"The proper and limited use of government is to invoke a common justice and keep the peace, and that is all." Leonard Read
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"The proper and limited use of government is to invoke a common justice and keep the peace, and that is all." Leonard Read |
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How Communists Compete A Plan to Save America From P.C. Extremism Taxation Is Theft
Money and Honor - How Liberty Is Lost Via The
Boiling Frog Principle
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Michelle Malkin Now that the rulers of Red China have clinched the 2008 Olympics, expect them to do everything in their authoritarian power to ensure that their athletes live up to the motto of the Games: "Faster, higher, stronger." How will they accomplish this goal and win the prized medal count at Beijing? Systematically, coercively and by any means necessary. So look out for the Chinese medicine men. In the high-stakes bid for Olympic glory, the cheaters' path to the podium is paved with performance-enhancing drugs. Over the past decade, the Chinese have skyrocketed from so-so competitors into superhuman athletes. Chinese coaches and officials deny rampant, organized drug use, but the results speak for themselves: -- Running. In 1993, Chinese women runners came out of nowhere and swept the 1,500-meter, 3,000-meter and 10,000-meter races at the World Championships in Stuttgart; captured three junior records; set the four fastest marathon times of the year; took the first four places in the World Cup Marathon; and broke six world records at the Beijing National Games (including the 10,000-meter record, which was shattered by an eye-popping 42 seconds). Before that record-breaking year, the country had earned just seven medals at the last three world track-and-field championships combined. China's leading track-and-field coach, Ma Junren, credited hard training and a secret potion of Chinese herbs, caterpillar fungus and turtle's blood for his team's sudden emergence. Wiser observers detected something else in Ma's stew: the blood-boosting drug erythropoietin (EPO), which increases endurance levels by allowing for more oxygen in red blood cells. "The rumors about my athletes being on drugs are created by the Western media," Ma complained. But since 1993, the Chinese women runners have failed to duplicate their performances, and most disappeared after drug rumors persisted. When global anti-drug officials began administering EPO tests, all but one member of Ma's team were booted off the Chinese contingent sent to the 2000 Sydney Games. -- Swimming. At the 1994 World Swimming Championships in Rome, Chinese women won 12 of the 16 swimming and diving world titles and set five world records. China's swimmers and divers also touted herbal supplements for their new dominance. But there was more than just ginseng in the mix. Seven Chinese swimmers were stripped of nine gold medals at the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima because of drug use, and four more tested positive for a banned diuretic at the 1998 World Championships in Perth, Australia. Australian customs officials caught one swimmer with 13 vials of the human growth hormone somatotropin -- enough to supply the entire Chinese team. -- Weightlifting. Chinese women lifters broke 24 world records in recent years -- some by wide and unprecedented margins. But the international federation governing the sport refused to ratify the records, citing the absence of internationally recognized doping controls. In 1994, two female weightlifters tested positive for anabolic steroids at the World Championships in Istanbul. Red-feathered birds flock together. China's Olympic game plan -- drugs, dominance and denial -- comes straight from the pages of the old Soviet Bloc. For decades, rumors of state-sponsored drug use swirled around Russian and East German athletes. The Communist governments called Western accusers sore losers and complained of media bias. But after the fall of the Berlin Wall, government documents and court testimony revealed that as many as 10,000 athletes received drugs -- most involuntarily -- from 1968 to 1988. East German coaches and sports doctors confessed, then hopped on a plane to China to share their techniques with Communist comrades. As part of its public relations blitz for Beijing 2008, the Chinese government has taken a hard-line, anti-drug posture. But actions speak louder than words. We know how the Chinese government acts when national pride is at stake. Beijing's idea of "fairness" is to confiscate one of our military planes after causing it to crash, hold the American crew hostage, demand an apology, and then send us a $1 million bill for the costs of room and board. And we know how the Chinese government acts when faced with truly threatening competition. Beijing deals with political, academic and religious rivals by torturing, abducting and crushing them to death. Why would we expect their idea of fair competition in the sports arena to be any less crooked and ruthless? |
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A Plan to Save America From P.C. Extremism
"Look at this!" he fairly barked, and held up what looked like a cocoon-shaped object made of something like papier-mache. "This proves you Americans are committing germ warfare. Your denials are now exposed as a lie. Your airmen dropped tens of thousands of these poison pellets yesterday all over North Korea. Why, there's enough poison in this one little capsule to kill every man, woman, and child in a Korean city the size of ..." He never finished the sentence. At that instant an American GI in the front row jumped up, grabbed the pellet out of his hand, and – in front of the whole group – SWALLOWED it! He knew we weren't waging germ warfare, and he wanted to slam that particular morsel of communist propaganda back into communism's face. Mission accomplished. It used to be I wanted a poster with that man's face to put on my game room wall. That's not enough anymore. We've got to locate that man and make him president! I shall now present a plan to save America. If you hate America, fear not. This plan – effective though it would be – will never be implemented. Democrats won't be interested, and Republicans don't have the guts. We're beginning to feel the strangulating effects of what sounded light and fluffy back at the beginning when we began to call it "political correctness." It started out as kind of parlor game; you lose a point if you call a woman a "girl"; you go back two squares on the board if you call a black person a "Negro." It would be a delight to return to that kind of "political correctness," just as it would be a delight in this age of school shootings to go back to 1940s-style "juvenile delinquency." That little monster called political correctness, once cute, has grown. It now has this society locked in a full nelson. When the military meekly consents to its feminization, when the sucker fish is treated preferentially to the Oregon farmer in the allocation of scarce water, when a mother who drowns her five children enjoys media sympathy, when the suggestion that it might be a good idea to have borders and control who enters is viewed as a hate crime, when policemen doing their jobs are accused of killing members of minorities deliberately, when an innocent office compliment can become a sexual harrassment suit, when the telling of an ethnic joke in front of the wrong people can knock a demonstrably unbigoted candidate out of the race, when the laudably commonsensical proposal to uphold English as a national language is viewed as archie-bunkerism against all other languages, when Western civilization is trashed on college campuses as fascist and oppresive, when the Boy Scouts are out and the Hell's Angels are in, and when the so-called conservatives – the Republicans – content themselves with trying to appear only slightly less in favor of these affronts than the Democrats, it's no longer "political correctness." When hordes of Americans who know better want the job, the grant, the appointed position, the tenure, or the vote enough to cock back their head, the better for the conformity surgeons to fit the ring though their nose, it's no longer political correctness. It's a slow-motion philosophical Pearl Harbor gathering speed and achieving crescendo. Pretend it's my turn now to speak at a top-level White House meeting convened to deal with the falling ratings of the president. I would first point out some good news. The best time to counterattack is when the enemy has overreached. German general Erwin Rommel chased the British clear across North Africa to within 40 miles of Cairo. Hitler cheered, but only for a while. That dazzling success, you see, caused Rommel's supply lines to stretch out like saltwater taffy at break-point. British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's counterattack sent the German forces into the longest and fastest retreat in military history. Likewise Stalingrad. Hitler was so eager to take the city that bore the name of his enemy he ordered all-ahead-full and no retreat. That overreach allowed the Soviet Red Army to slice through the German rear and surround the Germans ganged up at Stalingrad. Their inevitable surrender was the turning point in World War II. The tougher political consultants in the room would be yawning by now, but I'd beg one more moment of attention. The forces of political correctness have themselves now overreached. Forget Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the pro-endangered-species-but-anti-endangered-farmer crowd, the organized feminists, the open-border crowd, the anti-English-language crowd, the post-partum-depression-excuses-everything crowd, and the "Boy Scouts are bigots" crowd. THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF AMERICANS KNOW THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG HERE, AND THEY'RE NOT BUYING IT. Now it's our turn. No more wimping around in hopes we can succeed in appearing a smidgen or two less wimpish than the liberals. Here's where we hit and hit hard. Let our leader, our candidate, our president – whoever agrees to mount the charge – clear his throat, take a sip of water, lean into the microphone and say: "Defeminize the military by noon tomorrow. Roll it all back to where it was before we lost our bearings – say, the Korean War; women into women's missions, men into men's missions. "Repeal the Endangered Species Act and let the water flow instantaneously to Oregon's parched farms and farmers. "Murderers are unworthy of sympathy, even if their victims are their own children. "Our borders will hereinafter be defended. Illegal crossers will be prosecuted, jailed, and then deported. A nation that cannot control its borders does not deserve the respect of those who cross those borders illegally. Meanwhile, we'll work out an equitable guest-workers program modeled on the post-war European guest-workers programs, which, in turn, were all modeled on our own excellent Bracero Program initiated in 1943, before we lost our bearings and went temporarily insane. "All policemen found guilty of exercising their personal bigotries resulting in the shooting of those of other races will be prosecuted ruthlessly with EXTRA sentences applied because they've violated their public trust. All cops who obey professional guidelines, regardless of outcome, will be defended and possibly promoted even if they are white and the suspects they shoot are black or Hispanic. "Mild, non-aggressive flirting will be relegalized among consenting adults, even in offices. "We're fortunate in America to speak the leading language of the world: English. By executive order, it will be our official language at noon tomorrow, just like the official language of Mexico is Spanish and the official language of Estonia is Estonian. "All bilingual programs should be abandoned immediately. When you find a winner, you don't need losers crowding the awards podium. Immersion into English is the proven winner. Let's go with it. "There's no way to mandate it, but university professors who still have enough sense to teach are hereby urged to quit retreating balefully when the barbarian hordes start chanting, 'Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western civilization's got to go!' They are, instead, urged to point out respectfully that in all of God's history the only system that ever achieved within itself the capacity to eliminate its own evil is, precisely, that Western civilization. "Black heavyweight champ Muhammed Ali was importuned by communists to denounce white imperialism after he won the gold medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics. He refused, saying, 'Man, if it wasn't for the white man we'd be living in grass huts fighting off alligators.' That's a little jarring even for those who mean to jar, but much history indicates Ali was botanically and zoologically correct! "And, by the way; this country is going straight back to MERIT while a few of us still remember what that word means. No more divvying up the spoils according to your skin color or ethnicity. Those most qualified will get the best jobs. The next most qualified will get the next best jobs. The unqualified will, forgive an old American expression, start at the bottom and work their way up. All we guarantee is that the means to acquire excellence will be coequally available to all." That's what I want said. And the motion would be thrown out, followed by me! Why? Well, the political bean-counters would say, "Don't recent elections prove that such talk is extremist and upsetting and, above all, certain to lose votes from voters who want things nice and moderate?" Indeed, they do; but don't forget that THOSE RECENT ELECTIONS ARE THE ONES WITH THE 50 PERCENT OR LESS TURNOUT! What about those who don't vote? The non-voting half of the country surely contains the ignorant, the apathetic, and those who wouldn't vote if you marched them to the polls at gunpoint. That non-voting half, however, ALSO contains people who long ago despaired of hearing anything like a blanket repudiation of political correctness and would kick land mines out of their way to go vote for whoever enunciates that repudiation and knocks the political correctness tyrants all the way into the cheap seats. It's like a child's view of religion; do the right thing and whatever you want will come showering down upon you from Heaven. The abnegation of political correctness is the right thing. Whence cometh my help? Not from a few military ballots and hanging chads. Our help cometh from millions of heretofore uninspired voters once the piñata of political correctness is forcefully smashed. We're not aiming, mind you, for a few forgotten pockets of unwooed voters. Our target is HALF the electorate. Do you hear me? HALF! I'd urge the political consultants to quit looking at me as if I'm crazy and calculate what would happen if HALF of the non-voters came to the polls to reward us for having the courage to echo their own inner feelings. How about a third? A fifth, perhaps? George W. Bush would have won by an unambiguous and uncontested popular and electoral landslide if a FIFTIETH of those non-voters had answered the call. The Republicans have fear. I have faith. Mark Twain told us: "Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered. "No one was there." |
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What is the moral justification for taxation? What gives the government the right to collect taxes by force, whether force of law or force of arms--which in the end amount to the same thing? The coerced collection of taxes is allegedly justified by four arguments--all of which are demonstrably false: 1. The "majority rules" argument:
The refutation: It's been said that a democracy is where two wolves and a sheep vote on what (or who) is for dinner. The moral to be understood from this is that a vote by the wolfish majority to have the sheepish minority for dinner does not justify violating the rights of the sheep to life, liberty and property. By the same reasoning, just because a majority votes to put those who don't "voluntarily" pay taxes in jail does not make it morally right. The "majority rules" argument is based on the false premise that what just one of your neighbors would not have the right to do--appropriate your property using unjustified coercive force--society as a whole (who are just the aggregation of all your neighbors) somehow magically is morally justified in doing. Were this so, what principle would limit it just to taxes, or to just those things allowed by a Constitution? Where did society get the authority to use a Constitution to give its agent, the government, powers that none of the individuals in the society possess by themselves as single individuals? If your neighbor does not have the right to force you to be his slave, could it be that two of your neighbors have this right? If not two, then what about 1000 of your neighbors? 10,000 neighbors? 100,000 neighbors? 250,000,000 neighbors? Everyone living on the same continent? What gives a group (or a society, or its agent, a government) any right to act that any individual member of the group would not have? Rights are not additive: two people who form a group have no more rights than either one has separately. The rights of any group, even society as whole, are simply the union of the rights of all the individuals in the group. It therefore necessarily follows that a group cannot have any rights that any individual member of the group does not also have. So if your neighbor has no just right to simply take from you whatever he or she wants, then neither do any group of neighbors--not even the entire society. The conclusion is inescapable: you don't owe taxes merely because one or more of your neighbors say you do. I don't have the right to take your property without your consent. Therefore, no group of people has the right to take your property without your consent--no matter how many people are in the group, nor how many of them vote in favor. 2. The "debt for services rendered and benefits received"
argument: The refutation: The argument is flawed in several ways. Firstly, it falsely assumes that a valid debt is created whenever someone receives either direct (or collateral) benefit(s) as a result of actions voluntarily performed by someone else--even when the person receiving the benefit(s) did not consent to the creation of a debt, and even when the person performing the action(s) was largely motivated to perform those actions in his own self interest and for his own benefit. Secondly, it falsely assumes that every taxpayer was a willing participant in a commercial transaction, where he agreed to pay a freely-negotiated price for some service or benefit. Thirdly, it falsely assumes that the amount of tax a taxpayer is assessed is reasonably proportionate to the market value of the services or benefits he received. Finally, the argument falsely assumes that a debt can convey an equity interest in the life, property, or profits of the debtor, without the debtor having consented to the granting of any such equity interest. Taxation forces you to pay for what you haven't agreed to buy Therefore, you don't owe anyone anything for those things that someone else voluntarily chooses to do without your consent to pay for them. Conversely, you have no right to coerce payment from others who have not consented to pay you for the value of the work you voluntarily choose to do that happens to benefit them. Even more ludicrous is the idea that you owe anyone anything in exchange for the collateral benefits you may receive as a consequence of actions performed by others. If I choose to build a dam for the twin purposes of generating electricity and controlling floods, solely because the dam benefits me (I make money selling the electricity, and my home is made safer against the threat of flooding), then why should the fact that your home also is made safer against the threat of flooding entitle me to send you an invoice for any part of the cost of building the dam? I would have built the dam whether or not you benefited from it, and whether or not you agreed to pay anything for the privilege of benefiting from the dam. If you benefit from what someone else has voluntarily done, and have not agreed to provide compensation, then you have no more obligation to pay than does the receiver of any other gift. As long as we do not violate the rights of others, each of us may do—or not do—as we please. If we do not like the fact that what we voluntarily choose to do happens to also benefit others, our only morally-correct remedy is to refrain from doing such things. If you think otherwise, go sweep the street clean and then send an invoice to the city—or to your neighbors—for the hours worked. Good luck. Taxation forces you to pay the price set by a monopoly provider
Rate-based taxation assumes that the "debt" for government services creates
an equity interest The debt you owe to a lienholder does not entitle the lienholder to an equity interest in your life, in your property, and/or in the fruits of your labor. If you think otherwise, try billing (or even suing) your employer for a percentage of profits in lieu of salary, without his prior agreement. Good luck. 3. The "social contract" argument: The refutation: This argument is based on the false premise that "society" as a whole has a right to coerce consent to debts as a condition for being "allowed" to be a member of the overall society. A society is just a group of people who interact. It has no more rights or powers than does any one of its members. Therefore, unless some individual member of a society has the right to coerce other members of the society to agree to conditions in exchange for membership in the society, then it cannot be that the society as a whole has any such right. It's true that an individual has the right to refuse to interact with any other individual. However, each adult only has the right to make such decisions for himself, not for other adults. Therefore, even though 67% of the citizens of a particular community do not wish to interact with a particular person, the remaining 33% would still have the right to do so, if that is their wish. No person, or group of persons, has the right to prevent any two adults from interacting, as long as both adults freely choose to do so. It therefore follows that the only way that an individual can morally be denied permission to be a member of society as a whole, is for all the other members of the society to unanimously (and permanently) refuse to interact with him or her. Therefore, society as a whole has no right to demand that individuals agree to conditions in exchange for being allowed to participate in the society--because society has no right to prevent free association (or interaction) among consenting adults. You have the right to interact socially, economically and politically with anyone who is also willing to interact with you, regardless of how many third parties may object. In fact, the only way that someone could be expelled from society would be to violate the rights of the one expelled. Society would have to kill the person, and/or steal his property, and/or forbid him the right to live on his property, and/or interdict his right to contract with others for a place to live and/or to produce income, and/or violate his right to travel. No one has the right to deny anyone the right to live, to own property, to travel, to engage in commercial transactions with others who are willing, or to do anything whatsoever so long as no else’s rights are being violated. Therefore, society has no right to do any of these things, and so it therefore has no right to threaten to do them unless individuals agree to be taxed. Such a proposition would be extortion—a fancy word for theft. You have inalienable rights because you are a person, not because you agree to pay taxes. To make the free exercise of your rights contingent on the payment of taxes converts inalienable human rights into privileges that must be purchased. That way lies slavery. Society is an epiphenomenon that emerges from the actions and interactions of the individuals of which it is composed. Society is thus a creation and manifestation of its members, who are therefore its rightful masters. To posit instead that society rightfully owns and controls the individuals who are its members wrongfully makes each individual a slave to the group. Others do not own you just because you interact with them. Neither do you own others because they interact with you. Therefore, society does not own you because you live in it. It must also be noted that the so-called "social contract" is not properly a "contract" at all. At no time are individuals ever told what are the conditions of the "social contract" to which they must agree. At no time are individuals ever asked to formally agree to the terms of this alleged contract. I have never agreed to any such contract, and I strongly doubt that anyone who ever reads this essay has ever done so, either. The alleged "social contract" is therefore nothing more than a fictitious "blank check," drawn on the life, liberty and property of the enslaved population, that those in power can cash in any amount that suits them, at any time—again and again. 4. The "moral debt to those in need" argument: The refutation: This argument is based on the false premise that the needs of one person constitute a moral debt or lien on the life, property or liberty of someone else. This is a wide-spread, but very dangerous, fallacy. No such principle can be morally justified, because it inevitably leads to logical contradictions that destroy individual life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is maliciously inimical to the very foundations of freedom. Obviously, if I give (almost) everything I have to charity (or to taxes), then I become the "needy" person, and can then "rightfully" (sic) demand "help" from others. Just by having less, and doing less productive work, I can "create a moral obligation" (sic) for others to provide for my needs. As a result, those of you willing to work become the slaves of those of us willing to leach off the efforts of others. But the resulting "negative feedback loop" must eventually lead to social, moral and economic decay. To make each individual responsible for meeting the needs of others would have the following consequences: a) The individual would become a slave to all those with greater need, b) The principle of "moral risk" would result in many people failing to act responsibly with respect to their own welfare and best interests, and c) The "haves" would use the fact that they are coerced into supporting the "have nots" to impose laws and regulations restricting everyone's freedom—on the grounds that social welfare paid for by coercive tax collection gives the taxpayers a legitimate stake in preventing citizens from making poor life choices. Down this path lies tyranny. Fundamentally, neither my needs, nor someone else's needs, justify coerced taking from others. Just because I need a heart transplant does not justify my taking your heart without permission. Just because my neighbor needs food to eat does not justify either of us taking from you the food you need to feed your family. Just because I and my family need a place a live does not justify my evicting you and your family from your apartment. Need is not a valid or workable basis by which to assign ownership of property. You are not a slave to my needs, nor am I a slave to yours. The principle that your life, liberty and property belong only to you, and that you have no obligation to give them to others, and cannot rightfully be coerced into doing so, is the foundation of freedom. Any society that violates this principle makes slaves out of its members. You should not be responsible for the consequences of my actions and decisions, and I should not be responsible for the consequences of yours. Each person must be fully and solely responsible for the consequences of the way he/she lives his/her life. If you wish to feel guilty because you are able and willing to earn a living, that's your affair. If you wish to donate some or all of what you have to others, that's your affair. Nothing prevents you from giving as much as you like to the charities of your choice. But you have no right to select the charities that others must contribute to, nor to specify the amount or percentage of their charitable giving. If you did, then they would have the same right with respect to you, and you might not like their choices! No one has the right to be "generous" (sic) with other people's money without their permission. That's not generosity--it's theft. Working to support yourself and your family is not immoral. Expecting to receive the full benefit of the work you do is not immoral. Expecting others not to steal from you is not immoral. Your hard work helps both yourself, your family, your community, your country and the world at large. You owe no one any debt merely for having worked to accumulate property, nor for having done productive work. Conclusion The fact that your neighbors have voted in a law that says you owe taxes does not mean that you do, because others have no right to take your property without your consent. The fact that you benefit from the operation of government does not mean you owe taxes, because no moral debt can be created without either your consent or your misbehavior. The fact that you are allowed to operate as a member of society does not mean that you can be construed to have agreed to pay taxes in exchange, because a) you have not in fact agreed to any such contract, b) you have the right to interact (and do business with) anyone else who is willing, and c) no one has the right to violate your rights, or make the enjoyment of your rights contingent on the payment of a fee. The fact that there are those whose needs are greater or more dire than yours does not mean you owe any taxes, because you are no one’s slave, no matter how needy they may be. |
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Money and Honor - How Liberty Is Lost Via The
Boiling Frog Principle James Madison observed that liberty is lost more often through gradual
encroachments than through sudden revolutions. This is also known as the
boiling-frog principle: if the water heats slowly, they say, the frog doesn't
notice the fatal increase and fails to jump out in time. |
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