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2022 January 14
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"If a government were trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of a population, what would it do?
1. The use of indirect rather than direct taxes, so that the tax is hidden in the price of goods.
2. Inflation, by which the state reduces the value of everyone else's currency.
3. Borrowing, so as to postpone the necessary taxation.
4. Gift and luxury taxes, where the tax accompanies the receipt or purchase of something special, lessening the annoyance of the tax.
5. “Temporary” taxes, which somehow never get repealed when the emergency passes.
6. Taxes that exploit social conflict, by placing higher taxes on unpopular groups.
7. The threat of social collapse or withholding monopoly government services if taxes are reduced.
8. Collection of the total tax burden in relatively small increments over time, rather than in a yearly lump sum.
9. Taxes whose exact incidence cannot be predicted in advance, thus keeping the taxpayer unaware of just how much he is paying.
10. Extraordinary budget complexity to hide the budget process from public understanding.
11. The use of generalized expenditure categories to make it difficult for outsiders to assess the individual components of the budget." |
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2022 January 13
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"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder
respectable, and to give the appearance of solidarity to pure wind." |
"The state spends much time and effort persuading the public that
it is not really what it is and that the consequences of its actions
are positive rather than negative." |
"If you cannot convince them, confuse them." |
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2022 January 12
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"In times of universal deceit,
telling the truth will be a revolutionary act." |
"For it is a habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for,
and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy." |
"Truth always rests with the minority,
and the minority is always stronger than the majority,
because the minority is generally formed
by those who really have an opinion,
while the strength of a majority is illusory,
formed by the gangs who have no opinion --
and who, therefore, in the next instant
(when it is evident that the minority is the stronger)
assume its opinion ... while Truth again reverts to a new minority." |
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2022 January 11
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"Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress." |
"The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under
the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist
program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without
knowing how it happened." |
"The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie -- a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days -- but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please." |
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2022 January 10
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"A fondness for power is implanted, in most men,
and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired." |
"Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges."
"(The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.)" |
"We now have so many regulations that
everyone is guilty of some violation." |
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