Living or Pancakes?

Now it may be said that the United States comparatively is free in its economy, government, education, and other areas of social and political life.  That being said, I just want to copy and paste something from a major book that was penned back in the 1800s.  This author believed that communism was going to take control all over Europe, and although it would look different in different places, there are common things all communist states would generally ascribe to:

1. Abolition of property…

2. Heavy and progressive income tax…

3. Abolition of all right of inheritance…

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels…

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank…

6. Centralization of means of communication…

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state…

8. Equal liability of all to labor.  Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture…

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country…

10.  Free education for all children in public schools….

That man’s name is Karl Marx.  Do any of the above items look familiar?

Increasingly I see people at tea parties, summits, events, protests, and all other places where people protest high taxes and government waste.  Sadly, the thing I continue to not see at these events and places are people asking about the concepts of taxation. The morality based around the tax system is based on an epistemic bend toward existentialism, transcendentalism, and nihilism. I know that is a lot of ‘-isms’, but actually it is important to ask the question of the morality of taxes altogether.

Simply put, the degree to which a person is taxed by one’s government, is the degree to which that person is a slave to that government.  If one is regulated and income constained through taxation, one is increasingly less free.  The freedom of an individual to acquire capital is directly related to one’s liberty.  If you are not free to legally accumulate wealth, then you are not free on any other level.  The planned economies of the old Eastern Europe, Latin America, Far East, and other areas show us a consistent picture of how people are not free in their person when they are not free in their economics.

To tax is to curb liberty.  To tax is to hurt freedom.  To tax is to enslave.  Taxes are taken from free men which are their rightful gains from a mind which produces wealth through work, innovation, creative energies, and then their gains are expropriate and surrendered to government – by force.  It seems that this activity is never questioned, and governments are allowed to operate with impunity against their own citizens.  If a government restricted free speech and fired shots into a crowd of protesters, that would be seen as a tyrannical act against its citizens, but this is no different than taxation.

S1 – Free peoples implies free speech (free peoples are those who have free speech, not be virtue of legislators, kings, lords, or princes allowing it, but by birthright)

S2 – Free speech implies free economics (free peoples are those who have free speech and free speech leads to free exchange of ideas and goods between free peoples)

S3 – Ideas and goods are the manifestation of these free peoples’ free thoughts (free peoples are those who have free speech which is a free conveyance of free ideas, which produce goods and services for trading among free peoples)

S4 – Capital is the system by which the exchange is made (free peoples trade using capital to exchange value for free ideas, which manifest as goods and services)

S1 implies S2

S2 implies S3

S3 implies S4

Therefore,

S1 implies S4

To be free is to be free to gain capital.  When capital gains are restricted (especially when by force) it is tyrannical.  The tyranny which would suppress speech of free peoples is one-in-the-same as the tyranny who suppresses capital gains among free peoples.

The degree to which you are free to gain capital is directly related to the freedom you have in general.

The degree to which you are restricted to gain capital is directly related to the enslavement you are under.

Those who would stand against a tyranny who restricts free speech, ought to be consistent and stand against the injustice of taxation.

An American merchant captain is being held hostage by pirates.  The president is thinking things over about what to do (for the better part of a week).

The same government who promises you relief from natural market ebbs and flows, can’t rescue a man from real threats on his life.  They say they will secure healthcare for you, but they can’t extract this man with the might of the U.S. Navy.

What audacity of hope is there left in this merchant captain who is a hero for saving his crew and is left in the hands of group of pirates, who are somehow negotiating with the President?  This government is going to save us from natural downturns in markets, but cannot protect ships from pirates.

If we cannot be saved from pirates, what on earth makes us think they will save behemoths like healthcare, social security, and the monetary system?

One issue that incites people to rebel against their leadership is when that leadership is arrogant and aloof.  While the nation is suffering from economic woes and the pain of unemployment, politicians eat $200 lunches and travel to obscure locations in Europe and the Mediterranean.  These members of Congress will receive their paychecks whether they show up for work, read any legislation, or pass any resolutions.

What’s worse is that when they skip out on work, the people are the ones who foot the bill.  The United States Congress is composed of professional politicians who could not work the nightshift at Dunkin Donuts.  These people don’t know what it is like to get up and go to work each day, giving it your best so that you stay employed.  If they want a raise, they don’t analyze their value and articulate their good work to their employer – no they simply raise their own salary, which is a vote session they consistantly show up for.

You want to know why people are taking to the streets?  Look in the mirror, Congress and consider the real work these people do, simply to have taxes expropriated from their paychecks to fund your redundant incompetence.

One axiom of business, life, government within a litigious society is, “Only an idiot signs something before reading it”.  You need to make certain that you read what you are approving.

This issue counting down to the Tea Parties is to point out that the Congress is disingenuous when they sign laws before they have read them.  The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was 1000+ pages and no human being could possibly have read the legislation – many are still not past page 3.  So how is it not idiotic to vote ‘Yes’ on a topic to which you have no knowledge?  And if you are an idiot, why should be given power to declare war?

If it is blindly following the majority or the president, then this is no different from feudal or fascist nationstates.  If you are unable to read that which you enact as law, let us all do you a favor and remove you from such exhausting work.

There are several issues that I will be addressing throughout this countdown to April 15 Tea Parties, but one that touches me more deeply than most is public versus private industries.  About two months ago, President Obama said that the government is the only entity with the resources to save the country from the brink of disaster.  This concept of the public (government) sector as the necessary agent for economic growth is untrue.

The reason the government cannot save economics from trouble is because the government is not a profit producing entity.  The funds that President Obama mentions as the required resources for saving the economy have their origins in the people who produce them.  These funds are not fiat, meaning, they do not simply appear without cause.  Money is the product of labor, innovation, creative energy, man’s mind, for the goal of making a profit.  Therefore, the only entity available to produce wealth is private profit-seeking industry.  Wealth is the product created by rational beings trading value for value, but governments do not produce products or services to trade value for value.

Although President Obama’s statement may be true that the government is the only entity (right now) with the resources to help this economy, it cannot be the long-term solution.  Government cannot produce wealth, therefore, it cannot be the sustaining force to drive growth. The issue then arises with the fact that we will be burdened by the government’s efforts to ‘help’ in that the necessary wealth to pay down this ‘help’ will not be produced by the government which causes the debt.

Although a quick deposit of capital from government to banks and other financial institutions may very well stablize the financial system, by its very nature, the government cannot produce funds necessary to pay down the debt it causes.  So we ought not see the government as the cure, and instead insist that the government set free the markets to produce the necessary wealth to grow economies.

A government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims. Government “help” to business is just as disastrous as government persecution… the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.- Ayn Rand

One of the main reasons the Declaration of Independence was written was to address the long list of grievances caused by King George III.  The bulk of the Declaration is devoted to addressing the long list of abuses from the crown, and these are directly tied to the modus operandi of the British Crown as it ignored the call of its people for justice.  Presently the issue here in the United States is the same disenfranchisement that occurs when lawmakers no longer listen to the people they represent, and instead see public opinion as something to overcome rather than obey.

More and more freedoms are being handed over to  Federalism, U.N., NATO, NAFTA, and other governmental bodies, while leaving the citizens without recourse to make their wishes heard by a despotic legislature.  In the 2000 film, The Patriot, when the lead character Benjamin Martin questions the motives of revolution he says, “Why should I trade one tyrant 3,000 miles away for 3,000 tyrants one mile away?”  This is a legitimate concern.  This is the status in which we currently live, where the tyranny of the ruling and educated class tramples the rights of ordinary people.  And what do these ordinary people really want – to be left alone.  Instead the government continues to encroach on the lives of its citizens to expropriate from those citizens’ taxes to fund its perpetual tyranny. Two solutions: 1) no taxes allocated to anything other than their taxed sources, 2) term limits to produce representatives, not professional politicians.

The government has shown with unquestionable tenacity and unfailing ability to avoid logic when deciding any legislative action.  The government is not wicked, satanic, malicious, or evil, but foolish. Today, I would like to discuss the issue of the disagreement between two Amendments to the Constitution.
The 10th Amendment affords States and the People their rights, by restricting the powers  given to the U.S. Congress.  So powers which are not specified in the Constitution, are left to the States and the People:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

That being said, the 16th Amendment gives the Congress powers which are to be excluded by the 10th Amendment saying:

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

This Amendment conflicts with the 10th Amendment.  Although it is a nice idea to protest and march on April 15 against the misuse of tax funds to bailout mortgage bankruptcies, Wall Street banks, GM, Chrysler, Ford, UAW, bridges to nowhere, $900 lunches, and so on, the real issue which ought to be addressed, is whether the Congress truly has the power to levy taxes. This is the important question.  When the Congress exercises its power in the 16th Amendment, are they not violating the 10th Amendment which does not grant this power?  So before we argue for the kind of tax (progressive, bracketed, fare, flat, etc.), let us stop and consider that since 1913 the U.S. Congress has conducted its fund-raising efforts un-Constitutionally.  They are not afforded the right or power to tax the income of U.S. citizens.