(excerpted from)

                             THE LIBERATOR ONLINE

   June 20, 1999
   Vol. 4, No. 12
   http://www.self-gov.org/liberator/maintain.html


Hidden Taxes Cost You $2,462

   According to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, local, state and
   federal governments are walloping taxpayers with billions of dollars
   in "hidden taxes." "Hidden taxes" are defined as taxes that aren't
   explicitly clear to the person who pays them. They add significantly
   to the total tax burden, but not in a manner that most people can
   easily keep track of. Thus hidden taxes keep citizens unaware of the
   true cost of government - and less able to make informed choices about
   the role of government in their lives.

   Examples of hidden taxes: telephone taxes, import taxes, utility
   taxes, travel taxes (including taxes on rental cars, hotels, plane
   tickets and the like), licensing, insurance premium taxes, gasoline
   taxes, and the so-called "employer's share" of Social Security and
   Medicare taxes (which are really paid by the employee).

   The total amount of these furtive taxes came to $657.5 billion
   dollars, or $2,462 per American - a jump of over $20 billion from last
   year.

   That's about 30% of the total tax burden - hidden from the eyes of
   most taxpayers.

   One form of hidden tax the NTUF study did *not* include: the cost of
   complying with government regulations and mandates. That figure is
   estimated at between $500 billion and $1 trillion or more.

   (Source: "Capitol Ideas," NTUF newsletter)



Federal Study Refutes Anti-Self-Defense Arguments

   Authoritarians of all stripes are using the recent school shooting
   tragedies to justify depriving Americans of essential and fundamental
   liberties. Anti-Self-Defense forces are calling for more restrictions on the
   right to keep and bear arms. Enemies of free expression are calling
   for censorship of the Internet, movies, video games, and other media.
   Many are demanding that government schools be made even more like
   prisons than they already are. All this, of course, is in the name of
   protecting children and preventing future violence.

   Which makes this excerpt from a recent syndicated column by
   libertarian writer Vin Suprynowicz especially timely:

   "isn't it too bad the government has never conducted an actual
   scientific study on how it affects a child's likelihood of committing
   crimes if his parents buy him a gun?

   "Um, actually ... they have.

   "The study was conducted from 1993-1995 by the U.S. Department of
   Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Child
   psychologists tracked 4,000 boys and girls aged 6 to 15 in Denver,
   Pittsburgh, and Rochester, N.Y. Their findings?

   "Children who get guns from their parents don't commit gun crimes (0
   percent) while children who get guns illegally are quite likely to do
   so (21 percent).

   "Children who get guns from parents are less likely to commit any kind
   of street crime (14 percent) than children who have no gun in the
   house (24 percent) -- and are dramatically less likely to do so than
   children who acquire an illegal gun (74 percent.)

   "Children who get guns from parents are less likely to use banned
   drugs (13 percent) than children who get illegal guns (41 percent.)

   "Most strikingly, the study found: 'Boys who own legal firearms have
   much lower rates of delinquency and drug use (than boys who own
   illegal guns) and are even slightly less delinquent than non-owners of
   guns.'

   "This wouldn't have surprised anyone before the rise of the modern
   welfare state. It used to be common knowledge that the best way to get
   kids to act 'responsibly' was precisely to give them some
   'responsibility.' Why would we assume a child taught by his parents to
   use a gun responsibly wouldn't also be more responsible in his other
   behaviors?"

   (Source: Vin Suprynowicz syndicated column)

"Humiliating and Debasing Degradation"

     "Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing
     degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own
     defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own
     possession and under our own direction, and having them under the
     management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having
     those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety,
     or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"

     -- Patrick Henry June 9, 1788, in the Virginia Convention on the
     ratification of the Constitution.


     _________________________________________________________________

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