[Vision2020] Re: Robin Hood

[David M. Budge]

Joan,

Thanks for refreshing my memory on the plot and character development. 
There's just some major problems with your analogy i.e. "(involuntary) 
corporate profit-sharing scheme".

A) There were no "corporations" in 12th century England or private 
property for that matter.  All land was owned by the King and 
franchised, if you will, to members of the realm (Dukes, Barons, Lords, 
etc.), who "owned" no real property (real estate) either. The land's 
productive proceeds, minus an allowance for a piggishly lavish 
lifestyle, were ultimately due to the monarch.  Accordingly, all 
business was owned buy the state. We actually have some holdover to that 
construct in  Common Law called "escheatability" where one's estate is 
remanded to the government if one has no heirs upon taking the "big dirt 
nap."

B) Historically, it was not just Prince John who placed an unfair burden 
of taxation on the working stiffs, but King Richard as well.  In fact, 
the war in Normandy put such a financial burden on the crown that a 
general protest by the nobility and serfdom alike caused the birth of 
the Magna Carta, which provided for private property and then some,  in 
thirteen short years after the death of King Richard.  This, the first 
major step towards liberal democracy in England.

C) If, in fact, we make allowances for your assertion that money was 
returned to "ownership of the company by those who built the company", 
in contemporary terms, you entirely discount for ownership's risk of 
capital - which is no inconsequential building block of any enterprise.  
Today, stealing from "Archer Daniels Midlands, McDonalds, and Dell 
Computer moguls" would be stealing from the likes of the millions of 
citizens who have a vested interest in things like the California Public 
Employees Retirement System, etc.  That is not to say that modern 
corporate chiefs earn their egregious salaries, but that is primarily 
caused by a lack of accountability created, in large part, by tax 
incentives (now there's an oxymoron for ya) that drive money to 
institutional money managers thereby removing voting privileges of the 
actual "owners."  But I've not the time nor the inclination to begin 
that discussion in this writing.

So, in fact, Robin was repatriating taxes, not ownership, as stealing 
from any nobility was actually taking from the government.  Taxes, I 
might add, that stuffed the ruling class to obese proportions like the 
retirement benefits that congress has voted for themselves in the 
current era.  (John Kerry wants to give us congress's health care 
system, I'm hoping he'll give us his retirement plan - well except for 
the ketchup loot from his beaudacious sugar mama of course.)

Thinking about my little dear one.  I will remain ever vigilant Joan, 
but I worry much more about really hard "street literature", full of 
impurities and historical reconstruction, like Katrina Vanden Houvel at 
The Nation,  Cornell West, and the really scary ghost of Stalin; Noam 
Chomsky (hey, anybody who ever endorsed Pol Pot qualifies as "really 
scary.") 

I too have little use for the modern GOP, but I've equally "little use" 
for Democrats.  Their party platform (with notable dessenters like 
Barney Frank) has an official position against gay marriage ironically 
via federalism and civil unions - endorses drug interdiction programs 
that continue to fail ($20 Billion alone to Columbia plus another $30 
billion hidden in the Defense budget - we can buy a sh_t load of ketchup 
with that dough) - the insanity of not coming to grips that Social 
Security will ultimately have to be means tested at a minimum, lest we 
hand to our heirs a stinking pile of rotting economic fecal matter that 
they won't even be able to grow mushrooms in - the insane changes at the 
FDA made by Clinton that allows big pahrama to extend patents ad nausium 
with minor changes in drug formulary thereby nullifying an otherwise 
reasonable system of patent protection -  the ridiculous entitlement of 
Medicare that sets price controls thereby forcing higher prices  and 
screwing the boots off the uninsured, the working poor and the 
self-employed - the whole damn notion of "hate crimes" legislation where 
the arbiters of thought control will be determined by a tyranny of the 
majority - the obnoxious push for federalizing the payroll of 
incompetent cretins who perform proctological exams in search of box 
cutters every time someone gets on an airplane (but I have a serious 
problem with that entire bi-partisan body of law) - the continuous 
insufferable conclusion that the law is not just for protecting me from 
getting screwed but from being stupid as well (I contend that being 
stupid is a constitutional right and is the underlayment of the entire 
Bill of Rights) - and all the rest of the twaddle that implies that  I 
don't know whether to sh_t or go blind.  And this is just the beginning. 

In fairness, I have an equally long list for the GOP, but I'm thinking 
you're probably  willing to wait for that.  I say, as did the the Queen 
of Hearts, "off with their heads!"  I'm ecumenical that way.

Oops, I got a little screedy there.  Must be the I.V. bee venom.

Sorry, I'll return to my warm (but smarmy) self after the venom wears 
off.  Didn't mean to offend.  Better call my psychiatrist, I've 
forgotten my mantra...

Dave Budge


Joan Opyr wrote:

> Dave writes:
>  
> "As for Robin Hood, the way I recall the story, Robin was compelled to 
> retrieve money that had been taken by the tyrannical King through an 
> unfair scheme of taxing the peasants.    Fair Hood was not 'stealing 
> from the rich and giving to the poor' but providing a significant tax 
> rebate.  Seems pretty  libertarian to me."
>  
> This is almost the plot, Dave.  In fact, Prince John (would-be usurper 
> of King Richard the Lionheart's throne) was collecting taxes from the 
> poor to pay for an unpopular foreign war.  He was not -- as he should 
> have been -- mugging the rich, i.e., the land-grabbing Norman barons, 
> the Sheriff of Nottingham, and Sir Hally Burton, war-monger to the 
> stars.  No -- Prince John was screwing the poor serfs in order to 
> foster popularity among the barons so that he could hang onto 
> Richard's throne when the true king returned (if he returned) from the 
> Crusades.  He was obliged to do this because he didn't have a 
> Republican-packed Supreme Court on which to rely.
>  
> Rather than providing "a significant tax rebate" to the serfs (who, 
> today, might be called the working class), Robin Hood took the Pretty 
> Boy Floyd route.  He "reclaimed" and "redistributed" wealth from the 
> Archer Daniels Midlands, McDonalds, and Dell Computer moguls of his 
> day, and gave it to the workers.  You might say that Robin 
> Hood introduced the first (involuntary) corporate profit-sharing 
> scheme: ownership of the company by those who built the company.  
> There is, perhaps, something libertarian with a small "l" about that, 
> but there is nothing conservative with a big "GOP" about it.
>  
> [BTW, as my partner-in-crime Brother Carl will attest, I have a 
> libertarian streak myself.  It manifests itself not in aversion to 
> taxes -- except for those used to pay for hopeless foreign excursions, 
> so-called faith-based initiatives, and to foster the Bush definition 
> of marriage -- but in a deep and abiding desire to be left the hell 
> alone.  That's why I moved to Idaho.  I can live with small "l" 
> libertarians; it's nosy Baptist hypocrite right-wing bedroom police 
> self-righteous puritanical fundamentalist conservatives who get on my 
> t-ts.  But then you probably already knew that.]
>  
> Dave continues:    
>
> "I am fascinated by your notion of 'gateway literature' though.  This 
> might lead to really dodgy stuff like Adam Smith's The Wealth of 
> Nations, or perhaps even (gasp!) Ayn Rand. What's next?  I can see it 
> now, having to put my poor dear into a twelve-step program to address 
> her adrenaline addiction from reading post-modern economic 
> philosophy.  As my jewish friends would say 'Oy, what a shandre!'"
>  
> Listen, Dave, I know your daughter is young, but you must sit her down 
> immediately and have a serious talk with her about the dangers of 
> sniffing Ayn Rand.  One hit on the Fountainhead bong is all it takes 
> for a good kid to go Natural Law.  Soon, she'll be shooting up 
> Atlas Shrugged, and then what?  Milton Friedman tracks all up and down 
> her arms.  The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, injected between 
> her toes.  And then . . . The National Review.  That one goes up in 
> the eyelids.  Don't be meshuggeneh, Dave -- just say no.
>  
> Parents: the anti-drug.  Except that, in fact, we are like Halcion.
>  
> Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
>  
> PS: I do hope you're not reading that child The Miller's Tale.  Or, 
> worse yet, The Prioress's.  For heaven's sake, start her out with 
> something uplifting like The Pearl or John Bunyon's Pilgrim's 
> Progress.  Yes, of course, she'll be bored to tears, but isn't the 
> idea of bed-time reading to put the child to sleep?  BTW, she's not 
> going to give a hoot about the cuckolding in the Miller's Tale -- 
> she's going to be mesmerized by Nicolas' letting "flee a fart."  God 
> knows I was, and I was sixteen when I first read it.  Old enough not 
> to be laughing at farts.  Then again, I'm 38 now and still 
> laughing, so . . .
>  
> PPS: Is it possible that you're confusing Robin Hood with Monty 
> Python's Dennis Moore?
>  
> "He robs from the poor,
> And gives to the rich.
> Dennis Moore,
> Dennis Moore,
> Stupid b-tch."    
>
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