Iveson and his merry gang of crooks are at it again

For those of us with an interest in fighting the expanse of the state the world can be an unhappy place. It seems like every story in the newspaper or blurb on the radio contains the details of the demise of our movement.  Taxes and spending are always going up and politicians are constantly encroaching upon the domain of free enterprise.  Still we should not give up hope.  There are many reasons to remain optimistic about the future.  Despite spendthrift politicians and a fawning media there are still a good number of people in this country who believe in liberty and if we are tireless in our opposition to the state we can prevail.

The latest set back to our cause is a whopping 6% property tax increase unanimously approved by Edmonton city council.  While they would like us to believe their hands are tied this is emphatically not the case.  There are any number of ways by which city hall could be reducing the tax burden it's citizens.  Why not go after the bloated salaries and pensions of the bureaucrats employed here?  How about no new rec centers?  How about not engaging in ridiculous boondoggles like the downtown arena?  There is no shortage of positions to be cut amongst the paper pushers at city hall.  Let's look to debt repudiation as well.  While private debt is productive and a valid obligation which must be repaid (failure to do so is essentially theft) public debt can only be repaid through engaging in extortion.  It's not a valid contract but instead a criminal conspiracy to loot the public.  As for the municipal creditors?  Dance with the devil and you might get burned.  Plus it would be a great way to ensure that no one would lend these irresponsible politicians money in the future.

There are either two directions a society can head; towards laissez-faire capitalism or towards central economic planning.  The history of the world speaks to the failures of socialism, so as Edmontonians let's embrace the peaceful social cooperation of the market place and reject state planning and state control.  Let's privatize city operations - and not the faux privatization of outsourcing, not the playing of market which is so popular but actual, honest to goodness privatization, with free competition and no state involvement.  There are no problems so complex that they require the use of initiatory force to solve.