Man Can't Challenge $280K Tax Bill He Probably Doesn't Really Owe, Pa. Court Says"Once, I remember, I ran across the case of a boy who had been sentenced to prison, a poor, scared little brat, who had intended something no worse than mischief, and it turned out to be a crime. The judge said he disliked to sentence the lad; it seemed the wrong thing to do; but the law left him no option. I was struck by this. The judge, then, was doing something as an official that he would not dream of doing as a man; and he could do it without any sense of responsibility, or discomfort, simply because he was acting as an official and not as a man. On this principle of action, it seemed to me that one could commit almost any kind of crime without getting into trouble with one's conscience.
Clearly, a great crime had been committed against this boy; yet nobody who had had a hand in it โ the judge, the jury, the prosecutor, the complaining witness, the policemen and jailers โ felt any responsibility about it, because they were not acting as men, but as officials. Clearly, too, the public did not regard them as criminals, but rather as upright and conscientious men.
The idea came to me then, vaguely but unmistakably, that if the primary intention of government was not to abolish crime but merely to monopolize crime, no better device could be found for doing it than the inculcation of precisely this frame of mind in the officials and in the public; for the effect of this was to exempt both from any allegiance to those sanctions of humanity or decency which anyone of either class, acting as an individual, would have felt himself bound to respect โ nay, would have wished to respect. This idea was vague at the moment, as I say, and I did not work it out for some years, but I think I never quite lost track of it from that time." - Albert Jay Nock, "Anarchist's Progress", The American Mercury (1927); ยง III : To Abolish Crime or to Monopolize It? |
Professor Gruber Strikes AgainAccording to a recent post by Scott Vorse on Brietbart's "Big Government" website, MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber, already in hot water for saying that "the stupidity of the American voter" was politically indispensable in getting Congress to pass the Affordable Care Act, previously had advised former NYC mayor Michael Blo... (more)
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Income Inequality Is a Statistical ArtifactThe past year or so has witnessed a tremendous outpouring of commentary about income inequality. Pundits and politicians have huffed and puffed about it, mainly about its alleged evils and what governments should do to diminish it. Mainstream economists have devoted a great deal of attention to dissecting French economist Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, a book focused on income inequality—and also a book whose shoddy craftsmanship would have repelled su... (more)
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American Ranking Plummets in Global Index of 'Personal Freedoms'In an age of expanding national security powers, increasing surveillance state, and rolled-back civil liberties protections, Americans' perception of their own personal freedoms is plummeting, according to the annual ranking by the Legatum Institute in London.
In Washington D.C. this week to promote their findings, researchers with the Legatum Institute measure a nation's prosperity on a number of factors including health, safety, education, economy, opportunity, social capital, g... (more)
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Your "Children Will Be Fined" If You Fail To Sign Up For Obamacare: People Are Going To Be In for A ShockFree and affordable health care just gets better and better.
In 2015 the government will be activating some new “incentives” embedded in the Affordable Care Act in an effort to get more people to sign up.
But, as is often the case when the government says one thing, they mean exactly the opposite. In this case, when they say incentive what they really mean is that you are going to be penalized if you fail to acquire government mandated health i... (more)
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The End of QE Is Not the End of Bad PolicyRecently the financial press and media has been abuzz as the Federal Reserve moved closer to the anticipated end to its massive bond and mortgage backed securities purchases known as quantitative easing. James Bullard, President of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, stirred controversy last week when he suggested the Fed should consider continuing the bond buying program after October. But at the October 29th meeting, the policy makers did as anticipated and "agreed to end its asset purch... (more)
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Marijuana Profits Up In Smoke Under IRS RulesIllegal drugs are bad -- unless we profit off them! Understand?! |
"They Just Want The Money!" - The IRS Can Now Seize Accounts On Suspicion Alone"How can this happen?" Ms. Hinders said in a recent interview. "Who takes your money before they prove that you've done anything wrong with it?"
The federal government does.
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The topic of civil asset forfeiture has been high on our agenda recently as federal ‘agents’ discover how to steal Americans’ hard-earned cash with zero repurcussions , and ... (more)
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Hillary: 'Don't Let Anybody Tell You' That 'Businesses Create Jobs'
Appearing at a Boston rally for Democrat gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley on Friday, Hillary Clinton told the crowd gathered at the Park Plaza Hotel not to listen to anybody who says that “businesses create jobs.” “Don’t let anybody tell you it’s corporations and businesses create jobs,” Clinton said.
“Y... (more)
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Does Ebola Justify the State?
How could a stateless society deal with a disease like Ebola? Bob Murphy explains.
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Low Inflation? The Price Of Ground Beef Has Risen 17 Percent Over The Past YearThanks to the Federal Reserve, the middle class is slowly being suffocated by rising food prices. Every single dollar in your wallet is constantly becoming less valuable because of the inflation the Fed systematically creates. And if you try to build wealth by saving money and earning interest on it, you still lose because thanks to the Federal Reserve's near zero interest rate policies banks pay next to nothing on savings accounts. The Federal Reserve wants you to either spend... (more)
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EFF, Internet Archive, and reddit Oppose New York's BitLicense ProposalSan Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), along with reddit and the Internet Archive, today filed formal comments with the New York State Department of Financial Services opposing the state's proposed regulations for digital currencies such as Bitcoin. In the letter, EFF argues that on top of damaging privacy and harming innovation, New York's "BitLicense" regulatory scheme also risks i... (more)
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