Posted on 12/29/2002 11:53:02 PM PST by Sir Gawain
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Liberty is incompatible with taxation. This despite that famous saying by Oliver Wendell Holmes that “Taxation is the price we pay for civilization.” In fact, taxation is a most uncivilized way of obtaining funds, given that it amounts to nothing less than extortion. Just think of it: You go to work for some company and are told you will receive a certain wage but actually receive but a fraction of what you have been offered. Why? Because a substantial portion is sent not to you, who earned it, but to other people. Why? Because if it isn't sent to them, they will declare the company criminal and sick the police on it. So, the company is coerced to take part of your earnings and divert it to those who have this power to make them do so. If this isn't exactly like what the Mafia does when it engages in extortion I don't know what is. Yes, some of the funds extorted will be used for purposes that may actually benefit you and some who are extorted don't protest. But maybe that's true of what the Mafia takes from those whom it extorts, as well. And it doesn't matter because what is wrong with extortion isn't what the money is used for, but how it is obtained, namely, coercively. Often it is Robin Hood who is held up as the role model for justifying taxation: Didn't he “steal” from the rich to “give” to the poor? Well, not, not really. Robin Hood did just the opposite: He stole from those who stole from the poor and returned the loot to the rightful owners. In those days the upper classes, from the king to all his cronies, routinely engaged in extortion. They disguised this, however, with the phony claim that everything belongs to the king and his cronies. Yes, monarchs and those who rationalized monarchy spun this fantasy and managed to sell it to the people that the monarchs were the rightful owners “of the realm,” that they had a “divine right” to rule us. This way when the bulk of the country went to work on the farm or wherever, they had to pay “rent” to the monarch and his cronies. Of course, if I live in your apartment, I pay you rent. It is your apartment, after all, so you have it coming to you. But what if you got your apartment by conquest, by robbing a bunch of people of what belongs to them? That is mostly how the monarchs got to rule the realm, by conquest. By all rights it is the folks who were working in the realm — on the land and elsewhere — who actually owned that realm, the monarchs being the phony, pretend owners, nothing better. But since they managed to bamboozle a great many powerless folks into believing that they did own the realm, the “rent” had to be paid. Since, however, the American Revolution put the lie to this monarchical ruse, the institution of taxation could not be passed off as some kind of legitimate rent taking. That major political change showed once and for all that monarchs were sophisticated thugs who ran roughshod over the rest of the people, who violated their basic natural rights all over the place, by robbing and conscripting them. Yet, because of the idea that we do need to have our rights protected by some means that involve costs, taxation remained a feature of the society that followed the change from monarchy to constitutional republicanism. Not a lot of taxation, mind you, because it seemed pretty clear to the Founders that taxation is in fact extortion. But they didn't see some other, legitimate, morally acceptable way of collecting the funds needed to pay government for its service of securing our rights. Yet, they might have. There are other ways governments could be paid for their service of securing rights that couldn't exist without legal protection. Contract fees, not taxation, could solve the problem. But this alternative, legitimate method wasn't in the cards following the revolution, so taxation remained, albeit in a rather modest form. In time, however, it got out of hand. After all, if the Mafia just took a tiny fraction of income from its victims, most would probably put up with it all rather than resist. But when the amount moves on to 25 to 70 percent, it turns into big time extortion. And that is how we stand now with taxation — it has become big time extortion. Some respond to this by noting that in other countries taxation is much higher. Sure, because they are even farther from having lived up to the spirit and letter of the revolution that America experienced, namely, removing power from government and returning it to where it belongs, the individual citizens. After all, it is America that is the leader of the free world, with a lot of other countries, including most of those in Western Europe, way behind. At least that is how it was supposed to happen. Instead, however, the American Revolution was betrayed and the U.S.A. has undergone a reactionary period in which it reverted, substantially, to the policies of earlier systems of government. This Europeanization of America is a shame, a damned shame. And it needs to be identified as such to have any chance of being arrested. The first step is to acknowledge, unapologetically, that the institution of taxation is not a civilized but rather a barbaric method to fund anything, because it amounts to nothing less than outright extortion, a gross violation of human liberty.
Machan, who teaches at Chapman University in Orange, California, advises Freedom Communications, Inc., on public policy matters. His most recent book is Initiative — Human Agency and Society (Hoover Institution Press, 2000). His email address is Tibor_R._Machan@link.freedom.com. |
Non-existent, imaginary borders invented by those who wish to violate the rights of others. No different than the monarchs as used as an example in the essay.
This is the sum total of the reasons for the existence of political boundaries, is it?
I have one other choice.
I may deny the moral legitimacy of the current state, assert my autonomy in open declaration to said state, and then go about living my life as a free man, neither contributing to, or "benefitting" from that state.
That is the path I have chosen. But I choose that path knowing that it subjects me to imprisonment (or worse) at the hands of a state that views me as its "property".
Sorry... but that's just the way it is.
I think this sort of confusion of the structure of thought with the application of thought is the cause of the mental gymnastics of the libertarians. And these moments always strike me as Randian. I don't if that is where you get this type of thinking or not, but the Randians always seem to love these simplistic premises because they make the ensuing arguments resemble the assembly of tinker toys. "Ah, we got the blue stick, now we just add the wooden block and the green stick and no-one can deny that is a car..."
Your premise is absolutely not true. There is a distinction between morality and immorality. And some acts are undilutedly moral, and some are undiluted evil.
But that doesn't mean all "things" are NECESSARILY either moral or immoral. Many, many, many "things" are irreducible gestalts with both moral and immoral elements intertwined. Are you seriously arguing that there are NO gradations of morality or gradations of IMMORALITY among possible human acts? If I steal your bread to feed my starving child, is that moral or immoral? Is it the same as if I steal your bread to fuel my heroin habit? Would it, by chance, be less moral than if I left your bread to you, and more moral than if it was for heroin? Are these two acts really morally indistinguishable? Is one "objectivally moral" and the other "objectivally immoral"? That's why we have moral philosophy, for pete's sake.
You know, just because "A" is "A" and not "not-A" in formal logic doesn't mean that in life we have to twist our brains into denying that there is 'light" and "dark' and "a little light" and "mostly dark but with a glimmer" and "dark as night"...
So the answer is taxation is less moral than alms, and more moral then extortion. Only people who have a prior intellectual constraint will shake their heads and cry "but it has to be either A or not-A!"
No.... it renders me unable to leave freely.
(geez... it's like talking to a bag of doorknobs)
We have been talking about a system of theft. Some posters, such as yourself, interjected ideas of how we as individuals can avoid this theft. Your idea is to "just leave; vote with your feet". It has been pointed out to you, that we can't "just leave" to avoid theft without our justly aquired land and property being stolen once again.
Its funny that you have no problem with the "consequences" of leaving this system of theft to be theft in itself, yet again.
Being "free" to leave and being able to leave are two different things. Ask those who fled Germany in 1939 or East Germany through the Berlin Wall in the sixties, seventies and beyond.
Roads, fire dept., police?
When the "political system" does not recognize the individual as the ultimate authority of the diposition of his/her life and justly aquired property, yes, it is.
Never tried that. In fact, never saw a bag full of them. Do you work for a door company?
:^}
Very well. Shall I compose a list of benefits you can be expected to forswear?
No.... it renders me unable to leave freely.
Only if you perversely insist on defining "freely" as "without consequence". In which case, you will never, ever be free, no matter what.
Any action which initiates force or fraud against another human being is immoral under all circumstances and without exception.
All else is either amoral (and hence morally irrelevant and an acceptable means of human interaction) or moral (and hence an acceptable means of human interaction).
Spare me the "Randian" wanderings, and deal with this issue.
Is the initiation of force or fraud immoral?
Someone "gives" you something you don't want and then you are obligated to them because you "benefited"?
I suppose they changed their mind. minds.
Really? Could you please cite a case where the Supreme Court specifically said something like "Oops! We changed our minds. Taxation isn't robbery after all."
I don't avail myself of fire or police services.
I don't use the public motorways (as of this last half month)
The state seeks to make my divorce with it quite difficult (but I manage as best I can)
The very fact of your ownership is due to the existence of a state which you attempt to deny the legitimacy of. In the absence of laws governing ownership, transfer, possession, et cetera, how long do you expect that you will be able to hold your property against the propertyless masses? Who will you call to defend your rights when 911 results in a "this number is no longer in service" message?
Its funny that you have no problem with the "consequences" of leaving this system of theft to be theft in itself, yet again.
I don't plan to leave. I much prefer to stay and change the system for the better.
We'll all pretend to be interested in your personal problems.
Thank heaven for the almighty state... otherwise we savages and morons wouldn't have the slightest idea what property was.
(amazing)
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