The Texas Strip Club Tax
News8Austin: State judges consider constitutionality of strip club tax
State appellate judges will decide whether exotic dancing is a constitutionally protected right, or a trade in need of regulation.
Taking your clothes off and dancing around for money is neither.
It is one of an infinite variety of examples of people exercising their private property (in this case: their bodies and their improved land) to peacefully secure a living, something that once set the United States apart from the rest of the world.
You won't find anything in the Constitution about strippers or titty bars. You will find a pathetically watered-down attempt to restrict the state to protecting private property rather than assaulting it. Collectivists have been doing their level best to further dilute those provisions, succeeding more often than not.
Last year, the state slapped a $5 charge per customer for strip clubs, but a district judge ruled that unconstitutional. Now the state's appealing it, but the comptroller continues to collect the fees.The money's not going to sexual assault programs and indigent healthcare intended by the law, though, because all the funds collected are tied up in court.
So not only is it a tax - coercive revenue generation - but it is tied to established social constituencies. Nice.
"Without another source of revenue to support programs that provide direct services to victims, we're not able to fully serve them and provide the services they need to truly heal from issues of sexual assault," crisis intervention advocate Barbie Breshear said.Copyright ©2009TWEAN News Channel of Austin, L.P. d.b.a. News 8 Austin
Hey, Barbie? You aren't trying to pull an argument by emotion or a red herring here, are you? I hope not.
Naturally, no "liberty advocate" is to be found in the news release.
Maybe an anti-tax Republican - wait; perhaps not, given their total neurosis regarding sex and nudity.
Good luck finding a half-coherent spokesperson for the industry affected. If they aren't conceding the collectivists' central arguments before even objecting ("of course some taxes are necessary"; "I agree the state should help all victims of sexual assault"), they're amorally quibbling about negative impacts on revenue.
It's just lovely down here in the Lone Star State.
Comments
More money to see titties? I am shocked,shocked I tell you.
Sex (ie poontang) has always been the world's most expensive drug and the greatest at altering rational behavior!
Posted by: Ol' Rancher | February 28, 2009 10:07 AM
What about the good old days when Ancient Greecians could just walk into a brothel and get it over with, no questions asked?
Just kidding-Ancient Greece was an awful place to live if you weren't a man with full genetalia.
But I really digress...
If someone wants to strip, they should be able to in an establishment that at least doesn't permit children.
The US is only weird about stripping because it was founded by a bunch of puritans.
Posted by: Kate | April 21, 2009 03:33 PM