Washington's Wake

Posts Tagged ‘Healthcare’

Couldn’t have said it better.

So, I just received this email from my father, and it made me laugh.

“BAIL EM OUT! ????

Hell, back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and [as required by law…] tried to run it. They failed and it was closed. Now we are trusting the economy of our country, our banking system, our auto industry and possibly our health plans to the same nit-wits who couldn’t make money running a whore house and selling whiskey!”

The accompanying link was to a story in USA today a couple of years ago:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2007-08-11-398857697_x.htm

The applicable part is fairly far down the story:

Conforte dealt mostly in cash and kept few records. By 1990, the IRS had seized the ranch, putting the federal government in the unique position of running a brothel.

The government failed and the ranch was padlocked for the first time. The IRS auctioned off beds, the bidets — even the room numbers — to recover some of Conforte’s tax debt.

The brothel was sold for $1.49 million to a shell company overseen by Conforte and his attorney, Peter Perry. Conforte returned briefly to run the ranch, then fled to Brazil in 1991.

The IRS got its final say in 1997 when it filed a $16 million tax lien, followed in July 1999 by indictments of Conforte and principals in his shell company on charges including racketeering and money laundering. Millions of dollars allegedly were wired to Conforte in Brazil.

Four years later, the brothel’s new owner, the federal Bureau of Land Management, put the brothel up for grabs on eBay.

Anyways, it made me laugh.

I actually don’t really care about this issue much at all, but I find, particularly as more states adopt it, it really has no place in government.

Marriage is a religious sacrament. No one is entitled to it if they don’t follow the doctrine of the church they’re a member of.  Which is to say government has no place deciding what a church can or can’t bless, AND the blessings of the church have no legal standing. I don’t care if that’s Islaam, Judeaism, Christianity, Buddhist, Hindu or Satanist.

That said, I also think anyone should be able to enter into any kind of contract that they want with any other person, with the sole exception being slavery. Though you do own yourself, you are self-sovereign, the law will always recognize, first and foremost, your own responsibility for your own actions and situation.

Of course, that is a pipe dream. The law does no such thing. In fact, it does quite the opposite. The laws of the United (socialist) States of America are now inclined to a concept of state ownership – thus the state has responsibility for the citizens.

It is this fascism above all that has sapped the will and liberty of the people. Security in exchange for liberty. (Thus, as warned, we are left with neither.) For example, the arguments for programs such as medicare and medicaid lead to ideas such a fat-taxes, or legal requirement of heal insurce (see Massachusetts) and lead to laws such as helmet laws on motorcycles and seatbelt laws. Until the government – and thusly the taxpayer – was paying for the wellbeing of the citizens, the citizens had the freedom to make choices about their own safety and security.

Now though, the government owns us. Therefore it may tell us what we can and can’t eat. can and can’t wear. can and can’t own.

The vast majority of the citizens are warm and fat and happy and more than glad to give up such paltry freedoms. What sane person would want to ride a motorcycle without a helmet? What sane person would want to eat transfats? Smoke cigarettes?

No siree – taxpayers are paying for your healthcare – so you don’t have a right to suck up more of OUR rescources.

Since the state has ownership of we the sheeple, the state, above the church and above the individual must cast it’s imperator upon each and every contract – including marriage.

How disturbing is that?