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Oct. 24, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
13:54
890 It's Miller Time
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Good afternoon, everybody. Hope you're doing well at Steph.
We're back into podcast land, my friends, and I thank you so much for your patience during the sort of paucity of podcasts over the last little while.
I have completed, of course, On Truth, the Tyranny of Illusion, available from 1195 upward, and UPB, A Rational Proof of Secular Morality, which is 1395 plus.
And now, the 604-page magnificent novel, The God of Atheists, is available for you, print and PDF. From 1695 up.
So, I hope that you will drop by and pick these things up.
I'm keeping the audiobook of the God of Atheists for donators.
That's just a little... a little goodie for those who donate 100 bucks or more.
So, um...
I guess a short one and then a long one.
This is, um, pretty funny.
Um... Tuesday, October the 23rd in the Toronto Star, which is something...
I don't read the newspaper, but this was handed to me with my breakfast.
And, um... It says here that we have a budget in Toronto, which is in New York North.
We have a budget issue.
There's been a three-month delay, debates, crisis, everyone and their dog weighing in, every special interest group weighing in on the massive rape of tax increases and taxation.
And this guy, David Miller, he came to office pledging no new taxes.
See, this is the social contract that people just don't understand.
The social contract is this guy ran on the platform of no new taxes while already knowing That the city was almost a half a billion dollars in a deficit for one year, for a single year.
For a single year.
The year that was coming up, it was already half a billion dollars.
This is a city. Not a country, not a province, a city.
Half a billion dollars in the red, just for one year, a deficit.
Not even counting all of the taxes.
Sorry, all of the stuff that's been accumulated in terms of And he went on no taxes.
No new tax increases and no cuts on spending.
And, of course, he knew it was a half a billion dollars in the rent.
So, of course, impossible, right?
Absolutely impossible for any of this to occur.
So there's a couple of choice quotes that occur.
And the first is that David Miller, who is the mayor, He said, when passing this massive rape of tax increases, he said, we finally ended the falsehood that you can have a great city for free.
Isn't that wonderful?
We finally ended the falsehood that you can have a great city for free.
Now, taxes in Toronto, as is everywhere else, have just doubled, tripled, quadrupled over the past 5, 10, 15, 20 years.
So, taxpayers are already being raped and pillaged in an ever-escalating sequence of tax increases.
And this guy says, we finally ended the falsehood that you can have a great city for free.
Isn't that just psychological genius?
I mean, these people are not amateurs.
They're not stupid.
It's just brilliant.
Because what he's saying here is, we finally ended the falsehood that you can have a great city for free.
Nobody, of course, has ever suggested that you can have anything, something for nothing.
The tax increases have been enormous over the past couple of decades.
It's the donutting the city, right, where people just flee the inner city to the suburbs because the taxes are so high.
And the amazing thing about this sentence, we finally entered the falsehood that you can have a great city for free, is that this ass-clown politician is accusing the citizens of wanting something for nothing.
This politician is accusing the citizens of freeloading.
Isn't that astounding?
I mean, psychologically, you could write a PhD thesis on the projection involved in this statement.
We finally ended the falsehood that you can get something for nothing.
You freeloading taxpayers who've had their taxes jacked up with no increase in service.
In fact, the roads are worse. As is always the case, when the government increases its budget, everything gets worse, right?
The schools are worse. The roads are worse.
There's problems with the sewage.
We've got electricity failures.
So he's basically saying, you freeloaders, you want something for nothing.
This politician who takes ever-increasing amounts of money at the point of a gun, who openly lies to get into office and promises no new taxes, while being perfectly aware of a massive shortfall, and of course that there's no way that these guys are going to give up their perks and pensions and all that, or take on any of the public sector unions, he says, we finally entered the falsehood that you can have a great city for free.
Reality has struck and you freeloading taxpayers are now going to actually finally have to pay.
So that's one thing here.
Three other quotes.
One is that this woman, Councillor Karen Stintz, on the land transfer tax.
People are just getting pillaged, right?
I mean, land transfer taxes go from, what is it?
$275,000 to $45,000 every time you now transfer.
A piece of property, you just get pillaged in terms of what you have to pay.
There's a new vehicle tax.
There's all of this sort of stuff.
And this woman, Councillor Karen Stintz, says, the debate we need to have is how we are going to engage every citizen in this city and say, what is your contribution going to be?
This is a narrow tax that is unfair.
Isn't this wonderful?
It's just beautiful.
The debate we need to have, says Miss Kay, is how we are going to engage every citizen in the city and say, what is your contribution going to be?
This is a narrow tax that is unfair.
Right, so, I mean, just the equivalent would be a white slavery, right?
Grab citizens off the street and put them into these rape camps for a decade or two.
And then say, with regards to these rape victims, the debate we need to have is how we are going to engage all of these rape victims in the harem and say, what is your contribution going to be?
We shouldn't just rape a few of the prettier ones.
But what about the other ones who aren't as pretty who also should get raped?
What is their contribution going to be?
Just amazing. And then John Cartwright says, Today, what I thought we saw was the people of Toronto saying, This is the kind of city we want, and we want to invest in Toronto.
And we want to invest in Toronto.
Again, a mafia guy comes to your store and says, We'll burn this goddamn thing down unless you pay us $1,000 a month in protection money.
And then puts out a press release when a bunch of people pay up at the point of a gun and say, well, you know, people want to invest in the mafia.
This is the kind of mafia we want, and we want to invest in the mafia.
No mention of the threats of murder and the threats of rape, because of course people get thrown in jail for tax evasion, they end up getting raped, right?
Threats of murder and rape, not mentioned.
Do you see how amazingly these people understand that voluntarism is virtue?
Nobody disagrees with us.
Nobody disagrees with us.
And here, this guy says, Von Palmer at the Toronto Real Estate Board, of course these are the guys who are going to get hosed by these land transfer taxes, says, It is disappointing that some councillors have chosen to go against the public's wishes.
But what consequence?
Disappointing? Disappointing?
Oh, what a guardian of rights this guy is.
And this guy, Councillor John Fillion, who voted in favor of both taxes, says, I envy the person who can get through this debate without wanting to throw up.
Right? I mean, this is self-pity, right?
See, the problem isn't that hundreds of dollars a year is being stolen from people at gunpoint more, but the problem is that he feels nauseous.
See, that's... That's the issue.
He feels nauseous, and that's what we should really focus on.
And not the fact that, you know, staggering amounts of violence are occurring.
And, of course, these guys have all the perks on the planet, and they won't give up any of the perks.
And Mayor Miller, who just sounds like a primo asshole.
A primo asshole.
This is what he said. I mean, I love this kind of stuff.
So it says here, citizens have said repeatedly over the past three months that they want city councillors to cut perks in office budgets and impose some in-house belt tightening before imposing new and higher taxes.
But yesterday, all motions recommending this were consistently ruled out of order, preventing them from getting a vote.
Stunningly, the mayor's most passionate moment came in defending the perks, calling attempts to cut them offensive.
It's offensive.
To call the things like...
Their office budget, which allows them to communicate with people a perk, is really unworthy of any member of council.
Isn't that amazing?
Isn't that amazing?
Councillor Rob Ford rushed in to capitalize on this.
He invited citizens to go to robford.ca and see the details of what councillors spend their office budgets on and conclude if these are essentials, as the mayor says.
So, for example... Wine, beer, liquor, raffle tickets, trips abroad, donations to hockey teams, office furniture, rabbit costumes, hardly essential spending.
It wouldn't have taken much to send the right message to citizens.
A 10% cut in their office expenses of $53,000 each would have yielded $234,000.
But of course they had to take $160,000 from MasterCard to keep skating rinks open.
And this guy says, I've tried to reduce cost of time around here, but it's like taking milk away from a baby.
Ford says, all you hear is crying and crying and crying.
And isn't that amazing?
He says, to call these things like this office budget, which allows them to communicate with the people?
A perk is unworthy and offensive!
See here, his high moral dungeon comes into play.
It is unworthy and offensive to take away my wine and trips abroad and raffle tickets and bunny suits and all this kind of crap.
That, you see, is utterly offensive because it allows him to communicate with the people.
Now, of course, his, quote, communication with the people has hitherto been pretty much limited to lying to them and then raising taxes.
Right? Lying to them and raising taxes.
But see, this, I mean, this is going to make people angry.
I understand that.
It's going to make you angry. But my God, people, look at the plus.
Look at the plus.
They're still using our language.
That's an amazing bonus.
What I might dare term a heady benefit.
A heady benefit. They're still using our language.
Invest. You can't get something for nothing.
We want to find ways to consult with the people to figure out what kind of city they...
You've got to listen to the people find out what kind of city they really want.
It's a contract. It's voluntary.
You've got to pay for things.
It's participatory.
It's democracy, right? That's a good sign.
See, you don't want to get to the place in politics where it's just like, fuck them.
Fuck you, we could raise your taxes.
Once you take the veneer off the gun, then you're totally screwed.
Once you get to fascism or Nazism or communism where it's like you're an enemy of the people, fuck debate.
We're just throwing you in a gulag.
That is not a good place to be.
The fact that they're still using the language of ANCAP and DROs and voluntarism, that's a good sign.
That's a great sign.
That is a sign to give an enormous amount of hope.
I mean, of course they're completely sick, and of course you just want to do horrible things to them.
But they still do, of course, use the language, and that's very important.
They use the language of voluntarism.
And again, enormous amount of relief for us for that, because it is not, of course, impossible and seems almost inevitable unless we continue to do the work that we're doing.
It does seem almost inevitable that they will no longer at some point decide to use the language of investment and participation and so on.
But you have to love this kind of projection, right?
That the guy who's the head of the mafia, who's ripping off and threatening and with jail and rape all the people who disagree with him.
And, of course, who takes all of his money at gunpoint, his paycheck, his expense account, his benefits, his perks, his pension, everything under the sun.
He takes all of his stuff at gunpoint and then has the nerve to say to people, well, we're finally ending the fiction that you can get something for nothing.
You're either going to cry or you're going to laugh, and I suggest that you laugh.
And, of course, also be relieved that the language of voluntarism It's still the core of the debate because that is the crowbar that we can use to help open some people's minds.
So thank you so much for listening.
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