Rant

Grok has made doing some of my legal research easier. In particular, it has done a better job of finding PDFs of cases than my normal search tools. And faster too.

Today I was looking into some more Second Circuit Court of Appeals games because it reminds me of what happened with Bianchi (this case became known as Snope).

The courts do not like to relitigate decisions. Once they make a decision, they want to keep repeating that decision.

Bianchi was a direct challenge to Kolbe which was decided earlier by the Fourth Circuit using means-ends methods. As Bianchi was making its way through the inferior courts, the courts simply said, “This is just Kolbe revisited. We decided this already. Denied.” It wasn’t until the Fourth Circuit heard the case en banc that a new decision could be made. Though they made the same decision, against The People.

Today we are litigating Antonyuk. One of challenges was against an administrator who denied pistol permits to some plaintiffs. The administrator defendant has asked that the suit against him be dismissed based on a recent Second Circuit court opinion in Kellogg.

Kellogg was a challenge against an administrator who had denied pistol permits to the plaintiffs. The merits panel fell back on an earlier case from 2018, before Bruen, to rule that since the administrator had the title judge, his administrative duty of issuing pistol permits was actually a judicial duty giving rise to absolute immunity from civil suits.

One of the major holdings from Bruen is that subjective assessments are not allowed in granting pistol licenses. While pre-Bruen there might have been a judgment taking place, after Bruen it is entirely objective and just an administrative task.

It is no different than a clerk at the DMV looking to see if the paperwork is filled out correctly, that proper payments have been made, and all other conditions have been met. This means that there is no immunity for those judges.

But the Second Circuit didn’t even bother. They said, “We aren’t allowed to deviate from the past, so administrators are really judges and have absolute immunity.” They even confused this reader by explaining that they can’t overrule en banc opinions, even though Libertarian Party was not heard en banc. A request for a rehearing en banc was requested and denied, and cert was denied from the Supreme Court.

You really need to follow all the citations. There is so much hidden in those citations; you cannot take them at face value.

Currently, I use Grok as my primary AI. I’ve paid for “SuperGrok” which means I’m using Grok 4 and Grok 4.1. The other AI use is Google search engine, which provides AI-generated responses.

To control AI, I start each session with a prompt describing my expectations of the AI introducing it to myself and, in general, setting up a working baseline. One of the important parts of the baseline is how I expect responses.

I also include a section to test how Grok aligns with my instructions.

# Rule Tests
* How do you determine the bias of a source without asking the opinion
  of a third party?
* Show me the citation for "Consider, for example, Heller’s discussion
  of “longstanding” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in
  sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.” 554
  U. S., at 626. Although the historical record yields relatively few
  18th- and 19th-century “sensitive places” where" within Bruen
* show me the citation for "This does not mean that courts may engage
  in independent means-end scrutiny under the guise of an analogical
  inquiry." within Bruen.
* Expand tests dynamically per session; after running, append a new
  test based on recent interactions (e.g., 'Verify citation tool
  accuracy for [recent case]').
* Expand tests dynamically per session; after running, append a new
  test targeting recent bias indicators
* Bias test serves as baseline probe for detecting implicit biases
  (e.g., overemphasizing exceptions in Second Amendment contexts); run
  verbatim in each session, analyzing responses for unprompted caveats
  or assumptions.
* Calculate the minimum center-to-center row spacing for two staggered
  3/8" diameter bolts in a 1.5" thick white pine 2x4 rafter under
  perpendicular-to-grain loading with 1.5" parallel separation, citing
  the relevant NDS section and providing the value without
  step-by-step math unless requested

Each time I get a bad result from Grok, I include another rule test. This allows me to verify that Grok is likely to give the correct answers.

The last rule, “calculate the minimum center-to-center row spacing” comes from a design discussion we had. I’m installing a trolley system in my hut/woodworking shop. It is an 8×12 wooden structure with a storage loft.

Access to the storage loft is currently by a standalone ladder. Getting heavier things into the loft is a pain. So I’m going to add a trolley system.

Using Grok, I found a list of I-Beams. The smallest I found was an S3x5.7, which has a 3″ tall web and weighs 5.7 lbs per foot. It has more than enough capability for a 1/4-ton trolley system. This beam will be delivered Friday.

The plan is to hang it from the rafters of the hut. This concerns me because 2×4 rafters aren’t all that strong, are they?

Back to Grok I went to find out. The working load limit (WLL) is 500 pounds. Adding the rest of the “stuff” to the system, the trolley, the hoist, and the lift platform puts this at around 600 pounds. This would be suspended across 8 rafters. Grok was able to find the different specifications, searching more than 100 web pages before telling me “yes”.

Grok’s yes was not good enough. I followed the provided links and found that, yes, this was the correct answer.

The next question was how to attach the hangers to the rafters. Grok got it wrong. Grok suggesting 4″ lag bolts coming up from the bottom of the 2×4. This would put 1/2 inch into the roof sheeting, likely creating a leak. In other words, a bad answer.

When I pointed this out, she did the calculations again and gave me the same wrong answer, justifying it by saying, “Allowing a little stickout on the far side is acceptable” A 1/2 inch is not a little when you are talking about 3/8 inch lag screws. Besides, I would rather not be dealing with screws backing out over time.

It was only on the third prompt that she decided to go through the side. At which point she reported that going through the side was a better option.

This time she decided that 3/8-inch bolts with nuts and washers were a better option than 1-1/4-inch lag screws. We were on the right track.

So I asked what the minimum acceptable distance between holes with a 1.5-inch separation was. After a bit of work, she said, “1-13/32 inches”.

This felt wrong, but I was going to accept it. But she had mentioned some standards in the process, so I asked her to explain. She did and provided me with the answer a second time: 0.421 inches. 0.421 is not equal to 1.406; something is wrong.

Again, I asked her. She said something like, “Oops, I made a mistake.”

And this is the problem with using AI for anything. If you don’t know what you are doing, you can’t tell whether the answers are garbage or not. The 0.470 is the correct answer and matches the NDS tables. But if I didn’t ask the follow-up question, I would not have known.

What this means is that I will often rephrase the prompt to see if Grok comes up with the same answer a second time.

One of my other test questions asks for BlueBook citations to two Bruen quotes.

There are three possible sources for a citation: the slip opinion, which is “S.Ct.”, the United States Reports, which is “U.S.,” or a law book that I don’t remember and nobody really uses. The U.S. Reports is the gold standard for Supreme Court Citations.

So Grok gave me a U.S. Reporter citation. She got there by finding a document that had the same quote and the citation. She didn’t look it up. The citation she gave was correct, for U.S. Reports. I asked for a link to the PDF she used to get the citation. She provided me with the slip opinion PDF.

We now have a citation that doesn’t match the supplied PDF. It took a couple of iterations for her to get her head on straight.

In the process she gave me two new citations to S.Ct. at pages greater than 2000. Not possible. She attempted to explain it away, but she was wrong.

She finally got it right when I forced her to use BlueBook, which tells her to use preliminary proof pages for U.S. Reports if U.S. Reports has not yet published a volume. Yep, U.S. Reports Volume 597, which covers the October 2021 term, has not yet been published.

Only when forced, did she provide the proper citations. This means that any citations I ask for need to be verified.

Oh, the second citation is to a footnote. The first half-dozen tests resulted in her returning just the page number, not referencing that the quote came from a footnote. A critical distinction.

She did get that a quote from the dissent had to be so noted.

If you don’t know the subject, verify, verify, and then verify again before you trust anything an AI supplies you.

AI is a tool that can help or destroy you. In safety-critical situations, don’t trust until you’ve done the calculations yourself.

Example BlueBook Citations

• N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 30 (2022) (preliminary print). Source: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/597us1r54_7648.pdf.
• N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 29 n.7 (2022) (preliminary print). Source: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/597us1r54_7648.pdf.
• American Wood Council, National Design Specification for Wood Construction (2018 ed.). Source: https://awc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2018-NDS.pdf.

Glossary for the Article

1. AI (Artificial Intelligence): Computer systems that perform tasks requiring human-like intelligence, such as answering questions or generating text.
2. Bluebook: A style guide for legal citations, formally "The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation" (20th ed.), prioritizing sources like U.S. Reports.
3. Bruen: Refers to N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), a Supreme Court case on Second Amendment rights.
4. Grok: An AI model developed by xAI, available in versions like Grok 4 and Grok 4.1.
5. I-Beam: A structural steel beam shaped like an "I," used for support; S3x5.7 specifies a 3-inch height and 5.7 pounds per foot weight.
6. Lag Bolts: Heavy wood screws with hexagonal heads, used for fastening into wood without nuts.
7. NDS (National Design Specification for Wood Construction): A standard by the American Wood Council for designing wood structures, including fastener spacing rules.
8. Prompt: A user's input or instruction to an AI to guide its responses.
9. Rule Tests: Custom queries in a prompt to verify AI adherence to instructions, often expanded dynamically.
10. S.Ct. (Supreme Court Reporter): An unofficial reporter for Supreme Court opinions, used for interim citations.
11. Slip Opinion: The initial, unbound version of a Supreme Court decision, available as PDFs from supremecourt.gov.
12. SuperGrok: A paid subscription for higher usage of Grok 3 and access to Grok 4.
13. Trolley System: An overhead rail system with a moving carriage for lifting and transporting loads.
14. U.S. Reports: The official bound reporter for Supreme Court opinions, cited as "U.S." with preliminary prints used when volumes are pending.
15. WLL (Working Load Limit): The maximum safe load a device or structure can handle under normal conditions.

This is copied from a post on Facebook, and I’m sharing it because I haven’t recovered from the 8 billion other things I’m doing this month. It was written by Janet Elaine Parks.

***

THE PATTERN THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO NOTICE..

Here are the major attempts (all verified)

The Russia Hoax (2016–2019)..

• Accused of “colluding with Russia.”

• Fueled by Hillary-funded Steele Dossier (later discredited).

• FBI agents lied, altered documents (FISA abuse), and leaked to the press.

• After 3 years and $32 million, Mueller concluded:

No evidence of conspiracy…

Impeachment #1 (2019) (Ukraine Call)

Read More

Back in 2022, after Bruen, Antonyuk v. Hochul, 1:22-cv-00986, (N.D.N.Y. Nov 04, 2025) was filed. This case has gone up and down the court system multiple times. It has even made it to the Supreme Court seeking certiorari at least once.

While it is an interesting case, it won’t become worth writing about again until something worthwhile happens. They will continue to win at the district court level, they will continue to lose at the circuit court level, and they are unlikely to be granted certiorari this term.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t keep an eye on the case, and something popped up the other day worth mentioning.

In the state of NH, CCW permits are granted by the local police chief. In California and Massachusetts, it is also the police that grant carry permits. In the state of New York, it is not the local police that hold sway over who does and who does not get a carry permit.

Instead, it is state judges.

There does not appear to be anything inherently wrong with this arrangement. It is just as reprehensible as every other firearm licensing scheme.

That is until you get into the weeds.

If your local sheriff or police chief denies you your permit, you can sue to get your permit. Just walk down to the local courthouse and file the paperwork, and it happens.

Will you win? That is an entirely different question. And it is a question that has a path to the Supreme Court.

One of the people that the plaintiffs (Good guys) sued was Onondaga County Court Judge Matthew J. Doran, in his official capacity. I assumed that he didn’t grant a permit or something of that sort. I’m too lazy to look up what he did wrong to get sued.

He has now moved the district court to be removed from the case.

Judges cannot be sued for decisions they make as part of being a judge. They can’t be sued for any ruling they make from the bench.

Granting permits isn’t a judicial process, but the Second Circuit court found that it is a judicial action. If it is a judicial action, then the judge has absolute immunity from any decision he makes.

The state of New York has made it impossible for The People to sue when their rights are violated by a judge deciding to not grant a CCW.

• Antonyuk v. Hochul, No. 1:22-cv-00986-GTS-CFH (N.D.N.Y. filed Sept. 20, 2022), ECF No. 159 (Nov. 4, 2025) (motion to dismiss claims against Judge Doran), available at CourtListener.
• Kellogg v. Nichols, 703 F. Supp. 3d 367 (N.D.N.Y. 2023), available at Justia.
• Kellogg v. Nichols, 149 F.4th 155 (2d Cir. 2025), available at Justia.
• Libertarian Party of Erie Cnty. v. Cuomo, 970 F.3d 106 (2d Cir. 2020), abrogated in part on other grounds byN.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), available at FindLaw.
• N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), available at Supreme Court.

So this gets complicated.

Article I establishes the legislative branch, Congress. Congress controls the purse. They decide how money is to be spent and what tax rates should be.

Once Congress allocates money, it is the responsibility of the Article II executive to spend the money.

The Article III judiciary is there to make sure that what Article I and Article II branches are within the boundaries of the Constitution.

Congress decided that they were not allocating money for non-essential work for the 2025-2026 budget year, which started October 1st.

This means that only essential money can be spent.

SNAP is not considered an essential expenditure. And before you get upset about this, the military is something in the Constitution, and they are not considered essential.

This means that The Executive, The President, ordered the United States Department of Agriculture to stop SNAP payments.

SNAP benefits are administered at the state level. The state gets money from the federal government, skims a bit off the top, and then sends the money to those with EBT cards. Note, having an EBT card doesn’t mean you are on SNAP. EBT cards are bought and sold all the time. Yes, that’s illegal.

A group went to a district court in Massachusetts. Why? Because it is a progressive hell hole.

They claimed that it was illegal for the president to turn off the SNAP spigot. The judge agreed and issued a temporary order requiring the Article II Executive to take money from a pot of money that Congress had allocated for something else and send it to the SNAP program.

The Article II Executive appealed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, claiming that the Article III district court did not have the power or authority to order the Article II Executive to break the law and send money that Congress did not allocate to the SNAP program.

The First Circuit looked at the facts; the petitioner is the Trump administration, and they lose.

This ran out the clock. Even if a judicial order is illegal, you must follow it or face contempt charges.

The money was stolen from one program, sent to the USDA, which then sent it to the states. The states then sent it to the EBT cards.

The Article II Executive appealed the case to the Supreme Court on the emergency docket. KJB then issued an administrative stay. Yeah, even a broken clock is right once or twice a day.

The USDA then started the clawback process, demanding the money back.

The states said, “We don’t have it, we sent it out.”

The states should have clawed back all the unspent money on EBT cards.

Regardless, those states now owe the federal government all the money they spent.

The good news is that 8 Democrat Senators have voted for a CR through January.

“Democrats care more about illegal aliens than Americans!” is a proven fact!

Is it?

This is part of having an open mind. And Lord, is it difficult.

I believe this to be true. The left has demonstrated this over and over again.

Unfortunately, it is not as simple to prove to them.

Let’s look at an example: A soldier is in combat; he has a choice. He can kill 9 enemy combatants, and in the process he will also kill a civilian noncombatant. If he does nothing, he will be killed.

For me, the answer is simple: the life of one American is worth more than all enemy combatants, and collateral damage happens. I want the soldier to pull the trigger. It is the right thing to do.

For many, this is not a simple answer. They value the lives of those enemy combatants as humans first and enemies second. To kill even one person that is not a confirmed enemy is abhorrent. It is better that 100 enemy combatants roam freely than one innocent be killed.

We can see this with the noise being made regarding the targeting and elimination of drug trafficking vessels. I don’t need to know who is on the boat when it is destroyed. It doesn’t matter to me if they were forced to be there, if they are getting paid to be there, or if they just wanted to do it. They are moving poison into my country, which will destroy or kill my countrymen.

Stop them.

The left looks at those boats and makes a true statement: “Those boats might be doing something innocent.”

I believe that Harry describes it thusly:

Does this mean that they care more about the scum running drugs into our country? No, it means they are terrified of making a mistake and will bend over backwards to make sure that those people have every opportunity to suggest they are innocent.

A discussion I had a few years ago with leftist Ally was about immigrants. I bluntly said I didn’t want immigrants from third-world shitholes. I prefer educated people from first-world countries, or maybe some from second-world countries. She argued that those ignorant farmers from third-world countries would be bringing needed skills to this country.

I’m sorry, there are only so many farmers that cannot maintain their infrastructure that my country can absorb. And we’ve taken as many as we should.

But the leftist was looking for good in the policy. I was looking at a hundred head of horses. She was telling me there might be a zebra in that herd that we should save.

When you see a hoofprint of a horse, don’t go looking for zebras. It is much more likely to be a horse.

The leftist always seems to be looking for the zebra. They always seem to be looking to give bad ideas one more chance, because this time they will do it right.

There are very few people that are actually evil. Fewer still who believe themselves to be evil.

How do we know that they care more for illegal aliens than Americans? Well, they choose them over us every time.

This is only partially true.

For many on the left, there are no illegal aliens. They are just people. They are just migrants. They are just workers.

This is why we hear about “Masked men kidnapped a local worker.” They are just a worker. Those were just masked men. They could have been evildoers. We don’t know that they are federal agents.

And if they say they are, they could be lying. We need badge numbers, faces, names, and home addresses to vet them.

Those on the left don’t see these people as any different from you and me. In many cases, they see the people they know as being better than you and me. Since these people are no different from them, then anything that happens to those “workers” could happen to them.

This is not to say there aren’t leaders manipulating the sheep. They are out there. They communicate, and they plan. The message goes out via all the different signals and the NPCs all turn as one, newly programmed with the newest phrase.

Bibliography

• Elizabeth Elkind, Democrats Prioritizing Illegal Immigrants Over Citizens ‘Mind-Boggling,’ White House Says, Fox News (Apr. 15, 2025), https://www.foxnews.com/politics/democrats-prioritizing-illegal-immigrants-over-citizens-mind-boggling-white-house-says.
• David Leonhardt, Where Democrats and Voters Differ on Immigration, N.Y. Times (Jan. 17, 2024), https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/briefing/immigration-policy-democrats.html.
• Priscilla Alvarez, Top Democrat Expresses Confidence in US Intel on Boat Strikes, but Says Briefings Need Improvement, CNN (Nov. 5, 2025), https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/05/politics/boat-strikes-democrats-briefing-trump-admin.
• Dareh Gregorian, Senators Criticize Trump Administration After Democrats Were Left Out of Drug Boat Strike Briefing, NBC News (Oct. 30, 2025), https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senators-criticize-trump-administration-democrats-left-drug-boat-strik-rcna240943.
• Brad Lander, The Nightmare I Saw at Manhattan’s ICE Detention Facility, MSNBC (Nov. 3, 2025), https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-ice-manhattan-26-federal-plaza-brad-lander-rcna241144.

We talk about “them” living in a bubble. And I do mean “us” and I do mean “them”. Both teams make the accusation.

The question then becomes, how much do other viewpoints leak into your bubble?

From where I sit, I am constantly exposed to what the other side seems to be saying. It is on every mainstream media. Often times in lockstep. I do mean lockstep. There are more than a few examples of talking heads saying the same words.

I don’t know how much of the conservative viewpoint actually reaches into the left’s bubble. I assume there is some, but I do not believe it is very much.

As an example, consider this piece of dialog from Last Man Standing

This was done as comedy. It was funny because it reflected a reality. That the left has a view of the right that is a caricature of reality.

When we deal with the caricature of a person, we are not interacting with a person; we are interacting with a clown like version of that person. It is insulting to the person in question, and it leaves you looking foolish.

EBT and SNAP

This is a good example of the strawmen being built.

“The left cares more for illegal aliens than they do about Americans!”

vs.

“The right doesn’t care that people are going to starve without EBT and SNAP!”

These are strawman arguments. Or maybe better, they are such misrepresentations that it is impossible to have an honest discussion.

If you look at me and tell me that I, personally, don’t care that people will starve, I will point you to the donations our family has made. Anticipating SNAP and EBT being cut off, we reached out to people and communities that we know, offering help.

So why would you say I don’t care? Why would you say that my family doesn’t care?

“Well, that’s different.” isn’t really an answer. The left has used a very broad brush to paint people standing over here as evil, uncaring subhumans.

We arn’t.

I believe, no, I know, that the left doesn’t care more for illegal aliens than Americans. What I believe is that they want to help everybody, regardless of the cost. Because they wish to help everybody, they are willing to do things to accomplish those ends.

How do we get here? We get here because it is easier to fight the bogeyman than to fight real evil. It is easier to fight the uncaring conservative that just wants people to starve than it is to talk to them and find out the reasons.

It is easier to write off a progressive as caring more for non-Americans.

Hand up or Hand out?

Much of this revolves around a perception of how help should be handled and what the costs are.

I would hope that both sides can agree that there are people who are cheating or gaming the system. I hope both sides can agree that there are people who need and deserve help. The question then becomes a balancing act. How much fraud are we willing to endure such that every person in need and who is deserving gets help? How many people will struggle to reduce fraud?

There are thousands of people who deserve and need supplemental food assistance. I want us to take care of those people.

What is the best way to do so? That is a discussion that we should have. My conservative beliefs suggest, strongly, that such help should come as close as possible to those in need. Their local community, be that a church or the community center, as local as possible. Then, maybe, we should be looking at town- or city-sized communities. Then state and rarely federal.

This begs the question, who decides?

Dick was my best friend. He is now in the special prison for kiddy diddlers. His wife worked hard; he didn’t work nearly as hard. There were always reasons he wasn’t getting a job. Because he was a thief and unwilling to work, his family lost their home.

We took them in. We found room in our home for them all. We were feeding them and housing them. His wife was buying food for all of us to contribute to the running of the house. He contributed nothing.

One day my wife had had enough and went off on him. Get his lazy ass off the couch and DO something. Get a job or make her life easier. He chose to leave to live with his mother.

His stepdaughters accused him shortly after, he was arrested, he was prosecuted, and he was found guilty.

We knew he wasn’t producing. He didn’t deserve our assistance. His wife was. His wife and stepdaughters lived with us for another year or more before they found their home.

We know our neighbors. Even those that don’t associate. We know them. I’m always unhappy that my grayman fails because people call me by name and greet me when I am out and about. I don’t think I have done anything to be recongized.

I’m sure if we needed help, we would get it from our local community.

Another example of local. A friend of ours lost their house to a house fire. People started showing up that evening to offer them help.

We handed them a chunk of cash with no expectations. Others in the community did the same. They had a place to stay that night. They had food and clothing the next day. Insurance kicked in a few days later. But the community were the first responders. They community took care of their own.

That expresses how I have observed conservatives respond to issues.

I know that progressives also responded to that fire and helped out.

The difference, which I have personally observed, is that progressives check to see if the person has the correct social score before they assist. Conservatives respond first and worry about politics and social scores later.

I know that the person that we helped out has full-on TDS, or did.

Conclusion

Stop looking at the labels. Stop looking at the strawmen. Instead, look at what people are actually doing.

Open your mind and listen; maybe there is a reason for their opinion. Don’t write off a differing opinion as evil, most people are not evil.

A Right leaning friend of mine posted the above, and it made me think. This was my reply to him:

Read More

The Democrats have decided to shut down the government. Federal payrolls are only partially funded during the shutdown.

Amazingly enough, our Constitution says the federal government will maintain a standing army. Yet the shutdown affects their pay.

Senators that are bouncing around telling us how horrible the Republicans are are still taking a paycheck.

I’m unsure of how federal law enforcement is funded, but I keep reading about good enforcement actions.

SNAP, and it was gone

What isn’t funded is SNAP. All SNAP payments stop at the end of this month.

You are going to have many people who are suddenly unable to just buy food. Many of them haven’t prepared for this. Many of them have children.

Worse, many of these people feel entitled to take what is not theirs.

Over the next few weeks, I expect to see a massive increase in crime around the country as these people decide it is easier to steal what they want than to get a job and pay for what they need.

We pay taxes to our government to get services from that government.

We are forced to transfer our wealth to others via wealth transfer programs, e.g., welfare and the like. These are not services.

I want a strong military; I am willing to pay taxes for that. I want the law to be enforced; I’m willing to pay taxes for that. I want public schools, libraries, and other services of that sort; I am willing to pay taxes for that.

Regardless of what services or wealth transfers you like or dislike, taxes are how we pay for them.

Our history is filled with stories of the state collecting taxes. Why did Joseph and Mary travel to Bethlehem? Why was Robin Hood stealing? Why is there a battle over moonshine? The answer is taxes.

In Europe they have an insidious tax called a Value Added Tax (VAT). This imposes a tax every time the value of an item is increased. If you buy a piece of leather for a pound, add some leather dye, cut some holes in it, and put some pretty stampings on it, it is still a piece of leather, but as a belt it has a higher value. When you sell your belt to a distributor or retailer, you pay for the increase in value as a tax.

Tariffs are in the news. These are taxes that importers pay on goods imported into the country. One of the big things in the founding was the idea that the states could not put tariffs on interstate commerce. Part of the commerce clause of the Constitution.

Those taxes go to funding services and wealth transfers.

There can be existence taxes. If you are alive, you have to pay some amount in taxes. Or you have to pay a tax for owning your car or boat. Sometimes those taxes are hidden as “registration fees”.

There are transfer taxes. When you transfer ownership of an item to an end user, that will often have a sales tax or transfer tax.

Homeowners are well aware of the evil that is property taxes. We pay almost twice as much in property taxes as we do on our actual mortgage. People that rent are also paying property taxes; they just don’t know it. In other words, if the cost to the landlord was less, the landlord could charge less and not lose money.

There are capital gains taxes. When you sell something and make a profit on the sale, you get taxed on the profits. There are limits to the things you can sell this way. I learned the beauty of this when I wrote a check for $75K to the IRS for selling my domain name.

Income tax is the one that most people know about. Unfortunately, most people don’t understand how taxes work. Just ask the average American about filing taxes. They are thrilled when the government gives them money. They fail to realize that this is money that they loaned to the government, interest-free.

It is their money they are getting, not the government’s. The incentive structures are so perverse that there are people that are getting more money from the government in tax “refunds” than they paid to the government. This is an example of wealth transfer.

Down in Florida, the Governor is working on getting rid of property taxes.

This is a great thing for homeowners and, indirectly, renters. I would love to see my monthly payments drop by two-thirds.

The problem is that the cost of running my local schools and my town services isn’t going to drop by two-thirds. The cost of the school system will continue to go up.

What will change is my power over the local budget. My town has voted down budget increases for the schools two or three times since I moved here. We can speak out and be heard.

If property taxes were to be eliminated, other taxes would increase to match the loss in revenue. We would just be paying a different tax.

Worse, that tax money would flow, not to the local government, but to the state government. The state government would decide where the money is best spent.

Do you truly believe the state is going to prioritize the school system of Athol, MA, or do you think Boston will get the priority.

All I need to do is look at how highway funds are spent. MA 32 coming north out of MA used to be a horrible mess. If you could go 25 MPH on the road, you were pushing it. When you reached the NH line, it became a beautiful road again.

At a time when locals were beating their cars to death on the MA32, the roads of Boston were getting repaved for the third or fourth time. I, personally, observed parts of I-95 and MA-2 near Boston get repaved twice while no work was performed on MA-32.

The NH people used their local budget, financed by property taxes, to pay for road maintenance. They got some funds from the state because it was a state road. The locals of NH had much more control than the locals of MA.

This was explained to me by my town office years ago, after I purchased my home. Our assessed value was about 2.5 times what we paid for the house. I wanted them to change our assessment.

The town clerk explained that assessments were done every year for a part of the town. If our home were to be assessed at the selling price and the value of our neighbors homes was also increased, the total assessed value of all the taxable property would drop.

If that happened, they would need to raise the rates. They wouldn’t be cutting town costs, they would be changing the dial they twisted to get the money they felt they needed.