News has it that New York, replacement Governor, David Paterson, is unveiling 127 new items and services that the Empire State will start taxing.

Although the entire list is too long for inclusion in one blog post, I would like to focus on just two items on the list.

Together the taxing of these two items and the logic behind it demonstrates the utter hypocrisy and lack of reasoning behind liberal tax and spend policies.

The two items I am referring to are gym memberships and soda. Not all soda though. Diet soda is not on Democrats hit list. Claiming that regular soda is less healthy than diet soda, Patterson and fellow Democrats believe regular soda is ripe for a tax that penalizes those who dare to purchase it.

After all it is our health and well being which is the government's primary reason for creating such a tax.

Or is it?

If health concerns were their primary reason, as opposed to economic concerns, why then would they also penalize people who attempt to maintain their health by joining a gym?

If health reasons requires the state to tax soda because it is bad for you, what is the health reason that requires the state to tax gym memberships? Are gym memberships more unhealthy than diet soda?

Let's face it folks, Democrats are just hypocrites.

They claim that they will add a tax to one thing because it is bad for you and then in the same announcement state that they will also add a tax to something that is healthy for you.

Mind you, we are just talking about only two of the new taxes that liberals are promoting in New York. There are 125 others, all as hypocritical and as inexcusable as the next. Each one of them however, will be given a reason for taxing by Democrats. They will try to rationalize each one. But who are they kidding?

Maybe themselves.

I guess they could claim that a tax on gym memberships is necessary because of the risk of injury that could be gotten while trying to keep fit. You know, a sprained ankle on the treadmill, a wrist injury while lifting weights, who really knows. But any excuse is a good excuse.

This type of hypocrisy and illogic certainly isn't limited to New York. In fact New Jersey set this trend. When Wall Street wizard Jon Corzine came into office a whole herd of new taxes were created. Just like New York with soda, Corzine and the liberal led New Jersey legislature raised taxes on cigarettes because of their unhealthiness and at the same time, created a tax on gym memberships.

Way to go guys. While looking out for our health you also penalize us for trying to be healthy.

While doing that, Corzine's economic brilliance led to a tax on the planting of flowers, shrubbery and trees.

That's one way to help take the garden out of the Garden State.

The bottom line is this.

We need political leaders who have some brains and understand that most of their constituents have brains too. Stop insulting our intelligence by making excuses for doing what is wrong. Don't tell us you won't tax one type of soda and not another because one is healthier than the other and then tax everything else that is healthy for us.

If health was the governments true intention, then they should be creating incentives to join the gym, not a create a penalty for joining one.

We need intelligent leaders who are willing to look for solutions, not create problems.

While Blagojevich tries to sell a U.S. Senate seat in Illinois , others are trying to sell us excuses for making tough economic times even tougher for us .

Rather than cutting the cost of government, they raise the cost of living. And they do so with the rationalization of a fourth grader who tries to explain that they don't have their homework because the dog ate it.

But, just like New Jersey, Democrats in New York will make excuses and some voters will buy those excuses.

But for how much longer?

Pretty soon liberals will be adding a tax to those excuses that voters buy.

Hopefully voters will wise up. Hopefully voters will realize that we can't tax our way out of every hole in a budget or spend ourselves into prosperity. When that realization comes, hopefully we will provide liberals with an excuse for their not winning in elections.

Maybe we can tell them that, like their reasons for taxing different things, we voted against them for health reasons......our economic health.

Wondering why there is a government bureau which oversees alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, a young man called the regional office of said bureau.

He asked the man who answered the phone "What wine goes best with an M-16?"

The ATF agent did his best to be helpful and replied.....

"That depends. What are you smoking?"

December 16^th, marks the 235^th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.

Today, we still hold that impressive title but many of us see it being lost.

That greatness is a bi-product of freedom. A freedom that has allowed individuals to flourish well beyond the limited framework that any one established authority could set it’s people on. The diversity of thinking, and goals has created the greatest pool of ideas known to man.

Our freedom and individuality has been the key to our greatness but unlike the people of colonial America, today, Americans are giving up their freedom and relinquishing their individuality to a controlling authority that they want to give greater control to.

Instead of demanding “no taxation without representation” we are accepting of the practice.

If you live in New Jersey but work in New York, in addition to a litany of federal taxes and state taxes, you have to pay a commuter tax. Does paying that tax give New Jerseyans the chance to vote for leaders and representatives in New York? Heck no! But without any representation for them in New York, they are forced to pay taxes to New York.

This scenario is not limited to New York. It exists almost everywhere in the nation but that does not make it right. It is simply an indication of the spirit that has been lost since days of old.

Further indication of this is made in other areas of government.

Instead of that sense of responsibility that the colonists had, today we look towards government for everything. Where the colonists wanted less of the majesty’s governance, we want more of the federal bureaucracy’s governance.

Have a business that isn’t successful? Let the government bail you out.

Want to start a business? Let the government give you a grant to do it.

Lost money on a business deal or investment? Let the government give you the money back.

Let the government do everything and pay for everything, right?

Wrong!

The money the government gives you is not theirs to give away. It is your money, it is our money. It is the tax dollars we let them take from us and the more we refuse to do for ourselves, the more money they take from us.

Economically, that doesn’t sound like a bad thing but in reality it is anything but a good deal.

When the bureaucracy of government does something, they do so in a way that costs much more than any individual or private sector institution can. So by letting the government do more, is allowing more money to be wasted. If you needed a hammer would you buy one for 8 bucks at Home Depot yourself or would you buy the same one from the Pentagon for 108 dollars?

The government needs to get out of our business and Americans need to recapture the independent spirit that founded this country and made us the great nation that we are.

We need to start doing for ourselves what we have come to expect government to do for us. Our reliance on a controlling authority has taken control of our lives away from us. That reliance has created a dependency that has led to the growth of government and that growth has created the need for more money. Money that is raised by increasing the taxes that the people have to pay.

The Boston Tea Party may not have been a cozy afternoon gathering but it was a good thing. It signaled our deep rooted yearning for our God given freedom and believe it or not, freedom is still a good thing.

235 years later Americans are far removed from that fact. Instead of demanding less government and more personal freedom, we ask for more government and more government action. Instead of protesting excessive taxation we just held an election that endorsed more taxes and “spreading the wealth around”.

Maybe we will have to lose some of our freedom in order to realize what all the hullabaloo in Boston was about.

Slowly we already have lost some of our freedoms but apparently not enough. Not enough to select candidates who want to limit government. Not enough to force representatives to stop trying to solve problems by restricting our freedoms and creating more problems.

Just how much freedom we must lose before we begin to miss it, is quite important.

That freedom made us the great power and people that we are and the more of it that we lose, the further from greatness we shall fall.

So today, before charging the spouses gift on that past due credit card, take a moment and reflect on the participants of the Boston Tea Party. A bunch of colonists who saw more value in their freedom than any Christmas gift. A group of soon to be Americans whose desires for a better life led them to renounce the authority of a government for the sake of their freedom and the eventual freedom that we have come to take for granted and whittle away.

A man took a trip out West after a harrowing IRS audit. He stopped in a bar, and after a few drinks, stated to no one in particular, "IRS agents are horses' asses."

One of the locals spoke up on hearing this: "Mister, you'd better watch what you say. You're in horse country."