Though incumbent Governor Rick Perry is almost assured to win the Republican nomination for this year's gubernatorial election in Texas, he does face three long-shot challengers. One of them, Corpus Christi rancher Star Locke, has proposed eliminating property taxes in the Lone Star State with revenue from taxing three things he finds undesirable. Specifically, Locke is proposing a $10,000 per-abortion tax on medical clinics that perform abortions and a 50 percent tax on all soda that "contains added glucose, fructose, sucrose to the beverage for sale to humans." However, gamers will be especially alarmed by the third part of Locke's property-tax-relief proposal--a 100 percent tax on "violent video games." According to the candidate's official Web site, the candidate would impose "The Family Security & Protection Act" when elected. Section 4 of the act calls to "levy a 100 percent of price sales cost tax for the sale on ... any video game containing any form of human violence." "I take the position that the Founding Fathers took: that the power to tax is the power to destroy," Locke told the Amarillo Globe News. "So our concept is that we need to tax things we don't want and you want to not tax things that you want to encourage." Just because some whiny government dude thinks that violent games are "unwanted" does not mean that they are not. Think about it: what are the current most successful games? VIOLENT ONE'S! So, what would this do? SUCK! Please, please, please don't elect this guy, as he also wants to tax greasy foods. P.S. Oh, and yes, I know this doesn't effect me directly or immediately, but if it catches on and the vocal minority voice that they like it, I can guarantee you that it will take off. Be afraid.
The reason this will not go anywhere is that the same party that wants to ban all these things is also the same party that wants to lower taxes. In any case I think the concept of discriminatory taxaction is going to be a hard sell, even in Texas.
Don't worry, it's pretty much a given that Rick Perry will be re-elected. Of course, that might not be such a good thing either. During the last election campaign, we saw video footage with him abusing his position to get out of a traffic violation. He still won. I don't trust him any farther than I could throw him. -monkey
The evil you know, etc etc On the other hand, this is pretty garden-variety evil, even by Texas standards. Now granted it's wrong, but at least it's harmless.
Coming from San Antonio, Texas, I'm also fairly sure that Rick will be re-elected. I don't think that even Texas has enough stupidity or lunacy to elect Star Locke. Just the name alone makes me not want to vote for him. Who can be taken seriously with a name like Star? Oh, and his policies suck too.
and how would they quantify violence?? as in some eyes Mario Party has violence in, and thats aimed at the younger audience.
It said human violence. I'd assume this means violence against humans. Whether that includes Mario, who's definately human, would count, I dunno, but taking out all those not-so-furry friends wouldn't be, I'd assume. Stupid idea, but defiantely dangerous. The next level of personal agendas in politics. Don't like something? Tax the hell out of it. That way it's still an option, but you're deterred from choosing it and someone gets a pay raise if you absolutely must. And, of course, piracy and coat-hanger abortions would quadruple overnight if something like that went through. And pirate soda companies, I suppose. The idea of needing a black market for soda is downright retarded.
What really bugs me about this has finally gelled for me. It's the concept that "I don't like X, so no one should be allowed to do X". It's an arbitrary taking of rights, based on personal whim rather than reasoning. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I believe in a societal pholosophy of "Let people do whatever they want unless there is a compelling reason to prohibit it". Obviously thre are compelling reasons to prohibit the "standard" crimes, murder, theft, etc., but we've gone far beyond that in many ways, and I think this is another example. There has been a trend, especially in the current adminsitration, to prohibit things not because they directly harm someone else, but because they are at odds with religious precepts that so,me people feel are "the way things ought to be".
In america any idiot can become president - Thats the risk you take. Man if i was an American and something like this happened i swear id start taking on donations to hire a proffesional Assasin to shoot him. Im not kidding O_O!
, every time i want to make a joke about America, they find a way to make it look like its worse then my joke. Like yesterday, I was on IRC and someone asked where he could buy guns. As a joke I said guns-r-us.com, and the link actually exists. Thats what I like about America, no matter what I think of, they never let me down
