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Its Time to Really End Slavery

The serfs were serfs because they had to give up 25% of their income to their landlords.Our founding fathers seceded from England by revolution because of a few, small excise taxes imposed. Former Chief Supreme Court Justice John Marshall said, ¡°The power to tax involves the power to destroy.¡±

Yet when all taxes are added up¨Clocal, state, federal, secondary and tertiary taxes, and taxes upon taxes upon taxes¡ª the average American pays nearly half his income to government. And disturbingly, for the most part, he doesn¡¯t seem to mind. Yet, if one doesn¡¯t pay the taxes, the threat of prison is always there (I thought the US didn¡¯t have debtors¡¯ prisons). Uncle Sam holds a gun to your head, ¡°Your money or your life.¡± Is this too extreme a notion? Is this hyperbolic? If an American refuses to go to debtors¡¯ prison voluntarily, the government comes with guns.

And we are the land of the free, and the home of the brave? I think not. Any thinking American who believes this is in denial. Rather, I fear we are the land of the meek and the home of the slaves, albeit rather prosperous ones. Whips and chains have been exchanged for their modern sophisticated counterparts, the Federal Reserve banking system and the IRS.

A free man directs his own thoughts, actions, and relationships whether economic or personal, and is guaranteed his right to do so under the US Constitution as long as he doesn¡¯t infringe on the equal rights of others to do the same. Richard Allen White once said, ¡°Liberty is the only thing one can not have unless he is willing to give it to others.¡±

Today, Americans are directed as to what they can or can¡¯t do, and are taxed in the process to boot. What isn¡¯t forbidden is required. This depiction of tyranny is most representative of Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, but it is getting closer to reality in this country as more freedoms are taken away bit by almost imperceptible bit. The American freedom ¡°frog¡± gets cooked ever so slowly to the boiling point of death. Put that frog in boiling water and he jumps out reacting to the heat. But put him in the pot at room temperature, slowly increase the heat, and he carelessly swims in the warmth and safety of the pot not noticing the temperature rise. Benjamin Franklin once said, ¡°They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.¡± And in the end that is just what they will get.

Some Americans seem content to live in a state of prosperous slavery. Slavery? Hyperbolic? Remember what the serfs paid. Now read the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. Section 1: ¡°Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.¡± Is not forced taxation involuntary servitude ¡ª especially when it is ¡°redistributed¡± (read stolen) by government to those with their hand out whether they be for the rich corporations, the middle class politically connected, or those with less means who would rather have someone else work for them than they themselves?

But what about services that even a limited government in the Jeffersonian tradition provides? Those can be provided by user fees. User fees are not taxes because they are not coercive. If you want a service you pay for it with a user fee; if you don¡¯t want it, you don¡¯t pay.

That is the prescription for liberty. That is the Libertarian stand. Libertarians desire to be free, a desire for which our founding fathers pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor. No one is free in a country that has an income tax or an organization such as the IRS to enforce it. It¡¯s time to get ride of them both.


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