Is It Worth Your Time?

As the famous American, Benjamin Franklin, once observed, there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes.

The latter for most of us may be more appealing than the former, even though it can be more frustrating.  (Afterall, once you're gone, your frustration level drops to nothing, right?)

In regards to taxes, let's think for a minute of what they really are.  Taxes are your hard-earned money; but looking at it another way, taxes are a taking of your limited time here on earth.

Time spent in labour is necessary, and those of us who work a full-time job do so so that we can provide for ourselves and our families. Nothing new there.  Most people have no real resentment performing even unpleasant tasks at our jobs if it benefits the family.  But can the same be said if it benefits the government and their spurious priorities?

I am not an anarchist, but I do believe government has a sacred trust to be careful how it spends our money.  It is my belief that I can do more for myself than others can do for me except in specialized circumstances such as medical care, security, fire, and other areas where government control has shown their expertise.  And I know that this costs money.

In this case, I don't mind giving up some of my limited time on earth, exchanging it into money, and giving it to the government.

And that is my point: how much of your time in a labour environment are you willing to give up?  Money that could actually go into your household?

From 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. you leave your family, drive in heavy traffic, arrive to fulfill your quota or what constitutes "work" and then leave.  Next payday, the government takes your time in the form of taxes for about a third of your day.  (So from 8:00 to 10:45 a.m. you worked for "free.")  Then there's more "taking" when you fill up your car, make purchases, or give to the next level of government.  How does that feel, especially when you can't afford a home, a car, or even a once-in-a-lifetime trip?

We all have to work for the government but it can be depressing to think that one-third (or more) of your life's time is being given to the faceless levels of government.  In order for this to make sense, our taxes have to be seen as having some worth.  Do they?  Or could you do a better job with the time-to-money activity you engage in everyday?

When you spend your life working, who should get the benefit of your time?

Nuremberg 2.0

One of the very few disadvantages of the fall of Communism in Europe in 1989 is that the true extent of the heinousness of this system was never fully revealed.  The enslavement and annihilation of people, the gulags, and the evilness of the regimes of the past were relegated to secondary status over the elation of the actual fall.

And that's too bad.

After World War II, the Nazis were put on public trial at Nuremberg to answer for their behavior.  They had to account for the suffering, killing, and destruction of Europe and take responsibility for upsetting world peace.  Many of these leaders were hanged, and aside from the acquittals of three minor participants, the rest were given prison sentences, some of them substantial.

After its collapse, Communism was never given such an airing out.

Instead of being held accountable for conditions and actions that often matched or even surpassed that of the Nazis, some communist leaders around 1989 suffered few consequences.  For example, East Germany's Erich Honegger was never arraigned, in spite of his role in the secret police, the "Stasi."  His successor, Egon Krenz, got only four years.  (Granted, some exceptions did occur, like Nicholai Ceausescu's execution in Romania.)

So what should have happened?

Nuremberg 2.0.  Communist leaders should have been forced to stand trial in front of an international tribunal.  The ruthlessness of their actions should have been on display for all the whole world to see.

So... how bad was communism?

The current estimate is that 125 million people perished under that system.  This number does not include those who survived but whose lives were shattered by poverty, abuse and the gulags.  With China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos still involved with this system, the numbers are still going up.

The lack of an international trial had another side effect. Today, Communists are still blatantly active, even in democratic countries (think of "Antifa" in the U.S.).  Somehow, being a Communist has never carried the stigma that the Nazis so rightfully have had to endure.  

Anyone who pretends that communism isn't as bad is a liar and deceiver.  

And they need to held to account for their beliefs.

The Black Book

I am currently reading a remarkable book entitled, The Black Book of Communism which contains contributions by Stephane Courtois, Nicolas Werth and others.  The thing that makes this book so remarkable to me is one of the themes that pervades the tome. 

Communism asserts that it the state and its leader(s) are more important than anything else in the world. The state is more important than individuality, free expression, a free press, family, friends, or even God.  If you do not adhere to this, then you are "an enemy of the state," a "bandit," or even a "parasite" and you have no business living comfortably in this world.  Perhaps even a gulag awaits!

Communism is an extreme form of government and a dangerous one at that.  Perhaps the most dangerous.  To date, it has claimed in excess of 100 million lives (!).  

Diluted types of this left-wing style of government is sometimes called "social democracy" or "socialism," among others.  In the latter forms, most do not advocate imprisonment, or worse, for opposing their ideology.  

Yet is it concerning how convinced how many socialists are that they are right about just about everything.  If you're not one of them, you may be ridiculed, censored, or even harmed physically.

However, they are not right.  Placing the state over the individual is never the right thing.  

Censoring is antithetical to democracy and freedom, yet is happens all the time on social media, university campuses, and the printed medium.  And it's made all the worse when they are government-sanctioned.

Communism may be thousands of miles away from North America but its weaker sibling has already made itself known throughout much of the continent.  Beware of what it stands for.  Stand fast against the thuggery of the anti-democratic; makes sure freedom remains alive and well.

The Stupidity of the Stupid

Well, I'm off to a cranky New Years post for 2020.

So what has me ranting already?

A recent poll shows that 36% of Millenials have a favourable view of....Unicorns?  Mr. Clean?  Decaffeinated coffee?  Noooo....COMMUNISM!

I don't understand these people.  A system that has brutally suppressed or KILLED millions of people has curried favour with the younger folk.  What are they thinking?  Are a third of young people really that stupid?  (Yes, "stupid;" I've said it!)

Squalor, hunger, angst, persecution, spying, fear, knocks on your door in the middle of the night...all hallmarks of an evil system that should have died along with the Berlin Wall in 1989.  Instead, there are hooded young people out there who wreak havoc in marches, sometimes engaging in brutal behaviour on the spot and harming anyone who disagrees with them.

So what caused this?  I think a lot of things.  The breakdown of family, the rejection of God, teachers in the schools and Universities who preach from the socialist pulpit.  Kids who are looking for something to embrace, gravitate towards the loud brashness and carefully-crafted slogans of the extreme left, like they have for almost 100 years.

More than ever, it's time for those who have suffered under Communism to speak out; it's time to hold teachers and their leftist agendas responsible to the young minds they are training; those in the know also need to lend a voice to add rationality to the discussion.  And it's important that the hooligans in these marches who engage in violent activity, be held accountable and exposed for who they are. 

There is enough historical precedent to show how disastrous this philosophy has become.  George Santayana's famous phrase needs to be imparted to these misguided people now, before its too late.

If I Had a Little Money...

...with apologies to ABBA.

We work.  Sometimes very hard.  Many of us go to University or some other school of higher learning just so we can do better for ourselves and our families.

And then we find a job, or if so inclined, so go into business for ourselves, which often is a far more riskier venture.

But the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel arrives when we get our paycheque.  And then the non-fun begins when we notice all the deductions, especially income tax.  The amount on our paycheque goes down, sometimes way down.

But we worked, we payed our taxes (and then some), and finally we get our net pay.  Great!  Money free and clear!

But hold on there...this is Canada.  Income taxes are only Part A.  There's Parts B, C, D where government insists it's not done with our pocketbooks yet.

You want a new car using your net income?  Fine, but now you get to pay the government again in the form of a consumer tax, the mighty GST!  Is that fair?  You already paid taxes on your income?

Oh, you want gas for your car?  Hoo boy! There's excise, provincial, carbon tax PLUS you pay GST ON THOSE taxes as well as on your actual purchase.  All with the net income you received AFTER you already paid the government its mandated share.

Enough said.  You get my drift.

"But the government needs all that extra tax revenue to run programs!" someone bleats.

Assuming for now that that is true, the government does us, the taxpayer, yet another disservice.  Rather than just using what it takes in from all revenue sources, the government du jour goes above and beyond that amount and "borrows" money, creating a deficit in the budget.  Yep.  Taxes aside, the "smartest guys in the room" go even further and pin further financial burden on us lowly folk often leaving it to accumulate to the point where TPers pay more of their income on taxes than they do on food, clothing, and shelter combined.

And they leave the debt to grow and grow.

To their credit, our new UCP provincial government is trying to hack away at their debt, created by our previous socialist administration.  A 2.8% reduction. That's it.  2.8% with a decimal point after the two.  And...their popularity has dropped.  The knives are out.

Should we keep spending so the Left will put those knives away?  I think not.

But that's where we're at now.  Think about it.