Political rant

Welfare fraud is perpetrated illegally by the poor and desperate. Tax avoidance is legally taken advantage of by the rich and affluent. "Loopholes" are mostly devised by the rich to help the rich. Let's get one other thing straight. I'm not naive enough to believe that things will change significantly in favour of the poor at the expense of the rich. Wealth in America, like guns in America will come from wherever it/they are most easy to be gotten.

The argument that jurisdictions where gun control has been enacted shows little or no gun-related crime decline is due simply because guns are brought in from other places. Unless you make it extremely difficult to get guns at all, be ready to bury your child, grandchild or yourself from taking a stray bullet.

It's the same story with wealth. I believe it was Maryland that enacted a "Millionaire" law in an attempt to tax the rich a little more. Surprisingly (to some), suddenly the number of filers with income over one million dropped by about one third. They're still wondering what happened to all those millionaires. You can be sure that they didn't suddenly experience a huge drop in their income. Some left the state, some hid money and others more adept at wealth building than I, came up with other methods to stay one step ahead of the tax man.

You can't force people to take care of their own families let alone strangers. For some unGodly, truly unGodly, reason, a lot of Americans are under the mistaken notion that it is possible to keep almost all of their earned cash with no ramifications at all. Why do you think that the streets are riddled with crime, junkies, hos, homeless? Why do you think that individuals and businesses need to barricade their premises like fortresses and spend big bucks on security officers and systems? Why do you think the insurance corporations are among the biggest companies in the world? This all costs everyone a ton of money. These are just some examples of where much of our money goes because we adamantly stick to the principle "I earned my money and no one should take any of it and give it to someone else". Guess what. You are giving it to someone else--just not the ones who need it!

You're giving it to the companies who make the products or provide the services I mentioned above. Then there's the cost of crime prevention, detection, analysis, pursuit, prosecution, incarceration, rehabilitation, etc. My dear, misguided soul--get it through your head and go forth and teach others that to a point, the less tax you pay, the more it costs you. There will always be those who for varied reasons can't or won't fend for themselves. To not help them through the distribution of wealth by means of taxation simply means that most of them will cost all of us even more money as they use more destructive ways to get what they need and want. The rest will waste away on the streets. Neither is a better alternative to higher taxes.

I have proved countless times that the countries with the most social programs have an overall better standard of living than the U.S. I will concede that the U.S. boasts more billionaires than any other country, but it also has more crime, pollution, drug addicts, prostitutes, inmates, homeless and just about any other negative aspect a society can have. It is a fact that paying more in taxes makes for a more productive, enjoyable, happy, safer life for all. The numbers don't lie. Unless you're Enron, Worldcom, Ebbers, Madoff, etc.

It is not incongruent for a staunch conservative who believes that one should be responsible for his own well-being to also believe in higher taxes for the purpose of more distribution of wealth. You're not necessarily doing it for others. You will gain as much from it as anyone. In fact, you will gain more. Money for most people is easy to come by. Safety, security, a clean environment and a life rich with culture and fulfilment are the rewards you will reap when you don't force people who for whatever reasons can't or won't otherwise live by mainstream rules. For each penny you give them willingly, it's one less penny they won't have to stab you for, or burglarize your home or business for, and make you pay for their stay in prison for, etc. You will pay one way or another. The only question is whether you want to do it in a way that ensures relative peace in society or turmoil.

Caution: offensive content

Earlier this evening, I found another reason for my waning interest in watching hockey. Mind you, it's not a biggee, but just the same...

The Toronto Maple Leafs' Nik Antropov had just tied the game late in the third period against the Mighty Ducks (I still can't believe they adopted that name). The home crowd was going wild and the camera did a pan across the Leaf bench.

Many of the players were looking down as if there was something fascinating going on down there, and many others were looking in various directions, looking about as interested as if they were at a lawn bowling game. No offence to lawn bowlers who many I'm sure can make the Maple Leaf team.

Getting back to the camera pan, it stayed long enough on one player for the presumably millions of faithful Canadian hockey fans to witness the "horking up" of a "loogie" just shy of the size of a regulation golf ball, and its propulsion halfway across the ice surface, quite possibly landing on centre ice. If it were black, it might have instigated an invalid faceoff. However, the best was yet to come. One player, who will remain nameless, only because I was less interested in him, than he was that the camera was on him, had an index finger lodged up his nose, seemingly to the third knuckle, where it remained until it was out of camera range.

I think the ending of Taxi Driver is less offensive...maybe because it is reminiscent of old-time hockey. ;)