Dark Ages, Take 2:
Score another WIN for Liberty! Brave patriots from various Kentucky counties have been rescued from the tyranny of public libraries (until today, considered an essential part of having an educated and literate populace).
Specifically, Kentuckians have been untethered from the tyrannical library boards and their ability to levy incremental increases in property taxes without an election being called every year. The final score is:
Homeowners: save a whopping average of $50 a year in property taxes, for FREEDOM.
Libraries: will have their budgets slashed between 55 and 70 percent,…..or, in non math speak, gutting them. For FREEDUMB.
Any wagers on which civilization will keep science, math and art alive while we go about shooting each other for trespassing on each others’ dirt farms for the next 500 years?
As Alternet’s David Morris reports, it all started in the second revolutionary times of early 2012, when the Library Board of Pulaski County, Kentucky, used its taxing authority to add an average of $1 a year to property taxes*, to support existing services at five libraries.**
An alert Teabagger saw evidence of an out-of-control government agency ramming socialism down the throats of Pulaski County residents, who did not get to vote on the increase (although in 2006, they had approved a bond election to build a new library).
So, the Tea Party launched a historic and brave campaign to dissolve the library board’s taxing district. Because suing is what they takers do best, they also sued to invalidate a 1979 law that gave county library boards the ability to increase the libraries’ portion of property taxes without an election. The teabaggers bellowed: “taxation without representation” over a system that had financed libraries pretty well for over 30 years, with only minimal increases to property taxes (well below the rate of inflation, and well below the maximum rate of increase the law allowed).
But. sayeth Kentucky Teabaggers, since each increase was not subject to voter approval, SOCIALISM.
When state judges ruled that the 1979 law was invalid, and that three county library systems would have to roll back tax rates to 1978 and 1967 levels. a Tea Bagger who had been one of the plaintiffs actually said this:
“THE PEOPLE OF CAMPBELL COUNTY WON! OUR COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED UPON TAKING ACTION AGAINST TYRANNIC GOVERNMENT”.***
The Teabaggers, they do not care for this ridiculous socialist experiment of public libraries, a Marxist invention that has only been around for a couple hundred years and is clearly a tool of oppression. As one Tea Bag Blog asks,
“Why should my neighbors be able to rent non-educational DVDs and video games at a cost to the taxpayer when I rent mine at Redbox?**** Redbox charges a $1.27 per movie including taxes which I think is a steal.”*****
And there you have the Tea Party in a nutshell: I got mine, fuck you and your access to things that I don’t think are important. If you want stuff like videos, pay for them yourself, and if you can’t afford them, get another job.
Kentucky LIBRARIES will now have to WIN ELECTIONS in order to stay open. On the other hand, with the rollback of library taxes to decades old rates, sure all the Libraries will close, but hardworking homeowners will save an average of $50 a year, which is almost enough to buy one new video game, two hardback novels, or sixteen bags of Cheetos, so it’s pretty clear who comes out ahead on that deal. But in the long run, when taxes are lowered to the Tea Parties Ideal, the commensurate loss in amenities will make the actual properties worthless.
I’ve come across these bookish redneck sorts before when I worked at a bookstore in Pennsylvania in high school. They’d say things like “the only book I’ve ever read is the Bible” – as if I was supposed to be impressed by their lack of intellectual curiosity. So I’d show them to the Fiction aisle, and/or True Crime.
Kentucky, home to some beautiful horses but also to the Creation Museum, and that’s a walk-through of the only book anyone needs to read anyway, so libraries are just a superfluous distraction. Besides, if one teabagger has to pay a buck twenty-seven for Red Dawn 2, then that clearly means someone getting Downton Abbey for free is tyranny. And liberals can go back to getting their Anarchist Cookbooks from their granddaddies, like real Americans.
And there goes the last chance of Kentucky being able to use the slogan “The Brain Power State” on their licenses.
footnotes:
*GASP* Why, that would buy about a pint of gasoline for my Escatundra! TO THE BARRICADES!
** Listen, if you can’t read, you don’t need books! The Stupid shall remain Stupid and they will not feel bad about it either cuz…they got their way. Don’t worry, hillbillies…I’ll wait while you git to ciperhin’ with the coal on the back of a shovel.
***And Kentucky receives how much back from the heathen North vs dollar they pay in federal taxes?
****We found Redbox’s target market group. I always wondered about that.
***** I don’t guess this asshole realizes that most public libraries have a fee associated with media checkouts (at the PL I used to work for, it was $2 per item, which is 73 cents more than his precious fucking Redbox).
