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The media now goes out of its way to be fair and balanced in its reporting of the news. They attempt to give both sides of stories so that the viewer can make up their own mind. We assume that because the media is giving equal weight to both view points that both viewpoints are equally balanced in their truth value and equally valid. The problem is that this is rarely the case.

Let us take for instance the old controversy of whether smoking tobacco caused diseases like lung cancer and emphysema. In the mid 60’s numerous scientists working for the surgeon general came to the conclusion that tobacco use caused cancer, and announced as much to the nation. The response to this from Camel cigarettes came in just a couple months with an advertising campaign stating, “More Doctors Smoke Camels.” And so began the war over the dangers of smoking which only recently ended with a settlement by the major tobacco companies forcing them to partially pay for the costs to keep children and teens from picking up the habit. But before that there were billions spent by this industry to spread doubt and create a false controversy. There was not a credible scientist in the world, who believed that tobacco was anything but harmful to its users; but the tobacco industry created research institutes and paid scientists for the sole purpose of selling the big lie, that Tobacco was perfectly safe. There are still people who believe that smoking does not cause cancer and that anti-smoking rhetoric is just a “liberal conspiracy” cooked up to rob good hard working Americans of their freedoms.

We should have learned from the false controversy created by the tobacco industry. It is important for the media to report the truth, but when reporting the side of those who wish to create controversy where there is none, it should be prefaced with the actual source of the information (calling industry mouth pieces for what they are). We now have a media which facilitates the spread of false controversy by giving equal time to voices that only have the aim to muddle and confuse the truth. Our media will not report a story without some input from somebody who has a differing opinion, no matter how ridiculous that opinion may be. With this philosophy if the media were to do a story on the Earth being round they would have a representative of The Flat Earth Society on to argue that the round Earth theories are all part of some conspiracy to delude the public.

Fair and balanced media reporting is hopeless for creating an informed populace if it is used as a vehicle to promote false controversy to cloud the truth. We should demand more from our news sources, we should demand that they not give credibility to groups wishing to spread lies and create confusion. They should not fear the accusations of political bias at the cost of being used as tools for deception by those who truly have an agenda which is counter to the public good.

code_archaeologist Uncategorized

Or, more to the point, let’s talk about what happens to your money when you die. In a perfect world when you die, your assets go to your heirs in whole because either you have 1) already paid taxes on the money when you earned it or 2) there is no sale, therefore nothing to tax. So if you spend your entire life working to amass wealth (thus driving the economy, creating jobs, etc), you are able to leave the fruits of your labors to your chosen heirs. Like I said, this is how it would function in a perfect world.

Instead, we live in a vastly imperfect world where it is believe that anyone dying with a lot of money or assets doesn’t have any sort of right to pass it en masse to their heirs. Instead, the dead person’s estate is smacked with a huge tax burden that, under current totals, wipes out close to half of their estate, leaving a greatly diminished number of assets to their heirs. Under the current tax codes, the estate tax for $2 Millon+ estates in 2006 is set at 46%, it then drops to 45% for 2007-2009 (with the exempt limit jumping to $3.5 Million in 2009). In 2010, there is no estate tax. So if you’re planning on earning a lot of money in the next few years, you might want to consider an unfortunate accident in 2010 so your heirs will get all the money you earned. Then, in 2011, it goes back to pre-2001 levels ($1 Million exemption and a 55% upper end tax rate).

Now I am sure there are many of you out there who are going ‘well, those are just the really rich folks and they can handle their estates getting hit.’ It is that attitude that is detrimental to the growth of our economy and the expansion of wealth in this country. What reason does anyone have to strive to enhance their position in life through hard work and accumulate wealth if they can’t choose what to do with all of it after they die? In many cases, the money has already been taxed once before and is now geting smacked with a second, usually much higher, tax burden because the holder of the wealth died. There is also the fact that this doesn’t just hit the “evil rich.” There are also many family farms that end up needing to be sold after the death of the honor due to the tax burden being more than the heirs can pay without divesting themselves of the property to cover it. Instead of being able to stay and work the family farm (or family business in general), they are forced to abandon it due to the tax burden.

Of course, there are some ways to get around it. I had a great-uncle who did well playing the stock market and invested his earnings from RJR well over the course of his life. When he died, he left most of his estate to his sister. Shortly before his death, he bought a one payment life insurance policy of $1 million that had a one time premium of close to the benefit amount. Under the current tax codes, however, life insurance isn’t taxed. The simple fact is, however, that people shouldn’t have to look for loopholes like this in order to pass their wealth on to others when they die.

Unfortunately, the truth about our current tax codes isn’t spoken openly. The current tax code isn’t a burden on those who already have wealth. Instead, it’s a burden on those who want to be productive and create their own wealth. It doesn’t hurt the rich–it hurts those who are trying to get rich. More and more, the government is asserting that it is better able to decide how to spend your money than you are, and they’re going to take your money away for your own good, to benefit everyone else around you (and you, if you’re lucky).

Why did all of this come to mind? Because the Senate today fell three votes short of cloture to bring a vote on a compromise amendment to the tax bill that would limit some of the burden of the death/estate tax. The Democratic Party, on the whole, doesn’t want people to be able to do what they want with all of their money. Instead, they believe that they have the magic formula of how to best spend the money and they need to have these laws in place to ensure they’re able to carry these things out. Unfortunately for the rest of us, they are unable and unwilling to get it through their heads that the money doesn’t belong to them, it belongs to the people who earned it. They are also unable and unwilling to limit the function of the government to the Constitutionally defined limits of authority. For many of them, it’s all about personal power wrapped up in the idea that they’re not doing it for themselves, but rather doing it for the “People.”

Personally, I call bullshit on that. I’m one of the “People” and want them to keep their hands off of my money.

stranger Uncategorized

So the Republicans have now fired one of their opening volleys for the Mid-term elections. Yet again the Marriage Amendment was brought up for a vote on the Senate, going down again on a 49-48 margin (far from the required 67 votes require to send it to the States). I fully believe the Republicans knew it would not pass, but wanted this to provide them with ammunition going into the mid-term elections, especially given how close the margin of control is in the Senate. There are several seats that are in contention, and the Republicans want to maintain control of the Senate as desperately as the Democrats want to take it away from them.

The problem I foresee, however, is two-fold. First and foremost is the break from the intention of the Constitution by the placing of such an amendment into its records. Looking at the Constitution, it was designed to do two things. First, it was designed to define explicitely the powers of the Federal Government. It’s not as harshly defining as the Anti-Federalists would have liked, but it’s certainly not the blank check that hardline Federalists would have liked. The other thing it was designed to do was explicitely protect freedoms. Looking over the Amendments to the Constituation, you have the following breakdown: Protecting Rights/Freedoms/Liberties – 17, Pertaining to administration of the office of the President – 4, Pertaining to Judicial Limitations – 1, Pertaining to the Congress – 2, Taxes – 1, Repealing an Amendment – 1, Limiting Rights/Freedoms/Liberties – 1.

So out of twenty-seven amendments to the US Constitution, you have one amendment that limited the freedoms of the citizens of the United States: the 18th, Prohibition. It also stands out even more in its uniqueness in that it is the only amendment to be repealed by another amendment (the 21st for those keeping score at home). Other than that, there are no amendments to the Constitution that limit the freedoms and liberties of citizens of the United States. There are no amendments that say that legal benefits and protections of United States law for adult citizens are allowed for some citizens but not for all of them. And yet, that is precisely what the Republicans are wanting to do with the Marriage Amendment. They are wanting to say that only heterosexual couples are to be afforded the rights and freedoms granted by the legal partnership of two private citizens known as marriage (and note, please, that I’m speaking of the legal definition of marriage, not the spiritual partnership sanctioned by various religions in the world–I’m talking solely about the legal benefits derived from the State seeing you as married).

So for yet another time in the history of the United States, you have the controlling party in the Senate wanting to impose its morality on the entirety of the country. Rather than actually learning from history and seeing that this is a bad idea, they continue to throw this up as a flash point issue. Rather than acknowledging that the protections guaranteed in the Constitution aren’t there to enshrine the will of the majority but rather to protect the minority, they continue to demand that this be made a lasting part of the Constitution.

The other problem I see here is one that stems directly from the repeated attempts to bring this up. My fear is that people will become complacent and assume it’s going to fail each time. There is a scene in Atlas Shrugged where the railroad association votes on the Anti-Dog Eat Dog rule. Rand goes to great lenghs to point out that everyone else assumed that someone would save them and vote it down. Everyone voted for it believing that someone else would stand up and say no. However, no one else did and it passed, marking the first demonstration of the evil of society expressed in Rand’s opus. My fear is that the Congress will come to this point along with the populous as a whole. I fear the day that this–or something like it–will pass because everyone assumes it’s okay to vote in favor of it to pander favor assuming that others will vote against it and keep it from passing.

Yes, they still fell 18 votes short of what was required to send the amendment to the States for ratification. However, the vote this time put those in favor of it in the majority category, which is disturbing. How long will it be until the Fundamentalists obtain a large enough majority in the Senate to enforce their morality on the rest of the country? How long will it be until the apathy of the public allows this to happen? Yes, it’s harder for this to pass than it was for the Anti-Dog Eat Dog regulation in Atlas Shrugged. That simply makes it more of a longer term issue to me.

I’m not asking for anyone to start picketing, screaming from the rooftops, or anything of that nature. What I am asking for people to do is actually get up and do something. Write your senators and express your displeasure. Send an editorial in to the newspaper to have your opinion out there for public consumption. Simply do something rather than doing nothing.

If we’re not careful, it’s not going to be any outside force that’s going to kill this Republic. It’s going to be our own apathy.

stranger Uncategorized