Friday, June 29, 2012

A tax on inactivity

Next time someone tells you that nothing is new, that any idea, book or movie title, marketing approach, etc. is simply a rehash of previous thought, point them to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.  For the first time in American history, you can be taxed for NOT doing something.  Take a break from your partisan thoughts about health care and let that proposition roll around in your brain for a moment.  

In upholding the constitutionality of Obamacare, Roberts argued what the administration did not - that the mandate is really a tax, and that govt has the power to tax people.  Usually, taxation is done in conjunction with an activity:  income tax is paid on what you earn while working, sales tax is tacked onto purchases you make, property taxes come from having bought real estate.  With this tax, however, money will be confiscated from you because of what you do not do.  If you opt out of health insurance, govt will forcibly take some of your money.  If your employer decides against offering health coverage as a benefit, govt will forcibly take some of the company's money.  If you already thought that taxation was a de facto form of theft, this ruling puts that theft on steroids. 

A host of self-appointed deep thinkers is working overtime to think deep thoughts about Roberts' decision:  He did not want the Court to appear political; He did not want to be perceived as activist; He has helped Romney with his ruling. I am calling BS on each of  those pronouncements.  The Court already is deemed as political by whichever side loses on a particular vote.  The Court would have been perceived as activist regardless of the outcome.  And, if the Chief Justice fancies himself a political kingmaker, then he should resign his post and run for the post of RNC Chairman.

Where Roberts' decision strains credulity is that, all along, the President and his Congressional allies had done rhetorical back-flips and pirouettes insisting that the mandate was NOT a tax, mostly because they knew the bill would have never passed had the word "tax" actually been in the text.  It barely passed as it was, owing its passage largely to last-minute bribes to a handful of Senators.  Had the Court simply upheld the mandate as constitutional, there would still be heartburn and hand-wringing, but the measure would have passed on its own merit.  Instead, Roberts chose to re-write it, to recast the proposition as some warped version of Solomon saying "this is what I think you meant to put in the bill."

Taxation for inactivity is truly a plumbing of new depths and like all SCOTUS rulings, it sets a precedent.  What else can govt now tax you for NOT doing?  How about a non-exercise tax - unless you can show a receipt for a gym membership or large piece of home equipment, you may be taxed; and no, simply being a jogger will not do.  For politicians who love to use the tax code for social engineering, this opens up a new avenue of approach.  NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg was easy to laugh at when he tried to ban the sale of large-size soft drinks; how silly will you think him when he takes a different tack, say taxing you if you order water in a restaurant since it's free and if you have a soda or tea, at least the state gets some sales tax revenue. 

There is no end to how stupid such an application can become.  Meanwhile, never let it be said again that there are no new ideas, that everything is a rehash of something previously thought up by someone else.  No, the Chief Justice has cemented his status in the deep thinking brigade forever.  That he has made himself look utterly foolish in the process apparently does not matter. 

 

Thursday, June 21, 2012

They have to believe you will hurt them

By now, you have likely heard about the New York school monitored hassled by a sorry assemblage of today's youth.  The woman has decided against pressing charges and what do you want to be that none of the kids' parents are going to take action, either?  Maybe I will be wrong but I doubt it, and it is doubt based on simple observation - bad behavior, particularly involving youths, is hardly ever punished. 

Adults have willfully ceded not just control, but authority, over the young through well-intentioned (and aren't bad outcomes usually associated with good intentions?) but misguided attempts to police behavior through time-outs, talking, and other benign measures.  You want to make your kid, or someone else's, stays in line?  To quote a character from an episode of the "House" television series some time back, "They have to believe you will hurt them." 

Now, this does not imply that physical punishment should be used exclusively or even often as a means of discipline.  But either it or some similarly harsh measure has to be on the table and those in your charge have to know that this measure is most certainly an option.  My two boys, now 28 and 25, collectively got about five spankings while growing up.  However, and this is the key point, they knew that a spanking was a potential outcome if they acted stupidly.  I did not waste their time or mine with meaningless three-counts to convince them to stop whatever they were doing, we did not engage in corner-sitting or in losing television privileges. 

No, the consequences for the worst offenses were swift and they were unpleasant.  That is why they were effective.  You cannot spank a child for every silly thing that occurs; all that does is make spanking meaningless and, when really bad things occur and a parent has to escalate punishment, well, the next step up from spanking is abuse.  Not good.  Because harsh sanctions existed and because they were harsh, really bad behavior happened so seldom I cannot even recall why the boys ever got one of the few spankings either ever received. 

On a broader point, some have characterized the actions of the NY monsters as bullying, a term seen almost continuously in the news.  Want to know the best means of stopping a bully?  Smack him in the mouth.  Period.  The bully's target does not have to actually win a fight; he/she only has to show willingness to engage in one.  Ironically, bullies are generally cowards and the first sign of pushback is usually enough to make them go away.  Unfortunately, the people who many expect to know better actually do not know better. 

School officials usually respond to confrontations by treating instigation and retaliation as the same thing, which anyone with two working brain cells, let alone an advanced degree, knows is untrue.  When instigation draws no response and, more important, no sanction, what do you suppose happens?  A gold star if you said "more instigation."  If nothing of substance happens to the kids in the NY case - and by substance, I mean the system bans them from riding the bus, from extra-curriculars for a year, their parents do something like suspend the little darlings' cell phone service - then you can expect the same kids to harass someone else until they run across the proverbial wrong person. 

At that point, the response will be wholly disproportionate to its trigger and a lot of grownups will engage in ritual hand-wringing and navel-gazing about the need for expanding conflict-resolutions methods that are already ineffective.  Frankly, I am tremendously disappointed that the bus monitor is not filing charges.  That makes her an accomplice and an enabler in what will likely be more bad behavior from this group of miscreants.  

Look for a lot of editorials tut-tutting the state of youth and decorum, and a lot of television pundits bloviating about the same.  The one thing you will not see is someone suggesting that sometimes, an old-fashioned ass-whipping goes a long way toward sending a message that certain behavior is simply not going to be tolerated if we are to have a civil society. 

Monday, June 18, 2012

False comparisons and straw men

One of the biggest intellectual frauds some try to perpetuate is comparing the US to other nations.  Usually, it's done as a means of suggesting one more area where govt can infiltrate your life.  Well, just one small problem with comparing America to European or Asian societies, and it is a problem so obvious one has to wonder why it is missed.  Then again, because it is so obvious, the greater likelihood is that the issue is not simply overlooked, it is purposely ignored. 

That problem/issue/factor is culture.  What the cultural relativists among us refuse to accept is that, culturally speaking, the US is light years apart from other societies.  Here is the simplest test - go to Europe, Asia, or Africa and I guarantee that you will look out of place in at least one of those continents, if not all three.  By contrast, no one looks out of place here.  At first glance, it is impossible to tell whether the guy in the convenience store or the girl at the counter has been here for five generations or five minutes.

There is a secondary aspect to culture.  The govt programs in place overseas, the type of social welfare initiatives many here want to see implemented, work because of universal buy-in among those populations.  In fact, one big problem in Greece is that, for too long, a large segment has shirked its responsibility to contribute toward benefit programs by either being paid under the table and avoiding taxes or not paying them altogether.  But in places like Germany, Denmark, and Japan, where the system works relatively well, everyone understands that s/he has a responsibility to put money into the kitty. 

There is no politically-perpetuated permanent underclass in those societies.  There are no 3rd or 4th generation welfare recipients.  There are no programs that incentivize bad behavior as there are here.  But, it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge this malicious truth.  As it is, nearly half the American population has zero federal income tax liability; a high percentage of folks get back more in benefits than they ever kick into the system.  Does anyone believe that such a system can work forever?  Please. 

Of course, facing this reality makes some people uncomfortable.  They hope you won't recognize that a govt which takes from Peter to give to Paul can always count on Paul's support, and we are reaching the tipping point where the number of Pauls outnumbers the Peters.  As a wise man once said, democracy works just fine until people figure out that they can vote themselves the money of others.  In the book Atlas Shrugged, the Peter class eventually went on strike.  In reality, the creative class is not likely to up and quit and political opportunists know that.  By the same token, you should know many of them are being intellectually dishonest, which is hardly a novel concept, but it bears remembering when you are faced with a round of intellectual dishonesty.