By Marcin Chmielowski I am by no means an expert on Ukrainian politics. However, thanks to education and experience, I know something about libertarianism. Surprisingly, these two areas are linked together due to the quiet political revolution that took place in our eastern neighbors. Exit polls are showing that something unprecedented has happened. For the first time in history, parliamentary election in a large, populous country are won by political party which identifies itself as libertarian. And it’s worth a comment. What’s crucial, this victory took place in a country that is placed as 147th in 2019 Index of Economic Freedom prepared by Heritage Foundation. It’s a country, which economy is supposed to be less free on the whole European continent and it’s currently defending itself from Russian armed aggression. Certainly, this election’s result means a huge change in the two dimensions that I wrote above, and so in the Ukraine’s politics itself as well as in the libertarian movement, which may be able to capitalize this success. Due to my knowledge and interests, I will focus on the second aspect, although I will not run away from the brief commentary on Ukrainian matters. In this case, however, my voice is not the expert’s voice but only observer’s one. Important remark for the beginning: the success of the Servant of the People should be seen as a breakdown of the popularity of President Volodymyr Zelensky – politician, who can be seen as reformist but who is definitely not a libertarian. It should be seen as de facto introducing until recently a purely virtual, structureless party to general public. We do not know yet whether the Servant of the People will enter into a coalition with someone but even if it will do it as a stronger side of the system. …
How the government broke my digital camera
Once upon a time, the government decided break my digital camera. Like the mean kid who throws your favorite toy down the stairs, the government succeeded in making all DSLR cameras worse for no reason. The consequence is that today, my DSLR camera cannot record videos longer than 29 minutes. Sure, that may not seem like a big deal, but if you work with video, this gets annoying fast! Let’s say I want to record an hour long speech — I have to stop the recording half way through and re-start it, just so I can get the entire thing. When I watch my final video, I have a big black pause right in the middle of my video. Some may think the 29 minute limitation is because of a technical glitch, or to prevent from overheating, but the real reason involves international tax law. According to tax laws for some EU countries, any camera that records video for more than 29 minutes is classified as a “video camera” and subject to much higher taxes of 5 to 14 percent. So in order to get around it, DSLR cameras simply record less than 29 minutes at a time. But all is not lost. Sure, the government may have taken my camera and thrown it into traffic, but there’s a way to “fix” it! Hackers have come to the rescue across the internet by providing ways to correct the problem. Now you can record video for as long as you want — in exchange for voiding your warranty. Still, the fix may be worth it! Now I can set up a few tripods and record longer interviews, without worrying about whether or not the camera is still recording. But the strange camera quirk is just another example of how we live …
The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: Episode 2 – The Tall Tax
Another episode of Jonathan Gullible has been produced. In this episode, Jonathan Gullible meets a man crawling on his knees to avoid the “tall tax”. Jonathan says, “That must hurt!” The man says, “Yeah, but it hurts more not to.” This is the second cartoon episode in a series being produced by Liberty International. Joe Kent helped to animate the characters, with voice-over help from Ken Schoolland, and students at Hawaii Pacific University. Ken Schoolland is also the author of Jonathan Gullible: a Free Market Odyssey, available here! Please feel free to re-post or share!
Will the Fiscal Crisis Create an Opening to Shrink the Burden of the State?
Head of Dutch Libertarian Party Arrested Just Weeks Before Election
The former chairman of the Dutch Libertarian Party, Toine Manders has been kidnapped in Cyprus by the FIOD (the Dutch IRS) and is currently locked away in the Netherlands in complete isolation (aside from his lawyer), in an undisclosed location. He is being held for an extended 90-day period, the charges for which are unknown. Toine Manders began his career by giving legal advice, through his company HJC, to young Dutch men who wanted to avoid military conscription. He helped roughly 6,000 men avoid being trained as hit-men for the government. The mainstream media jumped on this, calling them ‘refusal yuppies’, who used legal loopholes to evade their duty to the country. After military conscription was suspended in 1996, Toine’s company moved on to help businesses avoid taxes through strictly legal methods. In the Netherlands, the combined pressures of income tax, VAT, inheritance tax, inflation, and other forms of taxation add up to an astounding 80%, according to calculations by Amsterdam professor Roel Beetsma. Legal tactics of avoiding taxes are widely used by large corporations like Starbucks, Apple and Ikea, however, Toine Manders had attracted special attention from the government by running controversial ads that stated “Taxation is theft”. The ads went on to say that it was people’s moral duty to pay as little in taxes as possible, as the government is a criminal enterprise. Unable to hire teams of accountants to do it for them, Toine also tried to help smaller business make use of legal tax avoidance methods. The first signs of government backlash appeared in 2008 when his radio commercial ‘taxation is theft’ was banned by the Reclame Code Commissie (Commercial Ethics Commission) on the basis of being ‘in violation of decency’, along with a defense of the social contract. For fear of losing their licenses …