On January 1, 1808, the importation of slaves into the United States was banned.
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Author: Redactor
A year after the IRS seized their bank account, Terry Dehko and his daughter have gotten their money back, thanks to a lawsuit they undertook with the help of the valiant Institute for Justice.
The IRS had looked at how the Dehkoses deposited revenues from their Fraser, Michigan store and decided, without further inquiry, that they were illegally “structuring” the deposits so that their bank would not have to submit currency transaction reports.
The reporting threshold is $10,000; most of the Dehkoses’ deposits were indeed less than $10,000. However, $10,000 is also the maximum loss that their insurance policy would cover in the event of theft! How hard would it have been to simply ask the reason for the deposit pattern?
Nor did the folks at the IRS ever show evidence of tax evasion or other illegality.
The Dehkoses have their money back. But they’ve lost a year. And lost any profits they might have earned by investing those unavailable funds, as well as any profits they might have earned by spending the time on their business that they instead spent trying to get their money back. Of course, the IRS will not be required to compensate the Dehkos for either psychic pain or lost opportunities.
There’s plenty more wrong with the agency’s conduct than is suggested by this case. At the least, though, it should be illegal to seize bank balances absent any showing of wrongdoing. And IRS officers who perpetrate such arbitrary seizures should be punished.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Samuel Adams
The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.
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Bricked Windows – Dec 31 1695
On December 31, 1695, Englanders received a new tax, a window tax. One of the main responses to this was the bricking up of many British windows.
This last day of the year in 1991 marked the complete cessation of all institutions of the Soviet Union.
New Year’s Eve 1992 saw the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This has been dubbed the “Velvet Divorce.”
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Thoughtful Kindness?
Bumper stickers. Now that’s free speech. Which I love. But that doesn’t mean I love all bumper stickers. Sure, some are cute, funny, occasionally brilliant. Others are just crude.
But my least favorite bumper sticker might surprise you. The bumper strip that ticks me off the most reads:
“Practice Random Acts Of Kindness And Senseless Acts Of Beauty.”
Now, most folks who put this one on their car are nice. They’re thinking about “kindness” and “beauty” — so, I’m certainly not gonna say anything if I see them at the market.
But . . . why waste kindness by doing it randomly? The random implies heedlessness, thoughtlessness. How much better to be provident in kindness, thinking ahead and in context.
Should the purse-snatcher really benefit as much or more from our kindness as the little girl in the neighborhood who is always helping us with our groceries?
Should our lazy, good-for-nothing brother-in-law get what time we have for kindness or should it go to someone who will take our kindness and turn it around into even more kindness?
Now, I’m not suggesting anyone be unkind to anyone. But precisely because practicing kindness is so important — it’s the glue that holds a friendly society together — it is worth taking the time to recognize and reward good behavior. Rather than bad. Or just sticking the dial on “random.”
And how can beauty ever be senseless?
How about a new bumper sticker: “Practice Thoughtful Acts of Kindness and Sensible Acts of Beauty”?
Happy New Year!
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
This installment of Common Sense first aired in November 2006.
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Samuel Adams
The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.
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Freedom Day = Dec 30
Scientologists celebrate December 30 as Freedom Day.
U2 singer Paul David Hewson, best known by his stage name Bono, has come to recognize that capitalism is crucial in lifting people out of poverty in any permanent way.
He now calls institutionalized charity like foreign aid only a “stopgap,” not a basic cure for poverty — an understanding perhaps still too generous, since such aid can prevent needed economic and other reforms and thus help entrench poverty.
In any case, for decades Bono has both raised money from individuals for international charity and chastised government officials whose policies seemed too stingy (in spending other people’s money). Now he is surprised to be touting the pivotal virtues of money-making and entrepreneurship.
“Rock star preaches capitalism. Wow. Sometimes I hear myself and I just can’t believe it. But commerce is real. That’s what you’re about here. It’s real. Aid is just a stopgap. Commerce — entrepreneurial capitalism — takes more people out of poverty than aid. Of course we know that.” (See a clip of these words.)
The rock star’s epiphany came after a TED talk a few years ago by George Ayittey, in which the speaker “made a special effort to rip into the foreign aid establishment,” knowing that Bono was in the audience. When the star came up after the talk to express his disagreement, Ayittey gave him a copy of his ideology-changing book Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Development.
Perspectives unchained by myth and politics are a good idea too.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Samuel Adams
Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.
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December 29, Mongolian independence
On December 29, 1911, Mongolia gained independence from the Qing Dynasty.