Protection racket

A letter from a Carson City reader in the Oct. 15 Review-Journal reports the lady is going to vote for Harry Reid because tax-cutter Sharron Angle has never done anything for her, while "Several years ago ... three days before Thanksgiving, the IRS threatened to take our house away" over a paltry $3,000 tax obligation, but when they contacted Sen. Reid "his office resolved the problem for us" in short order.

This testimony is particularly convincing because during all his long political career, Sen. Reid has tried again and again to repeal the federal income tax, de-fund the IRS, simplify our federal tax regulations, curb that agency's extraconstitutional powers and extralegal procedures (For starters, ever wondered why the back of their bank account levy forms start their citation of the empowering statute with paragraph "B"? Surely it's not because paragraph "A" says Congress has authorized them to use this tactic only against federal employees, do you think?) and slash federal spending so revenues from the personal income tax would no longer be needed, whereas Sharron Angle every year has voted in Washington to fully fund the IRS, to re-authorize and even enhance their Draconian powers, to gleefully spend every penny the IRS collects and more, and this summer even voted to fund 16,000 new IRS agents by pushing through Obamacare ...

Oh, wait. I have that backwards, don't I? Yes I do. It's Harry Reid — the fellow who reportedly "saved" these loyal Carson City Democrats by allowing them to kneel down, kiss the IRS's hand, and pay every penny of fraudulent assessment the taxmen had levied against them — it's Harry Reid who every year re-authorizes and fully funds these extraconstitutional, law-ignoring bandits, and who this summer rammed through Obamacare with its 16,000 new IRS agents to collect a round trillion dollars in new taxes by negotiating one crooked deal after another (Louisiana Purchase, anyone? Cornhusker Kickback?), while it's Sharron Angle who's spent her career trying to limit or reduce taxation, isn't it?

Sen. Reid "saved" the loyal letter-writer's house? Why did it need "saving"?

Under the circumstances, "thanking" Harry Reid for playing middleman in a deal to pay off the IRS is like urging everyone to vote for the Mafia for U.S. Senate in a gesture of thanks because every week you've paid your protection money to the Mafia, and every week the Mafia has generously stepped in and stopped their own hired thugs from burning down your house.

Meantime, the letter writer just by coincidence picks up another talking point from Sen. Reid's recent scurrilous ad campaign, criticizing Sharron Angle because the husband with whom she has 10 grandchildren is drawing a pension from the BLM.

This is akin to the standard sneering criticism of Libertarians: "Oh, you're against taxation. But I see you drive on the tax-funded roads, don't you?"

Gosh, you know, you're right. What a hypocrite I've been. In order to stay true to my principles, I should drive on the parallel network of toll streets that you've been allowed to be built right next to your "free" tax-funded streets and roads. Once I begin doing so, I'm sure you've set up a method which will allow me to avoid the excise taxes that fund your "free" streets and roads each time I buy tires or gasoline, since I'm driving to work exclusively on the private toll roads, haven't you? In fact, could you hand me a map of that parallel system of privately owned, toll streets and roads you've allowed to be built to give me this choice?

In fact (at least until recently), the tire and gasoline excise taxes have been amongst the LEAST objectionable common taxes, since at least their proceeds are (or were) targeted directly to fund roads used by tire and gasoline purchasers. Nonetheless, statists love to set up a system where you have no choice but to participate in their collectivist schemes, and then criticize you for taking part under protest, when your only other option would be to go live in a cave ... until the IRS and the "property tax man" found you.

Other than possibly Barack Obama, which human being on the face of the earth would have the most power to shut down and de-fund the federal Bureau of Land Management? What human being on the face of the earth would have the best ability to threaten to hold up funding for the BLM until they agree to pack up their tents and leave Nevada, turning the lands they "supervise" back to the state and its people? Harry Reid, of course. Has he ever tried to do that? Of course not! Harry Reid — who will soon be collecting his own whopping federal pension, win or lose — LOVES the BLM. He LOVES for it to be huge and powerful. He GLEEFULLY votes for the BLM to pay huge salaries and pensions unknown in our private sector. And now he wants to criticize Ted Angle for going to work for an agency that Sen. Reid happily funds to the hilt every year?

The federal government, in violation of the Constitution (which requires the federals to purchase any land they want within one of the several states, and to do so by permission of the STATE — not territorial — Legislature), controls 87 percent of the land mass of Nevada. (It used to be 85 percent, before Harry got to work.) Kind of hard to do much of anything hereabouts without brushing up against the federals.

And whose fault is that?