Re: The Phoenix has landed!

On 5/26/2008 3:50 AM, Robert J. Kolker went clickity clack on the keyboard and produced this interesting bit of text:
TheBicyclingGuitarist wrote:


fnord

Well Bob, IF we find life on Mars, it will help us understand more
about EVOLUTION, and that can have many applications to help not just
this nation but all humanity (provided the religious fundamentalists
don't blow us all to hell first by their craziness). fnord

What does finding life on Mars have to do with national defense or the protection of the rights/property of U.S.A. citizens?

I have no objection to Mars exploration per se. I object to it being tax funded. Taxation is theft and we should have as little of it as national survival requires. Curiosity is not an itch that tax payers should be required to scratch.

Just because you call taxation theft doesn't make it so. So you don't like being taxed. Most people don't. But it's necessary to live in any society. Eliminate taxes and what do you have? You'd end up with a feudal system worse than what Europe had. How many people do you think would pony up their money just to have some asphalt laid at their feet? Or how much money would be given to schools for education? What about the police or military?

In 2007 NASA's budget was less than $16 billion. The total U.S. budget for 2007 was $2.8 trillion. The military alone consumed nearly $700 billion in 2007. NASA is least funded agencies in the U.S. yet has provided more return in terms of the GNP than any other agency in the U.S. government.

So you don't like paying taxes. Go ahead, move someplace where you don't have to pay them. Oh, wait, there isn't any place like that. Well, there are places you could go where the government wouldn't find you to so you would be forced to pay them. But I'll bet you wouldn't like it. But then you'd be feeding off the contributions of everybody else who paid taxes.

Theft is an illegal act. In the U.S. the government is given specific permission to levy taxes. This makes it legal.

--
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so, Brain! But is Chippendale's ready for 'The Full Pinky?'"

.

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