Taxation without Representation
Beware that, when
fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze
long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.
- Friedrich
Nietzsche
By J.M. Hamilton
(10-29-2017)
The Catalonian parliament declared
itself an independent republic on Friday, and the elites in Madrid responded
with characteristic thuggery, by abolishing democracy and the Catalonian
government. Catalonia is a region in Spain and is seeking
independence from a highly
corrupt Spanish government.
As noted in my last
piece, Centrifugal
Forces: Independence & secessionist movements, and a highly charged
electorate that is disdainful of center left/right establishment parties are
appearing throughout Western democracies.
The common theme,
among the various forms of rebellion, is that democratic government - &
Western economies - has become unresponsive to the will of the
people. Rather, big money has contaminated and corrupted so-called
"capitalist economies" and governments throughout the West, so that
center left/right politicians are mere puppets.
In the United State
in particular, the Congress and the Senate are wholly out of step with the will
of the people, as is the Trump administration. Ironically, POTUS
Trump, originally, ran as a populist, a dark counter reflection to Senator
Sanders' enlightened campaign.
But candidate Trump
and POTUS Trump are two entirely different animals, the former being a creature
of the swamp and the latter being captured by it. The Trump cabinet
and his core team of advisors - consisting of Goldman Sachs bankers and
assorted plutocrats – have largely done the bidding of corporate &
multinational C-Suites, as well as, the billionaire class.
Just how disdainful
and out of touch is the Trump administration, and the United States Senate, with
popular opinion? Let’s go down a laundry list of issues that a
captured U.S. Congress refuses to act upon (and often acts against), while the
Trump administration attempts to drag America back to the Dark Ages.
Gun control: Post-Vegas, and even
prior to, the majority of Americans favored various types of gun
control, particularly bans on assault
rifles, and tighter background
checks, pre-sale.
In regards taxes,
the majority of Americans believe taxes should be raised on corporations
and multinationals, and per Pew
Research, greater than 40% believe tax rates should be raised on
higher income homes.
On abortion,
again, the majority of Americans believe in the right
of the woman to choose.
In regards climate
change and the environment, the majority of Americans want the
government to proactively fight climate
change (not rape & pillage the land, and reinvigorate Big Carbon,
as the Trump administration is doing).
Gay
marriage, another – at least among the GOP – controversial topic, that
really is not so controversial anymore. Here again, the majority of
Americans have no issue w/ same sex marriage. Per Gallup, sixty-four percent of
American adults support gay marriage.
Just this week – as reported in
the Washington Post –
a majority of Republicans have joined the human race, and finally, decided
that cannabis
(aka marijuana) should be legal.
Good Goddess Almighty … what has
the U.S. come to? Demon weed legalization? Who’d have
thunk it? A lot of responsible Americans, Democrat and Republican,
that’s who. Nobody has ever died from a cannabis overdose, and
the many and varied medicinal
qualities of a weed - almost anybody can grow in their backyard - are just now
being discovered. Meanwhile, Big
Pharma has grown wealthier than King Midas, by pushing a national opioid
epidemic upon American society.
But I digress. On FP…
here again, many of our allies now view U.S. foreign policy – power &
influence – as a major threat. Read the Pew Study here. And
the Charles Koch Institute, in a report published in 2016, states that
Americans believe U.S.
foreign policy and global wars have made the country less safe.
‘It’s just messed up’: Most think political
divisions as bad as Vietnam era, new poll shows
(Click chart to enlarge)
(Click chart to enlarge)
In short, on issue
after issue, the GOP establishment and the Trump
administration, are acting against the popular will of the American people
(or defiantly, not acting at all - in a case study of passive aggressive behavior
- to protect the aforementioned societal beliefs & norms).
By dumbing down
policy debate to tweets, via gerrymandering, and pandering to the baser demons
of the republican electorate’s entropy (through divide & conquer/Nixonian
Southern strategy), the GOP is acting as if they are running a
dictatorship, not a democracy or a republic. And the fact that the U.S.
Senate gives undue weight to red states isn’t helping.
Now, front and
center, is U.S.
tax reform. Here, we’ve heard POTUS Trump attempt to sell this
dog, as a marvel and a big win for the middle class. But in news story
after news story, based upon what we know, it appears to be another pig
out for the billionaire class and C-Suite
royalty, at the expense of fiscal sanity and the middle
class. Of course, this process is just getting started, and it’s
still too early to know what the final tax package will look like, or if there
will even be genuine reform? But if past is prologue, we can expect the grand ol’ party to reward the uber wealthy, at the expense of the 99%.
At this point, it
would probably be a good time to remind the oligarchy that has captured our
government, why the United States split from mother England. Key
among reasons was the imposition of taxes w/out representation, that is to
say, American
colonists were tired of paying taxes, while a despot ruled over them. Today, Americans
– in a regressive tax system – are being soaked in taxes (as a percentage of
their income). While high net worth individuals, and heirs, and
multinationals often pay at a much lower capital gains rate, or take advantage
of various and sundry loopholes written into the tax code, solely for their
benefit. (Many
in the Fortune 500 – including GE – pay no taxes in any given year, period.)
All of which raises
the question, if the U.S. government no longer represents the will of the
people, but rather, an elite few… why
pay any taxes at all?
All of which helps
further explain, the growing inspiration for secessionist
movements and the rejection of establishment parties by a disenfranchised Western
electorate.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2017
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