I am, technically, still on vacation, but I made the mistake of signing on to check out Marty’s site, and there’s something that I just gotta comment about.
It’s a blog entry by Mike Rinder entitled Survey: What Impinges — Results. Now, I’ve got a lot to say about this blog entry, and probably will when I’m back home, but one particular bit stood out.
Mike Rinder talks about the LRH article What Your Fees Buy. Kudos to Mike for pointing out that this article was changed from “fees” to “donations”. (The last time Marty talked about this policy, he seemed to imply that it was always about donations. I accused him of using DM tech, seeing as how the change to “donations” was made after LRH died. Looks like M&M were paying attention!)
What really stuck in my craw was this:
But what you pay for SERVICES has to cover all manner of expenses as Scientology receives no government handouts.
Excuse me? NO GOVERNMENT HANDOUTS? Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
First of all, there have been plenty of occasions when governments have been tricked into paying to use LRH’s “study tech” or even his “administrative technology”. Scientologists will argue that this isn’t a “handout”, per se, as there was “exchange” of money for a “valuable final product” (the Study Technology, and I’d argue against its value.) Still, that was taxpayer money going to Church coffers.
But let’s not forget the big handout: THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY IS A TAX-EXEMPT ORGANIZATION. We don’t know how much the Church takes in, but it’s fair to say that the Church is saving millions and millions of dollars that should be going to Federal, state and local governments. There is ample evidence that the Church of Scientology was established and is run as a business, and yet they are tax-exempt just like a proper religion. And yet they use taxpayer-funded services such as public roads, police protection, the courts (oh, man, do they use THOSE a lot!), even Medicare for sick members with physical problems that aren’t helped by LRH’s quack theories.
And Mike Rinder has the GALL to say that the Church doesn’t get Government handouts?
The Church sought out tax-exempt status for DECADES before DM finally strong-armed the IRS into granting it. Back in the 1960s, LRH had his auditors wear collars and crosses strictly to give the illusion that Scientology was a religion. (Before that, it was a form of psychotherapudic analysis, because psychotherapy was a hot-selling prospect.)
No government handouts, my ass.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m goin’ back to my vacation.
ML,
Caliwog
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