The Night Writer notes that political correctness is hardly new:
It’s the birthday of poet E. E. (Edward Estlin) Cummings, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1894), who became interested in communism as a young man and traveled to Russia to see it firsthand. He was horrified to find the theaters and museums were full of propaganda, and the people were scared to even talk to each other in public. Everyone was miserable. Cummings went home and wrote about the experience, comparing Russia to Dante’s Inferno.
His view of communism was not popular in the literary world at the time, and magazines suddenly began refusing to publish his work. For the next two decades, he had a hard time publishing his books, and he got terrible reviews when he did. Critics thought his exotic arrangements of words on the page were silly, and they said he wrote like an adolescent. Then, in 1952, his friend Archibald MacLeish got Cummings a temporary post at Harvard, giving a series of lectures. Instead of standing behind the lectern, Cummings sat on the stage, read his poetry aloud, and talked about what it meant to him.
It resonates today, of course:
Today our theaters and museums (and Nobel nominating committees) are full of propaganda and things such as so-called Fairness Doctrines and Hate Crimes proposals still try to make people afraid to talk to one another. And if your views aren’t acceptable to the gatekeepers at the Ivory Towers you won’t get invited or, if you do, you get food thrown on you.
Of course, to be fair, liberal commentators speaking at conservative universities face a phalanx of the same kind of hatred.
CORRECTION: My bad – they don’t!
Actually Angryclown loves hate and insults.
It is true, and he compliments all well-crafted, well-played insults.
Dave blathered: “First, you whine about the fact that logging is creating profits for somebody, then you say you don’t care about where a commodity comes from…as long as you can get it “on time”.”
I apologize, Dave. Didn’t get your point right away. Turns out it really was just that stupid.
I don’t care whether my gas comes from Texas or Russia or Kuwait. Gas is fungible. That doesn’t mean Angryclown thinks the government should let Exxon drill a big ol’ oil well next to the Statue of Liberty. By the same token, AC doesn’t care if his newspaper is made out of pulp from Quebec or California or Indonesia. Just so’s there’s not a bunch of stumps and logging machines when the Clowns take their annual vacation at a public park.
You’re on shun warning, Dave. Another comment of such low quality and Angryclown will be forced to cut you off. No more remedial classes. Angryclown drives a clown car, not a short bus.
Mitch, did you know that you exude unjustified criticism and/or hollow sanctimony from your posts?
Better see an MD.
“Farmers who can’t make a living can go work at Starbux like any other failed small business people. ”
Who’s talking about farmers that can’t make a living? I was referring to the ones that CAN until the government decides they deserve a big chunk of that farm. Are you actually saying that a family farm that doesn’t have a huge chunk of cash (which would also be taxed) deserves to go under because the title owner dies? Really? Are you then pushing for massive corporate farms instead? And who said anything about getting special favors for smelling like pig shit? I was pointing out that the lazy folk you seem to think these farmers are is based in nothing more than your head.
“Just so’s there’s not a bunch of stumps and logging machines when the Clowns take their annual vacation at a public park.”
How you feel about burnt trunks everywhere instead because the sierra club wouldn’t let the park service clear out the dead trees and brush? I rode thru Yellowstone last summer. 10 years after the big fire you can still smell the burnt wood. Amazing how much has come back though. Still, that fire was caused by the no burn policy which allowed so much kindling to accumulate. Had there been some cutting and some firebreaks allowed, it would have been different.
For starters, let’s get our terms straight. The estate tax and agriculture do not affect…:
…some boob who can’t make money growing corn or even some boob who can’t make a go of his dry cleaning business.
This is about the ones that DO succeed and, then, die.
Schlomo Abromovitz can incorporate Schlomo’s Deli and hand it down to his worthless son-in-law Ira when he kacks. The first $2 million will be pretty much free of estate taxes – and a deli worth $2 mill can be a nice little cash cow, even in NYC, right?
In the meantime, let’s take a farmer in, to pick a perfectly random example, North Dakota. He’s got 20,000 acres, at a current value of about $670 an acre (some of it’s worth less, some much more); that, alone, gives him $13 million dollars. This, by the way, is a viable family farm, not a corporate factory operation. Tack on the million or two in equipment that it takes to run a 20k acre farm, plus a house, some cars, a couple of rifles and shotguns – you’re talking north of $15 million. On paper, anyway.
So a perfectly successful family farmer who pays his bills, doesn’t get overextended, gradually absorbs the land of his not-so-smart neighbors so that he amasses a ton of real property, and does a good job – and then, dies – will have most of his property confiscated for taxes.
Which does NOT happen to Schlomo – or someone who owns a Buick dealership, or a wire service, or a marina, or pretty much anything else, because farms (because, if memory serves, of IRS rules) are NOT allowed to incorporate! That’s right – a multimillion dollar business can, in most cases, only be a sole proprietorship!
The point isn’t giving farmers a handout – since, being from the middle of America, they are smarter and harder-working than the sheeple on the coast (I kid, I kid. Mostly). No, it’s about giving the people who responsibly and successfully run such large, complex businesses the same opportunity to legally protect their estates that Schlomo Abromovitz, the guy who can’t keep the #$#@%^@% cockroaches out of his #$@#$# pastrami, has.
“since, being from the middle of America, they are smarter and harder-working than the sheeple on the coast (I kid, I kid. Mostly)”
Don’t forget better looking and all the kids are above average.
Dude, if somebody just handed you $15 million worth of anything – cash money, business or farm – you’re wealthy. You don’t need need a free ride.
If some chicken farmer’s kid gets a $15 million gift from his parents and has to pay a one-time-only tax on it, tough. Welcome to the working world. He can sell off a piece, if that’s feasible. If not, he can take a mortgage.
And farms can incorporate – even in Minnesota:
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/businessmanagement/DF6316.html
You guys have let the estate tax argument become . . . something about farmers with millions in assets.
The estate tax is about property rights. If I accumulate ten million or a hundred million legally over a lifetime, why should there be an assumption that the government has a right to spend it or gave it that supersedes my own?
Terry, when that wealth is created with the help of government handouts, subsidies, and cozy contracts, then yes, I’m perfectly comfortable with the government collecting a portion.
But, PeterH, the estate tax is not based on wealth accumulated with the aid government handouts, subsidies, and cozy contracts. Just the amount of cash you have when you die. If it were otherwise the government would take the assets of public employees when they died.
Apparently Terry is one of those guys who thinks all taxes are unconstitutional. For normal people, who accept that the government needs to collect taxes to fund its operations, the question is why the wealthiest should get a free pass while the rest of us have to take on a heavier tax burden.
Terry, farmers are the poster children of the attempt to remove the tax on inherited wealth. As a group, they rely too heavily on government subsidies for me to accept their place in this debate.
“the estate tax is not based on wealth accumulated with the aid government handouts, subsidies, and cozy contracts. Just the amount of cash you have when you die”
“If I accumulate ten million or a hundred million legally over a lifetime, why should there be an assumption that the government has a right to spend it or gave it that supersedes my own?”
does not equal “all taxes are unconstitutional.”
By your grasp of the English language and desire to spend other people’s money I’m going to guess you vote democrat.
“the question is why the wealthiest should get a free pass while the rest of us have to take on a heavier tax burden.”
What in the world are you talking about? Where do they get a free pass? When their alive their already picking up the majority of the income tax burden. Why does the government get to tax assets that have already been taxed just because of a death? Right now the top 25% income earners pay 84% of all income tax. The bottom income for the top 25% earners is 57K. Which means I am in that 25% paying 84% of taxes that you feel isn’t enough. So are you. Is the idea you want to move the tax burden up to the top 10%? Or just have the top 1% pick up the tab for everyone else? Just how much is enough?
“If some chicken farmer’s kid gets a $15 million gift from his parents and has to pay a one-time-only tax on it, tough. Welcome to the working world. He can sell off a piece, if that’s feasible. If not, he can take a mortgage.”
Of course he could. No one is disputing it. The question is why should he? At what point did you decide that all assets are really the property of the government and as such the government gets a piece of something that taxes have already been paid on?
I did not know angryclown was one of those “class envy” types.
Do you honestly think it is good policy to discourage financial success with both a progressive tax curve and a double taxation of the same funds upon death?
Are there any other punishments you wish to inflict upon the rich?
Buzz & Troy-
You guys sound like you expect a reasoned response from someone who has already told you that he is an angry clown.
PeterH-
“Terry, farmers are the poster children of the attempt to remove the tax on inherited wealth. As a group, they rely too heavily on government subsidies for me to accept their place in this debate.”
That’s why the validity of an estate tax that is based on the value of the estate should not be promoted or opposed based on how it affects a certain class of people. Why should a family farm catch a break but not the guy who started with nothing & ended up owning a dozen car dealerships?
Trojan Man asked: “Do you honestly think it is good policy to discourage financial success with both a progressive tax curve and a double taxation of the same funds upon death?”
Quite the opposite, Trojan Man. Since, you knuckleheads love to call the tax on multimillion-dollar estates passed down to well-born heirs and heiresses the “death tax,” think of it this way: Angryclown is simply trying to discourage death.
AC = FAIL.
I know Buzz will get that one.
You are funny, angryclown.
I think angryclown wants to set national tax policy with the goals of 1) avoiding taxes for angryclown, and 2) punishing people who are unlike angryclown. angryclown may think these are OK as personal goals, but they may be a bit shortsighted in a national (or even state-wide) arena.