by Frederick Mann
Copyright © 1993 Build Freedom Holdings ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Introduction
In order to decide your future relationship with the Infernal Revenue Stealers (IRS) and
government, you may want to consider these issues:
The Morality of Not "Paying Your Fair Share"
Personally, I believe that paying any money to any government is like paying protection
money to the Mafia - a necessary evil to avoid having your legs broken or your business
smashed. But you have to make up your own mind.
Consider the possibility that the term "your fair share" is pure brainwashing. It is simply used to separate the gullible from their money. Politicians love to use euphemisms like "contributions," "sacrifices," and "investments" when they are talking about robbery, pure and simple.
Consider the possibility that tax is robbery - no ifs and buts. If one man points his gun at his neighbor and demands money, everyone regards that as robbery. If a band of 100 men gang together and demand money at gunpoint from their neighbors, everyone still regards that as robbery. But if a million men gang together and call themselves "government" and call their enforced collections "taxes," "contributions," "sacrifices," "investments," etc., then how is this not robbery?
None of the nice-sounding euphemisms of political brainwashers changes the nature of their actions. As Nietzsche wrote, "Everything the state says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen."
The Nature and Role of Government
Here is a quotation from one of our most influential Founding Fathers. In the first two
paragraphs of Common Sense, Thomas Paine wrote:
"Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamities are heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer."
Paine clearly says that even at its best, government is still evil - though a necessary evil. Consider the possibility that he was only partly right and that government is an unnecessary evil.
People often debate or argue about the "role of government." But there is a basic argument that is almost always overlooked. It is a very simple argument:
Is there any evidence that just because people call themselves "government," or they organize themselves into an institution called "government," they can do their jobs better?
The above simple argument completely demolishes all the arguments that "government is necessary for anything." Human beings are necessary to do certain things. Once we realize that government consists of people, it becomes obvious that when people say, "Government is necessary for "X," they are really saying, "People are necessary for "X"." When people say, "Only government can do "X," they are really saying, "Only people can do "X"."
Some might still argue that it's not the people in government as such that are necessary, but the structure or institution. This is essentially an argument that some form of management and coordination is necessary. The answer is that the essence of government is violence. Whatever management and coordination may be necessary can be provided much more effectively by people cooperating voluntarily.
The reason why people in government insist on using violence is because they want your money without providing you with commensurate value in return. They essentially want to get as much as they can from you while returning little or nothing.
A further practical argument comes from looking at the evidence. Few would argue that government as an institutional structure is more efficient than voluntary organizations. Government bureaucracies typically eat up 50-100% (and sometimes much more!) of their operating budgets in "administrative overhead" - bloated salaries for ineffective management. Most people - including many who work for the government - would agree that government tends to be grossly inefficient: slow customer service, bloated cost structures, frustrating work environments, etc. (Maybe has something to do with postal workers shooting their fellow employees!)
Given the severe wastefulness, inefficiency, and value destruction of government structures, only a possible moral argument remains. But since government structures are based on violence, they should be rejected on moral grounds. Government structures fail on both practical and moral grounds.
Contrast this with the voluntary, decentralized, networking structure of Build Freedom...
Does Government "Eat Out Our Substance?"
The Arizona Republic of March 15, 1993 published an editorial under the headline
"WHY AMERICA FRETS - The federal multitude":
"... It is hard to believe that a little more than two centuries ago the 13 American colonies rebelled against the king of England - a serious act of treason for which the ringleaders stood an excellent chance of being hanged - because, as the Declaration of Independence explained, the king had among other provocations, "erected a multitude of new Offices and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People and eat out their Substance."
George III in fact was merely nibbling around the edges of their substance, imposing a few imposts here and a modest tax or two there. Today's government, having effectively snuffed out popular sovereignty in many areas and extended its control over multiple aspects of our lives, is engaged in substance eating on a truly gluttonous scale.
"In 1929," writes Jonathan Hughes in Second Thoughts: Myths and Morals of U.S. Economic History, "private investment was five times as great as the federal budget; by 1991 it was only about half as much. Total government expenditures, federal, state and local combined, now distribute some 45 percent of the GNP, whereas that figure had been only 12 percent in 1929. The private sector has only 55 percent of the GNP within its control." Asks Mr. Hughes: "Are we 45 percent socialist?"
If by "socialism" is meant government ownership of the means of the production, the answer is no. But if "socialism" is defined in terms of government control, the question answers itself."
M.J. "Red" Beckman has written a very important book Walls In Our Minds that provides you with a wealth of basic, simple knowledge on the morality or immorality of paying taxes. I strongly recommend that you order his book to help you make up your own mind. Send $3.00 to Common Sense Press, PO Box 1544, Billings, MT 59103.
Government Violence and Crime
The following letter appeared in The Arizona Republic of March 18, 1993 under the
heading "Feds are dangerous group in Branch Davidian affair":
Without the media's assistance, prior to the standoff, I would have never known how dangerous David Koresh's religious group was. Now a heavily armed, extremely dangerous group surrounds them, after being denied serving yet another bogus weapons warrant. I have no sympathy for the Bureau of of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms after they manufactured this situation.
This Christian society was quietly living within their monastery and with the exception of a few disgruntled members, was offending no one.
BATF's abusive use of force under color of law should outrage and serve as a wake-up call to any thinking individual. The Gestapo used the rule of law to jail and murder Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, Gypsies, Jews and anyone thinking for themselves. King George's redcoats used similar tactics against anyone who questioned royal policy.
Randy Weaver's family was shot to pieces, his wife murdered by a federal sniper while holding nothing more dangerous than her baby. This over a trumped-up weapons charge nearly 2 years old against a man who had isolated himself those years in the mountains. Mr. Weaver's real crime was that he wouldn't spy for the Feds on another religious group.
The Nazis had to first disarm, then subdue the German people before they started "their" New World Order. This was accomplished with the aid of a numb, indifferent populace and a lick-spittle media.
In this land it may be more difficult because some who are armed will say, "This far and no further!" I'm not nearly as fearful of criminals in the street as I am of the criminals in government service or those who, in the signing of a bill, make criminals of honest men." - Don Hirschi, Tempe.
A question you may want to consider: "What are you really financing when you give money to government?"
The following movie review by Bob Fenster was published in The Arizona Republic of March 12, 1993:
"George Bush may be gone, but we still have much to learn about what he did while he was in charge.
A shocking documentary, The Panama Deception, charges Bush with masterminding an illegal, immoral invasion of Panama in 1989.
Whether or not you agree with the movie's politics, The Panama Deception does what all good documentaries do: It gets you to think about issues of importance.
The movie traces the history of United States involvement in Panama, from formation of the country by U.S.-backed rebels to the night in December 1989, when President Bush sent in 26,000 U.S. troops, ostensibly to restore liberty and arrest Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega on charges of drug trafficking.
Not so, claims Barbara Trent, director of The Panama Deception, which has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
As one observer comments about Bush's claim that he sent in troops to preserve freedom in Panama: "How can you protect something that has never existed?"
As for Noriega, Trent builds a convincing case that Bush and the CIA were content to pay him $100,000 a year of U.S. tax money and let him continue dealing drugs as long as he served as a front for U.S. political interests in the region.
Through interviews with Panamanians, historians and political observers, Trent builds a case that Bush's real motive was to maintain control over the Panama Canal Zone so that it could serve as a U.S. military base in the Southern Hemisphere.
Along the way, according to Trent, U.S. forces killed thousands of innocent Panamanians, who were buried in mass graves, and set up a police state in Panama.
Trent also accuses television news and newspapers of complicity in the cover-up of the real nature of U.S. activity in Panama.
The movie includes footage of the U.S. invasion, a detailed look at the devastating aftermath of the war on Panama's poor population and scenes of bodies being unearthed from the mass graves.
The Panama Deception is a powerful piece of documentary film making. Whether it's right or not, you'll have to decide for yourself.
No matter which side of the political debate you take, one irony remains: If Bush had taken the millions of tax dollars he spent controlling Panama and used it to bolster the home economy, he might still be president... "
Is It Foolish to Give Money to Government?
The following letter was published in The Arizona Republic on March 18, 1993 under
the heading "Don't give feds more money; they'll just spend it":
"I can now say I have seen it all. People actually donating money to the government to reduce our national debt. Surely, this is like giving your alcoholic uncle a 12-pack.
What is worse, is that the kids are involved - obviously without adult supervision. I mean, where in the world were the heads of the parents of that kid in the Midwest who sent Uncle Bill $1,000 or, the young girls who baked cookies and sent the proceeds to the government? Hello, parents, anybody home? Or my favorite, the Eskimo Pie people, who donate a whopping 5 cents of every box of pies to Uncle Sam (excuse me, Uncle Bill) - great PR scheme to suck in the ignorant populace.
As everybody with the IQ of a soap dish knows, it was/is the U.S. government that got us into this debt mess. So now we have a movement starting that basically supports and condones the wasteful spending of our elected officials.
How can Mr. Clinton accept the money from these kids when it was his fellow bureaucrats who created the debt in the first place? If he had an ounce of political and personal self-respect, he would have told the kids and anyone else to invest their money in municipal bonds or to donate it to a deserving charity, like the Red Cross, United Negro College Fund, United Way or whatever. At least this way the money would do some good.
Show me a reasonable, sane adult who voluntarily will give money to the IRS's parent organization, and I'll show you a fool." - Gary B. Johnson, Phoenix.
What Happens to the Taxes You Pay to the IRS?
Have you ever looked at the endorsement on the back of a check you paid to the IRS, when
the bank returned it to you? Usually you will find "FRB" stamped on the back of
the check. "FRB" stands for "Federal Reserve Bank." The scam operated
by the IRS is second only to the "Federal Reserve" scam. The Federal Reserve
System is owned by private bankers, mostly European. There is nothing "federal"
about it and it has no "reserves." Federal Reserve Banks are private banks. They
are no more "federal" than Federal Express! The Federal Reserve scam is exposed
in detail in my book The Economic Rape of America: What You Can
Do About It.
The taxes you pay to the IRS don't go to the government, but to the Federal Reserve bankers. Furthermore, I have read in several places that the IRS itself is a private company incorporated in Delaware in 1933. But I don't know if this is fact or fiction.
Is the IRS a Paper Tiger?
According to tax attorney Donald W. MacPherson (Tax Fraud
& Evasion: The War Stories - one of the best tax books I know of - phone
1-800-BEAT-IRS for free brochures on his books and services):
"Once you get past all of the tax statutes passed by Congress, the rules of evidence and of criminal procedure, interpretation by the courts of the laws and the rules, you are left with human drama. Conflict. IRS special agent versus citizen target. Justice Department prosecutor versus defense attorney. The final arbitrator of this combat is the jury of twelve. That which is public record is but one-tenth of the story. The flesh and blood war stories are intended to cut through the legalese to the end that you will be brought to understanding, and through understanding harbor fear no longer. Nor will the Monster, discovered as a paper tiger, any longer intimidate you, the sovereign citizen, the master. Beastmaster...
Failure to file an income tax return, failure to pay income taxes, and attempted income tax evasion are not crimes in this country. Not yet anyway. For those acts (or failures to act) to constitute a crime, one first must act with specific intent to violate the law; knowing what the law forbids or requires, one must set out with the specific purpose to violate the law. Willfulness. Specific criminal intent. Ignorance of the law is an excuse. Congress has declared that the tax laws are so complex that ignorance of the law is a defense so far as it goes to the citizen's state of mind; or, in other words, so far as it tends to negate willfulness.
Second, the government must assemble evidence and prove beyond a reasonable doubt to the satisfaction of twelve jurors that you intended to violate the law. If good faith belief or misunderstanding or reliance on the advice of counsel is raised, then the government must, in effect, prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you did not believe in good faith or did not in good faith rely on the advice of your attorney or accountant. At least some federal appellate courts hold that the belief or misunderstanding is subjective not objective. This nuance means, in the final analysis, that it is not even relevant whether what you believed was right or wrong, or whether the jury determines it was reasonable or unreasonable for you to so believe what you claim you believed. All that matters is whether you in fact believed it. Put another way, the government must, then, prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you did not believe what you claim you believed.
Is it any wonder then the fine-tune processing by IRS and Justice Department of criminal tax cases? After two years of investigation by the IRS special agent of the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) and review by his supervisor, plus further review by chief of CID and IRS District Director, the case then goes to the office of District Counsel, the IRS lawyers, for review. Then to Justice Department in Washington, D.C. for review where it may remain for another year or two. Then back to the local U.S. Attorney for further fine-tuning and additional investigation, if necessary, and the ultimate prosecution by way of grand jury indictment or, in the case of misdemeanor rather than felony, by a charging paper signed by the U.S. Attorney, called an "Information." A long, arduous pipeline. For the Beast can ill afford to lose criminal tax cases. If IRS cannot succeed in putting behind bars those it believes to be tax cheats, what then the impact upon the remaining one hundred million and our system based upon "voluntary compliance?"
... Just how far can you push IRS and not be prosecuted? What are the "limits of the tax law?" What must the IRS prove? The answers are found in the criminal tax cases that are won! The proof is in the pudding. If an Arkansas woman who did not file a tax return for eighteen years beat IRS at criminal charges, by what should you feel intimidated?
Consider this analogy: you go to a haunted house as a child and under cover of darkness are frightened by ghosts and goblins. Your imagination runs wild while at the house, and later you attempt, without success, to stave off recurring nightmares. In an effort to put the matter to rest, your parents take you during daylight hours back to the haunted house and show you the tricks of the trade. The props used. That goblin was but one-sixteenth inch cardboard. Cardboard which even as a child, you could rip apart with your bare hands. Don't you feel silly? The nightmares go away...
The paper tiger. The bureaucrat, also known as the bureaurat. If the IRS agent was truly competent and was not lazy, why had he not struck out for business on his own? Coffee and cigarettes and federal service retirement pay? The paper tiger exposed by the light of day. But who would dare to turn on the switch, or open the curtain, for this vampire Monster to be exposed to sunlight?"
Note: Mr. MacPherson wrote the above before the Supreme Court Cheek decision and the Fifth Circuit Portillo decision. These two decisions have greatly strengthened the position of the non-taxpayer. See Report #TL16C: U.S. Tax Abatement Services.
If the Government Doesn't Provide Tax Money to Do "X," then Where Will the
Money Come from?
"If people stopped paying taxes, there will be no money to build roads or to finance
schools." Many people have a problem with such issues. One of the reasons is that
they have been brainwashed to believe that "only big-daddy government can do certain
things." The people who call themselves "big-daddy government" have magical
powers. "Big-daddy government can just conjure up solutions to every problem out of
thin air." Another reason is that many people have been brainwashed with the
pervasive fixed idea that "everything is scarce." I will attempt to answer the
above question very thoroughly. First let me quote an editorial that appeared in The
Arizona Republic of January 9, 1993 under the heading "FEDERAL SPENDING - What
a waste":
"Before President-elect Clinton succumbs to the growing congressional chorus demanding that American Families endure more deficit-reduction "pain" - the politician's code word for higher taxes - he ought to read the latest audit of Washington's fiscal performance.
The report, prepared by the General Accounting Office, makes no bones. Hundreds of billions of dollars are wasted yearly, the GAO says, through "inadequate oversight of contractors, faulty planning, inadequate information systems, unrealistic budget projections and a management 'culture' not focused on efficiency." The government's fiscal management is so poor, so rudimentary, so irresponsible that it would take years of earnest efforts to correct it, the report concluded.
Among the GAO's findings:
- A reliance on antiquated computers has kept the IRS from collecting $111 billion in overdue taxes.
- The Agriculture Department's Depression-era structure, operated "like a 20th century dinosaur," squanders as much as $100 million annually on unnecessary services.
- The Pentagon has overspent some $40 billion for unneeded spare parts, clothing and other supplies already adequately stocked.
- Government contractors have paid out $2 billion in Medicare claims that should have been billed to private health insurers. Another $11 billion or so in Medicare payments - 10 percent of the total paid out in 1991 - resulted from waste or fraud.
None of this will be in the least surprising to those familiar with the government's fiscal record. During the early Reagan years, for those who have forgotten, the Grace Commission estimated that waste, fraud and inefficiency were costing the taxpayers as much as $400 billion annually. Report after report since has reached much the same conclusion, including a 1990 GAO report identifying 17 specific federal programs especially guilty of waste and fraud or general mismanagement.
In other words, the government's fiscal problems are scarcely new. Neither are the various tax "solutions" now being proposed. This no doubt helps explain why waste, fraud and inefficiency continue to rob the government, not to mention the taxpayers, of much-needed cash.
The situation is nothing short of scandalous. From 1981 to 1992 federal revenues - mostly from taxes - nearly doubled, increasing from $599 billion to $1.092 trillion. Simultaneously, however, federal spending more than doubled, going from $678 billion in 1981 to $1.4 trillion last year. Various tax schemes adopted during this period failed abysmally to balance the books. For every dollar in new taxes, spending increased by $1.59.
Nonetheless, the president-elect is being urged to increase taxes - urged by many of the same tax-and-spend whizzes who a few years ago proposed to reduce the deficit by means of the largest one-time tax increase in the nation's history. Instead of reducing the deficit, red ink overflowed last year to just under the $300 billion level, the largest shortfall ever recorded.
Mr. Clinton told the voters that he wanted to go to Washington to make a difference. Changing the government's wastrel ways should be his first priority." [emphasis added]
J. Peter Grace, Chairman of the Grace Commission, wrote a book Burning Money: The Waste of Your Tax Dollars in 1984. He predicted that because of government waste, the national debt would reach $2 trillion by the year 2000 - that is, in 16 years. Well, in 1992 the acknowledged national debt hit $4 trillion - twice as much in half the time. In chapter 1 of my book The Economic Rape of America: What You Can Do About It, I indicate that the government lies about its debts and that the real national debt is much higher.
Government waste is almost certainly much higher than Grace estimated - practically everything government does is a waste - but let us be generous and say that only half the money received by government is wasted. So our first answer to the question, "If government didn't provide tax money for "X," where would the money come from?" is: IF GOVERNMENT DIDN'T TAX PEOPLE FOR "X" THERE WOULD BE TWICE AS MUCH MONEY AVAILABLE FOR "X" - provided people are willing to pay for "X."
Note that for more than a decade, for every additional dollar in revenue received, the federal government has increased spending by $1.59. Imagine that you give your child a dollar in pocket money. He then spends $1.59 and tells you that you now owe him $0.59 plus interest. That is how the federal government operates.
Note also that the editorial talks about "report after report." In French there is a saying, "plus çá change, plus çelá même chose" - "the more things change, the more they are the same." Reports about government waste are just more waste, because they don't change anything. It is extremely unlikely that Bill Clinton has the magical powers to do much about government waste.
Fecal Alchemy
Many people seem to be brainwashed with the notion that people who call themselves
"government" have magical powers to do things better than those who don't call
themselves "government." I contend that when people call themselves
"government," they acquire a kind of magical power in reverse. I call it
"fecal alchemy" - whatever they touch seems to turn into feces. Let me quote an
editorial from The Arizona Republic of January 3, 1993 under the headline "SUPERFUND
CLEANUP - A superfailure":
"By almost any measure the federal government's Superfund program, established more than a decade ago to clean up hazardous waste sites across the country, has become a superfailure.
Of the 1,200 or so Superfund sites identified by the Environmental Protection Agency, cleanup plans have been devised for only about 150. Fewer than 90 actually have been cleaned up - at a cost estimated at $6 billion.
A report by the EPA's inspector general charges that - surprise, surprise! - contractors have bilked the program of millions in overcharges for travel, entertainment and the like. Says Michigan Rep. John Dingell: "The cold, hard fact is that the taxpayers have been skinned."
As contemplated by Congress, the Superfund was to be mostly self-sustaining, with cleanups funded by the liable parties. If polluters balked, the government would clean up the sites and bill those responsible.
In practice, most of the cleanup has been done by pricey lawyers cashing in on the litigation bonanza the program created. "Not only have billions of dollars gone for cleanups of dubious environmental value," writes Marc Landy in Governing Magazine, "but, more important, the private sector has had to spend many times that amount to cover the cost spawned by Superfund-related litigation."
Because of high costs, potentially liable parties often have elected to fight cleanup orders in court. Moreover, since the courts have stretched the rules of liability to preposterous extremes, jeopardizing those who have no actual responsibility, potentially liable parties have taken to suing each other so as to distribute blame and costs.
This has made the relatively few completed projects enormously costly. Some $100 billion easily could be required to clean up the sites so far identified, and 100 new sites are added each year. Surveying the record, even former advocates of Superfund have begun to question its worth.
Mr. Lundy, a senior fellow at Brandeis University's Gordon Public Policy Center, suggests a sensible way out: adoption of a cost-benefit approach, whereby the EPA would "compare the advantages to be reaped by various levels of cleanup at a site to the cost of attaining those results." At some sites, it might be possible to cap the facility, preventing the spread of noxious materials and avoiding extensive soil improvement - a financially impractical requirement when dealing with high levels of contamination.
By reducing costs and litigation, such cost-effective methods could free up public and private funds and actually encourage environmental cleanups - something the Superfund, for all the early ballyhoo, has only discouraged." [emphasis added]
This editorial illustrates several principles:
Coercive government is to society as cancer is to individual. Imagine that you are so riddled with cancer that half the cells of your body are cancer cells - in the U.S. more people "work" in government than work in manufacturing. The parasite has become bigger than the host. That is why, during the past decade, the standard of living for most Americans has dropped. Thirty years ago, in most middle-class American families, the husband easily brought enough money home for a comfortable standard of living. Today, with both husband and wife working, many families struggle to pay the bills.
Buckminster Fuller, famous futurist and inventor of the geodesic dome, calculated that - given the abundant resources on earth - every man, woman, and child should be a millionaire many times over. Coercive government is a huge value destroyer. Practically everything it does, practically all its laws, destroy value or prevent value form being created. It is a huge cancer. It is difficult to put a number on the extent of the destruction. My "guesstimate" is that for every $1,000 of value production and potential production, government (and government-sponsored scams such as the Federal Reserve system and "compulsory state education") destroys $990 to $999 in value. This would mean that in the absence of coercive government, we would all be 100 to 1,000 times richer!
So our second answer to the question, "If government didn't provide tax money for "X," where would the money come from?" is: IF GOVERNMENT DIDN'T TAX PEOPLE, THERE WOULD BE A HUNDRED TO A THOUSAND TIMES AS MUCH MONEY AVAILABLE FOR "X" - provided people are willing to pay for "X."
During the past decade America has regressed from being the richest creditor nation in the world to being the biggest debtor country. Now you might think that my "destruction numbers" above are grossly exaggerated. The horrible fact is that my numbers are grossly understated. It is almost certainly more accurate to "guesstimate" that for every $1,000 of value production and potential production, government (and gkvernment-sponsored scams) destroys $1,500 to $2,000 in value. For America to be going backward, as it has - becoming a bigger and bigger debtor - this has to be the case. The government destroys much more value than is being created.
Some people have been brainwashed into believing that government has the magical power to provide "free" services, for example, "free education." There is an economic principle: "TANSTAAFL - there ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Someone always pays. Everyone pays for so-called "government education" in both direct and indirect ways. The direct ways include all kinds of taxation. The indirect ways include the ignorance and mind destruction of the victims of "free government education." This issue is covered in detail in my book Wake Up America! The Dynamics of Human Power.
This report is being written on a computer costing about $2,000, software included. Thirty years ago, a computer with the same processing power cost about $2,000,000 - a thousand times more expensive! Computers can be used extensively in education. The traditional teacher is probably obsolete. Vastly superior education could probably occur at a cost of one-hundredth or one-thousandth of what is now being wasted on "government schools" and "private, government-dictated schools."
So our third answer to the question, "If government didn't provide tax money for "X," where would the money come from?" is: IF GOVERNMENT DIDN'T TAX PEOPLE, AND STOPPED MONOPOLIZING THINGS, THEN "X" WOULD PROBABLY COST ONE HUNDREDTH OR EVEN ONE THOUSANDTH OF WHAT IT NOW COSTS. Governments don't make computers and don't monopolize the manufacture of computers. If they did, the computer on my desk would probably cost $20 million!
There is also a fourth answer: IF WE CONTINUE TO FINANCE COERCIVE GOVERNMENT, CIVILIZATION IN AMERICA WILL COLLAPSE AND NOBODY WILL HAVE ANY MONEY TO PAY FOR "X."
For a much more complete answer to our question, please read Restoring the American Dream by Robert J. Ringer. And contact the International Society For Individual Liberty, 836-B Southampton Rd. #299 Benicia, CA 94510 (Tel: (707) 746-8796 Fax: (707) 746-8797) and ask them to send you their book catalog. For more information, see http://www.isil.org.
"Dedicated to men and women throughout the world who practice individualism and self-responsibility, who do not covet the fruits of the labor of others, who respect every person's right to sovereignty over his own life, and whose actions are consistent with the cause of human freedom." - Robert Ringer, Restoring the American Dream
Please educate yourself.
Is Civilization in America Collapsing?
The following article appeared in The Arizona Republic of October 5, 1992:
"U.S. social health at 21-year low, expert reports
The Associated Press
NEW YORK - A barometer that measures the nation's social health has plunged to its lowest level since records first were compiled 21 years ago, a sociologist says."If you look at it as a report card, the country gets an 'F,'" said Marc Miringoff, director of the Fordham Institute fir Innovation in Social Policy. "It's the worst it's ever been, yet the real picture of America remains invisible because the campaigns hardly discuss them."
Miringoff's Index of Social Health, which works something like the Dow Jones industrial average measures the health of the stock market, has tracked 16 social problems the past 21 years.
His latest barometer measures conditions as they were in 1990, the last year for which statistics were available. For that year, the index was 42 out of a possible 100, the lowest point since it was first checked. Nine problems worsened in 1990, including six that hit new lows.
Those that reached their worst recorded levels were child abuse, teen suicide, the gap between the rich and poor, average weekly earnings, health insurance coverage and out-of-pocket health costs for people over 65.
Other problems that worsened were children in poverty, poverty among those over 65 and unemployment.
The nation's social health declined to a lower level in President Bush's term than during the four previous presidential administrations, but Miringoff said it is more of a national wake-up call than a partisan issue.
"There's enough blame to go around," Miringoff said. "It's not that our problems are so bad, it's we're not acting on the problems.
"Nobody's focusing on the big picture. We're not having any exchange."
The index said the social health of the nation's children declined for the fifth straight year in 1990, to a record low of 44.
Since 1970, the rate of reported child abuse is four times greater. One in five children in the United States lives in poverty, a rate that has increased by one-third since 1970. More than 400,000 teen-agers committed suicide or attempted it in 1990, double the number in 1970.
There also was a marked decline in scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. The combined average score was 474 in 1970; it had fallen in 1990 to 450, its lowest recorded point... "
In my book The Economic Rape of America: What You Can Do About It I analyze the history of taxation. I propose the theory that any civilization that introduces taxation, eventually taxes itself to death. I indicate that this may have been the root cause of the collapse of most civilizations in history.
Tax is institutionalized robbery. Tax is a disease. An increasing rate of taxation is an index of the decline of a civilization. The higher the tax rate, the more sick the society. Tax rates are roughly proportional to the size of government. Government tends to destroy individual responsibility and initiative.
Historically, governments have always hated the family and have done their utmost to destroy it. Politicians cleverly and hypocritically pay lip service to "family values," but in reality they do everything to destroy the family. For the history and details of the ancient and continuing war between state and family, please refer to the superb book The Subversive Family: An Alternative History of Love and Marriage by Ferdinand Mount.
Suffice it here to say that taxes divert money from the family to the state. Lack of money is often cited as a major reason for family fights and families breaking up. Here are some statistics from an editorial in The Arizona Republic of March 18, 1993, under the headline, "LEADING CULTURAL INDICATORS - Assessing 'values'":
"... SAT scores in 1960 were 975; today they are 899. The percentage of illegitimate births in 1960 was 5.3; by 1990 it had reached 26.2. In 1960 a mere 8 percent of American children lived in single-parent homes; by 1990 22 percent did. Only 3.5 percent of the country's children were on welfare in 1960; the 1990 percentage was 11.9. The teen-age suicide rate stood at 3.6 percent in 1960; the 1990 figure was 11.3. Violent crimes per 100,000 persons was 16.1 in 1960; in 1990 it was 75.8.
These are chilling statistics, and they do not resqlt, as Mr. Clinton continues to suggest, from a paucity of government involvement. Since 1960, Mr. Bennett [William J., former anti-drug czar and former Secretary of Education] notes, "total social spending by all levels of government (measured in constant 1990 dollars) has risen from $143.73 billion to $778 billion - more than a fivefold increase. Inflation-adjusted spending on welfare has increased by 630 percent, spending on education by 225 percent."
Let me suggest the possibility that, in general, the more money government spends on anything, the worse it gets. This also suggests that the solution to most of America's problems is for individuals and groups to stop paying taxes, to stop financing government, to withdraw their support from government. Fortunately, most of us can do so perfectly legally.
Our Founding Fathers understood most of this. That is why they set up a political system in which the individual is the sovereign and government is the servant. However, our bankers, lawyers, and politicans have succeeded in turning our political system upside down. We have regressed to a feudal system where government is sovereign and the individual a vassal.
As individuals we can reclaim our birthright as sovereigns. We need to educate ourselves and assert our constitutional rights. Fortunately, we have the law on our side, and the practical methods have been developed to get government off our backs.
The Sovereign Individual Principle
Discovering that you are a sovereign individual is crucial. It will open up a new universe
of possibilities for you. This vital subject, its legal and constitutional foundation, and
its practical applications are covered in detail in Report #TL04: How
to Find Out Who You Are.
Why Governments Fail
In my personal freedomry I have more than a hundred books on leadership and management. The
most useful among these is a little book by Michael LeBoeuf, Ph.D., Getting
Results: The Secret of Motivating Yourself and Others. It is a very simple
principle:
THE THINGS THAT GET REWARDED GET DONE
It is a basic principle of human behavior. What is rewarded gets done. The first question to ask when faced with a problem of human behavior is: What is being rewarded?
So what does government reward? Well, criminals are rewarded with free board and lodging, and comforts like running water and TV. Drug dealers (particularly the medical, alcohol, and tobacco pushers) are rewarded with legislation that outlaws competition, enabling the drug dealers to reap huge profits.
The poor and indigent are rewarded with foodstamps. So what do they do? They do what they are rewarded for: they "practice" poverty and indigence.
In general, the bigger the problem (real or imagined), the more money it is rewarded with. The greater the evil, the more government tends to reward it.
Think about it. Government "welfare" (it should really be called "badfare") rewards the very evils the politicians claim to "combat." What people get rewarded for, they do more of. If the young are rewarded for promiscuity with free condoms, they engage in more promiscuous sex. If single mothers are rewarded for being single mothers, then then the thing that is rewarded gets done more and the result is more single mothers.
This phenomenon is behind the fact that in practically everything government does, problems occur. Then money is thrown at the problem, rewarding the problem. So the problem gets worse. This is the root of fecal alchemy.
There is considerable evidence that the more money is spent on government education the worse it gets. If we see government schools as concentration camps for mind destruction, then it becomes obvious that the more money spent on "education" the more minds are destroyed.
Coercive government is institutionalized violence. It uses violence or the threat of violence to enforce its will upon its victims. This is the essence of crime.
So what do we do when we give a coercive government money? Obviously, we reward crime. So what do we get? Obviously, more crime. Can we conclude that one of the most immoral things one could do, is to give money to government, that is, pay taxes?
The first step in solving our "social" problems is to stop doing whatever we are doing, to do nothing, and to observe what happens. This is the exact opposite of what politicians do.
As individuals, we simply stop paying illegal taxes. We use that money to improve ourselves, our families, and our friends. And we provide others with the information to do the same. Goodbye "social" problems!
Reports in this series:
#TL16 - #TL16A - #TL16B - #TL16C - #TL16D - #TL16E - #TL16F - #TL16G - #TL16H - #TL16I
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