Gerard Depardieu Meets John Galt

Another Frenchman has “gone Galt.”

First, it was France’s richest entrepreneur.

Now, it’s the nation’s most famous actor. Gerard Depardieu has officially announced – in a letter to France’s thuggish Prime Minister – that he is tired of paying 85 percent of his income to finance the vote-buying actions of France’s kleptocratic political elite.

Instead, he is going to move to Belgium (which is hardly a tax haven, but there’s an old line about how you should surround yourself with fat people if you want to look skinny).

Here are some of the amusing details from the UK-based Telegraph.

The French actor whose eccentric personality has come to symbolise a certain, old fashioned form of Gallic love for good food and the pleasures in life, also known as a “bon vivant,” said he is finished with the country, in a letter published in the Journal du Dimanche.It is addressed to Jean-Marc Ayrault, the French prime minister, who called Depardieu “pathetic” for wanting to move just over the French border to the wealthy Belgian town of Néchin, where he will evade the current Left-leaning government’s tax hikes.”I am handing over to you my passport and social security, which I have never used,” he said. …The actor asserts he has always been an upstanding citizen, deserving “respect,” and who has employed 80 people, always paid his taxes, and “never killed anybody.” He said he paid 85 per cent of his income in taxes in 2012, and over 45 years, has paid 145 million Euros – or £118 million – in taxes. …”I leave because you consider that success, creation, talent, difference, in fact, should be sanctioned,” he writes.

Gee, why is Depardieu complaining? In an act of generosity and mercy, France’s President has said he doesn’t want anybody to pay more than 80 percent of their income to the state. So if Gerard is paying 85 percent this year, he’ll get a tax cut!

Methinks that Depardieu doesn’t trust Hollande, Ayrault, and the rest of the thieves. In any event, it’s obvious – and understandable – that he resents the French government’s attack on “success, creation, talent.”

So we’re going to see the Laffer Curve in action. Depardieu has pad nearly $200 million to the French tax authorities over the past several decades. Now that the French government has tightened the screws even further, he’s going to pay them a lot less.

Maybe there’s a lesson there for Obama. But I’ve already tried to educate our taxer-in-chief about these issues, so I doubt this new evidence from France will make any difference.

“Dan, you are such a giver!”

P.S. Going Galt is a bit of a national pastime in France. In 1999, Laetitia Casta was chosen to be “Marianne,” the symbol of France. A couple of years later, as my friend Veronique de Rugy wrote, she decided to move to the United Kingdom to escape confiscatory taxation.

Because I’m a selfless person and a bit of an expert on tax havens, I hereby offer Laetitia my services to help with her tax planning.

I’m even willing to work 24/7 to help her protect her earnings, even if it requires an overnight stay.

No sacrifice is too great, after all, to help the cause of freedom.

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Taking a Logical Step to Protect Students, a Texas School District Allows Armed Teachers

There’s a lot to like about Texas. The state has no income tax, for instance, which we know is a good recipe for faster growth and more prosperity.

That’s one of the reasons why the Lone Star State kicks the you-know-what out of California in the battle to attract jobs and investment.

But Texans also have a more sensible approach to thwarting crime. Some of them apparently took my IQ test, which asks whether murderers prefer armed victims or unarmed victims, and they wisely concluded that the ability to shoot back is a lot better than cowering in a corner (you can see the California mentality in the third image in this post).

So one school district allows teachers and staff to carry concealed weapons. Here’s some of what’s reported in the Fort Worth Star Telegram.

David Thweatt, superintendent of the tiny Harrold school district in northwest Texas, believes his staff is ready. Besides special locks and security cameras, an undisclosed number of staff members and teachers carry concealed handguns. Thweatt said the “guardian plan,” which drew international attention when it was implemented in 2008, definitely enhances student safety. “Is that 100 percent? No,” Thweatt said Friday in a telephone interview. “Nothing is 100 percent. But what we do know is that we’ve done all we can to protect our children.” At the time the plan was put in place, Harrold, about 150 miles northwest of Fort Worth, was the only known public school district in Texas and the U.S. that allowed staff members and teachers to carry concealed weapons. Thweatt said he knows of some other district that have since adopted similar policies, but declined to name them. …Board members approved the measure because the district is at least 20 minutes from the nearest station of the Wilbarger County Sheriff’s Department. …Thweatt said he wanted to minimize casualties that could quickly increase while waiting for deputies. He didn’t want a plan where you “lock yourself in your closet and hope that an intruder won’t hurt you.” …There has not been an incident on his campus, and Thweatt doesn’t expect one.

The last part of the excerpt tells you all you need to know. There have been no mass shootings and the superintendent doesn’t expect any.

Some leftists doubtlessly will fret that a crazy teacher might bring a gun to school and start shooting people. What they apparently don’t understand, though, is that a crazy teacher already has that ability. Or, as we tragically witnessed in Connecticut, some other nutjob can come to a school and engage in a killing spree.

But in Harrold, Texas, at least there are people who can shoot back.

I know I would rather send my kids to school in Harrold than to someplace that advertises itself as a gun-free zone.

And if this poster is correct, Israel puts common sense above anti-gun ideology.

You can enjoy some humor about so-called gun-free zones by clicking here.

And since this post is about Texans and the second amendment, this bit of humor is always popular. As is this example of a Texas police exam and this story of Texas, California, and a coyote.

Speaking of California, let’s engage in a bit more mockery of the Golden State.

P.S. Let’s allow Alabama to make a cameo appearance in this post since this image is entertaining in more  ways than one.

(h/t: Ben Domenech, via Erick Erickson)

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