I remember hearing at some point that you are legally allowed to receive unencrypted signals broadcast onto your property. Now, to actually use the internet, you have to uplink your queries, but I’m curious how receive-only works.
However, as to the ethics of it, donating $50 a month to charity rather than paying it to the cable company sounds like net-mitzvah to me, even if I’m a shareholder. Also, if following the Torah and Mishnah is one’s ethical priority, I doubt we’re going to find anything about not violating the California Penal Code. Besides, the Jews here are coming from an upbringing where we were *encouraged* to argue about the law and scripture.
On a completely different topic, I’m still surprised by your tax load. My wife and I have an AGI (after 401k, HCRA) around $110k, and last year paid $14k in federal taxes, $6k in state, $9k in welfare tax, with the standard deductions and no kids. That’s $29k out of $110k, about 26% (and only 21% of gross pay); I don’t find that to be terribly onerous (except for the war my taxes are funding). I know you pay double the welfare tax, but you should be writing off $20k-30k in business expenses, and paying a good bit less than us…
