The American States of Taxation and Dependence

I’ve been absent for the past several weeks and you can blame taxes.  It’s that time of year, and up until yesterday, I was swamped with paperwork for three people and itemization that will make one’s eyes cross.  This took up so much of my time and gave me multiple migraines, that it got me back to thinking about the Boston Tea Party and the Declaration of Independence.

This country was founded by people who were essentially wanting to start a new life away from the European forms of Monarchy and Religious Persecution.  There were so many who were taxed into debtor’s prison that they’d never again see the light of day were it not for a few social reformation experimentalists like General James E. Oglethorpe.  He took debtors, prisoners, people down on their luck that needed a fresh start and wanted to prove they could be productive members of society if given the chance.  He wasn’t the only one, but he purchased their debts and these people became indentured servants for the amount of time to pay off this debt.  They worked for their freedom and many of them achieved this.

Now, I know you don’t need a history lesson, but, perhaps a reminder of the kind of people that started this country.  Yes, there were the titled gentry that obtained gigantic swathes of land in a game of chance or someone’s good will, but they were not and never have been the backbone of this country.  The American Revolution was fought and won by the sweat and blood of the working Colonial, and our country continues this tradition to this day.

The main difference is:  We allow ourselves to be taxed into complacency.

What happened to those militia, those fighters, those Colonials that stood up to a Monarchy taxing them to death?  I look around and I see us devolving back into what we fled.  Is it comfortable?  Is it some inevitable path for a successful country to take?  Are we no longer the Red Giant Sun of this world, and fading into ignominy?

We’ve lost top credit billing, we’ve lost top currency value, we’ve lost age old relationships with fellow countries that have been with us since the beginning…  Who are we, anymore?  The politicians haven’t changed.  We can’t blame them, not really.  They’re the same selfish and self-aggrandizing creature they always were.

So it has to be us that’s changed.

We no longer bother to protect ourselves and our own interests, and instead, want others to do it for us.  We’re lazy (in comparison with what we’ve been).  We’re lazy and complacent and fat on the labors of our fathers before us.  What will this mean for the generations ahead?  Some say it will be very little time before we have either another civil war, finally splitting the country into smaller bits.  Some say we will be taxed into such a state of bankruptcy that we’ll have no choice but to invite other countries to buy our debt from us.

Read that again and think about the situation between the US and China.  That’s already happening, isn’t it?  And you know who’s spending that money?  We are.  The government isn’t doing it by themselves.  They’re a bad parent borrowing and selling everything they can think of to keep their children in the luxury they’ve come to expect.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no where near holding them blameless.  I am, however, stating that American Citizens need to take some of that blame, themselves, instead of pointing the finger and yelling “He did it!” like some juvenile child.

And to those who do point the finger at one person, I shake my head at you.  The president is no more singly responsible for this country than you or I are.  His choices have been made based on the efforts and information gathered by hundreds of people, and pushed and pressured into decisions by the men and women of our congress.

That being said, they are a figurehead and do have a responsibility to be what America is, to show what we are to the rest of the world.  He is our reflection, and I’m not happy with the past twenty years of presidents nor what they’ve shown.  I’m not happy with the current crop of candidates, either.  They’re all attacking the oval office as if it were home base in a game of tag instead of realizing it’s the figurehead of a nation desperately in need of redirection from this overpowering swell of government involvement and taxes.  The United States of America, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution were all formed to move away from this kind of tyranny.  We need to watch what’s happening in the Mediterranean and Northern Africa, because that’s going to happen here within the next generation.

Our children.

As we have done from the state of things our parents left us, our children will also reap the benefits or difficulties we ply upon the world, now.

Remember this the next time you want to blame Obama or Bush or W or Clinton for all the wrong doings in this country.  And remember that when you point a finger, three more point back at you.

I challenge the American populace to take more responsibility.  Take it back upon yourselves instead of foisting it off and  gaining this country more taxes.  We were not made to be this way.  We are an independent, proud country and should remember how to act that way.

More Gun Rhetoric

(originally published 1/26/2011 on denagray.wordpress.com)

 

I was reading an interesting post on a blogsite I follow HERE and responded to one of her posts.  She blogged about gun control and background checks, basically requesting citizenry to enroll or sign up for tighter restriction.  She makes a good argument and you should read her side.  I took a good long while composing my side and thought, well, why not make it my post for today?  So here it is:

This is indeed sad and I would say, coming so soon after the Moscow tragedy, very saddening. That some idiot would take it upon themselves to run into a police station and open fire says they had a death wish or some sort of vendetta. It’s possible that conviction of a family member could create such animosity, but surely, one would understand that shooting at a police officer will get you shot. And surely this person would understand beyond that if he opened fire multiple times on an entire police station, that several police officers would shoot back, and that several gunshot wounds could and would kill him. This person was clearly deranged or filled with some sort of guilt and wanted some sort of personal justice without truly committing the act of suicide.

As for the rest of your post, my friend, I’ll have to disagree with you:

Hmm. The interesting thing I’d like to point out is that the only people who will register their guns or who will use these gun check systems are legally owning citizens. After all, only lawful citizens can use the system. Criminals are not allowed to own or purchase weaponry under federal law, so why should a criminal care if their gun is legal or illegal? In fact, it would put to logic that tighter control laws would press a criminal to find a way to obtain a legally obtained weapon (theft) and use it in an illegal practice just to implicate someone else because we would have “no way” for that criminal to obtain that weapon otherwise. Hmm. Now, perhaps in a twisted way that could find a pattern or path closer to the criminal, unless the investigating source was either lazy or unjust and decided that the person who owned the weapon must have done it since their fingerprints are all over it. But then again, we don’t have laziness or misguided or even underhanded people on any police force anywhere, right? Not at all.

Before I say much further, there are–erm–interesting people out there who are obsessed with how much weaponry they have. This is a hobby. This, for the most part and in an abstract, is no different than collecting coins to them. Yes, there are always exceptions and yes, there are always fanatics and psychopaths, but why punish the 99% of the populace who aren’t crazy for the 1% who are? Should we all wear straight jackets and take happy pills? At the clearest, it is a violation of our CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT: our freedom to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

The NRA does have some people that feel the control-laws are out to tally how much a person owns…and think about it. During WWII, many of our guns were commandeered, sent overseas to the British and never sent back; all to help them when their own gun laws were so laborious they didn’t have an ounce of metal to fight with (and I do mean their ARMY not civilians). There are also people well placed in government that would love to know exactly how many weapons are out there for an opposite reason: how much of an informal standing army America has. Out of hunters alone, in one state alone, we have more protection than any other country in the world. This is why no one invades this country. We fight amongst ourselves over our freedoms because we have the right to and because we have little else more important to fight over.

The NRA also holds the position that the weapon and ammunition laws will only control the lawful. It only hurts law abiding citizens and weakens the defense of the populace, placing more strain on a reactive civil service, such as the police, whose hands are tied at proactively protecting us during criminal activity. They cannot do a THING until a crime has occurred unless it is a threat to our nation. If it’s personal, you’re on your own. Do you want someone breaking into your home and systematically killing your family before your eyes while the police have to take entire minutes to get to your home? Or would you rather shoot the bastard? And keep in mind, a bullet is much faster than the swing of a baseball bat, and it’s not pointed at you, it’s pointed at your child. Think of it in that regard and then tell me you want to control what kind of and how many weapons I have. Also think on this: the control laws don’t only affect *them*, they affect all of us. Once started, it’ll be a snowball fight as to who can get the most earmarks on THAT bill and I promise you, no one will be there to read them all until it’s well passed and someone’s kid is hurt because they weren’t *allowed* to own a weapon. It will come to that.

I will leave off that we have the freedom to differ, the freedom to have and have not, the freedom for me to be my way and you to be yours…all because of our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence and a little war fought over it with Guns. By farmers and weavers and tanners and the like that owned guns of their own that were not issued by a government and were not controlled by anyone but themselves.