DurbWorld

One Couple's Experience with the Honda GX

Steve and Rita Emerson

February 20th 2008

FOR SALE CHEAP….ONE 2006 SLIGHTLY USED HONDA CIVIC GX COMPRESSED NATURAL GAS CAR (CNG).

We really thought we were being the “good guys” when we purchased our CNG car. After all, Honda raved about its performance, gas mileage, and the fact that you could easily refill it in the comfort of your home. Well…that’s not exactly true. Our journey began at the Santa Monica Alternative Car and Transportation Expo in December 2006. On display were many different “green cars” but only a few of which were actually available for purchase. A major Southern California Honda dealer had a fleet of Honda Civic GX’s for sale at the Expo. We were given an amazing sales pitch by their CNG “experts.” A few weeks later we came to the conclusion that buying a CNG car was the right thing to do. Even though we both work at home and drive only a few miles per week, we decided that we would contribute to a cleaner and safer environment by buying a CNG car. Steve went to the Honda dealership and purchased the car. The following day, the car was delivered right to our door by two young, good looking sales people. They treated us like royalty – complimenting us for being such good citizens. They drove off and we never heard from them again. In fact, when things started to go wrong – when we tried to fill the tank for the first time – we were unable to speak to a “real” person at the Honda dealership. We left repeated messages and never received a reply.
We called Honda of North America and they said that we would have to deal directly with the dealership. We were told to drive there and confront them in person. Instead, we went to the “big guns”.
In a nutshell, here is what we experienced:
• We were told by the Honda dealer that we could not get a quote for installing a FuelMaker “Phill” unit in our garage until we purchased the CNG vehicle. We learned later (from FuelMaker) that it is possible to get a quote without an actual purchase.
• The first two FuelMaker installers told us that we could not install the unit in our garage. It would be possible to install it outside the house but we could not find a suitable location. Also, the cost would rise from the Honda dealer’s guess of $1500 inside the garage to $3,000-$4,000 outside the garage.
• The third installer told us that we could easily install the unit in our garage and gave us the paperwork to start the process.
• The Southern California Gas Company refused to issue a permit and stated that the natural gas that reaches our home did not meet CARB standards (i.e., the gas quality is not good enough to fuel our car).
• The Gas Company person in charge of permits for home CNG fueling was rude and abusive and said that there was nothing we could do to rectify this situation.

Problems with the CNG car:
• We have to drive four miles each way to reach the closest CNG filling station.
• The tank should hold 8 equivalent gallons of CNG but we can only fill it to 6 ½ gallons. After refueling, the gas gauge does not register 100% full. The Honda technician who inspected our car told us that the fuel tank will not fill above 85% when a 3600 p.s.i. pump is used.
• The fuel empty light goes on between 80-100 miles. The Honda dealer said we should be able to drive between 200-250 miles before we need to refuel.
• We are averaging around 15-17 miles per gallon – IN A CIVIC!!!!!**
• Fueling at home would cost less than $2.00 per equivalent gallon but the price at the closest filling station averages around $2.60 per gallon.

What to do next:
• Keep the car and deal with all the hassles.
• Trade the car for a Honda Civic Hybrid – one dealer offered us $17,000 trade in (we paid $23,000 new).
• Donate it to an organization and write off the value of the car.

So, as stated above, there are unintended consequences of going green. Perhaps in the future all of the above mentioned problems will be resolved, but in the meantime, we have this decision to make. Early adopters, according to Everett M. Rogers’ “Diffusion of Innovations” theory, are the first people to select a new technology. After these early adopters get the “bugs out” then the majority will follow. Well…these bugs have a nasty sting!

**The car was completely examined by a Honda technician and no problems were found.

Not only is the Ezra video great, there is an interesting post in the comments section:

January 18, 2012
Open Letter to the Congress of the United States
Gentlemen and Ladies:

"The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment." ROBERT HUTCHINS.

Early in my life, I was taught to address the members of Congress as the Honorable Congressman Smith etc. This was a different time and place in American History. I can no longer address this once Honorable body in this respectful tone for there is no Honor with the exception of few esteemed members. The greatest challenge Congress faces is not the economy, not unemployment but an executive intent on rendering the peoples House and Senate impotent-a mere debating society. Your indifference to this power grab by the executive branch is tantamount to the Vichy government sundering its authority to a fanatical dictator. " the government following the military defeat of France by Germany during World War II and the vote by the National Assembly on 10 July 1940. This vote granted extraordinary powers to Pétain, the last Président du Conseil(Prime Minister) of the Third Republic"(Wikpedia).

You did not vote to give the executive branch extraordinary powers, you do not have the courage to stand before the American people and state that congress is sundering the powers of Congress to the executive. Your indifference to the Constitution has allowed this administration to rule by executive order rather than the laws passed by our congress. "I have been up to see the Congress and they do not seem to be able to do anything except to eat peanuts and chew tobacco, while my army is starving"Robert E. Lee. Our people are suffering not from hunger but the loss of freedom. With out blood shed you are the only body that can bring this out of control executive into the confines of the Constitution.

The trite saying that honesty is the best policy has met with the just criticism that honesty is not policy. The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy."(Robert E. Lee.) Where are the leaders of these once esteemed body on this power grab by the executive.? As much as i loathed the polices of Tip O' Neal and Robert Byrd, I assure you that their voices would be raised in unison on the hijacking of Congressional authority by the executive branch. These two men along with many others of their time maintained the separation of the powers as their sacred duty and pity the executive that stepped on the power of the Senate or the House. "We stand passively mute in the Senate today,paralyzed by our own uncertainty ... I can imagine hearing the walls of this chamber ring just before the war between the states ... but today we hear nothing. We are truly sleepwalking through history.?Feb. 12, 2002",(Senator Robert Byrd).

This situation can not be corrected over night but steps can be made to restore the dignity and power to the people representatives, the first step is to address the corruption and incompetence in the Department of Justice. You censored a congressman for stating a truth when he said that Obama lies. Then you allowed Eric Holder to set in the hallowed chamber and lie to the people of the United States. When more honored men set in the peoples seats the howl from both side of the aisle would be deafening, the vibrations of the noise would be felt from the white house to the court houses. Where is your sense of honor? The American people are demanding justice be served on Mr. Holder and the upper echelons of the justice department. The United States congress can not let this man run guns and lie to congress. If your voice is not raised in contempt for these crimes. You are an accessory to crimes committed against the Republic of Mexico and the citizens of the United States How do you feel at night knowing that federal employees were killed by guns supplied by Holder's department, financed with money that you provided? The American people will not let this be buried and forgotten by an apathetic Congress.

"Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief."( Edmund Burke ) .The executive is intoxicated with power and you refuse to follow the constitution and put a halt on the injustice coming from the Justice Department. Your dereliction of duty in this matter is disgraceful and pathetic. Carl Albert, Democrat of Oklahoma, the Speaker of the House, and John J. Rhodes, Republican did not let politics stand in their way and voted to impeach Richard Nixon over a hotel room break in and cover-up. "The first such impeachment recommendation in more than a century, it charges President Nixon with unlawful activities that formed a "course of conduct or plan" to obstruct the investigation of the Watergate break-in and to cover up other unlawful activities.The vote was 27 to 11, with 6 of the committee's 17 Republicans joining all 21 Democrats in voting to send the article to the House."(wipedia). How will history remember you,? As the first congress to surrender American justice to a questionable characters or men and women who stood up and did the right thing?

Your duty is to the people not the party. The majority of the American people are demanding that this man be fired, resign, or be impeached. You may turn a blind eye to the crimes of Holder but the American people will not. How can you claim to be men and women of Honor when you refused to take action. Please show to the world that no man is above the law in the United States of America and force this man to resign or impeach him.
Sincerely Robert Black, without_hate.
Co. signers:

Please copy this letter and send to your representatives. Let them know we will not forget.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little..
The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.
Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
By: Ed Will

"Statecraft and Power:Essays in Honor" by Harold Rood.

An ongoing interesting email between my two friends ("P" and "S"), the latter an economist/business professional:
--------------------------------------------

S-
I'm confused on two points, only one of them yours. You characterize
George Bailey's fractional reserve banking practices as crooked; I thought
the fact banks don't have cash on hand actually equal to deposits is why the
FDIC was needed to prevent bank runs. Do you think his reserve was too
small? Do you find fractional reserve banking with its consequent money
multiplier effect as such objectionable? Was his use of personal funds saved
for his honeymoon to plus up the bank's capital to avert a bank run improper
co-mingling of personal and corporation monies? Or, since George never
mentions a multiplier effect when talking his way out of that bank run, do
you think his crookedness was in failing to be a money multiplier?

The second point is, I've never been clear on where Uncle Billy was headed
with that wad o'cash Potter stole. A bank deposit if memory serves, but-
why? The ran their own bank, why not stash the cash there?

-P
--------------------------

Both are good questions.

First (or second, actually), the Bailey Building and Loan is NOT a Bank. A Bank is a particular type of financial institution; a Credit Union is another; a Savings & Loan is a third; etc. Each has slightly different rules for what they can do with their money. Banks have the greatest leeway; the others have more restrictions. E.g., the Savings & Loan industry collapsed because they were almost entirely restricted to raising money from savings and checking accounts (short-term liabilities) but lending money for home mortgages (long-term assets). When their assets could not cover their liabilities, they were bankrupt.

It is common for financial institutions to hold deposits in other financial institutions. For example, the bank in my small home town in Thornton Iowa likely deposits its excess reserves in a bigger bank in Mason City Iowa. The bank in Mason City likely deposits its excess reserves at a larger Minneapolis bank. The Minneapolis bank likely deposits its excess reserves in the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

As I recall, Uncle Billy was actually in Old Man Potter's bank when he lost the money. He had the cash folded into a newspaper that included a story about George's brother being named a Medal of Honor winner. Uncle Billy gave the paper to Potter to brag about George's brother, and that's when Potter discovered the cash.



Second (or first, actually), fractional-reserve demand-deposit banking is inherently fraudulent. That's WHY there are bank runs.

Let us first distinguish between Demand Deposits and Time Deposits. A Demand Deposit is a deposit that a bank must redeem to the account owner on demand. A checking account is a classic example. Any money you have in your checking account can be withdrawn at any time. All of a bank's demand deposits may be withdrawn by their respective account owners at any time.

A Time Deposit is a deposit that a bank need only redeem at a particular time. A Certificate of Deposit is an obvious Time Deposit. A depositor makes a deposit and agrees not to withdraw the money until a specified maturity date. In exchange for the reduced liquidity, the depositor gets paid a higher interest rate.

Banks are, legally and morally, free to lend out time deposits up to 100% of the deposits. All they need to do is be sure that they have money coming back in before the time deposit matures.

Suppose that Pete deposits $10,000 in a 2-year Certificate of Deposit at the Kjar Bank. I am now free to find projects for which I might not see a return for 1 year and 11 months. I can lend to projects that take longer to generate revenue, as long as they generate revenue before Pete's 2 years are up. He has put the funds in my hand to do with as I please, as long as I give him his principle, plus interest, at the 2-year maturity date. But if I spend the money on myself, knowing that I have no way to pay him back, I am committing fraud. This is the essence of what Bernie Madoff did.

But now suppose that Pete deposits $10,000 in a checking account at the Kjar Bank. I am NOT free to lend this money, because Pete has a legal and moral claim on the money at any time.

HOWEVER, the government that issues the bank charter decides that the bank CAN lend out Pete's money. It declares that the bank needs only keep a fraction of the demand deposit on hand in reserve. Hence, "fractional-reserve" banking.

So I keep $1,000 of Pete's money in the vault, and I lend out the other $9,000. But the very next day, Pete comes in and demands (withdraws) his money. BUT I DON'T HAVE IT ANY MORE!

I have a contract with Pete that says he can have his money back at any time. He has come back for his money, but I cannot pay him. When I lent out the money, I knew that he had a legal and moral claim at any time, and that if he made that claim, I could not fulfill it, despite my legal and moral obligation to do so. That is fraud.

Recall the scene in It's A Wonderful Life when George was stemming the bank run. People said "Where is our money?" and George replied, "I don't have it here. Your money is in Mrs. Smith's house, and Mr. Jones's business."

Now, George is morally free to lend to those people with TIME DEPOSITS as long as he gets paid back before those deposits mature. But DEMAND DEPOSITS are an entirely separate animal. George has taken actions which he knows in advance will prevent him from meeting his legal and moral obligations. This is not fraud by happenstance. This is fraud by design. George Bailey is a crook.

Now, the FDIC seems to be designed to protect depositors ... but it is in fact designed to protect banksters. Before the FDIC, when banksters committed fraud and got caught -- e.g, a bank run proved the fraud -- the outraged townspeople demanded justice from those who committed the fraud. They likely looted the bankster's house, took his clothes, furniture, car, and cash, and then killed him. After the FDIC, the banksters do not get drawn and quartered any more; the FDIC bails them out.

Yep, the FDIC is a protection racket for the fractional-reserve banksters who get caught committing fraud. It saves them from being tarred and feathered, from being flogged, from being hung from the nearest tall tree.

So, yes, Pete is correct. The FDIC is there to protect bank runs. But bank runs only exist because fractional-reserve banking is inherently fraudulent in the first place. Absent the built-in fraud, there would be no need for the FDIC.

And the banksters, like all criminals, KNOW IT. They try to steer you to a money market account instead of a checking account, because a money market account is a time deposit, not a demand deposit. A money market account need not be redeemed on demand. Instead, money market accounts frequently have restrictions on how many withdrawals can me made in a month, what percentage of the total can be withdrawn in a month, etc. These are designed to reduce the chance of the withdrawals exceeding the cash on hand. The fact that people want access to their cash leads the banksters to provide checking accounts, rather than money market accounts, to most customers. But then the bankster just has to commit the fraud by lending it all out, knowing that it could all be demanded the very next day.


So frankly, I am sympathetic to the Occupy folks. In the past, when banksters committed fraud, they were likely to be killed by angry mobs. Today, we have angry mobs because of fraud by banksters -- including the banksters at the Fed. While there is growing violence associated with the Occupy folks, there have been no bankster lynchings that I know of. Perhaps the tree of liberty needs to be refreshed with the blood of tyrants and patriots.

-S

The Goldberg File
By Jonah Goldberg
September 9, 2011

Dear Reader (including those of you who have subjected this gag to floccinaucinihilipilification.)

Obama gave perhaps the best speech of his presidency last night and no one cares (for an excellent recap see this Taiwanese animation).

Maybe I am alone in this, but have you ever noticed that when you watch a recording of a movie -- on a DVR, DVD, Blueray whatever -- and you rewind a scene or even a snippet of dialogue, it suddenly makes whatever the actor is saying seem fake? Watch Don Corleone deliver a great little 30-second speech in The Godfather and then rewind it and watch it again, and suddenly you can see that it's an actor reciting words. The more you do it, the more fully you're removed from the flow of the movie.

Something similar happens for political reporters who follow politicians around on the stump. Once you've seen a candidate give the same speech -- with the same uhs and ahs, the same choked-up moments, the same comedic pauses -- a dozen, two dozen times, it becomes impossible not to grow jaded and cynical about it. You may still like the politician, but the substance of what he's saying fades into the background.

Heck, we all know that if you just say a word over and over and over and over again, it soon starts to sound funny or fake. Quick: say "sponge" twenty times fast.

That's where we are with Obama, I think. He's become an endlessly looped highlight reel. He says the same things, makes the same arguments, uses the same debater's tricks, and can't understand why he's not getting the same reaction he got in 2007-2008.

He's the political equivalent of an aging Vegas crooner who doesn't understand why 25-year-old girls don't still give him their hotel room keys when he sings "Fly Me to the Moon" the way they did when he was 50 pounds lighter and 30 years younger.

The old lines don't work anymore either. C'mon baby, did I tell you that Warren Buffet wants his taxes raised? You've got to dig that.

This has always been an acute problem for Obama because his meteoric political rise had more to do with the dynamics of faddishness than they did with merit or experience. He belonged in the category of Beanie Babies and Justin Bieber more than that of Lincoln or FDR.

It must be very frustrating for Obama, because he seems to think he "delivers" when he gives a good speech. But politicians, even non-faddish ones, aren't like baseball players, who deliver the goods when they get on base or hit a home run. If a good baseball player does the same thing he did last year or ten years ago, he's an all-star. If a politician simply repeats what he did last year, he's in danger of being a has-been.

Obama's speeches get "better" in the same sense that when we talk to people who don't speak a word of English, we think if we say things louder and slower they will suddenly understand English. Rhetorically, he talks louder and slower by simultaneously clarifying and becoming more strident in making arguments he's made a million times before.

Meanwhile, his political operation is like the entourage who tells the crooner he's still got it baby. Work that cowbell one more time.

I think the reason it comes across so glaringly as a performance is that Obama, for all his creased-pants Niebuhrian nuance, is stunningly unreflective about himself. His public persona is nearly always "I meant to do that." So there was no acknowledgment that all of his "new ideas" last night weren't new. No acknowledgement that he tried this stuff before in the stimulus. It's just one more encore of "Fly Me to the Moon."

I should say there have been times where he has admitted fault, but even then it comes across badly. His admissions that "shovel-ready" wasn't shovel-ready (which should have been a scandal) either took the form of a condescending giggle or a report of fact that he assumed everyone else would be surprised by, too. He discovered that "shovel-ready" was b.s., and rather than report this as confirmation that Obama was outrageously learning on the job, the media acted like the man had confirmed the existence of an heretofore unknown atomic particle. Of course we can forgive you for not knowing shovel ready jobs don't exist, the NY Times crowd seemed to say, because we thought they existed too!

All of the other times he's admitted failure, it's been a kind of humble brag. After Scott Brown's election and again after the 2010 "shellacking," he explained his biggest failure was that he, in effect, hadn't sang "Fly Me To The Moon" louder and better with accompanying cowbell. In other words (heh), if only he gave people more Obama, everything would be better. It reminds me of the Campbell Scott character in Singles who thinks if he can just explain that his idea for commuter rail involves providing commuters a really, really good cup of coffee, everyone will understand the genius of his boondoggle.

Yes, I know Obama is trying to "trap" the GOP, and his advisers are moving little pewter toy-soldier versions of Boehner and Cantor on giant maps in the West Wing playroom. But at its core, last night's speech was built around the assumption that all that separates Obama from a second term and greatness is one more really good speech, when the truth is that all that separates Obama from a second term and greatness is Obama.

Switzerland from its founding has always relied on an armed citizenry for its security. Incubators of civic virtue, that's what militias are. Have you never read that Terrifying Second Amendment article I cite so often? How can a polity chock full to the brim with republican virtue fail? Answer: it can't.

The self-serving seeds of failure are weeded out because they can never be bothered to serve the state. The virtuous citizens who remain are exactly that: virtuous citizens
deserving of the franchise.

Read: David C. Williams, Civic Republicanism and the Citizen Militia: The
Terrifying Second Amendment, 101 Yale L.J. 551, 615 (1991)

-- P.G. Szczepanski

From Pete S.

That blog's discussion of the DBB as the "chuck a policy grenade then
throw myself on it to protect the rest of DoD while SECDEF, Congress and
veteran's groups hash out a deal [just as happened in the last two military
retirement reforms]" was very informative. Seems to me there are three
fundamental differences between military service and civilian jobs, even
including hero jobs like police and firemen:

1) War is a game for young men. I am in much better condition than most
48-year-olds and it is very, very hard for me to keep up with an infantry
squad even when I carry a pistol and each of them is burdened with a rifle
or SAW, a mortar round, a few grenades, belts of machinegun ammo, etc. A
military retirement system predicated on military service to normal
retirement ages [65] is a non-starter. As a corollary, a retirement system
that assumes the 20-year man gets a job when he retires makes sense. One
that assumes the 30-year-man, who is between 48 and 52 years old, gets a job
is also sensible, but note the 30-year man is in no position to fund his
401K to financial independence in the working time he has remaining. For
the older crowd, medical attrition and 'up or out' promotion boards start
eating onto our ranks such that we can't count on 30 years... most guys at
my level or higher have some kind of medical issue needing waiver [usually
gravy blood or blood pressure] and the selection rate for COL for line
officers is very, very low, let alone that to progress to flag rank.

2) the vast majority of Soldiers/sailors/airmen/Marines serve one tour
after high school and get out. They are not interested in retirement, they
are interested in service, adventure, learning a skill, maybe some college
money. TSP (Thrift Savings Plan) as it presently exists is the perfect
vehicle for them, especially the single ones who basically have nothing to
do with their pay beyond buying cool rides and electronic toys [ask me how I
know]. The people we need the retirement program for are the lifers, the
guys who stick around to become senior NCOs and officers. Retaining them is
absolutely critical on two levels:

a) they take decades to grow into battalion commanders/brigade and
division staff officers/generals/First Sergeants/Sergeants Major and those
people cannot, cannot be hired as mid-entry off the street. You can hire a
med-level specialty staff officer off the street- a personnel specialist, or
a logistician- but not your operations/tactical/plans S3 or G3 and
especially not the commanders, XOs, deputy commanders, chiefs of staff.
They have to have come up through the ranks to build the experience they
have to have. By the way- most of us are the very same high performers who
do well in- and could be making a lot more money for our families if we had-
civilian careers.

b) in the event of a major war [ie, China, Russia] we cannot have
enough of them as leaders for the mass Army. They take decades to grow at
BN level and higher and must be very, very sharp- and not in their 50s. Our
retirement system SHOULD penalize the officer or NCO who checks out at 8 or
12 or 14 years precisely because they are denying the Republic a potential
senior leader we may desperately need one day.

3) Every time a cop or fireman dies in the line of duty it's front-page news
by name, and their family kissed them goodbye when they went to work that
morning. Our wives spend years at a crack in dread of seeing two guys in
Class As on the doorstep.

So: the ideal retirement system would not penalize the one-term-and-out
crowd for their term of service, would entice NCOs and officers to stay in
for as long as they can hack it medically, physically and skill level, and
would compensate the survivors for the risk of death & maiming in the
Republic's service they endured. What the DPB has proposed here works for
the one-term personnel but fails the lifers at just about every level, and
fails to encourage potential senior leaders to stick with it.

Great editorial on why being "hooked" on news is not far from the truth, ... a "MUST READ" for anyone who can't stand to not listen to the news for more than one day at a time.

It parallels my own thinking on the subject, and echoes what I see in many news junkies: hyped up opinions that are skewed in relation to reality, and causes them to think these factoids help them in some way, when they rarely do.

1. New misleads you systematically
2. News is irrelevant to your personal life
3. News limits your understanding
4. News is toxic to your body
5. News massively increases your cognitive errors
6. News inhibits your thinking
7. News changes the function of your brain
8. News is costly with your time
9. News breaks the relationship of achievement and reputation
10. News is produced by journalists

"Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws. " - MLK, Birmingham Jail Letter

The New York Times’s front page story this week on the New York Police Department and its allegedly racist stop-and-frisk practices follows a well-worn template: give specific racial breakdowns for every aspect of police behavior, but refer to racial crime rates only in the most attenuated of terms. Disclosing crime rates—the proper benchmark against which police behavior must be measured—would demolish a cornerstone of the Times’s worldview: that the New York Police Department, like police departments across America, oppresses the city’s black population with unjustified racial tactics.

This week’s story, written by Al Baker, began with what the Times thinks is a shocking disparity: “Blacks and Latinos were nine times as likely as whites to be stopped by the police in New York City in 2009, but, once stopped, were no more likely to be arrested.” (The fact that blacks, Hispanics, and whites are arrested at the same rate after a stop undercuts, rather than supports, the thesis of racially biased policing, but more on that later.)

The Times’s story includes a graphic breakdown of police stops by race: blacks made up 55 percent of all stops in 2009, though they’re only 23 percent of the city’s population; whites accounted for 10 percent of all stops, though they’re 35 percent of the city’s population; Hispanics made up 32 percent of all stops, though 28 percent of the population, and Asians, 3 percent of all stops and 12 percent of the population. The article details a host of other police actions by specific racial numbers, including arrests, frisks, and use of force.

[....]

Here are the crime data that the Times doesn’t want its readers to know: blacks committed 66 percent of all violent crimes in the first half of 2009 (though they were only 55 percent of all stops and only 23 percent of the city’s population). Blacks committed 80 percent of all shootings in the first half of 2009. Together, blacks and Hispanics committed 98 percent of all shootings. Blacks committed nearly 70 percent of all robberies. Whites, by contrast, committed 5 percent of all violent crimes in the first half of 2009, though they are 35 percent of the city’s population (and were 10 percent of all stops). They committed 1.8 percent of all shootings and less than 5 percent of all robberies. The face of violent crime in New York, in other words, like in every other large American city, is almost exclusively black and brown. Any given violent crime is 13 times more likely to be committed by a black than by a white perpetrator—a fact that would have been useful to include in the Times’s lead, which stated that “Blacks and Latinos were nine times as likely as whites to be stopped.” These crime data are not some artifact that the police devise out of their skewed racial mindset. They are what the victims of those crimes—the vast majority of whom are minority themselves—report to the police.

You cannot properly analyze police behavior without analyzing crime. Crime is what drives NYPD tactics; it is the basis of everything the department does. And crime, as reported by victims and witnesses, sends police overwhelmingly to minority neighborhoods, because that’s where the vast majority of crime occurs—by minority criminals against minority victims.

The Times’s analysis, by contrast, which follows in lock step with the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights, assumes that policing should mirror census data. The only numerical benchmark that the Times provides for the NYPD’s stop data is the city’s population ratios. According to this analysis, since whites are 35 percent of the city’s population, they should be 35 percent of police stops, even though they commit only 5 percent of all violent crimes. But using census data as a benchmark for policing is as nonsensical as it would be to use census data for fire department activity. If a particular census tract has a disproportionate number of fires, and another census tract has none, no one expects the FDNY to send out fire trucks to non-existent fires in the fire-free census tract just for the sake of equal representation.

Property taxes are merely feudal dues under a new name. During the feudal era, a serf owed payment in kind to the feudal lord. The payment was actually a function of the place where the serf lived. Cottage A had certain rights attached to it, such as the right to let 2 cows graze on the commons, and the right to have a garden of 1 acre. That serf would then have to pay the feudal lord with a certain amount of milk, butter, cheese, and vegetables each year. Cottage B came with the right to snare rabbits in the woods, and a 1/2 acre garden. That serf would pay the feudal lord a specified quantity of rabbit meat and vegetables. Cottage C had ... you get the picture. Each cottage came with a set of entitlements and a set of feudal dues.

As long as the serf paid the feudal dues to the feudal lord, the serf could continue to live in the cottage. If the serf did not pay the feudal dues, the feudal lord would kick out the serf and his family, and put in someone else, who now took over those feudal dues.

In that sense, American property taxes are nothing other than a feudal holdover -- just as so much related to American government is a holdover from the feudal British state. The U.S. has 2 houses, a powerful executive, and a judiciary because feudal Britain had 2 houses, a powerful executive, and a judiciary. The U.S. believed in a strong navy but no standing army because the feudal British believed in a strong navy but no standing army. The U.S. generated revenue from tolls and whiskey tariffs because the British feudal generated revenue from tolls and whiskey tariffs. The U.S. has property taxes because the feudal British had feudal dues.

The entire idea of your taxes -- your feudal dues -- somehow enriching you is mere democratic apologetics. Feudal kings and parliaments made few such claims. Kings saw it as the divine right of kings that the serfs and lower nobles should support the crown. Nobles saw it as the natural order that peasants and serfs should support their betters. It was only with the expansion of democracy -- allegedly rule by the people -- that pro-government activists needed to start justifying taxation.

The idea that you should pay taxes because you are better off if your neighbor's kid has an education is specious. You are also better off if your neighbor wears clean socks, because that reduces foot-borne disease; should we add a special broad tax so as to subsidize the purchase and wearing of socks? The logic of broad taxation to subsidize socks for the greater good is identical to the logic of broad taxation to subsidize government (a.k.a., public) education, but I don't hear great call for the sock subsidy.


Income taxes grew out of medieval traveling merchant caravans. The kings and nobles generated their wealth by taxing their peasants via their cottages and entitlements, but the traveling merchant caravans, usually conducted by foreigners, paid no such taxes because they did not live in the tied cottages. Kings and nobles, like any government, demanded that the foreigners pay their fair share.

In reality, these were extortion payments. Merchants who traveled in caravans were generally heavily armed and prepared to fight off brigands and bandits, but they were usually not strong enough to fight off the kings and feudal lords and their armies. Merchant caravans either paid dues to the nobles through whose lands they traveled, or they had to do battle with those nobles. If the nobles won, the nobles would seize the property of the merchant caravan, and then there would be no more trade in the region for many years. These nobles are the source of the term "Robber Barons," so denigrated in the U.S. as a euphemism for capitalists and traders. It is an odd irony of history that the actual robber barons -- real barons who were real robbers -- were attacking the capitalists and traders, and now it is the capitalists and traders who are called robber barons. This twist of language is nearly as bad as the twist that turned liberals from people who preferred individuality and freedom (the historical meaning) to the modern American meaning of soft socialist -- the exact opposite of this historical meaning.

So the income taxes were really a way to tax the merchants who had income, in addition to taxing the peasants, who lived on real property. The kings provided no actual service to the traveling merchants except for a promise not to attack them.

Hence, income taxes were no WW I temporary innovation in Britain. Income taxes had been around for hundreds of years in the form of dues paid by traveling merchants, who were the only people who had an actual income.

In the U.S., the Republicans had been clamoring for income taxes for many years. The Republicans wanted an income tax because they intended to abolish alcohol, and the alcohol tariff was the main source of revenue for the federal government even into the early 20th century. They could not abolish alcohol until they had replaced the revenue, which is why the GOP was pro-income tax.

It also explains some about how Prohibition came about, and why it was repealed. Once the federal personal income tax was fully in place, the Republicans were able to push through Prohibition since they no longer needed the revenue for the federal government. However, when the Depression came along, the federal personal income tax receipts substantially dried up (hah, I'm so punny!), and the feds needed the revenue from alcohol once again. Rather than consume resources fighting alcohol during the Great Depression, the federal government saw an opportunity to re-legalize it and cash in! Had the Great Depression not occurred, Prohibition would likely have remained in place for a long time.

Scott

# posted by Matt and Toni Rings @ 7:10 PM 0 comments

Proposed 28th Amendment: "Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States".


Any of your own?

Subject: Turning the Tide ~ You must hear this message, about our country's future.

Click on the title to be taken to the video.

Hopefully, we will start hearing more messages like this one from our pulpits. It's a start!

A great read, everytime. Such use of logic and language, and those values still hold today: "in War enemies, in Peace friends".

We bear no grudge against any nation we have fought and bested, we even pay for reparations without asking for war monies ourselves. We are no empire, and our Army does not salt the earth of our defeated enemies. We build schools, water wells, hospitals, power plants, roads... Our Army may come, but we come to establish peace and justice.

Thomas Jefferson reading the Declaration of Independence