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Communism, socialism, and our big-government welfare state are all based on a criminal-mind assumption. What is meant by a "criminal-mind assumption"? Consider Dostoyevski's analysis of the criminal mind in his masterwork Crime and Punishment. The criminal mind assumes that one has the right and the authority to take or confiscate values earned by others so long as someone else has a "need" for those values. Communism, socialism, and our big-government welfare state are all based on that criminal-mind assumption.
When a government institutes policies based on criminal-mind assumptions, those policies will grow like a cancer. Eventually they will devour all wealth, along with everyone's future. This was most obvious in former communist countries. Their criminal-mind policies destroyed entire nations. Yet, the same criminal-mind philosophy that underlined communism underlined the creation of the big-government welfare state that has formed in America this century. Today, working Americans ultimately pay close to 50 percent of their income to some form of taxation. Yet, consider that in 1910, before today's big-government welfare state took hold, the average working American paid about 5 percent of his income toward taxes. Yet, all of the proper and necessary duties of government functioned just fine.
In a communist country, everything belongs to the state. In America, today, close to 50 percent of what a worker earns is ultimately confiscated in some form of government taxation. One could argue that America is now 50 percent communist. The results of this can be seen everywhere. Our economy is sinking into permanent stagnation. Jobs are lost by the thousands as entire industries close down because they can no longer handle the enormous tax and regulating burdens placed upon them. Meanwhile, our government has racked up the largest deficit in history. Yet, our politicians have the audacity to proclaim that the problem with our economy is that people aren't paying their fair share of taxes!
Left unchecked, career politicians, bureaucrats, and special-interest groups will not stop. Their criminal-mind policies of forcibly taking values earned by some to support the special interests of others will inevitably destroy the economy along with everyone's standard of living. Ironically, this was predicted by our founding fathers.
When the original 12 states convened in Philadelphia in 1787 (Rhode Island did not send a delegation to the Constitutional Convention) to draft a new constitution, there existed a group of powerful special interests that wanted and lobbied hard for a strong central government. Predictably, this big-government special-interest group was headed by a lawyer -- Alexander Hamilton. Fortunately, most of our founding fathers were in no mood to establish a strong, overbearing government like the tyrannical English government they had just fought a costly war to throw off. Thus, they rejected the majority of what that big-government lobby wanted. However, not wanting to appear undemocratic, the founding fathers gave in to a few of the big-government lobby's proposals.
The big-government lobby's main victory was the drafting of Article 1, Section 8 in the Constitution. This section gave the federal government the power to tax without specifying any limits. Certain founding fathers recognized the mistake of granting a government the power to tax without specifying limits. They vigorously opposed this section of the Constitution. Unfortunately, many delegates at the constitutional convention made the mistake of believing that it would be okay to compromise with the big-government lobby. After all, the new taxes being proposed at the time seemed harmless enough. Those taxes amounted to one or two percent of the average person's income. They agreed to leave Article 1, Section 8 unamended.
Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution reads "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." Since this section does not specify a limit on the amount Congress can tax, in actuality this section grants to Congress unlimited taxing power. Congress can tax without restraint. Luther Martin, a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, warned of the consequences:
"By the power to lay and collect imposts Congress may impose duties on any or every article of commerce imported into these states to what amount they please. By the power to lay excises, a power very odious in its nature, since it authorizes officers to examine into your private concerns, the Congress may impose duties on every article of use or consumption: On the food that we eat, on the liquors we drink, on the clothes that we wear, the glass which enlighten our houses, or the hearths necessary for our warmth and comfort. By the power to lay and collect taxes, they may proceed to direct taxation on every individual either by a capitation tax on their heads or an assessment on their property. By this part of the section, therefore, the government has a power to tax to what amount they choose and thus to sluice the people at every vein as long as they have a drop of blood left."
Malaton Smith, a leading opponent of Alexander Hamilton during New York's ratifying convention, articulated the principle that governmental powers should be clearly defined. "It is necessary that the powers vested in government should be precisely defined, that the people may be able to know whether it moves in the circle of the Constitution. Article I, Section 8 is intolerably vague. The Federal government will push its taxing power to the limit. It is a general maxim that all governments find a use for as much money as they can raise. Indeed, they have commonly demands for more. Hence it is that all as far as we are acquainted are in debt. I take this to be a settled truth that they will all spend as much as their revenue. That is, will live at least up to their income. Congress will ever exercise their powers to levy as much money as the people can pay."
In 1787, most of the press, being centered in the cities and subjected to entrenched special-interests, supported the big-government lobby. The press claimed that men such as Martin and Smith were overreacting. Thus, the 13 states proceeded to pass the U. S. Constitution without amending Article I, Section 8.
Overreacting? Time has proven that nothing could have been more wrong. Just look at what has occurred! Today, 50 percent of working America's income is ultimately gobbled up in some form of taxation. That is not taxation. It is confiscation! If the founded fathers were alive today, they would start another revolution. Yet, instead of swimming in surplus cash with all its mighty taxation power, our government is faced with a several-trillion-dollar debt that will eventually bankrupt our nation and everybody's future. How true those ominous warnings were. Indeed, a government, if given the power, will keep expanding its taxation -- taking every last dime it can get away with. And, as certain foresighted founding fathers warned in 1787, the more a government taxes, the more it will spend, thus the ever more that government will demand from its citizens.
Since Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution granted Congress the power to tax without setting any specified limits, Congress gradually increased taxes and spending throughout the 1800s. By 1910, taxes amounted to about 5% of the average working person's income. But, in the early 1900s, as the philosophy of socialism and big government spread rapidly throughout the world, Congress insisted on instituting a new federal income tax. Once again, the public was fooled by the big-government, special-interest lobby promoting the income tax. The top income tax rate proposed at that time was three percent. Congress assured the public that the income tax rate would never go above three percent. Again, foresighted individuals saw the principle behind an income tax and warned against the catastrophe that would eventually result. On March 3, 1910, Richard E. Byrd, Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, ominously warned against establishing a federal income tax.
"A hand from Washington will be stretched out and placed upon every man's business; the eye of the Federal inspector will be in every man's counting house. The law will of necessity have inquisitorial features, it will provide penalties. It will create a complicated machinery. Under it businessmen will be hauled into courts distant from their homes. Heavy fines imposed by distant and unfamiliar tribunals will constantly menace the taxpayer. An army of Federal inspectors, spies and detectives will descend upon the state. They will compel men of business to show their books and disclose the secrets of their affairs. They will dictate forms of bookkeeping. They will require statements and affidavits..."
Again, warnings from Senator Byrd and others like him were dismissed as reactionary. After all, the federal government was proposing only a modest income tax rate of three percent on America's top income earners.
History has proven that Mr. Byrd and others like him were not overreacting. Imagine the horror those men would experience if they witnessed the IRS of today. Americans are endlessly harassed and burdened by a mountain of tax regulations and an army of IRS auditors. Huge, punitive assessments daily bankrupt businesses and individuals in every state of the nation. No financial transaction of any American is private. In fact, bankers can be jailed for not reporting other peoples' financial transactions to the federal government. Widows stand before Congress and tell of their husbands committing suicide because of ruinous tax assessments attached to them in their old-age. Young children have their bank accounts seized. Newspapers carry pictures of IRS agents smashing open the windows of a Volkswagon and dragging out a young, bewildered couple as they desperately try to prevent the confiscation of their meager means of transportation. Federal judges are debarred and jailed after presiding over decisions unfavorable to the IRS. A past President admits to using the IRS to ruin political opponents. Top value and job-producers in society are fined millions of dollars and sent to jail. The richest entertainers in America are suddenly left homeless and financially destroyed. Middle-class men and women have their homes, cars, furniture, even family heirlooms confiscated and auctioned off. ...Every year a trail of devastation weaves across the nation as thousands of Americans are bankrupted and left in financial ruin by the IRS.
The writing is on the wall. As predicted over 200 years ago, our taxation system has turned into confiscation, forcing our justice system to become increasingly police-state-like and to trample upon our freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Our economic foundations are deteriorating, and our government has accumulated a national debt that will eventually bankrupt this county. Just as happened in communist countries, our economy, too, will collapse. Philosophically, this disastrous end is inescapable. Our government, by its nature, will keep pushing criminal-mind parasitism until it sucks dry everyone's future. Why is this inevitable? Because our government is now based on the prime evil -- initiatory force.
"Force, coercion, threat of force, or fraud initiated against any individual for any reason by any individual, groups of individuals, societies, or governments is morally wrong. That is the only categorical moral statement possible. That statement must, by its nature, be the categorical, irreducible, and fundamental standard for all conscious beings, always, everywhere. That statement is the axiom upon which every moral concept rests. The initiation of force and fraud among conscious beings is not only the basic moral wrong and evil, but is the primary tool used by all professional neocheaters to survive through value destruction."[ 12 ] -- Frank R. Wallace, "The Neo-Tech Discovery," Neo-Tech Publishing Company, 1992
If a worker does not pay his or her income tax, that worker will go to jail. The federal income tax depends upon the use of initiatory force -- the prime evil. Today, as our economic foundations deteriorate, it is becoming ever-more obvious that enacting criminal-mind policies through the threat of initiatory force leads to disaster. History demonstrates this, philosophy dictates this, and morality demands this. We are now in the mist of such dynamics.
Tomorrow, people will accept and even support Americans being dragged from their homes in the middle of the night. The public will turn its head as homes and businesses are torn to shreds in search of "evidence of financial crimes". Individuals from all walks of life will be sentenced to punitive, life-ruining prison terms. The public will no longer have the ability to recognize that they are living in a police state. They will be numb to the fear that permeates them. All they will know is that they are living with increasing misery as opportunity wanes, our economy sours, and wars increase. That is the inescapable result of a big-government welfare state.
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[ 12 ] Neocheating means the undetected usurpation of values through clever, dishonest actions that make the neocheater appear as the benefactor or protector of society. ...Most politicians are neocheaters.
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