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Internet Tax Approved By Louisiana House
Stinky Litter Box writes "WWL-TV in New Orleans reports that the Louisiana House voted 81-9 on Thursday to propose that a '15-cent monthly surcharge should be levied on Internet access across Louisiana to fight online criminal activity.' Can you say 'slippery slope?' The good news is that Gov. Jindal opposes such a tax. Full disclosure: I grew up in south Louisiana and worked for WWL-TV in the late '70s."
Rep. Mack "Bodi" White, R-Denham Springs, said he sponsored the bill for Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, to raise money to finance a division in Caldwell's office that investigates Internet crimes, particularly online sex crimes against children.
I agree that sex crime against children are very very bad but I think that if you look at the scope and size of the problems that plague the internet and ranked them in order, you'd find many other things precede sex crimes against children. Like Internet Fraud and Identity Theft. How much money do people lose to things like that? Hint: A lot.
I'm sick and tired of thinking of the children, let's think about everybody for a while. The lil' bastards don't even pay taxes and they're the motivation behind 50% of the legislation in this country.
My work here is dung.
Thank goodness legislatures have the discipline to only use funds for the reason they gave in the justification.
I don't live in Louisiana (or the US), but I'd be quite cross if they started charging me because other people like to watch images of naked kids.
What do you think 15 cents is when it is misappropriated and charged to an entire state/abused/shown to not have matched the original intent at all?
answer: a whole lot of money going nowhere. See FEMA, many useless taxes in general, etc.
Really, 15 cents sounds like small amounts, but so did the original 3% or whatever for taxing gasoline. Now about 1/4 of gasoline cost is tax. How's that working out? Money well spent?
Bring up an emotionally charged topic like children's protection and you can enact any half-baked political action. They killed Socrates this way, they can sure as hell ratchet down internet rights this way.
mmmm...forbidden donut
I'm sick and tired of thinking of the children, let's think about everybody for a while.
So you're saying that your anti-children? :-P
I agree that sex crime against children are very very bad but I think that if you look at the scope and size of the problems that plague the internet and ranked them in order, you'd find many other things precede sex crimes against children. Like Internet Fraud and Identity Theft. How much money do people lose to things like that? Hint: A lot.
I dislike the term "Internet Fraud". Fraud is fraud, whether it was conducted on eBay or at the local flea market.
That aside, I think you're saying that if you cut down on other crimes conducted online, sex crimes conducted online will drop as a matter of course. I tend to agree.
.
My blog
FTFA - "I don't think we should start instituting a revenue stream for every criminal element that's out there," Maybe the Mayans were right about 2012.
Look at all the surcharges you pay on your telephone bill. I think the federal rural phone tax lasted until something like 1999?
This is a non-story. The big story where states are going to soak people for taxes is when Congress allows them to do sales tax on every single purchase. It's coming.
(and maybe a federal one, too)
From the summary: "Full disclosure: I grew up in south Louisiana and worked for WWL-TV in the late '70s."
OK, well...before I post, I should disclose some things too.
I've said the word "Louisiana" 11,547 times in my life. I've never been there, but I hear they have some weird tax on the Intertubes.
It's just another tax on something that shouldn't be taxed... We already get taxed on ramen noodles, water, gasoline, cheeseburgers, cable television, telephones, and almost everything else.
If you're worried about a slippery slope, please glance downward at the icy incline and the skates on your feet.
It is kinda stupid to justify as way to pay for fighting "online crime". Why don't they levy an additional tax on retail sales and call it the "shoplifter arrest and incarceration tax".
Of course it's tough to vote against "protecting the children," but if this expenditure is necessary it should take a place in line with every other legitimate need and wait for its share of the income tax. Special interests are going to be lined up around the block to try this one in La.
What about the billions we already gave to that incompetent Nagan and his crooked police force?
They killed Socrates this way, they can sure as hell ratchet down internet rights this way.
The Louisiana House Legislature killed Socrates? That's terrible.
I tend to agree with you there, there are so many more prominent situations across the board we could defer our resources to, however, children should not be completely put off to the side, everything is parallel, so to is the p0rn on the web...if you turn away for 2 seconds you fall so far behind playing catch up, you won't be able to catch them properly for another few years after you start again....
I believe there should be an overall committee, which has 3 sub division, fraud/identity theft, child p0rn, and virus/worm/spam divisions. These would each have there own budgets decreed by higher up management, and also
correlating to their importance to one another, but sharing tactics and technologies to better make use of resources.
Also, just because we spend 1 billion dollars on child p0rn to catch those implicated, does not mean we will get more caught, it just means the chances should be greater. It all depends on how the money is spent and where, I think before giving any more money to any of these organizations, we should see where they will spend the money , sort of like a business plan, open for review by a few high class security experts, that can see the big picture....sometimes a lot of the people in these orgs, don't really know the firs thing about technology advances, even though they mean well.
Where did you get your numbers? They are out of wack with reality for the vast majority of states (see link below). Also FEMA is not a tax but a government agency. Finally, many would argue that increasing the tax on gasoline would lead to a more sustainable economy less dependent on oil in general and more centralized. Here is a link to the gasoline taxes by state. http://www.api.org/statistics/fueltaxes/
Ahem. Yes, I'll have to agree. You're confused. Any tax fund, no matter what purpose it was intended for, is subject to raiding by the politicos. Not very many years ago, Social Security had a nice little surplus. Everyone already knew that SS would be bankrupted when the baby boomers reached retirement age. But, SS was actually showing a surplus, temporarily. Instead of re-investing those few billions, the politicos cast their greedy eyes on all that money, and passed new laws, entirely contrary to pre-existing law, so that they could pilfer that surplus. You can bet both cheeks of your arse that if politicians care that little about voting old people, they don't really give a damn about non-voting young people.
People are suckers, politicians know it, and they pull the heart strings whichever is necessary to rob us.
Besides which - the law sets bad precedent, even if they really DID use the money for children.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Do they similarly tax photographs? How about telephone service? I imagine both are used for sex crimes against children.
I have to disagree. From the perspective of law enforcement, fighting Internet crime requires a lot of extra technical expertise, and that means hiring additional people with extra training. If anything, internet crime is more like what the FBI and Secret Service have traditionally investigated.
... They could definitely use a little extra cash in their coffers for education if their uneducated, violent, and poor urban populace is any indication. Also, their roads are pretty bad, so extra money coming in could allow extra funds to go towards improving that.
BadAnalogyGuy, please don't dilute yourself or others if you think Louisiana is going to put any money toward education. Or more than anything for show. I am now convinced that they want to keep the people ignorant. The polls can be led by things like welfare. How do you think that Edwin "Fast Eddie" Edwards was re-elected after his first term when out of office he said I am a crook but you will never catch me? Two more terms for welfare; that is how. Then he sold the casino licenses that should have been properly bid for. Don't get me started on that. Tourism isn't everything. The money from the taxes on the casino's was supposed to get teacher pay to the regional average (from Louisiana to Georgia, where I am presently), but teachers had to picket in my hometown of Shreveport, just to get them to raise it to the state average. I always said if I made it out, I wouldn't return. I was able to leave five years ago.
The roads are bad they say because we wouldn't set the minimum drinking age to 21 for several years and were the last state to holdout. The government withheld federal funds for the rebuilding of roads until the laws were changed. So yea, the roads suck ass and you can tell you have left the state with your eyes closed at any border.
But enough about Louisiana, until the people decide to run the politicians out of town like the olds days, change will not come. But I think we live in a police state, until I see something like that happen.
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
You mean Gov. Piyush Amrit Jindal? I find it interesting that the man tries so hard to distance himself from his heritage but still retains his Indian name as his legal name.
They killed Socrates this way, they can sure as hell ratchet down internet rights this way.
The Louisiana House Legislature killed Socrates? That's terrible.
I wouldn't be surprised, in 2001 (yes, within this millennium) they branded Darwin a racist with the following flawless logic:
Be it resolved that the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby deplore all instances and ideologies of racism, and does hereby reject the core concepts of Darwinist ideology that certain races and classes of humans are inherently superior to others.
Yeah, they actually brought out this gem (page 2 line 1):
WHEREAS, Adolf Hitler and others have exploited the racist views of Darwin and those he influenced, such as German zoologist Ernst Haekel, to justify the annihilation of millions of purportedly racially inferior individuals.
Who knows where they'll set their sights next to appease their God? I certainly wouldn't want to be in their way lest I be likened to Adolf Hitler.
My work here is dung.
Seems to be working out pretty well. Do you like the highway system? See any economic value? The gas tax is the natural way(*) to pay for the common infrastructure (roads) that are used and degraded by the vehicles that run on gas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Highway_Trust_Fund_(United_States)
For what it's worth, the original federal tax on gasoline was $0.03 /gal, about 10%. Inflation adjusted, that would now be about $0.27 / gal. It's not. It's $.184, which is one of the reasons we the Highway Trust Fund is busted (higher mileage also hurts).
Some studies put the rate of return on the Interstate investments at 10-35%(1).
To sum up, you fail. In real terms the gas tax has actually decreased, it has worked out OK at the Federal level, and the interstate highway system is money fairly well spent.
(*) at least for the time being
(1) http://www.interstate50th.org/docs/techmemo2-1.pdf
HOW did they explain the whole concept of slavery for the... 10,000 years BEFORE Darwin then?
Defective Logic
It's not that far out of whack. He said 1/4 the price of gas. I just did the math and, based on the average tax in the US and the cost of gas where I am, gasoline tax is about 19% of the cost of gas. 1/4 the price of gas would be 25%. And actually, since the date of the gas tax listed was April 1, I just recalculated based on the price of gas in April and at that point it was 22.5%. So he really isn't that far off.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I wouldn't be surprised, in 2001 (yes, within this millennium) they branded Darwin a racist with the following flawless logic ...
Huey Long, one of the more famous governors of the Great State of Louisiana, once said "One of these days the people of Louisiana are going to get good government and they aren't going to like it."
Well, I have heard it put forth in the past, that the keys to the Constitution of the US are "terrorists" and "child pr0n".
With either of those two, you can run roughshod over the Constitution.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
We don't seem to have a lot of molested children running about where I live. It seems like a fairly rare problem and in most cases that we do hear about it is a family member or live in boy friend that does the bad deed.
Frankly I can't see society spending much money on such an issue. I am aware that we have a witch hunt for sexual offenders. There is a city near my town that has all of its convicted sex offenders living under a bridge. That is the only spot in that city where it is legal for a released sex offender to live. Insanity is not the sole property of the mentally ill.
No, you left out the fact that you're going downhill to get 50 mpg with the Impala.
Actually yes...at least on the phone thing, most everywhere taxes phone service. At least, according to any bill I've ever had for a phone, landline or cell.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
You got downmodded for lying about your gas mileage. This isn't /b/ and there aren't too many 14 year old kids here who will listen to bullshit about getting 53 MPG in a 20MPG car and go "oh rly?!?".
Yeah, they actually brought out this gem (page 2 line 1):
WHEREAS, Adolf Hitler and others have exploited the racist views of Darwin and those he influenced, such as German zoologist Ernst Haekel, to justify the annihilation of millions of purportedly racially inferior individuals.
Wow, I've never heard of a State Godwin-ing a law!
What you say is true about SS, but I would like to clarify some things. Social security has, since it's inception, taken in more money than it pays out. What the government has been doing is taking that excess money and spending it while putting a promissory note (government treasury bill) that the government will pay back with interest that amount. This is what is know as the social security trust fund. So the government technically has been investing the social security excess in US treasuries. The problem is that soon (sounds like this year) the social security administration will need to start cashing in those T-Bills to pay benefits. This will cause the government to do one or more of the following:
1. raise taxes to keep all spending the same
2. Borrow more money to keep all spending the same
3. cut discretionary spending
4. cut social security spending
5. inflate the currency / print more money
Take you pick but I would be willing to rule out numbers 3 and 4 since 3 would be the responsible thing, and 4 would be a career ending decision for any politician. I have recently started to think that it may have been a better idea to just to have a pile of non interest bearing $100 bill sitting in a vault instead since then at least we wouldn't be in this position.
Time to offend someone
That's jive. As any fool know, the earth be less than 10,000 years old.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Hi, I'm Chris Hansen. I'm here to collect your taxes.
"I can easily break 50MPG"
[Citation seriously needed]
Becasue the rated gas mileage of ov a Chevy Impala is about 27 MPG:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/15989.shtml
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/Feg/bymodel/2000_Chevrolet_Impala.shtml
http://www.mpgomatic.com/2007/11/02/chevrolet-impala-gas-mileage/
A lot of geeks really enjoy cars, so you need to take your lie to some other place, or prove it.
If you had said 30 MPG or even 33 MPG I could see that maybe you ahve an odd driving pattern. 50? Bullshit.
In short Mod -1 Pants on Fire
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Explaining slavery is easy. "Do this for me, or I'll hurt you." You're talking about justifying it, which is usually conveniently overlooked.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Yeah, but it's funnier to act like they think it's a deterrent.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
HOW did they explain the whole concept of slavery for the... 10,000 years BEFORE Darwin then?
Perhaps because much of the history of slavery has not been race based. People have been sold as slaves for debt, and slaves have often been a prize of war, those wars often being fought over political boundaries rather than racial differences.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Actually you're not cynical enough. Children are not the motivation, they're the excuse. Think of it as a soft terror-tactic: pay us $0.15 per month, or little Timmy will become the victim of online predators! EVERYBODY PANIC! It's basic social engineering: If you can panic people, make them give in to fear, their higher brain functions turn off; then you've GOT them.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
and have it go into education.
The more you educate a society, the fewer crimes that occur. Also has the nice benefit of having an area with more businesses and a larger talent pool.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"As any fool know,"
oh, how so true.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
author: "Can you say 'slippery slope?'" a baby mouse doesn't necessarily grow into an elephant I am opposed to taxes, especially on internet access, but i am also opposed to that tired old "argument"
The problem is, we do hear about damned near every case. It's a numbers game. There's a lot of parents, or friends of parents out there. Those people want to know about threats to the kids. Thus, if you run a story involving danger to kids, you get the numbers. So every case that comes up gets publicity, even if it's on the other side of the country.
Remember, the majority of recent studies show that a) the number of incidents involving children is decreasing, and b) they're more likely to be kidnapped/abused by someone they know (parent, teacher, relative, etc) than a random stranger.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
But these taxes are typically allocated to:
Slavery was typically little more then a conquered nation doing the bidding of the conquerors. Even the slaves of colonial America were conquered tribes and the descendants of them. Once a person was a slave, they were considered property and not a citizen with citizenship rights and were treated as such. This treatment was more or less to enforce or reinforce their lack of freedoms in the society. It was a spoil of war, even if the war consisted of sending an overwhelming forces or raiding parties to round people up.
In fact, that's how the term Nigger came into play. Near the end of Slavery shipments to the US, most of the tribes in Africa along the slave coast had been captured and the rest fled into the interior portions of the African Jungle where Europeans feared entering. There was the Niger river that blocked a lot of their paths and they would find tribes on either side of it. Anyways, the Niger river which has a long speculation on the name origin the meant "river of rivers" rather then the french word for "black and night". But as property usually sold unseen to overseas buyers, slave being shipped needed several things. A lineage to prove their worth and ability to act as slaves, some types of slaves refused to cooperate and usually brought less money while the ones that resisted the longest and made it the deepest into the jungle were typically the strongest and most desirable, so the fact they were from the Niger river area was a plus. This is much like the lineage in animals and so on where a purebred and documents dog or horse or cattle or whatever commands more money then the same without the documentation. Now another practice which is still in use today was to have a bill of lading that included both the origin of the property and the destination. In keeping with the Lineage, Niger was used as the origin so traders in the Americas wouldn't become suspect of the lineage. Anyways, it has been determined that the first or one of the first written use of the term "Nigger" was from a shipping clerk in Maryland and the term was most likely in use before that by the phonetically speaking southerners who distinguished between domestic slaves and imports. This also explains the connection of skin color to race and why racist concentrated more on bloodline then color of skin.
Looks like I went way past your topic but slavery has typically been a spoil of war. Even the slavery from Africa brought to the Americas was tribal and kingdom warfare (in Africa) that got people classified as property and sold as slaves.
Actually, that's not a bad idea with a few tweaks. I would suggest that they have to refund their salary for the entire year for any law they voted for that is struck down by the courts as unconstitutional. This would have two beneficial effects. One, it would cut down on the number of laws that legislators vote for that they know don't pass constitutional muster. Two, it would give the legislators incentive to reign in judges who overstep their authority.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Well, that's part of the problem. He said Louisiana but meant New Jersey.
I wouldn't be surprised, in 2001 (yes, within this millennium) they branded Darwin a racist [state.la.us] with the following flawless logic
That's great!
A state that harbored the KKK and remains the national hot bed of racism to this day. ROFLMAO
National center of Cross burning == Louisana
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
That also doesn't explain the state of Michigan which I (and some notable /.ers are from).
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_state/gsp_newsrelease.htm
My proud state represented the worst growth from 2000-2008, including LA... And we didn't have a hurricane. Oh, and t wasn't even close. 1.6% for MI, next to last was Connecticut at 3.8%.
http://www.bea.gov/regional/gdpmap/GDPMap.aspx
A lot of people forget that during the 1500s and 1600s, there were a lot of white-colored slaves. The practice of enslaving whites was gradually replaced with black slavery during the 1700s, but if you are a white person it's entirely possible you have slavery in your background.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I thought this kind of tax was prevented by federal legislation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Tax_Nondiscrimination_Act
Somalia is the product of decades of outside influences attempting to set up various conflicting government, along with a massive degree of culturally-ingrained tribalism.
Somalia is a dense mass of petty tribal governments, each holding absolute power over their limited domains, each at war with all the others, and none having the slightest respect for the personal and property rights of the individuals under their rule, much less those with whom they are at war. Nothing could be further from the libertarian ideal.
To have a libertarian society it is not sufficient to merely lack a strong central government; aggression itself must not be tolerated. The libertarian objection to government is in truth an objection to aggression itself, of which government is merely the most prominent form. Somalia lacks a central government--despite various outside nations, including the U.S., further destabilizing the region by repeatedly attempting to impose one--but in its place there exist a multitude of regional governments, among other criminal organizations, bent on practicing aggression against the Somalian people. The essence of the problem is a culture which grants these tribal leaders unquestioned authority. (This is also why central government fail to take root there: the local culture has no place for them.)
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Darwin was a racist. Just because you believe in micro + macro evolution (well I do, and because you are defending Darwin you probably do too), doesn't mean its founded wasn't flawed.
I promise, just google it and you'll find quotes like this:
At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes ⦠will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. [2]
[2] The decent of man, Charles Darwin
Darwin's logic was used and abused by many to continue racist beliefs and actions. The man was a scientist with a great idea; not a saint.
Anybody who thinks that a new tax is the start of a slippery slope has missed the fact that the new tax bandwagon is already a full-on water slide with a near freefall inclination.
One of the more important reasons for the shift from white and black slaves stems of a US based British colony ran mostly by slaves in which the slaves, both white and black banded together for a slave rebellion in an attempt to escape to Spanish Florida where free colonies already existed. They killed a about 25 free whites in their attempt who were outnumbered enormously by slaves in the area at the time. They also burned several buildings and amassed a decent sized following but the rebellion was put down.
In 1740, 2 years after that Stono Rebellion the South Carolina legislature (mostly a corporate board because of the colony situation) passed the Negro Act of 1740 in attempts to control the slaves. It provided protections against harsh working conditions and so on that would create a rebellious situation in the first place but was hard to enforce because a slave couldn't testify against a free man. One of the more influential parts of the Negro act was that it regulated manumissions which is more or less a fancy term for a slave owner granting freedom to their slaves. One of these regulations came to be a divide and conquer strategy in which 1 white slave to every 10 black slaves were required but black slave could never be anything more then a slave where the whites could regain their full citizenship.
This provided a situation where the white slaves would (were encouraged to) report suspected rebellion plots in hopes of gaining their freedom and stopped the entire slave groups from banding together again. This also led to the downfall of white slaves as other restrictions such as importation of new slaves were discouraged/banned and populations were breed from existing stock. A big issue here is corruption of blood, the blacks because of the manumissions laws would always be slaves, including their children where the children of the whites would/could be free people woth full citizenship rights (*another incentive to not rebel and report conspiracies).
This also created the concept of classes among the slaves in which the black slaves were at the bottom by default. This had to do with white slaves appearing smarter because they could already speak the language and mostly read and/or write. Once white slaves fell to the side, the class differences sort of remained which was part of the prejudices throughout early America. Although with the end of the civil war, freed slaves being dumped onto the populations and taking white jobs, and the north mandating the whites succeed power to the freed slaves made the system of racism far more worse then what this was about before then, but slaves weren't really treated with respect either.
The history of racism in the US is deeply tied to slavery and perhap unique to the US because a lot of the laws like the Negro act wasn't enacted in other countries. Combine that with slaves in other countries either finding support from manumissions and former slaves already living and integrating in the other areas or they simply wanted to go home, were in the US, they attempted to create a local stock in which they were already home so to speak and you can see some issues directly connected to slavery that fueled the hate and resentment on both sides.
You overlook one important thing in your exposition. The U.S. government was desegregated when Woodrow Wilson took office, he re-segregated it. There is a significant possibility that if it had not been for Woodrow Wilson, the 60's civil rights movement would have been unnecessary (or would have taken place in the 20's).
If Woodrow Wilson had not re-segregated the Army (and the rest of the military), whites and blacks would have served side by side in WWI. This would have exposed a lot of men to people of the other race in circumstances where what a person does far outweighs who they are.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
You needed to take an updated course in biology. What you've said is untrue. The micro/macro classification distinction exists outside of Creationist circles.
Mirco E. refers to the incremental changes w/in a species ( e.g. people born w/out wisdom teeth, darwin's finches ).
Macro E. refers to the change of an organism into a different one such that is is a new species (e.g. chimp->human, reptiles->birds).
The difference is important because we (scientists) have no proof for macroevolution aside from theories based on the DNA chain. We've never proofed or observed the evolution of one organism to a different [enough] organism.