Property taxes have got to go

The idea of taxing property based on it's market value no doubt once seemed like a "fair" solution, at least fair to those who believe that those who can afford it should pay more in taxes. Property taxes are a form of progressive taxation. Of course, progressive taxation is really an implementation of the Marxist tenet "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". Although such redistribution of wealth has never been successful, and has dragged down numerous societies, the "economic equality" myth persists and is perpetrated in our tax systems.

The primary reason forced redistribution doesn't work is that it benefits the incapable or lazy at the expense of the capable or hard-working. It rewards sloth and handicaps ambition. Those looking for benefit without earning it love the system and learn to "work it" to the max, and those who believed in working for what they get eventually become discouraged and reduce their effort. Enough harshly-enforced redistribution may indeed result in economic equalization, but at a much lower level, and, if it continues unchanged, it will eventually stagnate the whole economy.

Wherever progressive taxation is used, government has to simply waste a lot of the extracted monies in deciding how much should be taken from each taxpayer, and then in collecting and enforcing their decisions. Property taxation is no exception. In order to levy property taxes based on market values, the government uses an assessment process, triggered by building permits, to make sure that any improvements that are made to property are included to raise the valuation and assessment, and to establish a starting value on new constructions. Since assessment is a judgment call, they usually have to provide a means for property-owners to challenge their assessed value, and then presumably re-assess their assessment.

In addition to the normal challenge process, Minneapolis, for example, faces about 300 court cases/year based on challenges to the assessment. Most challenges want the assessment lowered, but, in this government-induced madness of a housing market, some actually want their assessment raised, in case they want to sell or increase the size of their mortgage. The shift away from rental property to condominiums has complicated the assessment process too, as each individual condo unit must be assessed individually, during construction and after they're finished. All told, the Minneapolis Assessor's annual budget is $3.8 million for a staff of 3 dozen. Since the housing bubble finally busted, and foreclosures and boarded houses are becoming common, the value of other properties around such failures is being depressed and triggering a new wave of assessments.

Unintended Consequence - Eminent Domain

Because government takes in more money if property values are higher, some perverse incentives are created. The monstrous abuse of eminent domain proceedings stems directly from property taxation based on value. Cities discovered that they could raise their revenue by declaring areas as "blighted", forcing the owners to sell, then do some "economic development" by arranging for higher-valued structures on the vacant properties. Single family homes have been destroyed and then replaced by large condos, big-box stores, malls, or mixed-use developments, which produce higher property tax revenue. Of course, doing economic development has resulted in much larger, more expensive government too.

Unintended Consequence - Loss of affordable housing

With governments pushing to increase the value of the properties within their jurisdiction, they have come to think of those properties not as properties owned by individual citizens, but as part of the city's "housing stock"... the inventory of houses the city has 'at their disposal'. As a result, there has been a continual effort to increase the cost of such housing, through zoning, and building regulations. Building regulations force the cost of a new home up 25-30%, beyond that which most buyers would choose. Even under pressure to allow in some formally affordable housing, most suburbs have fought it hard, because they want higher revenue, and because they do not want poorer citizens. City governments, especially suburbs, have twisted the idea of value-based property taxes into the support of monolithic, luxurious and virtually "gated" communities.

Unintended Consequence - Loss of liberty

Property tax has been described as 'paying rent to the government on property you own", and it feels like that. The city would point out all the services the city provides with revenue from property taxes. Education, police services, fire services, street maintenance, parks, programs, etc. In a modern city, the number of "services" on that list can seem endless. Are those services worth what you pay in property taxes? Ah, there's the rub... nobody asked you if you wanted those services or not.

Liberty is the right to say NO... I don't want to do that... I don't want to buy that... but cities don't give us those choices. They do what they choose and the charge us for it, through property taxation. They add programs or services, which require more city employees, facilities, and resources, and simply raise taxes to support it. With such contunial "upgrading", they need new government quarters. City halls were once modest little buildings; no longer... some suburban city halls now resemble office complexes, and may include a theatre, or even a health club, paid for by all residents, whether they want them or use them.

The overall effect of market-value-based property taxes is the widening of the gap between "haves" and "have-nots". It's a divisive effect that drives a wedge between those of differing income levels. It causes enormous waste. Houses are torn down before they need be, sometimes by eminent domain force, sometimes by driving the old owners out when they can't make property tax payments. When those old owners leave, those with money are likely to grab the property and build a new structure. Naturally, city governments love that result, since it "upgrades" their citizenry a bit and produces more tax revenue. Property tax creates strong incentives for cities to ignore and even harrass those with older property... to simply drive them out.

The other side of property tax evils are the building codes that, in the name of safety, drive up the cost of new construction and of improvements and repairs. The dirty downside of building codes is that it forces poorer citizens to forego repairs and improvements, or to try to make the changes themselves. Either "solution" reduces safety. People naturally find ways to get around the artificially high costs of housing, but when minimum standards are as locked in as city governments make them, low-income residents have to resort to breaking the law. A common way is by overcrowding a residence. Most governments have limits on the number of residents, especially in rental properties. Sometimes it is done behind the landlord's back, but some landlords will give in and allow overcrowding, but everyone does so at their own risk; not just increased safety risk, but risk of being caught. Overcrowding is the ONLY way some people can afford to live, short of living on the street. On occasion, it backfires dramatically, and the wrong people get blamed.

Taxation is force... it is theft, because the person being taxed has no choice. We all have many choices concerning what products and services we buy, but we don't get choices from government. We're forced to buy, even if we don't want the services or can't afford them. Government offers us ever-escalating costs with no chance to say No. It isn't right and it doesn't have to be that way. We wouldn't put up with it from any private business.

Protecting the visually-impaired from the rest of us

I suppose somebody has to be the political "test kitchen", trying out new legislative recipes, and the California legislature seems to be determined to be the Betty Crocker of political ideas. Often though, they're more Crock than Crocker. Now the CA legislature has decreed that hybrid vehicles must make noise so that visually impaired people won't walk into them, and has created a committee to study the problem. Whatever "solution" they recommend, be prepared for national standards to make it mandatory nationwide. Even if that doesn't happen, auto makers generally cowtow to CA standards and inflict them on everyone for simplicity sake.

This idea belongs in the crock with the loud backup beepers required on commercial vehicles. The backup beepers are required on vehicles that are normally quite noisy. It's obviously not just the blind who are in danger. Clearly, we are all too stupid to avoid moving objects, and need to be protected.

I suspect most of us have been almost run down by a bicyclist, or a runner. If Segways gain in popularity, they too will be a threat. Police forces are adopting them, which makes them a compound threat. How about kids running free, skateboards, rollerbladers, or even the ever-increasing number of powered wheelchairs and scooters. Personally, I would like to include baby strollers, which, in a crowd, can reach your legs a full 4 feet before the adult pushing it. They're really like turning your kid into a snow plow, aren't they? Can you imagine what it must be like for a little kid in a stroller at, for example, the State Fair?

Clearly, we cannot have all of these stealthy moving objects endangering us. Surely it's only a matter of time before all objects moving at, say, greater than 2 mph, will have to make some sort of recognizable warning that they're approaching us.

Can you hear the babel of all those now-silent moving objects warning of their presence?

I think this California problem can be nipped in the bud. There are about 600,000 blind or visually-impaired folks in CA. For every one of them there are 59 sighted Californians. Why make a change that will negatively impact 59 to help 1? Why not make a change at the relatively small source of the problem?

I propose the creation of a protective device for blind people... perhaps a sort of exoskeleton they can don when out navigating the hubub of human and vehicular traffic. It would provide protection from a great variety of dangers they face regularly. I can only try to imagine what being blind must be like, and I keep coming up with FEAR of all those things I can't see coming. Many animals have developed exoskeletons to protect themselves... crustaceans, turtles, insects, to name a few. It's a sensible adaptation when a creature composed of soft tissue has to face a world inhabited by danger. A blind human moving in an urban area certainly fits that criteria.

California has more than its share of far-out designers who could surely create exoskeletons that would not only be protective but have many other advantages as well, such as interfacing the many electronic devices modern folk carry, or foiling police facial recognition software. They could certainly become fashionable. They could provide secure storage. It's possible that they could be equipped with radar-type sensors that would warn when solid objects are approaching. I doubt that only blind people would be attracted to them.

Government naturally tends to produce brute-force, one-size-fits-all "solutions" to anything perceived by anyone as a problem. When they do that, they drive up the cost of products we use, and inconvenience everyone to protect a few. Child-proofing continues unabated. I mistakenly bought some bottled water with caps that cannot be removed... you can only squirt the water in your mouth. Caps might be swallowed by children (as might anything else in sight). Cigarette lighters are child-proofed so we don't have to teach kids not to mess with them. Medicine bottles are child-proofed to the extent that elderly people can't get them open either, then skip their medication or pry them open with dangerous knives or other tools.

When government tries to force safety on us, they fail; they inevitably make life even riskier for poor people who can't afford the added cost of the new dictated protective measures. There are innumerable examples of people injured and killed by using old, worn-out devices because the newer, safer ones are just too expensive.

There is no way we can remove risk from living... no way at all, but the best way for all of us to live safe lives is to allow the market to produce solutions at all levels... from extremely safe to risky, and let the consumers choose their own level of protection.

Socialism campaigning in disguise

It was just a quiet knock on the door. I opened it to see a lovely young woman in a bright red t-shirt with WORKING AMERICA across the front. She was carrying a clipboard, gathering signatures, and quickly rattled off some meaningless phrases about affordable health care. I didn’t ask her how she got into our security building. I quickly learned that WORKING AMERICA is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, but I was unable to learn anything more than they wanted my signature and mailing information, and that it was, of course, to benefit all of us. She did make it clear that it wasn’t part of the AFL-CIO, but was just "affiliated". I declined signing without more information, so the young woman gave me some printed material that pointed me to their website.

WORKING AMERICA, self-described as a community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, has a subtitle of Building a Better Future for Working Families. Their BIG BULLET POINTS are GOOD JOBS, HEALTH CARE, RETIREMENT, and EDUCATION.

Well… who doesn’t want those things? Naturally, I wondered “how can WORKING AMERICA, maybe with my help, produce those good results? ” OK, I didn’t really wonder that, but that’s what I was supposed to be wondering. I know too much about the history of the AFL-CIO to be that naïve. I was justifiably suspicious.

Certainly, my participation in WORKING AMERICA would be accepted, even though I’m not working, have never belonged to a union, and have never been considered a “working man”. I’ve always worked as a “professional” and the only time I’ve ever even been approached by the idea of unionizing was by some total idiot that thought that free-lance illustrators should unionize. I suspect that if I had always lived off welfare, or even listed my occupation as "thief", my participation would still be welcome.

Of course, Americans already have GOOD JOBS, HEALTH CARE, RETIREMENT, and EDUCATION, so WORKING AMERICA must be looking to produce better jobs, cheaper health care, longer retirement, and better education. No problem there, I’m as greedy as anyone else… I want more of everything. Maybe WORKING AMERICA has some big answers to contribute?

Well… it quickly becomes apparent from the website, once one digs through the meaningless pablum, that WORKING AMERICA wants all of these improvements from government… more and better government is their answer. In fact, socialism is what they strive for. They want all-of-us to help all-of-us with government as the go-between and enforcer. Naturally, GOOD JOBS is first on their list, because unions want to be seen as being in “the jobs business”.

Unions have lost most of their influence in the U.S., thanks to their internal corruptions and unreasonable demands, and the AFL-CIO has been among the biggest and baddest. So, they’re making another side run, through WORKING AMERICA.

Their huge website is a masterpiece of deception and political finagling. In one massive deceptive move, they point out, with charts, that American productivity has risen steadily and much faster than wages. The conclusion we’re expected and coaxed into reaching is that BIG BUSINESS is ripping off workers, who are working harder and better than ever, and not being paid enough.

How many people will question the “productivity” graph? How many will assume, as the website hopes, that it means each worker is just doing a much better job, or is working his hands to the bones to produce more? In general, productivity indicates how much is being produced. Labor done by humans is only part of productivity. There are a thousands ways a business can increase productivity, and most of them have little to do with the effort or skill of workers. Increasing productivity is what businesses always strive for… doing more with less. Less productivity means failure soon… which also means loss of jobs, doesn’t it? I'm not belittling the effort workers put into their work, but the environment they work in and the tools they use have a lot more to do with productivity than does their effort. I doubt that any worker would claim that he or she works harder than their grandparents did. Unions have long viewed business as their opponents, and so many times have pushed that opposition to the point of actually destroying a business... and the jobs.

Take a look at the WORKING AMERICA website political section and it will be abundantly clear that it is a thinly disguised political website… showing what they like about Obama and what they hate about McCain. It’s as one-sided as if the Democratic National Committee had created it. [Interestingly, since I first looked at the WORKING AMERICA website, the political sections have been removed... now no mention of either Obama or McCain. Believe me, that was a major revision!]

The AFL-CIO seeks to renew its former power and influence, while refusing to admit that one of the reasons it lost it is that it did not represent the political views of its members. It has always sought to increase its own organizational power through government, by means of force, and WORKING AMERICA is not new… just a sort of sidestep to try to sneak up on people wearing a lovely mask in a red t-shirt.

A free-market lesson from the art world

All my life, I've loved the arts. As a child, I drew incessantly. Eventually I put myself into a well-respected college arts program. There began my disillusionment with fine arts as we know it. My painting professor won a significant award for his solid black oil painting. Comparing such "art", and so many other "modern" works, with paintings of the "masters", I could find no similarity, no comparable level of skill or talent, no similarity of effort, and no similarity of thought. I read commentary by others who claimed to find great significance in such works; commentary that employed a whole other language because their intent was to impress rather than communicate. Being able to praise modern art while really communicating nothing became a skill that was needed just to become part of that modern art fraternity. Once established, artists found they could produce almost anything and be praised by those who spoke the language. It progressed to the point that the more vapid the work was, the more praise it elicited, because it challenged the writer to new esoteric levels. Non-art became art.

Irregardless of my opinions, we are free to like or dislike as we choose. I have no problem with those who can convince others into paying outrageous prices for "art" that might have been produced by a chimpanzee. I have no problem with those who buy and resell such works at even higher prices. I just choose to not be part of that world.

What I do have a problem with, though, is the role governments have played in the art world. Government support of "the arts" has caused severe distortions. Government loves to produce showcases... big impressive buildings. Consider the similarity between the architectural projects of Hitler's Third Reich and today's government subsidized buildings, or governments' own buildings. They are meant to impress... to overwhelm visitors... to make the visitor feel like a serf permitted to visit the Lord's castle.

Understand that almost everything in a museum was produced by individuals, and the presumed intent of an artist is to communicate something to other individuals. When government plays a role in a museum, though, that communication is actually stifled by the vastness of presentation. Works of art become small examples of ART for the masses... a gigantic smorgasbord to be nibbled at until one is tired. Such venues overpower efforts to enjoy individual works of art. The museums are impressive, but what's in them becomes subjugated to and overwhelmed by the scale and emotional coldness of the buildings.

Less than a mile from here is an art museum very different from the several huge museums our city is known for. It's small, housed in what was once a modest church. Its annual budget is small by comparison with the competition. It is a private museum, receiving no government subsidization. The museum staff must raise money in order to stay in business. It relies heavily on volunteer help, and I am happy to be one of those volunteers.

This museum, The Museum of Russian Art is a striking example of the value of being constrained by earning ones own way, rather than feeding at the public tax-money trough. To those who have visited TMORA, it is considered a "gem" of a museum, and an experience that makes people realize what viewing art should be like. The scale of the building makes the art become part of a personal experience; it's human-scale, not monument-scale. The limited space means that visitors have time to savor each work of art. One is not in any way overwhelmed. The individual experience of a visitor is quite different from visiting a large museum. I delight in working at the reception desk because visitors stop on the way out to tell us how much they enjoyed the experience. Coming from laid-back Midwesterners, such volunteered praise is most notable. It's also not unusual for visitors to volunteer how much more they enjoyed it than they have the larger museums. TMORA's reputation has spread quickly, by word of mouth. A recent exhibit was named best of the year in the Twin Cities, beating out several big-name exhibits that had expensive marketing campaigns.

TMORA has to be financially sound. Expenditures are not made lightly, and staff members work hard to be creative and frugal. There is an excitement, though, that one will not find in the better-endowed museums... an excitement about the art itself, because the art itself is the center of attention, and every person, visitor, staff member, or volunteer becomes personally involved in the art.

Simply put, TMORA is what an art museum should be, and it is that way because it stands alone and self-supporting, undistorted by government involvement. It has to be good, and that's an incentive that government support often destroys.

A Real Choice

Well, America... here's another great opportunity to put your money where your mouth is.

According to polls and to those I talk with, we are all FED UP with our government and equally FED UP with McCain and Obama as candidates for the parties that not only got us into this mess, but who intend to KEEP US THERE.

How long are we going to put up with it? How long are we going to be suckered into choosing between whatever abominable programs the R's and D's offer us? How long are we going to settle for the LESSER OF TWO EVILS?

It's within our power to put an end to this insanity. Libertarians all over the country are already working to give you another choice on your ballot, but we cannot do it without your participation.

Are our children and grandchildren going to look back in anger and wonder how we could have been so dissatisfied and not done anything about it?

Be careful who you help

I saved the article almost a month ago, and, even though it concerned just one man being fined by his government, I just couldn’t get the story out of my craw. It angered me when I read it, and it angers me still. I’m aware that there are thousands of instances every day of citizens being “tagged” by silly government laws, regulations, codes, and ordnances, but this one stands out.

The story concerns “Miami-Dade County's Consumer Services Department”. Consumer Services sounds like a group that might make life easier or safer, doesn’t it? Well, anything but.

Take a quick read of the short article.

So… a man goes to the grocery store, minding his own business, and is approached by a woman asking if he could give her a ride home. She asks if he “does a service”, and he says he doesn’t. She persists. He agrees to give her a ride if she’s still there when he’s ready to leave after shopping. She was waiting, so he gave her a ride as he promised.

She offered to give him some money, and tried to get him to name a price. He said “Anything you give me”.

Is there anything about that story to indicate that the 78-year-old man wanted to haul that woman for pay? He tried to avoid it, and then gave in to her insistence. Yet, the undercover operative charged the man for running an illegal taxi service. His vehicle was impounded and fines of $2,000 were levied on him.

It seems clear that this man did nothing that most of us would consider wrong in any way; quite the opposite, he was being a good, somewhat reluctant, Samaritan.

I understand why taxi companies push for licensing of operators. It’s a way for them to force all of us to use their services whenever we need a ride, and to prevent new competitors from entering the business. Taxi companies can wish and push all they want, with little effect, until they convince government officials to enforce their wishes. Once they convince government to license taxi operators, unlicensed operators naturally become illegal. As it develops in most cities, the government gets revenue from license sales, which are usually limited in numbers, which drives up the cost of licenses, often to many thousands of dollars, which results in fewer taxis, high prices, and poorer service. When the government then takes the step of stopping unlicensed taxi operators, they financially handicap all of us, but when they “go the extra mile” as in this Florida case, and entrap innocent citizens just giving a ride as a favor, they take the damage to a whole new level.

This is government at its worst, and an illustration of why government power of any kind always has bad consequences. Those who first implemented taxi licensing no doubt claimed that they were protecting consumers from fraudulent or unsafe taxi operators. Once licensing is in place, enforcement is required. To not enforce it puts government employees at risk of not doing their job, so they “put some teeth” into enforcement. I have no doubt that the undercover consumer services employee in this case was just “doing her job”, which was to be suspicious of anyone who might be running an illegal taxi service. It’s a small step from finding someone “guilty” to luring someone into “becoming guilty”. It’s a natural result of government having the power to license, which is essentially the power to decide who can do what under which circumstances.

Although I despise the undercover agent’s entrapment of the man, I am disturbed about what that single event could mean to the rest of us. I enjoy helping others. In most cases, the cost to me is minor, but my help can be quite significant. We all have times in which a small helping hand from someone can make a big difference, and hitching a ride with someone is one of the most common. We all recognize that having a car, maintaining it, insuring it, licensing it, and taking the risk of driving is a not-insignificant expense. When we pool rides, we trade off. When we share a ride with someone, we typically pay for the convenience by covering parking, buying gas, or even contributing a few dollars. In those cases where we don’t, we normally remember that we owe that driver a free ride next time.

I doubt that the man entrapped by the undercover “consumer services” operative is likely to ever give a ride to anyone again. Anyone who knows of his story may reach the same conclusion. The fact that doing such a small favor can have such destructive results will naturally lead people to not take the chance. Whenever one of those people refuses to help in a similar situation, the person being refused will naturally be confused and disgusted… and may well conclude that people just aren’t as helpful as they once were. Being refused a small assist is likely to change their own attitude about helping others, and that attitude can gradually, silently snowball.

That action taken to stop “illegal taxi services” is an alienation of an important aspect of society – helping each other. It tends to drive us apart, to make each of us feel like we’re “in it alone”, and to create suspicion of each other.

Government power is the power to choose to favor someone and penalize someone else. Economically, licensing is anti-competitive, creating one group with privilege they buy, at the expense of everyone else. The state of Minnesota is so into licensing that they've pulled together a website called License Minnesota. From this site you can access licensing information on over 500 licenses administered by over 40 state agencies. It displays the many kinds of work you cannot legally do without first jumping through hoops and paying to become one of the privileged.

The false gods of politics

reprinted from December 19, 2003

It's an idea that is so very mistaken, yet is widely prevalent. So many Americans seem to believe that because the Republican and Democratic parties are powerful, that their candidates are knowledgeable and wise, and will serve honorably. Their candidates are usually attractive, polished, and skilled at presenting themselves to the public. Their candidates have often held a series of lower-level elected offices. To the voting public, they can really look like elite citizens. They look good, they sound good, and they seem qualified... at least from a shallow look.

Another way to view R & D candidates is that they are chosen and groomed specifically to become politicians. Most have been active in their party for years, working their way up the ladder, paying the price to gain the endorsements and the money needed to seek ever-higher office.

That still doesn't sound so bad, does it?
Isn't that a good way to create government officials?

What that system actually creates is a special class of people, career politicians... individuals who are capable of being elected, over and over again, to a series of offices. When such an individual has risen as high as is likely, they're expected to retain that position as long as possible.

Still doesn't sound bad?

The original expectation of the founders of our nation was that elected officials would be "citizen legislators", not career politicians. To them, the idea of someone making a career of politics would have been repulsive, because they understood that leaders must first be citizens, meaning that they must have real connections to the citizenry. They would have been suspicious of any man who actively sought to abandon "normal" life and stay in office for an extended time.

They understood what should be obvious to all of us... that a leader must have been, and must remain, one of the people. In order to effectively represent us, a leader should understand the problems, and hopes of "ordinary" people. If they don't, they will continually produce legislation without really understanding the impact it will have on the people they represent. How can they represent people they don't understand? They can't.

Our two large political parties have subverted those ideas, substituting for the citizen legislator with the slick professional career politician or the rich, connected individual. We have the common spectacle of legislators who have never held any non-political position... have never had a job, never been laid off, never been financially strapped. Their career is politics.

We have the bizarre condition represented by Bill Clinton, George Bush, Al Gore, and thousands more in national and state politics who have never had any of the experiences that most of us share. Here in Minnesota, we have Senator Mark Dayton, whose claim to fame is inherited wealth, $8 million of which he spent to get elected. What do such people know about the people they supposedly represent? Virtually nothing.

We've been sold the idea that elected offices are some sort of specialized positions that require having political experience. It's certainly true that a novice elected to a state legislature or to Congress will have an enormous learning experience. Unfortunately, what he or she will be learning is "politics"... trying to make sense out of the intricate political complexity... learning to understand that what is said is not what is meant... and learning how rhetoric disguises motive. If that novice is an R or D, they will discover, if they weren't already aware, that their first loyalty is to their party, not to their constituents.

The two major parties have so much control, so much power, and so much money at their disposal, that they can quickly twist a newly elected official into a pretzel and literally force voting along party lines. After all, politics is about getting elected and then re-elected. A legislator who wants to vote against his party's preference knows that he may well lose the support of that party for the next election. He also knows that loyal party members are not likely to support any legislation he introduces. The pressure to "fall in line" is great.

The rewards are also high for career politicians. They've voted a great set of jobs for themselves and those who will follow in their path. They'll become very well known, make valuable connections, be fawned over, and draw truly luxurious retirement benefits. Even after retirement, their name recognition and political credentials will give them access to still more money by selling their name in support to organizations, large honorariums as speakers, or using their specialized insider political know-how as lobbyists. Career politicians have, at our expense, created a great demand for more career politicians... from the major parties only.

The power of elected officials, and the fawning respect they receive because of position and power does indeed corrupt... it twists minds. Becoming accustomed to cutting deals and trading votes removes politicians from the world the rest of us live in, and they can quickly come to represent groups that lobby with the most force, ignoring the rest of us.

Big-party politicians do not think of us as individuals... they think in terms of groups... in abstract terms. Thus, they seem to have no regard at all for how their legislation affects individuals. They deal in generalities and in mass popularity, writing legislation that will destroy some people's lives in order to try to benefit others. They cater to majorities, at the expense of minority groups, with little regard to whether their legislation is good or bad, helpful or harmful, right or wrong, moral or immoral, constitutional or not. They write legislation they know is unconstitutional... no, they're not ignorant of the Constitution; it's just too binding for their needs, so they ignore it.

You know who takes a beating from such politicians, don't you? Those of us who are not represented by power groups. All the groups who lobby Congress each take a bite out of you and me... and they don't care. They're representing their constituents. Problem is... our elected officials are supposed to represent all of us, and they don't even come close.

One disastrous result of our pandering legislatures is that, by favoring some at the expense of others, they DIVIDE us... they turn groups of citizens into adversaries... competitors for favoritism. When one group receives favored treatment, opposition groups must come back and try to re-level their playing field. Truly enormous amounts of money are wasted trying to influence politicians; money that could be put to far better uses, but we're trapped into contending for their influence... and they play it to their maximum advantage, bartering their support for votes and contributions.

Our government has been building its own power over us, through corrupted partisan politics. Our nation was founded with a Constitution designed specifically to limit the power of government... to charge it with only a few, limited responsibilities, so that power brokering would never be a possibility. That intent has been completely subverted.

When was the last time you heard a politician say that some task was not the responsibility of government... or say that government should keep its nose out of that issue? On the contrary, politicians instead like to assume that they have jurisdiction over everything. They like to delude themselves that they can control our economy, that they can influence our habits, control our thinking and our actions, and even dictate our morality. There is literally no escape from them.

If we allow politicians to continue to dictate every aspect of our lives, we will soon have a totalitarian government. With over 2 million people in prison, police that resemble storm troopers more each year, crippling taxation, massive debt, and constant military intervention around the globe, we are not that far from it now. Our representatives are squeezing our economic health and our civil liberties more each day.

There is only ONE reason they can do that... because we continue to fall for their lies and tricks during each election. We continue to send back incumbents, and elect still more R's and D's, who then assume that they have carte blanche for more years of even more disastrous results. Until we all stand up and prove that we're not going to be suckered any longer, our nation will continue to degrade and decay. Will 2004 be the year the U.S. voters fight back? I can only hope... it's up to each of us to take a stand.