[tmbchr]™

No taxation without representation!



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“No taxation without representation” was a slogan in the period 1763-1775 that summarized a primary grievance of the American colonists in the Thirteen colonies. The colonists complained that taxes were imposed by Parliament without the consent of the colonists, which violated the traditional rights of Englishmen dating back from the Magna Carta. The point was that the colonies had no representation in Parliament; the British responded that they were “virtually” represented. The Americans said these “virtual representatives” knew nothing about America. The Americans rejected the Stamp Act 1765 (which was repealed), and in 1773 violently rejected the tax on imports at the Boston Tea Party. When Great Britain began to crack down on the illegal activities performed by the colonists, the colonists formed militias and seized control of each colony, ousting the royal governors. The complaint was never officially over the amount of taxation (although it was somewhat high), but always on the decision-making process by which taxes were decided in London, without representation for the colonists in British Parliament.

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10 Reader Responses

  1. Tim Boucher Says:
    October 12th, 2007 at 1:46 am

    http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2007...ank-of-america-baffles-with-bullshit/
    http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2007/10/11/eliminate-atm-fees/
    http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2007/08/05/creatively-escaping-money/

  2. Tim Boucher Says:
    October 12th, 2007 at 2:39 am

    This shit is too good!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_monetary_system

    The core idea of Ripple is that it should be possible to route payments through an open, arbitrary trust network, similar to how the internet routes packets of data through an open, arbitrary computer network. The advantages of such a system would be that it wouldn’t be reliant on a small decision-making body at the center to set monetary policy for the entire nation; instead, it would be set in a more democratic fashion by all participants, and in theory be more responsive to regional and community needs. There would be no need to for a tightly-regulated institutional trust hierarchy to control the behaviour of those participants near the center: like the internet, but unlike the existing global monetary system, the Ripple network would be designed to weather the collapse of a large number of its nodes.

    Note that the Ripple protocol itself wouldn’t preclude a hierarchical payment structure evolving, it just allows for the possibility of other structures.

  3. Svenson Says:
    October 12th, 2007 at 3:02 am

    You are a fountain of value, sir. Its very needed too.

  4. Tim Boucher Says:
    October 12th, 2007 at 3:06 am

    None of it comes through me. I have been given certain gifts which I *must* give to others, or else lose them altogether.

  5. Hawala & Al Qaeda - Pop Occulture Says:
    October 12th, 2007 at 3:48 pm

    […] Time for some rampant speculation: is the *real threat* of a “group” like Al-Qaeda simply that they are using a Hawala-like system which refuses to give a slice to governments and banking institutions? How would one go about proving or disproving a hypothesis such as this? Read Similar Articles: […]

  6. Julia Says:
    October 14th, 2007 at 4:11 pm

    I popped over to Tetramorph and noticed the subject of fur traders. As a Chicagoan I can’t let an opportunity to mention Chicago pass me by and this post seemed lonely.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Pointe_du_Sable

    BTW I think you’re right about Google bumping you a little. I’m a computer dope and what I don’t have to touch I leave alone so at work I go through the search page every time. I never paid much attention but it seems like when you were in the picture phase very often what was listed was what I saw, now not so much. I’ll pay better attention and let you know what I notice.

    I’ve seen a change lately with other sites I visit so they might have just changed their whole search program. The main change I’ve seen is going to Wiki first and going to a bio page and not the most recent page second then listing a site that comments on the site you want. It’s better than ads but you have to know what you’re looking for before you go looking.

  7. Tim Boucher Says:
    October 14th, 2007 at 4:29 pm

    I’ve seen a change lately with other sites I visit so they might have just changed their whole search program.

    Definitely. Cryptogon has been mentioning this as well. I’m sensing a major algorithmic reorganization at Google. I wonder if it indicates a shift in leadership policy as well.

    The main change I’ve seen is going to Wiki first and going to a bio page and not the most recent page second then listing a site that comments on the site you want.

    Right, changes in the Google algorithm most likely reflect changes in user behavior patterns - which you have to assume they are capturing IN THEIR ENTIRETY whenever you’re browsing the internet: linking your email address to your search history to cookies from ads on sites to Google analytics installed all over the web, and their ability to correlate all that information to Google spidering the entire web.

    I would like to bump this topic up to a main conversation in the next few days. It indicates something important which needs to be explored.

  8. Julia Says:
    October 15th, 2007 at 6:54 pm

    This guy is having some similar problems.

    http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/...ily_dish/2007/10/how-reliable-is.html

  9. Tim Boucher Says:
    October 15th, 2007 at 10:29 pm

    Another element to discuss: when you’re using an external metrics system installed through your site you end up not ultimately measuring the visits to your site, but the visits to your site which the metrics system ends up capturing and recording. Those two numbers could be wildly divergent. I’m guessing raw server stats are the only way to really judge? I need to learn more about that.

  10. Why Personal Data Ownership Is So Important - [tmbchr]™ Says:
    November 5th, 2007 at 4:43 pm

    […] In other words, we are trading information about us for the ability to do something with that information. This is pretty much the crux of all web business models - with some notable exceptions, perhaps. What few of us are thinking about now is: what does our information allow the companies to which we’re giving control of it to do? In most cases, the answer is simply data-mining. They can sell patterns derived from your activity (and that of your friends) to whomever they please. And you get NO compensation for this. {See also slave labor} […]



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