{"id":328605,"date":"2017-10-02T07:28:39","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T06:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/not-so-merry-men\/"},"modified":"2017-10-02T07:28:39","modified_gmt":"2017-10-02T06:28:39","slug":"not-so-merry-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/not-so-merry-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Not So Merry Men"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t                            \t<!-- S3 Cache -->\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">Robin Hood may have been a fictional character, but the thing that drove him and his \u201cMerry Men\u201d to become outlaws was real enough:<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">Oppressive laws.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, oppressive\u00a0<em>taxes<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">At every turn, the Sheriff of Nottingham and\u00a0<em>his<\/em>\u00a0not-so-merry men would demand their pound of flesh. The only way Robin and his men could survive was to forget the law \u2013 and live outside the law.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">It was an act of desperation and necessity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">This is happening again \u2013 to millions of American drivers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">None of them merry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">It starts with a ticket for a traffic offense \u2013 a pratfall that is becoming hard to avoid because of the profusion\u00a0<em>of<\/em>\u00a0offenses, most of them purely statutory (i.e., involving no harm to anyone) but subjecting the<em>\u00a0victim<\/em>\u00a0(i.e., the person waylaid by the armed government worker) to an extortionate\u00a0<em>tax.\u00a0<\/em>Calling it a \u201cfine\u201d doesn\u2019t legitimate the taking-by-force of someone\u2019s money who has not damaged anyone, for the benefit of the government \u2013 which is precisely what a\u00a0<em>tax<\/em>\u00a0is.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">In California, the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ots.ca.gov\/Media_and_Research\/Campaigns\/CIOT\/default.asp\"><em>minimum<\/em>\u00a0fine\/tax<\/a>\u00a0for failing to \u201cbuckle-up\u201d (\u201cfailure to eat your veggies\u201d is next) is $162 \u2013 and the fine for \u201cimproperly restraining a child under 16 is\u00a0<em>$465<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">In Virginia, the fine for failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign \u2013 even if there is no<em>\u00a0reason<\/em>\u00a0to come to a complete stop \u2013 is $200.<\/p>\n<p>In the District of Columbia, the fine\/tax for\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcwashington.com\/news\/local\/Car-Idling-Laws-410364465.html\">warming up your car<\/a>\u00a0longer than three minutes \u2013 yes, really \u2013 is $1,000 for a first offense.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">And \u201creckless\u201d driving \u2013 defined by statute in Virginia as anything faster than 80 MPH, even on a highway with a speed limit of 70 MPH \u2013 can entail $2,500 of literal highway robbery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">These are just a few of the many. And there are usually \u201cprocessing fees\u201d&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/2017\/10\/eric-peters\/not-so-merry-men\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robin Hood may have been a fictional character, but the thing that drove him and his \u201cMerry Men\u201d to become outlaws was real enough: Oppressive laws. Specifically, oppressive\u00a0taxes. At every turn, the Sheriff of Nottingham and\u00a0his\u00a0not-so-merry men would demand their pound of flesh. The only way Robin and his men could survive was to forget [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-328605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}