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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> I once thought that Republicans might have something with their "starve the 
> beast" agenda. Alas, the current Republican administration, Senate and 
> House has chosen to feed the beast. And with debt, no less.

In many ways they ARE the beast.  It is no end of wonder to me how the 
Republican party became big government and globalists.  Now there is no 
effective 
check on big government with the two parties fighting only on how and in what 
areas to inflate the government.  It's lose-lose now, heads you lose these 
freedoms, tails you lose these other freedoms.


> I have long advised others and myself to live a life below tax collectors' 
> radar. Easier advised than lived. I've done it for periods of time but over 
> the long haul of my life I've found it unsatisfactory.

I suppose we are all different.  There was a period of my life where I did 
not have enough cash income to tax for seven years and I look back on it as 
the 
most satisfactory time of all.  There's a fellow I know who lives in the 
wilds 
of the Smoky Mountians (Sevier County) having moved there from suburban 
Seattle with the professinal job, SUV, and whole lot.  He spent this last 
winter in 
a tent and cooked over an open fire.  When asked why he would leave the 
suburban life for this his reply was that the suburban life was too hard.

Our culture has evolved rapidly.  It is telling that we (as a whole) no 
longer find fulfillment outside of what we can buy rather than what we can do 
or 
what we can be.  One of the saws that the Nearings used in much of their 
writings was "Have less, be more."  Or as my brother-in-law once observed "He 
who 
dies with the most toys wins."  No.  He who dies with the most toys is ... eh 
... 
dead.

James