Response to Tom's Ten Questions
from the involuntary-servitude dept.
This article is in response to this week's episode of The Sitter Downers, "Torri Doesn't Smoke Doobs...". Specifically, I'd like to boil some of Tom's Ten Questions down into one simple question. My simplified question would be:
"Should products and services be provided under threat of violence?"
This question came to my attention while watching FreeMindsTV last week. It was originally asked by Ian Bernard from FreeTalkLive during this year's Freedom Fest in New Hampshire. Although I know my application of it ignores some of the specific points of Tom's Ten, I think the question can loosely apply to almost all.
I call it the "no forced services" principle. The government requires us to accept their products and services at the point of a gun. If you refuse to pay for the resources they provide, even if you also refuse to use them, eventually you will have to deal with an armed conflict.
But first, some terms for the purpose of understanding how government extracts funds from people:
- direct tax - a tax property "by reason of its ownership" as well as a capitation (per person).
- indirect tax - a tax based on an event (death tax, gift tax, your-cat-farts-too-much tax, etc.).
- apportionment - division based on equal distribution or a function of the population.
- unapportionment - division based on unequal distribution or on something other than a function of the population.
A tax can be direct or indirect, apportioned or unapportioned. But the Constitution mandates that direct taxes be apportioned (Article I, Section 9). So if Congress suddenly decides they want to spend $6 Billion on corporate bailouts, everyone pays $20 regardless of their income. So if Warren Buffet pays $20, his secretary pays $20 too. Does that mean Warren Buffet paid less as a percentage of his personal income? Yes, but that's Constitutional. Like it or lump it. To do otherwise is repugnant to the Constitution.
The income tax is a direct, unapportioned tax based on the level of income (also known as a "graduated income tax"). This is unconstitutional (see plank 2 of 10 Planks of the Communist Manifesto). Yet there is confusion on this point because the 16th Amendment states:
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
Believe it or not, the 16th Amendment did not give Congress any new power to tax, according to the Supreme Court ruling entitled "Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co.," 240 U.S. 103, 112-113 (1916). From the ruling:
"...the 16th Amendment conferred no new power of taxation, but simply prohibited the previous complete and plenary power of income taxation possessed by Congress from the beginning from being taken out of the category of indirect taxation to which it inherently belonged..."
This binding-yet-completely-ignored interpretation means that although Congress can collect a tax from the States based on the average income of each person in that State, it still cannot collect this kind of tax directly from an individual. Direct taxes must be apportioned. The income tax would be an exception if the 16th Amendment authorized direct unapportionment, and there are no provisions for exceptions. To do otherwise is repugnant to the Constitution.
The other way Congress can get money from the people is to get down on their knees and beg like they're supposed to. This is known as a "voluntary" tax.
So with the above in mind, here are Tom's questions and my responses (to save you time, I pretty much answered them all "No" with a "But" or if you'd like to spend a lot of time and thought, you can decode many of my "No's" to "Yes's" if you also switch the order of my "But" and "If" clauses (you must strike the "but" after switching them (hey, I'm sort of an amateur grammar geek, ok?))):
- Are you in favor of a government enforced speed limit? No. But local speed limits can be required if the locals who enforce them are not paid under threat of violence. If we can't voluntarily pay for a police force to enforce the speed limit in a particular locality and instead we force people to pay for this service under threat of violence I'm against it. [To decode: Yes, if the locals who enforce them are not paid under threat of violence, but local speed limits can be required.]
- Should the government take taxes from you to pay for the armed forces? No. But armed forces can be paid for if a direct and apportioned or voluntary tax (i.e. a constitutional tax) is applied.
- Should the government take taxes from you to pay for disaster relief? No. Again, same principle, it should be direct and apportioned or voluntary. In fact, even when people are forced to pay like they are today, people still opt to give to a charity in addition, which is by far better managed than the government. Imagine if the government had to get in line with all the other charities in order to compete for funds. But a government fund for disaster relief would be fine if it were funded constitutionally.
- Should the government take taxes from you to pay for Social Security? No. I think it's rather funny that on this one, Adam and Torri agree with me without need for discussion. It's funny because it's so clearly a fraudulent idea, even when obfuscation is used to collect this tax, people can see through it. This scheme is more fraudulent than ## 2 and 3 because it's clearly a ponzi scheme. Had we used a direct and apportioned or voluntary system from the beginning, the fraud and unsustainability would have stood out much sooner.
- Are you in favor of the government enforcing an alcohol age limit? No. But again, it's ok as long as paying for the enforcement isn't itself at the point of a gun. Only if it were funded constitutionally.
- Are you in favor of the government enforcing marijuana laws? No. Something like one half of one percent of every American is behind bars because of the drug laws. Yet 25% of all Americans have done what it takes to get thrown behind bars for marijuana violations alone, only they were never caught. The War on Drugs is a massive boondoggle. Besides, do you really think 1 in 4 Americans should be in prison? 1 in 4?! How would we pay for that? Paying for it can only be accomplished by threat of force. But a sensible drug policy would probably be too weak to do anything terribly authoritarian, if it's funded constitutionally.
- Are you in favor of the government enforcing seat belt laws? No. But I don't see how enforcement could ever be expensive for this one, if we were following the "no forced services" rule for this and everything else. [Let me decode this one for you: Yes, I'm in favor of government enforced seat belt laws if we were following the "no forced services" rule for this and everything else, but I don't see how enforcement could ever be expensive].
- Is it ok that the White House is off limits to you? No. Actually, this is unrelated to the "no forced services" principle. Instead, here is a summary on what I apply to my principle about White House security.
- Are you in favor of the government enforcing public nudity laws? No. But that's silly and I don't see how enforcement could ever be expensive for this one, assuming we were following the "no forced services" rule for everything else. If it turns out that certain localities can't enforce this law because it breaks their budget, they should just rename their town to "Nudetropolis, USA."
- Are you in favor of the government enforcing building/safety laws? No. But again, I don't see a problem on the "no forced services" principle, if a locality wants to have special laws that can be upheld without compulsory payment for enforcement.
The problem is, central government doesn't follow the "no forced services" principle. They take money from people in Montana, for example, to give to cities in California, for example, to pay for almost all of the above in some way, even when not every city in California needs all of the above in the same way.
The only way to get the central government to enforce all of these ideas evenly across the whole nation is to make everyone to pay for enforcement regardless of the particular, local needs. This always results in either fascism or socialism, collectively called statism.
For example, if a particular locality has a lot of enforcement problems (speed limit, drinking age, drugs, etc.), and the people in neighboring localities don't like it because it goes in and out of their locality, they should voluntarily kick funds in to help with enforcement or move away. Otherwise, from an economic and social standpoint, it's statist and authoritarian to force people all over the country to kick in for country-wide enforcement.
Furthermore, avoiding the "no forced services" principle creates something called "moral hazard." But we can discuss that another time.
Posted: Tuesday - April 29, 2008 at 08:31 AM |