Taxes and Census Forms

Posted April 13, 2010, 8:48 p.m.

So the United States government seems to have woken up; we finally got our census form today, and I also got a letter from the IRS about my taxes.

The tax letter was a nice little request for our signatures. According to the letter, our ‘Form 1040 doesn’t show [our] original signature(s).” That would be fine, if it were true. Our Form 1040 did show our original signatures . . . we checked, several times, before sending it. The letter also explained on the back that, “The delay resulting from this request for additional information may have been avoided if you had electronically filed your tax return.” That would be fine too, except that people filing for the home buyer’s tax credit weren’t allowed to file electronically.

Boy, they’re really on the ball over there at the IRS’s Kansas City processing center! I’m starting to wonder if they really want to return our money to us (ha ha ha).

As for the census form, well, it had our street address and ZIP code correct, but named the wrong city for some reason . . . and I still don’t understand why ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ are two separate questions, or why the only possible ethnicities are Hispanic and . . . not Hispanic.

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.

Quotes

But it is as foolish to reject the senses because they sometimes seem to deceive us as it is to reject mathematics because we sometimes make mistakes in our checkbooks.

Have republics in practice been less addicted to war than monarchies? Are not the former administered by MEN as well as the latter?

If your view of the world is that people use reason for their important decisions, you are setting yourself up for a life of frustration and confusion.

Part of the change we have to make is accepting that in the years to come, faithful Christians may have to choose between being a good American and being a good Christian.

But thou, O Lord, art a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

One thing I find helpful is growing old. It’s a slow process, but totally worth it compared to dying.

What happened with slavery is now happening with embryo killing: the people who used to defend it as a ‘necessary evil’ to be resisted or lessened by means other than legal prohibition now promote it as a social good—something that law and government should not only tolerate but embrace and even promote.

In cases of this sort, let us say adultery, rightness and wrongness do not depend on committing it with the right woman at the right time and in the right manner, but the mere fact of committing such action at all is to do wrong.

Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again.

We humans are judgmental people, and we can’t turn off that feature of our brains. Nor would we want to do so, since judging our environment is what keeps us alive.

I am dumbfounded at how little philosophical and metaphysical importance the human mind has attached to the vital subject of excrement.

History is not the soil of happiness. The periods of happiness are blank pages in it.

If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival.

The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

Throughout the history of anti-trust prosecutions, there has been an unresolved confusion between what is detrimental to competition and what is detrimental to competitors.

Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes a day. Wisdom consists of not exceeding the limit.

From a moral point of view this is certain: even if a doubt existed concerning whether the fruit of conception is already a human person, it is objectively a grave sin to dare to risk murder.

Marriage is a socially arranged solution for the problem of getting people to stay together and care for children that the mere desire for children, and the sex that makes children possible, does not solve.

They tell you sex has become a mess because it was hushed up. But for the last twenty years it has not been. It has been chattered about all day long. Yet it is still in a mess.