First they came for the Amish . . .

In an earlier post on the topic of Amish persecution, I wrote:

Increasing government regulation and a growing tax burden make it virtually impossible to stave off starvation following 19th century farming methods--and totally impossible were one to attempt a reprise of the 18th century.

There are a number of websites that provide a history of just one area in which the Amish have suffered persecution, that of refusing to submit to the Social Security safety net.

This website gives a timeline, showing how the government noose was gradually drawn around the Amish over the course of twenty years:

1937: Payments were directly garnished from paychecks and distributed for the first time. Initially there were no conflicts because it did not include farmers, and almost all Amish are farmers. Originally it was far from all inclusive.

1950: From inception there was debate, but it wasn’t until 1950 that domestic labor (household employees working at least two days a week for the same person) were added. At the same time nonprofit workers and the self-employed began to be included as well.

1954: Hotel workers, laundry workers, all agricultural workers, and state and local government employees were added. Although not all states elected to be included. (Derry Brownfield recalls working for the state of Missouri and not contributing to Social Security because the state had its own program) This is the start of the problem the Amish had with the program. It was unclear with the wording of the act whether it was a tax or an insurance, and was described as both at various points in the bill. The Amish community decided that it would not take part in the benefits (not believing in insurance) and therefore should not have to pay the premiums.
According to Amish beliefs, insurance is not needed and is disrespectful to God. They firmly believe in taking care of themselves, their neighbors, and the fact that God will provide.  When the Social Security Act was extended to include them (as farmers) in the 1950′s they immediately protested and refused to voluntarily pay. As a result of this protest the IRS began directly garnishing their bank accounts.

This website gives more details of the persecution:

As usually happens in these matters, it is one case that tends to catapult the situation into the public eye. That case would be the collection of payments from Valentine Byler, an Amish farmer living near New Wilmington, in western Pennsylvania. 
By 1959, Valentine Byler owed four years of IRS taxes. The IRS added the interest owed and came up with a total of $308.96.
Byler explained that his religion forbid paying insurance. When he was told that this was a mere technicality and that it was indeed a tax, he apparently replied, "Doesn’t the title say Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance?"
The IRS had tried to levy Valentine’s bank account, but he had none. In 1960, after refusing a summons to appear in court, he was cited for contempt and brought to the Pittsburgh U.S. District Court. According to a Reader’s Digest article, the judge "angrily demanded of the IRS agents, ‘Don’t you have anything better to do than to take a peaceful man off his farm and drag him into court?’ " The case was dismissed.
But the IRS was undaunted and, according to its own press release, this is what happened next on April 18, 1961...
Since Mr. Byler had no bank account against which to levy for the tax due, it was decided as a last desperate measure to resort to seizure and sale of personal property.
It was then determined that Mr. Byler had a total of six horses, so it was decided to seize three in order to satisfy the tax indebtedness. The three horses were sold May 1, 1961 at public auction for $460. Of this amount, $308.96 represented the tax due and $113.15 represented the expenses of the auction sale, including feed for the horses, leaving a surplus of $37.89 which was returned to the taxpayer.
The Byler case, like all others in the same category, presents an unpleasant and difficult task for the Internal Revenue Service... We have no other choice under the law.
Valentine was literally in his field with his team of horses doing some work prior to spring plowing when his horses were seized.  
Immediately after the seizure and sale, the Pittsburgh IRS Chief of Collections responded he was unaware of the plowing situation. "Plowing never occurred to me. I live in an apartment." He was furthermore quoted as saying, "We don’t ask people their race or religion when we administer the tax laws. People have no right to use their religion as an excuse not to pay taxes."

Notice that these same words are now being used to draw the noose, already drawn tight around the necks of the Amish, around the necks of every Christian organization with employee benefits, short of an actual congregation:

I was saying that according to CA state law, they have no right to use their religion as an excuse to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation (among other things.)

This, in regard to the 'right' of a lesbian couple to 'conceive' a child at the employer's expense.

"That person is not going to get on an airplane," Pistole said in response to a question from Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., on whether the TSA would provide exemptions for passengers whose religious beliefs do not allow them to go through a physically revealing body scan or be touched by screeners.

This, in regard to a person's right to modesty when using public air transportation.

For all intents and purposes, the Catholic Church is trying to claim exemption from a law passed for non-religious reasons with a religious excuse.
This specific line of thinking was actually shot down by the Supreme Court in 1990 . .  when the Supreme Court found that two Native-Americans could be fired from their jobs [with cause] for ingesting peyote, even though they did so for religious purposes. In other words, they could not use religion as an excuse to ingest peyote.

This, in regard to Congress' ability to restrict the free exercise of an ancient religion when it clashed with federal drug laws.

So, everything now being said about not being allowed to use religion as an excuse to actually practice one's religion in a newly illegal manner was already said about the Amish back in the 1950's. It took fines, confiscations, and even imprisonments before the Amish won back the free exercise of their religion which had been prohibited by Congress and lesser legislatures. It's important to note that these battles were won both legislatively (in the case of the Medicare Act) and judiciously (in the case of Wisconsin v. Yoder). But they were never secured until they were once lost, and those who exercised them nonetheless brutally punished.

In conclusion, therefore, those currently suing the federal government against enforcement of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act should learn a lesson from history: only after losing this initial round, and going through the entire process of petitioning for redress of grievances, losing the petition, and suffering for continuing the free exercise of their religion to the point that a public outcry forces either Congress or the Courts to retract, should they expect to be able to reattain the status quo.

But let them be forewarned: even the Amish continue to be drawn further into the Matrix, where the freedom to actually practice their religion becomes more and more of an illusion. To illustrate this, I must needs debunk information offered on this website: http://www.frugalconfessions.com/taxes/do-the-amish-pay-taxes.php

I note here that even the author of "Do the Amish Pay Taxes?" has little clue of just how much has changed just since her information was current. For example:

The most obvious example is the building and maintaining of roads. The cost of this is paid for mainly through gas taxes, revenue from driver’s licenses, and money collected through tolls. While the Amish do not pay these consumption taxes, they do use roads and bridges to drive their horse and buggies on.

Au contraire. The Amish do pay gasoline taxes, not only directly for their generators, but indirectly through the hire of van drivers. Furthermore, they are increasingly saddled, on the state level, with the burden of paying commercial insurance on the vans their drivers use to carry them around. Needless to say, their drivers also pay all related tolls.

The Amish pay income tax just like the rest of us Englishmen (that’s what they call Americans who are not Amish), and they also take any qualifying Child Tax Credits worth up to $1,000 per child.

Ah, but this they are able to do only if they've enrolled their children in the Social Security system--the right to exemption therefrom having essentially lost only three decades after receiving it. And the tax credits were originally applicable only to the first one or two registered children--although that number has tended to increase in recent years as Congress concentrates on 'soaking the rich.'

The Amish do not collect unemployment, social security, or welfare benefits because doing so would be against their religious beliefs.

Yes, but. Amish cannot legally discriminate by religion, so some end up hiring non-Amish employees. They must pay Employment Tax on these, as well as serving as the Tax Man to garnish FICA 'contributions' from their pay. Furthermore, many Amish own stores, which in most cases requires them to collect sales taxes as well.

While some Amish make money from selling tobacco, they do not purchase cigarettes because they are viewed as ‘worldly’. This means that they do not pay taxes on cigarettes. Other ‘sin’ taxes not paid by the Amish are for alcohol. . . .

Well, it turns out that Amish youth--those not yet official members of the church--are in fact heavy users of both alcohol and tobacco. Joining the church doesn't automatically cure them of these addictions, either. So, the Amish community as a whole pays quite a bit into these tax funds.

Sarah Palin's Views on Abstinence Lead to Second Grandchild?

I just have to comment on this. Saying that abstinence education leads to pregnancy is like saying nutrition education leads to obesity; they're leaving out the actual cause, which is premarital sex and overeating, respectively.

In September 2008, Sarah's 17-year-old daughter Bristol announced that she was five months pregnant while her mother continued to support beliefs that obviously do not work within her own family. That year she also voted to cut funding to a program that helped support teen mothers, according to the Washington Post.
In the ultimate hypocrisy, Bristol went on to earn more than $260,000 in 2009 as an advocate against teen pregnancy while at the same time admitting that abstinence was not realistic.

More when I get to it . . .

Why Taco Bell is Good For You

Here's something light-hearted for today; I'm working on a heavier series of posts for the rest of the week.

Taco Bell is one of my favorite fast food restaurants, if for no other reason that that one can regularly pick up an entree there for only a dollar (plus tax). The last time I was at one, I participated in their twelve-for-ten-dollars special, and noticed that they also had a low-calorie menu. I don't usually go for the low-calorie items, considering what each calorie is costing me financially, but I am interested in not putting too much junk into my body on those rare occasions when I eat other than home-cooked food.

So it was with some interest that I read this article claiming that Taco Bell's taco filling is not pure hamburger, but some concoction of polymeric water, wheat, and oats that is barely a third actual ground beef (Taco Bell says it's more like 90%). Actually, that's quite fine with me. I prefer to graze as low on the food chain as possible, and I'd rather eat the wheat and oats than the steer that ate them.

I won't be getting there any time soon, but you can reasonably expect that my next expedition long and far from the home fires will include a stop at a Taco Bell.

Tax evaders at work in Michigan?

Federal authorities are expected to review nearly three dozen guns found in a wooded area of Clare County in central Michigan.
Special Agent Donald Dawkins tells the Associated Press that the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will inspect the weapons today.
Clare Sheriff's Department officials say a man on Tuesday found a rifle hidden under a log while cutting firewood in Freeman Township, about 110 miles north of Lansing. The man later found another 30 guns.
Police seized the weapons, then located three handguns in the same area.
Dawkins said nothing else was discovered.
No suspects have been identified. An investigation is ongoing.

There are several things wrong with this story. Let's see if we can list them.
1) It made the news. Now, why did this story, among the thousands of stories that day, make it all the way to the AP wire feed for national dissemination? There's something in physics known as The Observer Effect, which, applied to news dissemination, basically means that the very act of reporting on the news has an effect on what becomes news. Thus running a particular news story is the result of a conscious decision, one influenced by a desire to see a particular effect on those who read the news. So the question must be asked, "Why This Story?" Some of my readers will not be happy with the answer.

2) The only source for the story is a government official. Notice: the reporter did not physically see the guns. It did not personally speak to the anonymous person who allegedly found the guns. Rather, full faith and credit is given to Special Agent Donald Dawkins of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In effect, the AP is acting as the press agent for the BATF, rather than independently investigating the story themselves.

3) Police seized the weapons. Why is the word 'seized' used here? It's a word that implies contraband or illicit possession. Did the police realize at the time that what they were doing was 'seizing' contraband? Why no word from the police in this story?

4) Police searched the area. What called for this massive allocation of public safety resources? Had the police received any information that would lead them to believe that these guns were about to be used in a crime or insurrection? Were any of the 31 guns seized loaded? Had they run registration checks on the serial numbers?

5) BATF is going to be looking at the weapons. Why? Well, the BATF's constitutional mandate is to ensure that federal taxes on alcohol, tobacco, and firearms are paid as due. They have congressional authority to arrest tax evaders and seize their illicitly held property. So apparently, the BATF has to physically inspect these guns to ascertain whether or not their taxes are paid in full. This could have been done by the police who seized them, but the BATF agents apparently need something to do to keep busy, when they're not releasing statements to the press. But why didn't the bored BATF agents conduct the search in the woods, if the police are too busy to be bothered by pursuing this case?

6) The wood-burner who reported finding the guns was not arrested. While this may not seem like a problem, the question has to be, "Why Not?" If possession of 31 guns is a crime, than the man from whom they were 'seized' should be arrested. But if hiding 34 guns in the woods isn't a crime, then there's nothing to investigate, except to find the rightful owner of these guns and return them to him.

Somehow, I don't think that if that does happen, we'll be reading about it from the AP.

Update on Education

Yes, more than 15% of millionaires have college degrees. It's actually more like 90%:

Thomas J. Stanley, former professor of marketing at Georgia State University, shows that the critics of capitalism are dead wrong. Stanley, you may recall, is the author of a bestseller, The Millionaire Next Door. In his more recent book, The Millionaire Mind, he demonstrates that most millionaires are model citizens. Here are the results of his survey of more than 1,000 people who earn $1,000,000 a year or more...

- They live far below their means, and have little or no debt. Most pay off their credit cards every month; 40% have no home mortgage at all.

- Millionaires are frugal; they prepare shopping lists, resole their shoes, and save a lot of money; but they are not misers.

- 97% are homeowners; they tend to live in fine homes in older neighborhoods. (Only 27% have built their "dream home.")

- 92% are married; only 2% are currently divorced. Millionaire couples have less than one-third the divorce rate of non-millionaire couples. The typical couple in the millionaire group has been married for 28 years, and has three children. Nearly 50% of the wives of the super-rich do not work outside the home.

- Most are first-generation millionaires who became wealthy as business owners or executives; most did not inherit their wealth.

-90% are college graduates, and 52% hold advanced degrees; however, few graduated top of their class - most were "B" students. They learned two lessons from college: discipline and tenacity.

- Most live balanced lives; they are not workaholics; 93% listed socializing with family members as their #1 activity; 45% play golf. (Stanley didn't survey whether they were avid book readers, but I suspect that many are.)

- 52% attend church at least once a month; 37% consider themselves very religious.

- They share five basic ingredients to success: integrity, discipline, social skills, a supportive spouse, and hard work.

- They contribute heavily to charity, church and community activities (64%).

- Their #1 worry: Taxes! Their average annual federal tax bill: $300,000. The top one-tenth of 1% of U.S. income earners pays 14.7% of all income taxes collected.

- Not one millionaire had anything nice to say about gambling. Okay, but his survey also showed that 33% played the lottery at least once during the year.

We can see how the super upper-income families of this nation are not the ones contributing to crime, welfare, divorce, child abuse and a spendthrift society. But they are paying a lot of taxes and making a lot of contributions to solve these social problems.

Although Stanley did not cover this issue, I've also seen studies indicating that higher-income individuals live longer - five to 10 years longer than the average American (76 years), and they enjoy better health, fitness and quality of life.

--From Investment U email

Note: they learned 2 things from college: neither of which are necessary to graduate from college, and both of which can be learned without going to college.
In other words, the same qualities that made them millionaires helped them stick it out through four years of (for the most part) time-wasting studies.

By the way, like most of the millionaires surveyed, I have more than one college degree. But I'm not a millionaire; I live so far below the poverty line that I had to 'correct' someone else's pre-approved credit app just to get a credit card. I now have somewhere around half a dozen cards--it's hard to keep track, as I use only 3 of them at any given time. At one point my credit limit exceeded my annual income by several thousand dollars.