netstack
Texas is freedom land
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User ID: 647
netstack
Texas is freedom land
9hr ago
Those import taxes were more like a combination of tariff policy and bailouts, propping up British tea and coffee growers using the American colonies. They were part of a broader pattern of extractive rule. Whether or not it was a good deal, British policy had a way of trampling the colonial ego.
I’m curious about those 1-2% numbers. Are they something like percent of household income? I think the impact was concentrated on shipping interests, which played a much larger part in the pre-industrial economy.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
10hr ago
Do a partial exit strategy where you sell off any gains?
I’m saying this as someone who lacks such a hoard. I imagine I’d feel different in your position.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
12hr ago
5% isn’t little. It’s 10x the prison population. It’s an entire state’s worth of taxpayers. Yeah, the IRS would lose its shit.
But that’s kind of beside the point. I really do believe there would be fewer and smaller protests if this wasn’t treated as a referendum on Donald Trump. People turn out to signal their tribal loyalty in a way they don’t do for abstract, bureaucratic causes. Every incident gets him a nice headline for his base and half a dozen headlines claiming he’s a fascist. That’s good for his personal brand, but it does nothing for effective governance.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1d ago
Can’t speak for the OP, but this is more or less my position.
I would like government policy to align with its stated goals. I also prefer the stated goal, enforcing America’s borders, to most of the plausible alternatives. And I would most definitely like our law enforcement agencies to be “more lawful” in exercising their goals. Laws are what separate us from animals and dictators.
We ask the government to do all sorts of nasty things in service of a more perfect Union. Then we soften the blow by adding constraints. This turns imprisonment, conscription, taxation into routine and predictable processes. Border control ought to be routine and predictable, too.
Trump doesn’t play that game. Routines and constraints are means to an end. It makes him less effective, and it gives his enemies more ammunition. I wish he wouldn’t.
Immigrants Georg is an outlier who should not be counted.
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