So I met up with an old friend. We met about 50 years ago and have been in contact since, spending time together as teens doing shit that should have gotten us killed many times over. We talked about the time we bought dynamite from a guy at the quarry and blew stumps in the riverbank. Reminisced about buying .22 ammo at the store for 3 cents each by the bullet. It was a great day when we picked up enough pop bottles to get 20 rounds to go shoot. And yeah, at 10 years old we both had .22 rifles, mine a Western Auto Revelation lever action that I still have, his a single shot Rossi bolt gun, both gifts from our fathers. Sneaking beers, smoking the occasional cigarette or cigar, driving to the store at 12, We both came to the conclusion that we lived the best life, and that the current dumpster fire that is currently America isn't it. We grew up middle class, Dad drove a truck and Mom worked in the cotton mill. We had a nice home and a lot on the river that Dad eventually built a house on. My parents did without to pay extra each month and had that mortgage gone in less than seven years. Somewhere about that time things started changing. Taxes began to increase, first on things like gas and food, then mortgage rates began to climb. Sometime in the 80s, when I had purchased my first home, property tax began to be itemized, showing not just the tax for the property but also a school tax, landfill tax, and administrative fee tax. Car tax went up and the $10 fee to renew my license went to $20. My pay went down because the tax rate increased, not a lot but a little more every few years. Then about 1990 the business license I had went from $10 to $50. I voted against tax increases as did everyone I knew, but it seems they always passed, a penny here for roads, a nickel there for schools. Just the cost of living in a modern society I assumed. About the time I was really starting to take notice of how much of my money seemed to be going to someone else, They banned "Assault Weapons". Now I had wanted an AR for so long it had become a goal in life more than just a "want". I had a Ruger Ranch Rifle, but I really wanted one of those cool black Vietcong killin' picees of plastic and steel. It wasn't to be because some people that made laws decided I shouldn't have it. This was the turning point for me. My parents raised me to be prepared and frugal and to stockpile in case times became hard. Like Mom, I would buy a case of paper towels or 24 cans of soup if there was a good sale. This was different though. This wasn't about prices and taxes going up because things were becoming more expensive, this was about some cheap suit in Washington DC making a rule that denied me my dream of an AR-15 and a bunch of mags! It kick started me into paying attention to politics as much as I hated them. It made me start to see how every damn one of them are self-serving money grubbing thieves elected to offices just so they can find more ways to rob the taxpayers. Since that original "awakening" i has only gotten worse. As Allen and myself talked about things like this, the realization hit home: The thing most of us have been preparing for is already here. It didn't arrive as an asteroid burning across the night sky or Russian troops rolling across I-40 but with our own government slowly making us slaves to enrich themselves. They have done it just like eating an elephant, one bite at the time. A law for this, a tax for that. They have used the schools for indoctrination and are just waiting for our generation to die out. Most of us here are around the same age. When we are gone, our kids and grandkids will have accepted all of this as the status quo. They won't have the memories of being truly free. They are tethered to cell phones and social media instead of bicycles and outdoor adventures and accept whatever they see as the way things should be. When Japan bombed us, kids flooded recruitment centers to fight in the war, and again after 9/11. When any outsider threatens America, we pull together. The politicians have figured this out and slowly attack us from inside, our own people, not a foreigner that we would band together to send back to hell. Like it or not, we are at war. We are slowly being enslaved, our rights chipped away, our wallets being emptied, our freedoms reduced.
Great post Tempstar We are Taxed on everything, things you wouldn't even think of beginning at the county level -state-federal. I keep asking the question here in SC people are moving in like crazy the tax base continues to grow but my property tax just went up 300 bucks on my house and 300 bucks on a piece of property (undeveloped) I hunt. I'd gladly settle for the taxes our founding fathers paid the King it was nothing compared to what we pay now. 70 million people on food stamps and we who work pay for it
I just posted on another forum about this crap ,, only my post was about all of these illegals that have invaded our country under the Obammy and Bedumb era ,,, Obammy brought in ,, at a minimum 70,000 muzzies from Somolia ,,, Bedumb opened the border to anyone that could get here ,, so now ,, about 50% of them are not working,,,, and getting food stamps ,, free housing ,, and spending money ,,, while we work to pay for their free shit. " We " , can't even get all of that. And ,,, they're spitting out anchor babies ,, and the babies are doing the same thing . We are being bred out of existence. I'm just guessing I may only have 10 - 15 yrs left on this dirtpile ,, and the way things are going ,, I'm not sure I want to spend that much time here ,, the longer I live ,, the longer I have to see our country,, the greatest country ever made ,, being pissed away to a bunch of freeloading asshole dirtbags .
True story SB. And there just doesn't seem to be any stopping it. Some powerful people elected to office may try, but ultimately their efforts are thwarted by the courts and by the politicians still too large in number to stop. The rotten apples are embedded so far in to our political and legal systems they're just seems to be no excising enough of them to slow the destructive processes down, let alone stop them. All we can do is vote against them and hope for miracles. Another 4 years of an administration like the last one will doom this country.
Strange...it must be because winter is almost upon us, but I also have been thinking about all this...and more. My greatest bitch right now is Property Tax. How in the Hell can anyone, with the sense that God gave a goose, think Property Tax is fair and just. Furthermore, how in the Hell can the people of North Idaho, who pride themselves on being free and the 'Baston of Freedom,' tolerate this horrible, ludicrous, insane method of taxation. It pisses me off to the point of meltdown. Example #1, currently the housing market is sky high. My home is extremely overvalued as it has gone up 3X what I paid for it...accordingly, so has the taxes. Now, what will happen when the housing market falls? Well, my taxes should fall, correct? Oh no, that is not how it works out because now the County with all this new money has purchased new personnel, new equipment, and expanded and when your taxes should fall with the housing market, they will come back with hat in hand crying out how they must cut fire stations, police, teachers, schools or etc. and even no one I have ever met votes for it, the increases always pass. So, taxes go up and stay up... Example #2 Is it fair after purchasing a small retirement home, with affordable annual taxes, which then triples in value while my revenue stream doesn't triple, that they can seize my home because I cannot afford to pay the tripled taxes? I am not against taxes, but I am against property tax. It's pure Bull$hit and I find it hard to believe it has gone for so long. Reference our wonderful 'government of the People,' isn't it strange that EVERYTHING they have done to make life so damn hard and expensive to succeed, even just to have a bit of freedom, is completely legal... However, everything, and I mean, EVERYTHING Adolf Hitler did was also completely legal...everything. My point is just because it is legal does not make it right. "Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one". - Thomas Paine Think about it. How can it be justified and fair for them to tax my winnings at a casino or the profit I make from gold or stock investments. I took all the risk. I took my own money that I earned, paid tax on it and risked it. It's all on me - yet - the governments get a huge portion of it because...why? They risked nothing, gave nothing and did nothing but get a huge portion if I win. Why? It's the most ridiculous thing, actually stupid, if you think about it... Anything that can benefit me they will ensure to weigh down that benefit. Why? Who the hell are they to get something of mine for nothing? Someday, the American people will finally realize that 'government by the People' is a fairy tale they have been told to gain their compliance for about the last 100+ years of corruption and slow despotic creep towards totally control...which is here. EDIT: No, we cannot vote our way out of this. The enemy is our own government. It is stifling our lives by its size and needs. Yes, a Leftist government is worse than a Right government, but the 'government' is still the problem and the true enemy.
