StephanKinsella.com

How do we (legally) damage our enemies, such as democrats and other socialists? One thing that occurs to me is: give a $10 donation to the next Democrat Presidential candidate. I guarantee they will spend multiples of that with follow up mailings trying to milk you for more. Give them $10 and it costs them $30–a net loss for them (and a net gain for liberty) of about $20.

But I had another idea yesterday. I have not researched the tax law on this, so may be off in my presumptions, but it is my understanding that income tax is owed if an American citizen is given something of value. If I give you a million bucks, you owe taxes (about $400k) to Uncle Sam. If you don’t file or pay, you are guilty of tax evasion. But if I give you, say, my Monet painting worth a million bucks, you still owe about $400k in taxes to Uncle Sam, even though you don’t have the money. Even if you don’t yourself subjectively value the Monet that much. This is government logic: it is void of economic sense (re subjective values) and fairness.

So here’s my idea. A millionaire libertarian individual sends a letter to a socialist politician, offering to give $1 million if the politician will only come spend the weekend, alone, with the millionaire on his yacht, so that the millionaire can explain to the politician why he thinks the government should be abolished. The offer should be made “irrevocable” for, say, a month. Now, the politician will surely decline the offer. However, that is not the point. The point is he was given something (an irrevocable offer) that had a monetary value. After all, receiving an irrevocable offer to be paid a million bucks for doing a relatively simple task, has a “fair market value,” just like the Monet has a fair market value. I would pay $100,000, for example, to be given such an offer, because then I would accept the offer and make a million bucks, off a $100,000 investment. So being offered money is itself being given something of value. By the logic of the income tax, the politician is now obligated to report the fair market value of the offer, and to pay income tax on it. If he does this (which is implausible), he has less money available and thus is damaged (which is good). If he does not, then the libertarian can call a press conference and point out that the politician is evading the very income tax laws he supports.

I think one flaw in my theory is that it might be difficult to make an offer irrevocable if there is no consideration given by the politician. i am not sure. But even a revocable offer is worth something.

Any millionaire libertarian volunteers?

William Niskanen, chairman of the libertarian Cato Institute, appeared Sunday morning, along with AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, on a segment of ABC’s “This Week with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts”. If I did not hear him incorrectly, he came out against lowering the capital gains tax. I don’t have the transcript, but I think his reason was something about such a tax cut not being the most effective way to get the economy going, that it would not have the greatest “stimulus,” something like that. I was aghast. I hope I misunderstood him. If anyone knows different, or has a transcript, email me and I’ll post a correction or follow-up.

Phil Hendrie had a character on a recent show who referred to Anna-Nicole Smith as a “hillbilly butter-hog”. You know, that’s pretty funny.

Another insightful, perceptive column from the libertarian treasure Joe Stromberg, taking warmongering libertarians to task: Liberventionism III: The Flight from History.

Recent US patent: Color coded tools (PTO version). This is a patent on a tool, e.g. a wrench or hammer, “having an outer surface wherein a portion of the outer surface is colored and wherein the colored portion of the outer surface is impregnated into the tool”. Utter genius. Call the Nobel committee. More ridiculous/obscure patents.

Karen De Coster has launched the latest Austrian-libertarian website, KarenDeCoster.com. Also check out the fairly new HansHoppe.com, built and maintained by moi.

If I see, one more time, that wretched FoxNews channel commercial for Christy Lane, I might. This is the commercial introduced by some Vietnam vet who says that he was in the war, but there was “another soldier” over there with him–“Christy Lane,” some gospel singer, who looks like a cross between Alice, the maid from the Brady Bunch, and “kiss my grits” Flo from the sitcom Alice. When the commercial shows her lip-synching to her cheesy version of ABBA’s “I believe in angels,” my trigger finger itches.

According to FindLaw, “A proposal by a California congressman would give the entertainment industry broad new powers to try to stop people from downloading pirated music and movies off the Internet. Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Calif., formally proposed legislation that would give the industry unprecedented new authority to secretly hack into consumers’ computers or knock them off-line entirely if they are caught downloading copyrighted material.” This bill seeks to legalize trespass onto private property. I.e., it transfers partial control/ownership rights from consumers and others, to holders of copyright. Yet another example of how assigning property rights to intangibles leads to infringement of property rights in scarce resources. Another example is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection technology or to create or “traffic in” circumvention technology. Not to mention the fact that copyright holders can tell property owners what not to do with their own property.

I would venture to guess that significantly more liberals than conservatives take advantage of their right to have abortions. And I would guess that there is a correlation between the parents’ politics and the child’s. Ergo, if abortion is legal, future liberals tend to be killed in the womb at a higher rate than future conservatives (and libertarians?). Hey, I’m not saying I’m pro-abortion, but silver lining and all that, you know?

I like Microsoft’s new statement of their Mission and Values. Okay, maybe it’s a bit puffy, but it’s aspirational and not too buzz-wordy, so I like that. But what struck me as I read it–could you ever imagine, in your wildest fantasy, any government even attempting to promulgate something like this, with a straight face?

Chesterton famously said in his essay The Diabolist that “there is one real difference between men and women; that women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in threes.” I’m not sure I agree with this, but everyone seems to think this is some profound insight. It’s about as scientific as the stupid expression that people die “in threes”. Yeah, you can count them 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, if you want. Wow. Profound numerology.

I do like the longer paragraph though from which the quote is taken: “I value that time [at an art school], in short, because it made me acquainted with a good representative number of blackguards. In this connection there are two very curious things which the critic of human life may observe. The first is the fact that there is one real difference between men and women; that women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in threes. The second is that when you find (as you often do) three young cads and idiots going about together and getting drunk together every day you generally find that one of the three cads and idiots is (for some extraordinary reason) not a cad and not an idiot. In these small groups devoted to a drivelling dissipation there is almost always one man who seems to have condescended to his company; one man who, while he can talk a foul triviality with his fellows, can also talk politics with a Socialist, or philosophy with a Catholic.”

I confess I don’t quite undestand the ending of this essay. Would someone please explain it to me. To what was it he referred in the closing line: “God help him, I know the road he went; but I have never known, or even dared to think, what was that place at which he stopped and refrained.” What was the road he went? What was the place at which the Diabolist stopped and refrained?

This why I hate poetry, and dislike lots of English prose. Meandering, vague, faux-deep, hide the ball all the time. Just SAY IT!