and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

There is nothing new about the idea of taxing e-mails, or levying some sort of fee for the use of the system, in order to curb the rampant spread of spam but it is being bandied about once again, this time by Minn. Senator Mark Dayton. The concept is clear, the predicted outcome is not. Depending on who you ask it is "a good idea", "an unfortunate but necessary consideration", "really not going to work", and "the dumbest idea I've ever heard".

Even if a realistic system for the payment of these taxes could be developed, it doesn't strike me as particularly debilatating. Let's set the tax at 1 cent. Any more than that and you are asking a bit much for an essentially free service. Now you're talking $1 for 100 emails. $10 for 1000. $100 for 10,000. $1000 for 100,000. These numbers are not as large and scary as they should be if in fact you're trying to stop Spam. Thing with Spam is that it actually works. Something like 10% of the time, even. Companies who are willing to pay thousands and thousands of dollars for email lists will certainly be willing to pay a few pennies to email those people on the list. $1000 is a drop in the bucket.. if companies are willing to spend money on junk snail mail - certainly costing them far more than 1 or 2 cents per letter - than they are certainly willing to spend it on email.

And.. as a spokesman for the Internet-based Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail correctly points out, "it doesn't explicitly tell people not to spam." Definitely a valid point. Are we trying to outlaw spam? Make it illegal? Somehow I doubt that will happen so maybe this is as good as we're going to get. The spokesman goes on to do a disservice, though, by speaking fearfully: "At [the current] rate of growth, e-mail is going to be unusable in five years. E-mail is getting mildly unusable now." Okay okay, sure, I get maybe 50 or 100 spam emails a day but I automatically filter them, 3 or 4 slip through, and I deal. I get far more valid email in my inbox than I do spam. "Mildly unusable"? I don't think so.. only if you are doing absolutely nothing to avoid it.

Another good point made was that we should follow the money.. start penalizing the companies who are trying to push products and services through spam, not the spammers themselves. You may never be able to trace an email back to the spammer that sent it but you certainly can find the company that is trying to sell you shit. Make the spam work for you. It is, afterall, essentially like leaving a big flashing business card on your doorstep.

I say go both ways. Don't just penalize the company selling through spam, penalize the consumer who is dumb enough to buy through spam. Call it a internet consumption tax or an online service contract fee tax levy. Whatever. I'd call it what it is: A dumb tax. A tax for being dumb. An idea we should have implemented a long long time ago.

We could apply it everywhere, too - not just on the internet:

Buy a new car at retail price without bickering? Well, you're willing to pay obviously, might as well pay a dumb tax too, right?

Sign a two-year contract for an overpriced cell phone plan you'll never even use to half it's potential? Heck, why not pay a dumb tax as well?

Like paying exorbatant prices at the movie theatre, then paying excessive prices for the VHS, and then the DVD when you get a DVD player (which you bought on a whim without price shopping), and then the Special Edition double DVD disc when that comes out, too? Well fuck.. we'll nail your dumb ass five times with that

Find it necessary to take 5 pills an hour, go to the doctor twice a week for "chest pains" or "flu symptoms" and think you've come down with Ebola at least twice a year? MMhmm.. yah.. dumb tax.

Actually think that car kit on your '98 Dodge Neon is going to make you cool? Ohhhh yah buddy, you're paying the dumb tax also.

Aww.. poor Xtina