tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post1213154007984811527..comments2024-03-28T00:11:33.489-04:00Comments on bensozia: Links 24 December 2020Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-86721092328840444842020-12-24T09:03:09.121-05:002020-12-24T09:03:09.121-05:00"The decline in hunting in the US is leading ...<i>"The decline in hunting in the US is leading to funding problems for wildlife agencies, which get most of their money from licenses and taxes on guns."</i><br /><br />Gosh, if only there was some sort of simple and effective way to ensure these agencies get funding! I wonder if we could come up with some possibilit...<br /><br />Oh wait, that's right! <i>Taxes!</i> Funny how often we forget about those things, huh? Isn't it weird that they're the backbone of providing public services, and yet when public services are struggled we rarely ever think to fix that with taxes? Strange.<br /><br />People might be hunting less, but they aren't buying fewer guns. Tax guns more, use those taxes to protect wildlife. Or tax cigarettes and alcohol and recreational drugs more. Or just tax the wealthiest individuals, corporations, and organizations a bit more.<br /><br />Or maybe just buy a few less cruise missiles for the military at a price tag of $1.5 million each, and a few less jet fighters at $80 million a pop, and maybe end our two decades long ongoing overseas wars of aggression which directly cost us hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Imagine how incredibly far wildlife agencies could stretch a mere $1 billion annually! And think what we could spend all the other hundreds of billions left over on as well!<br /><br />But, nah... clearly we should just wring our hands, lament that hunting is decreasing, and that there's no feasible way to fund wildlife agencies unless more Americans get out there and shoot that wildlife dead in order to get a cheap thrill.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-85605332461777769712020-12-24T08:43:37.149-05:002020-12-24T08:43:37.149-05:00"Giving Republicans more information about th...<i>"Giving Republicans more information about the toll of the Coronavirus does not change their opinions, but instead increases their belief that the crisis is overblown."</i><br /><br />What better proof that these people are literally insane than this?<br /><br />Three thousand Americans die in the September 11th attacks and we launch two wars; reduce two nations to rubble; destabilize two different parts of the world for decades and perhaps generations to come; and chalk up hundreds of thousands of confirmed civilians killed through violence, further hundreds of thousands <i>unconfirmed</i>, even further hundreds of thousands dead to secondary effects of the wars like starvation, poverty, homeless, etc, and who knows how many maimed, crippled, rendered refugees, permanently displaced, robbed of their futures...<br /><br />But then three <i>hundred</i> thousand Americans die over the course a year (a death rate equivalent to a 9/11 attack carried out EVERY THREE DAYS), and half the country not only doesn't care, they actively politicize it, lie about it, and mock the truth and the dead alike, because they're upset about... coal mines closing? Brown skinned people being allowed to immigrate? Protesters decrying racism and police brutality?<br /><br />Sane people do not act this way.<br />Moral people do not act this way.<br />Fascists act this way.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.com