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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
Why don't they levy an additional tax on retail sales and call it the "shoplifter arrest and incarceration tax".
DO NOT GIVE THEM IDEAS.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
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.
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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.