The Constitution, Slavery and the Progressive Tax Code

Yes, the US Constitution incorporated a dreadful and unjust compromise.  Our founders chose to proceed with forming a less imperfect union that would, they hoped, eventually complete the task of making all men free of every form of tyranny.  The compromise was in part a recognition that the state could possess only the powers granted it by the people.  As it happened, a significant proportion of ‘we the people’ declined to grant the to-be-formed government the power to prohibit them from using force against some men to coerce them to labor for their “owner’s” benefit and submit to being held as chattel.  The state was prohibited from preserving and protecting the rights of some men simply because they were different.

Then, roughly seven score and nine years ago, men and women previously deprived of their right to liberty had it redeemed.  Abraham Lincoln commanded an army which fought so that other men would cease and desist from taking by force another man’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Men died to preserve “a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

The progressive tax code is an equally unjust compromise.  Using the state’s power to confiscate X% of one man’s income while taking (X+Y)% of another’s is as unjust as using the state’s power to sanction one man’s ownership of 100% of another man’s life.  Freedom isn’t fractional or divisible.  How bloody will be the war that restores the freedom of men who are different from the rest because they have more money?  A majority vote within each of the thirteen colonies made slavery legal, but not moral or just; nor can a majority vote justify a progressive tax code.

While there is a legitimate argument against any compulsory tax, there are nevertheless rational arguments for an income tax provided it has exactly TWO rates:

 – 0% tax on income up to an amount necessary for basic essentials; no man should be required to contributed to the ‘general welfare’ until he has provided for his own.

– X% tax on income above that amount, up to a maximum level above which the tax rate returns to 0%.  (At some point, ‘fair share’ has a meaning, does it not?)  X% shall be determined as the amount necessary to fund ONLY those functions authorized in the Constitution and would vary as necessary to keep the government from overstepping its constitutional boundaries.

Free men will contribute willingly to a government which does nothing more, and nothing less, than it is empowered to do – preserve and protect every man’s inalienable rights.  That the duties and functions necessary to do that should consume $3.6 trillion per year is a ludicrous proposition based upon a perversion of the law, namely the government’s arrogating unto itself the power to take from some for the benefit of others, the government’s exempting itself from the law against theft.  Once the state assumes the responsibility of protecting a particular man or group over another, the rule of law is an illusion.  Then there is only the rule of the gun, and the governing class, along with the people who stay on the correct side, are free; everyone else is different,  everyone else is . . . a slave.

Are you free or are you different?

Political Power For Sale; Karl Rove chosen as Auctioneer

Originally posted December 2011.

In The Wall Street Journal of December 29, Karl Rove offers his predictions about the political battles of 2012.  Correction, the political races of 2012. In the real political battle (the debate about passage of laws) there’s no reason to have an opinion, since to Karl Rove and everyone else in Washington, DC, WHAT matters relatively little compared to WHO.

Speaking as a business owner, I have long suspected that Mr. Rove has never done a thing in his life for which I’d pay $1.00.  Coincidentally, recently on MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell told us the last reason I needed to hold that opinion.  In 200[x] Rove offered outgoing Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson the position of Secretary of Agriculture, so that Nebraska’s governor (with an R after his name) could name his replacement.

I am sickened by that.  Sure, a senate majority can matter to a president’s legislative agenda, and, Agriculture, . . . well, how much damage can an old, dishonest dunce do from there, right?

Oh, really? – then why in God’s name do we make it a cabinet position with all the trappings of power.  It shows what a sham the whole city of DC has become.  The only end for those people is POWER, not good policy; nothing but POWER matters.  A hack like Rove can hand out cabinet positions willy-nilly if that helps the ‘party’ have more power.  Vomitus.

To [ab]use the appointment process as just another political tool is disgusting and probably illegal.  It ought not need to be illegal – men possessed of such power should hold it in sacred trust, and personal shame from any abuse thereof should be the only necessary deterrent.  Instead, possessing the discretion to exercise such power is a sign of having reached the top of the heap, and in DC abuse of power is more praiseworthy and highly-rewarded in direct proportion to its blatancy.

Now, the power broker of power brokers, Rove, makes a fortune analyzing horse races, having never in his life done a single productive thing, having spent his life simply out-flanking other political hacks, so that he can rise to be the senior-most hack, judging other hacks’ candidates’ ability to play the game of accumulating power.  That talent is worth millions of dollars only because the government controls the giving of favors and sells protection from competition and exemptions from harmful regulation.  The monetary values of the levers of power are directly proportionate to the amount of power behind those levers.  And, when the inevitable auction of power is held, it will be sold to the highest bidder every time.  Rove’s crowd knows that, Rove’s crowd lives and craves to perpetuate it, all day every day, thus making their access to the levers more valuable as the government gets bigger.  !$Cha-Ching$!

Suggestion: engage Karl Rove, David Axelrod, Charles Krauthammer, Chris Matthews or Ann Coulter in a discussion covering a topic about which they know nothing: try to discuss with them real life, real freedom, making payroll, mowing the lawn, or going a week without a television appearance.  Talk about the America of our fathers and mothers who didn’t spend their every waking moment worrying about who will be the next Assistant Deputy Director of XYZ-PDQ, because politicians in a small(er) government couldn’t harm them and expect to survive in office.  After that discussion, we’ll see who has an understanding of America, and who is awash in the filth of Washington, DC, and ought to be kept away from any place he might influence the actions of the state.

May God save this country, I pray.

Government’s Definition of “Good” – Is that what you want?

In Paul Krugman’s recent column (NY Times link here) he makes the point that the Occupy Wall Street crowd should be going after an even smaller slice of the population, the top 0.1% – maybe he figured out he’s in the 1.0%, huh?  He wants to tax the sh^* out of the super rich so as to make economic outcomes and wealth/income distribution more balanced and fair.

I’m not sure how a journalist with access to the vast research capabilities of the NY Times could fail to investigate the mathematics of such a loony idea, but we’ll address that another time.

Instead, consider this.  One assumes that Mr. Krugman’s well documented support of more government spending (how else to dispense with all that money he wants to confiscate from evil rich fat-cats) would be one of the methods he would employ to generate income balance and fairness.  How does he conclude that concentrating more economic power in the hands of the federal government – 535 men & women + the POTUS – would accomplish that objective?  (Isn’t 536/300,000,000 smaller than 1.0%?)  Can Mr. Krugman name one example in all of human history where concentration of that much power in the hands of government (or any other group) did not lead to totalitarian, tyrannical control of the population.  Has it ever happened that way – has giving more power to government ever benefited the ‘weak’ or does it invariably entrench the powerful?

The answer?  Disperse power AWAY from government and into the hands of as many free people as possible, and you make men and women more free.  And, free men and women, in turn, do enormously good things with the fruits of their labor.  More to the point, the government, unlike free men and women, has no heart and no mind.  Government is merely an instrument or tool of power and the powerful – nothing else.  It can not do good things, it can only do what the politically powerful want it to do, and only occasionally, and even then only incidentally, are those things good.

I posit that only vile men want to control the lives of other men.  Further, notwithstanding conventional wisdom, it is not possible to outsource your compassion, your acts of charity, to the government.  To imbue the government with human traits, feelings and motives is the first step toward totalitarian rule.  A government empowered to do ‘good’ things can have no practical or logical limits on its powers.  The power to do good must, by its nature, be absolute.  In time, good will come to mean whatever the the invariably vile men in charge tell you it means.

Which men and women do you trust to define “good” for you?  I am free to define it myself.  Are you?

Will You Own Your Life or Serve Others?

As I type, there are approximately 59,600,000 people who think that, since 59,599,999 other people agree with their choice of Barack Obama as POTUS, they now have the power to tell 57,000,000 Romney voters AND 200,000,000 of their countrymen how to live our lives. Barack Obama and the rest of Washington, DC – including every Republican – intend to help them keep you in your place.

The fact those 59.6 million Obama supporters fail to grasp is it that the 536 men and women who write the laws will not write any exemptions for anyone but themselves. The laws they pass will apply to every last arrogant one of them – unless they have a highly paid lobbyist on their payroll. They think they put the Romney voters and the rest of us in our place. They will soon see that they put themselves there as well – right into the shackles the keys of which are held by a political class that sees no limits to its power to tax and otherwise regulate and control the flow of capital, the production of energy, the distribution of medical goods and services, the production of motor vehicles, and any other part of your life they think you might be spending outside their approved guidelines.

We know now that neither Mitt Romney nor any one in the Republican Party will defend our freedom and our individual liberties. It does not follow that we must lie down. It does not follow that we must click our heels and salute.

Their laws presume that I owe a portion of my life to something they call the community, and that they have to power to determine what that portion will be. Any laws with that premise are immoral and unjust. While I renounce them, I will not breach them overtly, as martyrdom is not my calling nor suicide my duty, but I will undermine their laws and their efforts to control you and me with all my might. With my last breath I will scream of my right to own

and live

my life

for me.

In 1776 our forebears faced a crisis of conscience – would they be free or serve their king? We know what they did for themselves. What will you do? Will you declare your own independence or will you serve your country?

Declared. Again.