Oppression Acceptance

 

Benjamin Franklin once said: “Those who would give up liberty for safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” He was not alone in his opinion.

Certainly a country whose policy suggests it murders uncooperative citizens is an oppressed nation. Most believe that the right to live is sort of an important freedom. Natives often leave their homeland to secure this right. The United States does not oppress its citizens in this way. At least in the past we didn’t. We financially oppress. It started a hundred years ago and has gotten worse ever since.

What rights should we have? Our forefathers thought our rights should extend to liberty and property as well as life. Money is property. What rights should we have about money?

It doesn’t really matter at this point what our forefathers wanted – what matters is that they were right and still are. The left ridicules those long-haired wealthy aged authors of our constitution because they are of a time long past, so they ignore them. They don’t stop to think or want to debate whether they were right or not, only that it happened a long time ago. They base their judgment on the idea that any political theory more than a few years old must be wrong. Unfortunately it is also often ignored today by even some supposedly learned Supreme Court justices.

Not only were our founders correct, but they accepted the reality that we might have to change a few of their rules here and there as time passes. To accomplish this they wrote the Constitution in such a way that it can be peacefully altered through an amendment process. They left us remedies to correct their errors or omissions. Unlike Marx and Engels, they had enough life experience to know that they weren’t perfect and understood that they had no time machines to check out the internet in 2020. The Constitution can be amended, but it is still the law of our land and it is not to be summarily disregarded merely because it is old.

Largely due to the century long effort to abandon our Constitution at every opportunity, Americans today want to escape with their money. We may not be the worst country in the world, but many believe it is now better elsewhere or they wouldn’t want to go. People move offshore because the obstacles here keep them from doing what they want with their money; primarily keeping more of it. Despite what socialist wealth-redistributors preach, most feel it is not heretical Anti-American thought to want to be able to keep most of what they earn.

We don’t like to consider the possibility that we may actually be living in a tyrannical state right here and now. It may be a “soft” tyranny, as better writers than I have described, but it is only soft until we refuse to abide by it. We’d rather concentrate on the horrific actions in China, Iran, Syria, Libya and others while we ignore the injustices here. We pretend that our country is above that sort of thing. We’re not.

There is no longer a question whether Americans are “financially oppressed”. A little more tax here, a little bigger fee there, another fine over there, a freedom lost there, a new regulation over there - it’s just the way it is in the modern world – like the old Chinese water torture – drip – drip – drip. Don’t pay your fees, fines or taxes and see what happens.

Sometimes the tyranny isn’t so soft, but make no mistake - disobeying the orders of even the most genial government official can be hazardous. Consider the following simple survey question:

My next encounter with a policeman or other governmental law enforcement officer (IRS, OSHA, City, State, Federal Agency etc) is likely to result in…

A – The taking of some of my life, liberty or property (ticket, citation, fine, audit, fee, wasted time, etc)

B - The protection of my life, liberty or property.

If you answered “A”, don’t worry, you are not alone in that thought. Why do we feel this way? Don’t they work for us? - or do we work for them now? What ever happened to public employees answering to us? Do police cars still read: “To protect and to serve”? I remember that as a kid. I think now it reads: “To fine and to punish”

The United States is no longer the best country in which to do business and earn money. We now have government initiated financial interference at seemingly every turn. We have the freedom to enter almost any profession we wish, as long as we adhere to the mountain of regulations associated with it. Other countries aren’t much better, many are worse, but that is not the issue. Admitting other countries may be worse as opposed to bad is not comforting. We have been sliding down this path for many decades. We need to reverse course, we need to regress.

The constant monitoring of our financial situations and the government’s endless appetite for our money has worn us out. Much of their financial intrusion is in the name of “safety”. If we want to slow its interference we must act. We have to change our thought process and think for ourselves rather than mimic the mantra of “safety first”.

 

It’s better to be safe than sorry”.

Whenever I hear that I cringe. OK, how much will this safety cost me now? What is the direct cost to me in money or in freedom for forcing me to do what is considered safe? I would rather not pay it.

I would much rather have the option to be sorry than safe – almost every time. How else can we understand our limits? How can we learn from mistakes if we never take chances? How else can we learn to make rational decisions? All successful people accepted some risk at some point, and most failed many times before becoming successful. Taking chances is the American way – or it used to be.

“Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.”- Ronald Reagan

OSHA
Occupational Safety and Health Administration

There are times when an OSHA agent fines a company for safety hazards that are commendable. It may save a life or even many lives. Some companies are truly criminally negligent and place employees at serious risk. Diffusing dangerous situations with a high probability of injury is critical to our safety.

Idiot-proofing our factories and workplaces is not helpful, it is time consuming, costly and ineffective for businesses – but a huge income producer for government.

OSHA’s existence is justified and funded because there are those occasions when they honestly find serious and unscrupulous violators risking employee lives. As all government programs do, it has evolved into much more. They have become a financial predator. We have a dangerous national habit of punishing the many for the crimes of the few, or even the one.

Most fines are due to the accidental oversights due to the unintelligible mounds of extensive regulations with which every business must try to comply. A great many situations are dangerous only to the truly reckless, the exceedingly stupid. The regulations are purposely complex so most people can’t fully understand them. They want a reason to fine us and seize some of our money, and justify it with a thinly veiled safety argument. Environmental engineers often must be hired to assist companies with their regulatory issues. This is not really to protect the employees, but to help the business avoid the associated compliance penalties.

A friend and client of mine is a small contractor. He once hired a painter because he was busy enough to justify it and needed another hand. Unfortunately he accidentally hired a drug addict who committed suicide on the job by jumping over a third floor porch railing. This contractor was found negligent for not having enough safety on his job. He went through several years of legal problems, fines and spent an enormous amount of otherwise valuable time.

The porch had a standard railing, it was not unsafe. The worker was not even supposed to be out there, he wasn’t painting there. He intentionally went out there and jumped over the rail. My client nearly lost his business over this drug addicted suicidal malcontent and the moronic regulations put in place that could not have possibly protected him.

If the slightest possibility of danger exists, if you haven’t idiot-proofed your workplace so that even the stupidest person on earth couldn’t possibly, under any condition hurt himself, (even intentionally) OSHA will bring your company to its financial knees. This has led to the most absurd safety labels whose purpose is not to save morons from themselves, (nothing can do that) but to save companies from multi-million dollar financial awards paid to opportunistic dopes for their idiocy. A few examples:

Chain saw warning: “Do not attempt to stop chain saw blade with hands.”

Hair dryer: “Do not use hair dryer while sleeping.

Baby Stroller: “Remove baby before folding.”

Sleeping Pills: “Warning: May cause drowsiness.”

Car Wind shield sun protector: “Do not drive with sun shield in place.”

There are hundreds more just as funny, or sad – depending upon your perspective. Every one of the ridiculous warning labels was approved by an executive who’s job is to make those decisions. Why? He fears the power of the exceedingly stupid among us. When someone puts a screwdriver in his eye, he doesn’t want to be on the wrong end of a lawsuit because he did not properly warn him that he shouldn’t put the screwdriver in his eye.

Warning: Screwdriver tip is sharp. Do not stab any part of body.

 

Internal Revenue Service

When the IRS disallows deductions, penalizes us for something, or sends nasty notes of another nature, they don’t want to incarcerate us, they just want more of our money. Like OSHA regulations, tax laws are so complex it is difficult to comply even when we want to do so and hire the best accounting minds to do it. There is no one on this planet who knows every tax law in the United States. Not even your friendly IRS auditor. It may come as a surprise, but not even I, an Enrolled Agent with thousands of tax returns to my credit, who wrote my own integrated tax program, don’t know all of the tax laws. Sorry.

Most problems with the IRS arise from minor oversights, which escalate into major fines. If we can afford to fight, we do, but we lose either way as legal fees mount. Attorneys make money, and pay tax on the fees earned to fight the IRS. The government is happy because when you transfer money to your EA, CPA or attorney to fight the IRS, we have to pay tax on that income redistributed from you, and so they always win anyway.

A serious scandal involving the IRS targeting non-profit groups focusing on "Freedom", "Tea Party" or "Constitution" in their title filings was uncovered in 2013. Apparently these types of groups are now considered the enemy of government, and the IRS job is to make sure they have no money with which to operate.

There are generous financial rewards for turning in “tax cheats” to the IRS. Our neighbors are encouraged to snitch, just like Nazi Germany. This is the new America. None of these tax laws even existed in 1910.

 

Next: Show me the Money

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