tue 19 feb 2008 09:22:27 — witte de withstraat
proposed systems of taxation
yesterday we went to mulligan's early -- ik and kees and pani. then we went to that restaurant "frenzi" on the corner of staalstraat and zwanenburgwal. in my old neighborhood dus. then dvr came to join us. we ate some good food and it was surprisingly cheap. then we walked back to mulligan's. but we lost pani along the way cuz she was thinking of going to say hi to her carpenter friend on the groenburgwal (the lights were on in his houseboat).
at mulligan's somehow we got on the subject of taxation.
kees reiterated his proposal, which he has favored for a long time. first, the government takes all your money. then they either give you some money back, or they give you credit at the different shops so you can get the things you need.
dvr countered, "then how will i get my audi?"
and kees said "if you need an audi, you can have one". and they laughed.
mind you this was all a bit tongue in cheek. the only thing kees really has in common with karl marx is that, well, they both go to the same barber.
i took a sip from my pint and reiterated my own age-old proposal that we should have democracy by subscription. we should choose how government works by subscribing to and paying for only those things we desire. that way, we would only get what we collectively deserve. and government, on average, couldn't do too much of anything that everybody hates, because they wouldn't have the budget for it. over time, we would inexorably grow more civically-conscious, having experienced directly the consequences of not being so.
(well ok i didn't actually say all that last night over guinness, but just gave the capsule expression. the idea is already familiar to my friends because i had explained the complete theory a couple years earlier, in the same bar, probably over the same glass.)
so dvr said "but still, some things have to be mandatory. if you use the roads, you need to help pay for them."
and i said something like "of course, silly, but they'll know i'm using the street, and automatically deduct my usage fee from my account."
"how will they know?"
"with all those cameras. and because of my, you know, my subcutaneous transponder that shows everybody exactly where i am and what i'm doing." (sneaking in my total anti-privacy earmark again.)
and dvr said "uh, we don't live in england yet!"
and i was missing nicole and vinz again, cuz it was a monday at mulligan's.
later, our two knitting friends showed up. i keep giggling because one of them is so into "breien" she even got herself a boyfriend by that name. sometimes i'm easily amused by words.
now it's time for me to go to the lawyer's office and drop off all my paperwork for my new verblifsvergunning.
and i'm hungry, i want an uitsmijter.