"Video evidence, police instructor Richard Weinblatt wrote, "should actually be welcomed, as the majority of officers do what they are supposed to do and thus will be cleared by the video from any allegations of wrongdoing." What does it say then that members of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) have reportedly tampered with audio recording equipment?
...The Los Angeles Times reports that LAPD chief Charlie Beck found out about the issue last summer but chose not to try to track down the vandal cops. Instead, according to the Times, the department issued general warnings that cops should not "meddle" with the equipment. The Police Commission, an oversight body, blew the whistles on the apparent malfeasance this week, but Beck denied any wrongdoing, claiming that his failure to notify the Police Commission about the problem earlier was simply "unintentional." The lack of interest in identifying the officers who effectively destroyed city equipment certainly contributes to the impression that police officers in the U.S. are not held responsible for wrongdoing."
"The tax code is now complex enough that most Americans now hire Bob, or his equivalent. Instead of inventing things, doing charity work or just having fun, we waste weeks (and billions of dollars) on tax preparation. And we change our lives to suit the wishes of politicians. "What the tax code is doing is trying to choose our values for us," complains Yaron Brook from the Ayn Rand Institute. I think I choose my own values, but it's true that politicians use taxes to manipulate us. Million-dollar mortgage deductions steer us to buy bigger houses, and solar tax credits persuaded me to put solar panels on my roof...
While freedom lovers complain about the byzantine complexity of the tax code, the politically connected tout their special breaks. The National Association of Realtors runs TV ads showing Uncle Sam offering first-time homebuyers an $8,000 tax break, while sleazily winking at the viewer. The tax code oddity that may have the most destructive influence on America might be the fact that if you buy private health insurance, you pay more tax than if your employer buys you a plan. It's why we ended up with a sluggish health care market unresponsive to individual desires—leading to the insistence that we need a government-managed alternative like Obamacare. The code is incomprehensible. You can get a deduction for feeding feral cats but not for having a watchdog, for clarinet lessons if your orthodontist thinks it'll cure your overbite but not for piano lessons a psychotherapist prescribes for relaxation. It seems so arbitrary...
Government gets moralistic about it, too, placing "sin taxes" on items like cigarettes and fat, plus luxury items like yachts that some find decadent. It's gone on for centuries. American colonists seem libertarian by today's standards, but they put extra taxes on snuff and "conspicuous displays of clothing." That's one thing the Founders did that we shouldn't copy—but their otherwise rebellious attitude toward taxation is one that we should emulate. America suffers when government turns taxes into a manipulative maze."
"Saginaw County, Mich., sheriff defends his acquisition of a land mine-resistant armored personnel carrier from the Pentagon by warning of contingencies that haven’t happened, mentioning the end of the world, citing fears of a military takeover and using “a robot voice.” The 7,000 people of Washington, Iowa, are also now protected by one of the vehicles, which were designed to resist improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan."
No comments:
Post a Comment