The Ditzy Dane

I did some work this week for a Danish company here in the U.S.A. While working I met one of the big wigs running the place. I told him how I would love to visit Copenhagen and the rest of his beautiful country. Now, he has no idea who I am or what I stand for. For some reason he went into a diatribe of how wonderful the tax system in Denmark is.

"In Denmark we have a 32.5% average county / municiple tax, a 42% capital gains tax, a 51.5% income tax on income over $67,600 equivalent American dollars, an 8% social tax, a gift tax of 36.25% on gifts over $3,500 equivalent American dollars... but we pay these taxes with happiness. Everybody gets free medical care, free mental health care, paid when unemployed, free this, free that..." OK, the free this and that are my words. I just could not keep up with all the this and thats!

He went on to say that, "You can find rich people in Denmark, but not like in the U.S. We have a system that is fair to everyone."

I couldn't believe my ears. "Free", he said.

I made one simple statement, " Free? How is it free? You pay for it."

"Yes, but how do you design a system that is fair to everyone?" He walked away.

The look on his face was priceless. It was as though he knew for the first time that all these things he listed as free, were not free afterall.

This would be a good lesson to anyone who thinks that anyone can give you something for free with one hand while picking your pocket with the other.

What the Danes have, and what we have, is a system that provides freebies to those who do not contribute from the labor of those who do contribute. Contrary to what the Ditzy Dane said, it isn't free to anyone.


In such a system the only way to ensure that there is fundamental fairness is to somehow guarantee that every citizen is working his hardest all the time for the same pay as every other citizen. This is impossible and unreasonable because there will always be those who don't try, who don't care, and want to game the system. That's right, there will always be folks who have no problem with being lazy of body and brain because they know laws will be written to support their lazyness. There will also be politicians in government who will impose taxes on "the little people" while exempting themselves or outright cheating on taxes because they somehow believe they are special. Two recent examples of this are Charlie Rangle http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/22/rangel-charged-ethics-violations/ and John Kerry http://www.examiner.com/x-53980-Boston-Conservative-Examiner~y2010m7d24-John-Kerrys-Yacht-and-Taxachusetts . Both of these men love taxation  as a means to forward the Progressive Liberal agenda. They just don't believe those taxes should apply to themselves.

What kind of system would be fair? Simple. Everyone plays by the same rules, the same tax rates, and the same laws. There cannot be a system that penalizes ability and industry for one group, yet rewards sloth, mediocrity, and dull brained thinking for another.

Coddling the lazy isn't fair. When you hear a politician talk of fairness for the less fortunate, hang on to your wallet.

One of the most dangerous things in the world is a politician talking about helping people. Everyone who reads this knows people who would rather sit on their butts and wait for someone to come along and hand them something for free. Problem is, it isn't free even to them either. Those who are coddled are enslaved as much by government as those who pay the bills. The coddled are stuck in a system that constantly tells them to wait for help, to wait for a handout, to wait for government compassion. They are told they are needy, unable to survive on their own, incapable of improving their lives themselves. Many buy into it. Many remain enslaved upon the government plantation their whole lives. They wait around for the crumbs that fall from the master's table.

Some say that ever higher tax rates that rob from the productive to give to the unproductive is cruel. No doubt it is.

More cruel is robbing someone of their spirit. Convincing people that they must remain dependent upon the grace of government, that they are incapable of bettering their own lives, and that they must forever be beholden to massa gubmint for all they have or will be is cruelest of all.

Our government should be ashamed of itself for this. We should be ashamed of ourselves if we ever believed it.

African slaves may have been freed as a result of the civil war. It took folks like Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Bains Johnson, Barak Hussien Obama, and a cast of useful idiots to enslave us all.

Break the chains of tyranny. Refuse the crumbs of government. Refuse to help your overseers. Do it on your own. That is the only fair way.