Hot damn!, via Hot Air. I’m totally a fan of this guy: a wonkish chap who serves up a pure stream of liberty-oriented thinking with dry, understated humor. Probably there would be some of the usual politician ego (UPE) in him somewhere, but one suspects you’d have to look harder than in most people to discover UPE in him.
I admit that I have not read his book, Seize Freedom for two reasons:
Following up on California’s blunderheaded Internet sales tax — motivated by “typically short-sighted, money-grubbing desperation,” says the Orange County Register — I found this video in which Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos explained why this tax is not merely idiotic, but unconstitutional:
What it is, really, is an attempt by state governments to impose a tariff on goods sold by out-of-state mail-order vendors, thus usurping the power to regulate interstate commerce, which the Constitution specifically delegates to the federal government.
Whether individual customers order by mail or over the Internet, the transaction is the same, and there is extensive legal precedent that out-of-state mail-order vendors cannot be compelled to collect state sales taxes on such transactions.
What California authorities are trying to claim is that the California-based operators of Web sites which have affiliate programs with Amazon (or other online vendors) constitute a resident “nexus” that permits the state to collect sales tax. But this claim is demonstrably absurd.
The Amazon links on my blog are merely advertisements, for which I collect a (small) commission based on the sales generated by readers clicking through. California’s argument is like saying that, if a magazine based in New York published an advertisment for a Texas-based mail-order company, this advertisement constitutes a basis for making the Texas company collect New York sales tax.
A person who clicks on an Amazon ad might be in Florida or Oregon, so why does the fact that the Web site operator resides in California create a basis for collecting California sales tax on what would otherwise be a mail-order transaction exempt from state income tax?
Rebecca Madigan, Executive Director of the Performance Marketing Association, stated, “The devastation is immediate, because the law went into effect upon signing. We tried to communicate to the Governor that this bill would only lead to dramatic income loss of small businesses and job loss, and he signed the bill anyway.”
Similar legislation has been proposed in numerous other states, only to be rejected because those elected officials recognized these proposals do not generate any additional sales tax revenue and, in fact, harm small businesses. When out-of state retailers stopped advertising on in-state websites, the states collect no new sales tax, and in fact lose income tax revenue.
While the shutdown of thousands of California affiliate accounts was a drastic measure, Bezos was right to do what he did because if he didn’t, every other state would be tempted to try the same unconstitutional tax scam. By putting the economic power of his company decisively in the balance against this scam, Bezos is doing all he can to encourage the repeal of the California law and prevent other states from dogpiling.
Meanwhile, smart people in California are doing the only thing smart people in California can do: Get the hell out of California!
One affiliate, Ken Rockwell of San Diego, the owner of a 12-year-old photography website, said he planned to move out of state. “Will it be Las Vegas or Scottsdale or Ensenada?” he said. “It’s a question of where, not if.”
“As a Pagan I can tell you that I, like many others, strongly support economic freedom, limited government, a strong nationals defense and law and order. Many Pagans are also pro-life, anti-drug and pro-traditional marriage. Should Pagans be turned away because they aren’t Christians?
“The Pagan Right is a vigorous defender of conservative values and classical liberalism in an arena that few other conservatives have access to. It is time the movements were linked together so that both are strengthened.”
Taylor’s argument was highly unusual, advocating a policy unlikely to yield much in the way of electoral addition, as it seems to me Democrats have a pretty solid hold on the idolators of Moloch and Ashtoreth who, as Lisa Graas noted, are not particularly numerous in America anyway.
Readers can perhaps imagine my surprise today when Donald Douglas called my attention to a diary that Rob Taylor posted at Red State:
The Death of Morality and the End of America
. . . The left has long embraced the view that our morality was not only subjective, but a barbarous relic of the past best left behind like all the other great and noble ideas of Western Civilization. The left has promoted the myth that others have no right to judge you no matter what you’ve done, that you should feel no shame no matter how depraved your actions are. And all Americans have to one extent or another embraced that notion. We wallow in our pens of decadence covered in the filth we pretend is freedom and watch the world built on 5,000 years of Western morality burn around us. . . .
Gov. Jerry Brown has signed into law California’s tax on Internet sales through affiliate advertising which will immediately cut small-business website revenue 20% to 30%, experts say.
The bill, AB 28X, takes effect immediately. The state Board of Equalization says the tax will raise $200 million a year, but critics claim it will raise nothing because online retailers will end their affiliate programs rather than collect the tax.
Amazon has already emailed its termination of its affiliate advertising program with 25,000 websites.
In essence, Amazon has “gone Galt” rather than submit to California’s Internet tax. The immediate victims? California bloggers like Donald Douglas at American Power.
For the benefit of anyone too stupid to understand why the California Internet tax is a bad idea: All the revenue from sales commissions to California’s 25,000 Web site operators who had participated in the Amazon Associates program was taxable as income.
Now? Zero income. And also zero sales.
Ergo, nothing to tax.
It is astonishing to see how California, where venture capitalists once made Silicon Valley the world capital of technological innovation, has now turned anti-capitalism, anti-technology and anti-innovation, driving the world’s largest Internet retailer out of America’s most populous state.
The business world is abuzz over the National Labor Relations Board’s complaint vs. Boeing’s new South Carolina production line. For NLRB critics, the case boils down to one thing: “right-to-work” laws. Right-to-work states have generally lower unemployment, higher job growth, lower taxes and better business climates. They have growing populations and have been attracting businesses from other states.
In most states, once a workplace is unionized, employees are required to join the union or they can’t work there. But 22 states, including South Carolina, have passed laws that give employees the right not to join. Hence the term “right-to-work.”
The Pledge of Allegiance is a simple, yet ironic litmus test in contemporary America. Protein Wisdom notes that the Pledge, designed to bring Americans together, is divisive.
And who is rejecting this pledge? Is it those who want to preserve liberty?
Why, no. No, it’s not. The people rejecting the Pledge are those who would take liberty, binding Americans together with laws, to quote Zappa
. . .carefully described in tiny paragraphs, so as not to conflict with the Constitution . . . which, itself, is being modified, in order to accomodate The Future!
When a Progressive gripes about the pledge, it’s just another superficial attempt by liars to distract from their subterfuge. I think they seriously believe people are stupid, sheepish, and incapable of seeing through the distraction offered.
It would probably be funny, if not so corrosive and threatening to the moral fiber of the country.
President Obama’s press conference performance Wednesday caused me to declare that there was no prospect for bipartisan cooperation. This morning on MSNBC, it caused Time magazine’s Mark Halperin to be even more blunt:
“Do we have a seven-second delay? I want to characterize how I thought the president behaved. . . . I thought he was kind of a dick yesterday.”
Unfortunately for Halperin, an inexperienced assistant producer on the Morning Joe program failed to hit the “bleep” button, so that Halperin’s comment was broadcast to hundreds of thousands of MSNBC viewers. Halperin immediately apologized, but was suspended “indefinitely” from further MSNBC appearances.
Ed Morrissey quips: “It was a dumb remark, but if MSNBC suspended everyone who made dumb remarks on their channel, they wouldn’t have any hosts left.”
Halperin’s resort to locker-room language may be regrettable, but “kind of a dick” is really rather a mild criticism of Obama’s outrageous assertion that Republicans are “willing to compromise your kids’ safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break.”
Halperin’s remark is all the more regrettable in that it distracts from Obama’s comment, which was as false as it was offensive.
In candor, I don’t much care that Halperin sides with the right over the left, and takes cheap shots at Democrats. I care that Halperin is presented to the public as a neutral, even-handed expert, when that’s plainly not the case. . . .
Forget Halperin’s choice of words, and instead consider the argument he and his “Morning Joe” colleagues were pressing. They were annoyed, apparently, because President Obama wasn’t docile and conciliatory during his press conference. He showed some backbone, and this seems to have troubled the political establishment to no end.
Note that, in Benen’s worldview, “show[ing] some backbone” means accusing political opponents of bad faith. Would Benen praise a Republican for having “shown some backbone” if the situation were reversed and John Boehner had made a similar accusation of mala fides against the president? No, he wouldn’t.
Benen expects Democrats to employ class-warfare rhetoric, and expects liberal journalists to praise Democrats who do so. And while Halperin is a liberal in good standing, his accurate assessment of Obama’s press-conference performance — which was off-putting, in that the president seemed peevish and petulant — permits the Left to renew their bizarre claim that the media has a right-wing bias.
I’m sure oh-so-responsible MSNBC kept every host and correspondent from saying “teabagger,” right? … No?
Good point: In what sense is “dick” more offensive than “teabagger”? MSNBC has lowered the standards of discourse, but arrogates to itself the authority to decide just how low the standards should be.
