Re: [Leica] Totally OT: Buzz's Know-Nothing Tax Rant

["Roland Smith" <roland@dnai.com>]

Like it or not,  the evolution of government will naturally be
centralization and conformity.   The elements of "positive democracy"
stressing issues of health and safety become the means for the greatest
erosion of decentralized governance..

Government is the vehicle.   The measures adopted become a threat, since,
they are the results of the efforts of individuals and pressure groups to
control the behavior of all of us.   The driving force of oppression is
control whether it is in representative government or a totalitarian
government.

Sometimes, Hegel's dialectic works to create the middle ground.  Sometimes,
the swing of the pendelum must be relied on over time to change an extreme
course.

I am most concerned that our people learn to coexist without the practice of
control.

Roland Smith
Oakland, California
- ----- Original Message -----
From: Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Monday, December 20, 1999 3:35 PM
Subject: [Leica] Totally OT: Buzz's Know-Nothing Tax Rant


> At 02:46 PM 12/20/1999 -0500, Buzz Hausner wrote:
> >I'm sorry and I know this is dangerously off-topic, but I have to jump in
> >and condemn this kind of know-nothing rant.  I try to minimize the
federal
> >taxes I pay, but I also appreciate that government helps provide me with
> >clean water to drink and in which to soup film, that government provides
me
> >with at least adequate air traffic control when I fly somewhere to take
> >pictures with my Leicas, that government sponsors medical research which
may
> >keep me alive and clicking longer than I might otherwise, that government
> >paid 90% of the cost of the interstate highway that took me to North
Dakota
> >to photograph the Badlands, that government maintains a military which
keeps
> >me free to use the film and cameras of my choice, et cetera.
>
> Buzz
>
> Allow me simply to state that, on this issue, I am totally in accord with
> Don Rorschach and not with you.  You have simply acceded to the Gummit's
> claims that they are the perfect solution to everything, and, to this I
> dissent, constantly and firmly.
>
> Oh, I'm stuck living in this fascist society:  my family have been
> flag-waving patriots since the Revolution and I am, too.  But I don't have
> to like the frightening course of growth the Federal Government has taken
> in my own lifetime.  I am a former bureaucrat and my father is a retired
> bureaucrat, so I have a bit of inside knowledge of the vile manner in
which
> the Government treats its charge.
>
> Read the US Constitution and tell me where this authorizes, for instance,
> "air traffic controllers" or where it requires the US government to
> consider the adoption of firearms laws.  Tell me where, and under what
> provision, welfare is justified.  Tell me where the Constitution
authorizes
> the Federal Government to worry itself with whether trucks are overweight
> or whether the environment is healthy or not.
>
> Many of these ARE governmental concerns but, under our system of limited
> Federal government, they are STATE matters and not Federal matters at all.
>
> This has been forgotten by virtually every one in today's US of A, but the
> States are to have control of almost all of the governmental functions.
> Read your copy of the Constitution and figure it out for yourself.
>
> Marc
>
>
>
> msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
> Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!
>
>