Think Right

This is a legend of success and plunder;
And a man, Tom Smith, who squelched world hunger.
Now, Smith, an inventor, had specialized
In toys. So, people were surprised
When they found that he instead
Of making toys, was BAKING BREAD!

Then things went bad. Watch the whole sad story all unfold here:

Topher on Freedom of Speech – why free speech is worth the cost:

http://theforbiddenhistory.com/

“If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mis-managers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.

“And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second, that second for a third, and so on ’til the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering…

“And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.”

~Thomas Jefferson

“We are taxed in our bread and our wine, in our incomes and our investments, on our land and on our property not only for base creatures who do not deserve the name of men, but for foreign nations, complaisant nations who will bow to us and accept our largesse and promise us to assist in the keeping of the peace – these mendicant nations who will destroy us when we show a moment of weakness or our treasury is bare, and surely it is becoming bare! We are taxed to maintain legions on their soil, in the name of law and order and the Pax Romana, a document which will fall into dust when it pleases our allies and our vassals. We keep them in precarious balance only with our gold. Is the heartblood of our nation worth these? Were they bound to us with ties of love, they would not ask our gold. They take our very flesh, and they hate and despise us. And who shall say we are worthy of more? … When a government becomes powerful it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurer which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance, for votes with which to perpetuate itself.”

Cicero http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero, 54 B.C

The Editor
The Australian

Dear Sir

The last time a mining tax was imposed, the infamous ‘Utah tax’, a $6 per tonne levy on every tonne of coking coal loaded on a ship by that company, a ransom on top of all the other taxes which had to be paid before any ship left the wharf, development of new mines by that company was stopped in its tracks for 3 years. Japan commenced investing in new mines in Canada, South Africa and South America. The equally infamous Fringe Benefits tax stopped the construction of mining towns in favour of Fly-in, Fly-out arrangements.

Surely it’s time to replace the tax happy chappies in Canberra with people who have at least some idea of the consequences of destructive tax policies.

Can I suggest they catch up on their holiday reading with an excellent tome ‘For good and evil, the impact of taxes on the course of civilisation’ by Charles Adams.

Regards
John McRobert
Indooroopilly