the infantile minded who have no real clue about how the world works, and because the infantile-minded are the minority, the majority spoke and said, basically, "ENOUGH!"

Extremism shot down the tea party, and it will likely take the entire GOP with it. As I mentioned before, had the Red States, in 2010 when the census was done, not gerrymandered themselves a major majority (thanks computers!) in their states, the House of Representatives would have gained far more Democrats than they did. As it looks now, there will be 201 democrats and 234 Republicans (at last count the democrats had gained 9 and the Republicans had lost 7. There were 2 vacant seats, presumably won by Democrats.)

But to support the assertion that it was the tea party that caused this mass exodus of GOP support, I offer the following facts:

1. Millions of white, middle class voters (the core of the GOP) would rather not vote than vote in favor of the GOP's presidential candidate who embraced, shamelessly catered to and stood by tea party candidates.

2. Allen West, a Florida freshman tea party advocate running as a Republican, was narrowly defeated in a GOP gerrymandered district by .58% of the vote. He so repulsed the voters of his district that he couldn't get elected when his party had a supermajority (over 66%) of GOP voters in it. His over-the-top anti-liberal rants became the fodder for his Democrat challenger to unseat him. The margin of victory seems narrow, but when one considers the districts are gerrymandered to give a distinct advantage to the GOP, it says a lot about the rejection of this individual.

3. Both of the "rape" tea party candidates, Todd "legitimate rape" Akin and Richard "rape is God's will" Mourdock, were expected to win in their districts. Both districts lie in the heart of Red State territory. Both districts were gerrymandered to heavily favor GOP candidates. Both ran on the GOP ticket. Both lost.

Now, I'm not saying the tea party is GONE. Like a zombie, it remains in a half-life of political existence only because of the gerrymandering that went on and, as I mentioned, infantile-brained voters who tend to congregate in rural regions (gerrymandered, of course) from where most of these 2012 tea party winners came. But even if they have aspirations to actually be relevant, they have already shot themselves in the foot. The ideology is DEAD, even if many of the candidates who espoused that ideology were reelected. They are political pariahs in the United States on a national level. Their ideology may play well to the local yokels, but it won't fly in the halls of Congress anymore.

To prove this assertion, I offer Mr. Romney. He wasn't a bad choice for the GOP. He represented all of their ideals. He was wealthy, photogenic, had a record of moderation and a record of exploitation (which meant he could be spun to appeal to moderates and extremists). If this was 1980, he would have won against an Obama-like candidate. But as I mentioned, Romney catered too much to the tea party. Too many tea party advocates said too many hateful, ignorant things and the result was a complete rejection of the things they had said. Well, perhaps not COMPLETE, but in a democracy, you only need more than 50% to win and when winning means you have control, well, losing means you don't get to say what will happen unless the other side is willing to compromise.

Considering how the tea party acted in Congress from 2010 to 2012, I'm thinking they'd rather open a vein and bleed to death on the floors of the House and Senate than "compromise".

I'll be THRILLED to supply them with sterile, brand-new straight razors. Their kind of misanthropy should be encouraged to die off. And the majority of American voters agreed - if not literally then certainly figuratively. These radicals need to make an exit from the political stage. We live in a progressive society where regressive politics won't fly. And in a democracy, if you focus on purifying ranks of those who don't believe in your ideology, you eventually have no say in what or how things are done.

For the tea party, I say good riddance. The headline for this blog is Requiescat In Psychosis, Thea Cohors. If you haven't figured that out, it means "Rest in psychosis, tea party". Political marginalization couldn't happen to a meaner bunch of radicals. It remains to be seen if they spark another civil war because they can't handle democracy in the first place.