Trump's taxes

There are 4 possible Libertarian takes to have with the news of Trump's taxes being released. You can use as many of these as you like.

1. "Taxation is theft, and Trump was smart to cheat on his taxes and get away with it. However, if he can get away with it, then as long as he is President he should pardon everyone else accused of tax fraud."

2. Taxation is the price we pay for a strong, civilized nation. Trump broke the law by cheating on his taxes and belongs in prison.

3. Trump did not cheat on his taxes at all. He is just so incompetent at business that he really had no income to report.

4. Trump's companies took advantage of overseas tax shelters. The tax code should be reformed so that businesses can't use this loophole. 

The lockdowns weren't going to work

 Have you all noticed that the more the COVID-19 virus spreads, the fewer restrictions are in place? When less than 100 people in the entire state were infected, all the schools, bars, and restaurants were shut down. Only essential workers were allowed to commute, everyone else was only allowed out to buy food.

Now there are over 100,000 cases in Indiana and the restaurants that haven’t gone out of business are allowed to operate at full capacity.

The lockdowns were never going to work. There were loopholes that some businesses were able to exploit, and there were individuals who just didn’t take the threat seriously. If AIDS couldn’t scare young people into celibacy, COVID-19 wasn’t going to stop college students from partying either. Almost every elected official has been to college, so you’d expect them to know how a frat brother’s brain works (it often doesn’t work at all). Any policy that requires 100% public compliance to succeed is doomed to failure.

We all knew, or should have known, that the pandemic was going to be a marathon and not a sprint. If staying at home for 14 days was all it took to stop the virus, we would have moved on by now. In hindsight, a governor had two choices: A)wreck the economy and fail to stop the spread of the virus or B) not wreck the economy but keep the public warned about the threat that the virus poses. The virus is going to spread in either scenario. Many politicians are tempted to choose Option A because it makes it look like they are taking harsh measures to stop the threat. But if the threat can’t be stopped, the harsh measures only make things worse.

In times of crisis when nobody is sure what to do, governments should err on the side of freedom and individuals should err on the side of caution. You probably shouldn’t go out tonight, and you know this. But if you need to go out for supplies, or even if sitting around the house all week has taken a toll on your mental health, the government shouldn’t try to stop you from going out.

More nonsense about "wasted votes"

Both Democrats and Repubilcans will act like you are wasting your vote if you vote Libertarian. It seems that Progressives have been exceptionally vocal about this recently. Some might think it’s because they lost two very close elections within the past 20 years. I suspect that many Progressives would rather that I vote for Donald Trump than Jo Jorgensen. They could be going after US citizens who never vote, but instead they are coming after me. The reason is that Libertarians don’t quite fit into their Manichean narrative. If I can’t be on their side, they want me on Trump’s side. For the Democrats to be the heroes, they need Trump to be the villain. Without that villain, what reason would we have to support them? A cult fears skeptics more than they fear Satan. If you don’t buy into their fairytail, it starts to unravel. To be sure, at least some Republicans have stopped pretending to be the good guys. But Progressives would rather live under Trump for another 4 years than have a Libertarian elected to any state or local office. They want to ignore us but they can’t stop talking about us.

On Cuties

 

There is a movie on Netflix that a lot of people are upset about called Mignonnes. It is a highly acclaimed French film starring many young French actresses. The film is being marketed in the US as Cuties.

Let’s get the easy part out of the way. I am not a Netflix subscriber, and this movie does not appeal to me. I have no intention or desire to watch it. It also not my intent to defend Netflix. They have their own PR department. It is my understanding that this film does not contain child porn. Since I have zero intention of watching this film, I have no way of verifying that. I’m guessing that there is some poor FBI agent who has to watch this type of shit to see if the government can make a case against whoever made it. Since the movie was made in France, it’s highly unlikely that anyone involved in making this movie will see the inside of a US courtroom.

I did see the trailer, and it brought to mind the pageant scene in Little Miss Sunshine. But Little Miss Sunshine was comedy, and not porn. Is Cuties meant as comedy? Who can tell when it came from a country that thinks Jerry Lewis is funny?

The movie is not controversial in France. The movie was seen over there for some time before it was seen over here. What seems to have sparked American outrage is Netflix’s marketing. I think this marketing was calculated to provoke outrage so that it would generate free publicity for the film. This type of marketing has worked for movies like Dogma and The Interview. Harry Potter skyrocketed into popularity in part because evangelical Christians denounced it as promoting witchcraft. All these folks have been sharing this image of these girls in their dance outfits so that I keep seeing it in my timeline. They are like “LOOK! LOOK HOW OFFENSIVE THIS IS!” We’re going to find out if the calculation pays off: if Netflix doesn’t remove the film, it might be because they are gaining more subscribers than they are losing.

If God forbid, you actually see child porn online, you can report it here. https://www.missingkids.org/gethelpnow/cybertipline Do NOT save it or share it with others. But if you see something that doesn’t fit the legal definition of porn, all you can really do is watch something else.