elpasospeak

My distinguished elder M. T. Cicero hints that he thinks the posts this week were a bit heated.

Out of respect for his feelings I offer today’s post.  However I must wonder if we don’t have the pot calling the kettle black with him feigning fear of Brutus’ knife after he had the allegedly traitorous Cataline conspirators strangled, thus putting Roman citizens to death without a trial.

Some would say that Brutus simply imposed term limits on Caesar, the “dictator for life”.

Enough.

Is the Internal Revenue Service a service?  The guys at Oxford define it here.  Some would say that common usage makes it so.  Once again, precedent does not make principal.

Try calling the IRS.  They do have 800 numbers after all.  Tell them that you don’t think you want their service this year.

Then make room for the auditors.

We all know what they are.

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

The financial community spent some time this week looking at Walmart’s potential liability relative to possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.  Some have come to believe that Walmart will probably be put in a position where they have to pay a substantial fine to the United States.

We see a lot of fine paying today.  The problem that I have with it is that you and I (the consumers) are in reality the ones paying the fine.  The Department of Justice or the Securities Exchange Commission or some other agency wrestles a company to the ground and gets them to cough up a large sum of money for some sort of wrong doing.  The company pays the fine as though it is simply a cost of doing business.  The cost of doing business gets passed on to the consumer.

If our government wants to punish wrong doing it should not involve money that consumers end up paying.  Charge the stockholders?  That could be more fair in that they are the ones that hired management.  Sanction the company?  Maybe the government should negotiate a settlement where the company or the individuals involved  cannot participate in some activity for a period of time.  Fine the individuals?  That could be an option.  Put people in jail?  If humans can be proven to have broken the law, maybe so.  The problem with jail terms is that the government does not fight fair and many simply plead guilty to some lesser charge because they feel they cannot win against the government.

The problem with these fines is that you and I end up paying them.  That to me is just another form of tax.

I am not talking about reimbursement here.  If a company does financial harm to an individual or another company reimbursement may be in order, as long as the reimbursement goes to the party that was harmed.

The government now is little different than a bounty hunter.  They want the money.  Justice in government circles is pronounced “Just Us”.

We deserve better.

Voters in Colorado and Washington states passed measures to allow the recreational use of marijuana this Tuesday (Nov. 6, 2012).

Now evidently they expect a fight with the federal government since this would apparently be against federal law.  Based on the number of federal employees who make their living dealing with this, I suspect that indeed there will be a fight.

Putting aside the argument about whether marijuana should be legal or not, I do not see how this should be a federal issue.

States should be allowed to have their own policies on issues that are not clearly authorized to be federally controlled.

Possessing marijuana that you grow on your own property should not make it a commerce clause issue.  Maybe the federal people will use a different theory to justify their position.  Maybe they will rely on the commerce clause.  This issue is different from other commerce clause ones and will probably end up before the Supreme Court.