April 15: Just Another Day?
Tax Day approaches and two LPI members present their views.
May I suggest the impossible? Well, I suppose, the improbable. But it could be the inevitable if free people can visualize the concept: April 15 being meaningless...well, virtually meaningless, except as a footnote in history.
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May I suggest the impossible? Well, I suppose, the improbable. But it could be the inevitable if free people can visualize the concept: April 15 being meaningless...well, virtually meaningless, except as a footnote in history.
That dreaded day. Many people take for granted the horror the day represents: a total tax burden for the average American taxpayer of around 40%, a fear of one mistake on a 1040 confession sheet that can throw one in jail for years, and hours of paperwork trying to decipher bureaucratic code
that IRS agents get wrong half the time. Yet Americans comply because they take for granted that taxes are the "price we pay for a civilized society."
But let me ask (what should be) an obvious question: What is civilized about government agents holding that proverbial gun to the heads of American citizens, saying, "Your money or your life"? If you doubt that that is what is going on, try to stop paying those taxes and then to resist when
government agents try to take you to jail.
Every time a corporation lobbies for their favor from government, it is holding a gun to your head.
Every time a special interest group lobbies for some "freebie" from government, they are holding a gun to your head.
Every time a neoconservative warmonger lobbies for more intervention throughout the world, he is holding a gun to your head.
Every time a senior citizen lobbies for subsidized drugs, every time a college student lobbies for subsidized college tuition, every time a middle-class American lobbies for transportation subsidies or energy subsidies or education subsidies, every time politicians vote for those local pet projects -- every time, the gun is pointed at your head.
But what goes around comes around, and those bullets are fast.
Americans have been divided and conquered as one group is pitted against another fighting against one another for a piece of the extorted pie, with the force of that gun as the means to the end. As long as this attitude prevails, America will continue to plunge into an ever-lower abyss of debt, poverty, envy, and rampant crime as the law of force overcomes the force of law.
But it doesn't have to be that way.
How would government services be paid for, you ask? Well, a truly civilized society wouldn't force anybody to pay for something not wanted. If a person wants a service, he pays for it. That's the civilized way. We Libertarians call them user fees. User fees would be the price we pay to live in a free, civilized society.
Voluntary exchange instead of compulsion, the rule of moral law instead of immoral forceful rule, choice instead or mandates, prosperity instead of debt -- in essence, freedom instead of slavery. Visualize the possibilities.
Liberty is indivisible. The use of force in extracting compulsory taxes is incompatible with the notion of a free people.
As Thomas Jefferson said, "When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."
There is a better way. Our founding fathers knew it, but posterity has lost its course.
My dream is that someday Americans will find it once again.
Kenneth Prazak is the Vice Chair of Media and Communications for the LPI.
here was a time in our history where we were an isolationist society in one way. We relied on ourselves to produce and supply the things that we needed. We were a burgeoning economy which other countries wished to do business. For that luxury they had to pay a tariff. Americans paid no taxes at all. Our country was fully funded by tariffs.
Taxes were begun to help pay for a war...go figure. After the war was paid for the taxes were never repealed and now we have an ever growing government that does very little for you or I or the benefit of this country...huhum (military used to protect the foreign interests of corporate sponsors) Now we have entered an era of the free trade agreements...(NAFTA, CAFTA)
We are willfully allowing our jobs, our new factories and our money to be extricated from our country in triplicate. Meanwhile turning our back to the problems associated with the epidemic of an open border. This so called war on terror is failing miserably and is a complete farse as long as we allow our border to be publicly known to have a virtually free passage.
Yet we continue to pay our hard earned money to a criminally inept government that continues to spend that money irresponsible and completely unchecked. Prior to 9/11 the pentagon misplaced 2.6 trillion dollars claimed to be the fault of inadequate computer resources. There is no accountability!
We should be tired of this fleecing of America before it is too late to salvage. China could economicly sabbotage us at will. They have already threateded to move away from the dollar. That means that they are no longer going to invest in us. We are talking about a few hundred billion dollars every year. Then if they choose to rid themselves of the dollars they already hold we will be over a barrel. Blackmail anyone? Not a good position to be in if you are the U.S.
Posted by: donkadonk on Jan 11, 06 | 5:30 pm
If we hit an economic downturn it is not going to be pretty. First of all 90% of Americans are not prepared for any kind of slump in the economy. And you can thank the powers at be for the new bankruptcy laws. We are on a trapeeze without a net! Start praying. Start buying American made products if you can anymore....Do we make anything here. If you haven't noticed we have been made into a third world country. We export all our raw material and import the finished product. If it were not for all the people spending on their credit cards buying all the retail goods we may have no economy at all.
That and all the fluff numbers they keep feeding us about unemployment and inflation and the economy. (Fluff numbers = manipulated numbers = lies)
I tried to keep a rosy outlook but soon taxes are going to be the least of our worries but they will still be there.
www.donkadonk.blogpeoria.com
Posted by: donkadonk on Jan 11, 06 | 5:36 pm
