The one major way that our government violates our rights is through the seizing of our wealth in the form of income taxes. This system of coercive taxation has enslaved us all, robbing us of and violating those unalienable rights (rights incapable of being sold or transferred, regardless of the consent of the owner, either tacit or explicit). This immoral act of our government deciding how much of the wealth we have earned we can keep and how much must be turned over to the government steals from us not only our property but also that part of our lives we spent making that money. This undermines our freedom. Either we are free, or we are not. Freedom is an absolute and freedom is what we do not have.
So, how do we arrive at absolute freedom? Well, it certainly is not anarchy, as many perceive. Living under a system (or lack thereof) of anarchy and lawlessness, individuals would be under constant threat of others, of the ones who are physically stronger than them, of the ones who wield the largest and/or more powerful weapons. In the chaos of anarchy, people deal with one another through force. Under this lawlessness, there is no protection of individual rights. This is not freedom.
In order for man to be free absolutely, he must be free from force. The only way this is possible is if the government is constitutionally limited to it's only morally justifiable role: protecting the individual rights of its citizens. This entails that the government be limited to three functions: providing a court system, a police force, and a military.
- The role of the courts would be to arbitrate between individuals in the event of a civil dispute and/or if a crime has been committed.
- The role of the police would be to protect us from the initiation of force from other individuals.
- The role of the military would be to protect us from the initiation of force from foreign countries and enemies.
Everything and anything else, from education to healthcare to scientific research, must be left to the private sector. The three functions would be funded not by means of force but by means of voluntary taxation, as it is in each individuals self-interest to have their own rights protected. Will there be freeloaders? Perhaps, but it would not dissuade those who do fund it. To explain, I'll use a realistic analogy. I have witnessed, on several occasions, people reading newspapers on the subway. Almost every time, there is someone sitting next to the owner of the newspaper, glancing at the pages. Both people in this situation are gaining benefit from the paper, however, only one paid for it. Does this dissuade the owner of the paper, or others from purchasing newspapers? No. Why? Because the people who bought the paper have the assurance that they will get the benefit that they wanted or needed at that time, in this case, information. The only way to get that assurance, is by paying for it yourself. It is assurance that motivates and allows voluntary taxation to work. Seeing as one's rights are more important than a newspaper, there should be no doubt that people will voluntarily pay to have their rights protected.
Only when we restore our republic by limiting our government to its proper role, can we then truly declare, with pride, that this is America, the land of the free.
The argument seems to be as follows:
ReplyDelete(1) U.S. citizens have an absolute right to property.
(2) Taking of a U.S. citizen's property without their consent is a violation of this right. (Implicit, but required)
(3) Income taxes take citizens' property without their consent. (Also implicit and required)
Therefore, (4) Income taxes violate U.S. citizens' right to property.
Since the right to property is not to be found in the U.S. Constitution, you must be thinking that it is a natural (and probably are thinking that it is a universal) right. The discussion of the Constitution and America's being "the land of the free" is a red herring. This is not to mention the fact that taxation IS to be found in our constitution, and so also the discussion of "restoring our republic" is odd. Most importantly, however, premise (1) is completely unsupported in this post, and (as intended) it is not the usual view. Most people think that we can contract ourselves into an obligation to give up our property, for example.
If (2) is not supposed to be a consequence of (1)- and I'm not sure about that- it's implausible for the same reason. (2) has additionally not been supported here.
(3) is also implausible and unsupported. Income taxes are in most cases given by consent, despite the fact that it might well be that it is likely that the government will come to possess that money regardless of the earner's consent.
Thus no good reason has been given to accept your conclusion.
The discussion which follows the discussion of taxation- about the proper roles of the government- seems unrelated. Most glaringly, the analogy with newspaper reading is very bad. It is not a case in which both agents would gain the benefit whether or not they incur a certain cost, and so is not a genuine freerider problem. Thus, obviously, any way out of the 'problem' you see in that case will not carry over to the real cases.
A few things I'd like to address:
ReplyDeleteYou are very right about the government (Congress in this case) having the "right" to tax us. This is exactly why I make the case that we are not free, due to this statist element, this element of force. This "right" granted to Congress is one of many inconsistencies and flaws in the Constitution, the document that limits our government and recognizes our individual rights. I'm sure you would agree that it is against the law for any individual to steal from another. We as individuals simply do not have that right to take or lay claim to another's property. Therefore, it is implausible to legitimately delegate this power to the government. The key word here is “legitimately.”
To say property rights are no where to be found in the Constitution is simply false. Both the 4th and 5th amendments recognize our right to own property.
Perhaps by stating "... the right to property is not to be found in the U.S. Constitution," you meant the Declaration of Independence? If so, I'd just like to point out the exact phrase in the document: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that AMONG these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Our individual rights are not exclusive to these three. Property rights are the fundamental rights of a free society that lead to the others. They are the fundamental, the foundation of all of our freedoms. By saying, “Most people think that we can contract ourselves into an obligation to give up our property, for example,” are you not identifying that element of voluntary consent? And do not confuse our unalienable right to OWN property with not being able to contract to trade away our property voluntarily. By doing so, we are not giving up our right to own property when we trade property away voluntarily for another value. Our right to own property protects us from the coercive usurpation of our property (which includes $ and intellectual property such as writings and patents).
Next, "Income taxes are in most cases given by consent, despite the fact that it might well be that it is likely that the government will come to possess that money regardless of the earner's consent." I believe you have contradicted yourself here. You seem to recognize, after saying premise (3) was “unsupported” and “implausible,” that the government does in fact seize wealth without consent. Please clarify.
It's interesting you spent most of your response arguing against the right of citizens to own property when there are three other natural rights (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness) that I claim to be violated through coercive taxation. Why the focus on property rights exclusively? Is it not true that coercive taxation steals from us “that part of our lives we spent making that money,” thus violating those rights?
"America, the land of the free" a red herring? Not to be smug, but where does this come from? Since when is the promotion of the ideal of freedom a red herring?
To touch upon your comment of “The discussion which follows the discussion of taxation- about the proper roles of the government- seems unrelated.” Actually, to the contrary. The purpose of this statement is to lay out how man can be truly free and what a government’s legitimate and proper role is in a free society; the point of this posting.
Lastly, my analogy of the newspaper was a simple one to get to the crux of why voluntary taxation would work; assurance. The argument against voluntary taxation is that we would all believe somebody else would be paying for it while we would also be gaining the benefit of having our rights protected, thus causing the system to implode. My point is that people would pay because not only is their life and rights at stake but people would want that absolute assurance, and the only way to get that guarantee is for one to pay for that protection oneself.
ReplyDeleteAs always, thank you for commenting. Your rather thoughtful rebuttals always encourage me to examine my own premises and to further explore my ideas.