I'm a pretty charitible guy (however reluctantly)... by 6ixStringJack

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I'm a pretty charitible guy (however reluctantly)...

POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Tuesday, September 1, 2009 10:33
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Tuesday, September 1, 2009 6:41 AM

Okay... so here's the deal.

I live in a state bordering Lake Michigan.

4 months ago, I still maintained a nice little smoking habit on the cheap, while still procuring the top-shelf smokes.

Kools, Kool XL's, Marlboro, Marlboro Lights, Salems (yech...), Camels, Camel Lights, and even Camel F-ing No. 9's when they were on sale. If it's menthol, no matter how bad the smoke is otherwise, it's all good.

Basically, I'd buy a few smoke shops out of their entire deliveries of promotional smokes whenever I lucked into a stash. Sometimes I'd buy two to three hundred bucks worth of smokes if I got them buy-one-get-one in my state which was relatively cheaper than the neighboring Lake Michigan states.

Up until four months ago, using this method, I was paying right around what I paid per pack when I started smoking 10 or so years ago.

Sadly, as the tax is increased 75 cents in my State today, I am forced to pay nearly 150% of that cost above and beyond the price I was getting. Factor in another 75 cent tax increase last year by the State, a .61 cent increase by the Federal Government, the cigarette companies getting in on the action by raising their prices nearly a buck and the fact that the FDA rules smokes now and the 2-for-1's have been slowly reduced to 2.50 off two packs to 1.00 off a pack to no-deal and I now pay over $6.00 a pack.

This is a recreational pleasure for which about four months ago I paid about 3 bucks a day and now costs me $9.00 a day.

Anyways.... It's going to kids. Supposedly. Here's hoping it actually makes it there and there are better regulations on that then when a guy pays child support for 3 kids and she buys a new car every two years and 4 packs of cigarettes a day on it.

Nice guys finish last.

It's true. Green Day said it.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Tuesday, September 1, 2009 8:31 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Oh, shit, Jack - it's ALWAYS "for the kids". Until times get tough and they need to raid that stash of cash and roll it into the general fund and use it on junkets and vacations - er, I mean "fact-finding missions", right? Then they up the sin tax on whatever ELSE you might like to do in your spare time, and claim THAT'S "for the kids".

'Cause who would ever vote AGAINST the kids?

That's why I quit smoking, to be honest. Fuck 'em. Why pay someone to fuck me over? If I want that kind of abuse, I'll pay a dominatrix!

ETA: You know what's even sadder than that, Jack? At the prices they want for cigarettes now, it's actually not much more expensive to smoke crack or meth. And at least if you decide you want to quit those, you can get a government grant to help do that... How fucked up is that?

[And yes, I'm being snarky and an asshole; I'm NOT advocating smoking crack and/or meth. Drugs are bad, m'kay.]

Mike

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Tuesday, September 1, 2009 10:33 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Meh, I went to alternate sources.

Got no moral qualms about it neither, since it's a malicious misuse of the tax code to enforce the religious morality of a tiny minority on the people as a whole and thus to some degree a violation of the first amendment - as are blue laws.

And every time they use that excuse, they raid the well empty and then turn round and use it again to justify another increase ?

And you think the tax hike on pack smokes was bad ?

1lb Bag of bulk tobacco went from $13.86 to $46.50 ON THE TAX ALONE.

That's a tax of 300% of the product cost itself, ruinously exploitive and usurious, something utterly indefensible from any viewpoint but pure insanity.

I play life by MY rules, wherever and however I can - try to steal from me, I'll rob you blind.
Not only did I arrange my sourcing with folk who gots NO PROBLEM stickin it to the white mans government in fond rememberence of what their fuckin promises are worth, but actively campaigned and twisted arms politically to CUT funding for the program that money was supposed to be going into in every single possible way I could, within a month costing them more funding than a lifetimes worth of robbing me would ever get them.

La Mordida is the act of bribing someone in such a fashion as to make the bribe itself useless to them or dangerous to possess, and those techniques work just as well when the 'bribe' was extracted unwillingly, lemme tell ya.

Push comes to shove, I got a couple of em I happen to be pushing to shitcan the whole program, which of course ain't gonna make em roll back the taxes, it'd take an act of diety for that one - but for DAMNED sure that program ain't never gonna benefit at my expense no matter how supposedly beneficial or valuable it is, cause they tried that shit without the consent of the folks who they'd be robbing for that money.

That tyranny of the majority shit was the trigger for the first civil war here, and I think some day it might be the spark which lights the fuse on the next one - can you imagine if vegetarians managed to slam a 300% tax on meat ?

-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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