Taxation With Representation Still Sucks
Posted by Thomas L. Knapp on Apr 6, 2009 in Commentary • 9 commentsBy 1776, the American Revolution was about many things. The list of grievances produced by the Continental Congress in its Declaration of Independence that July 4th — “a long train of abuses and usurpations,” as Jefferson put it — included complaints about quartering of troops, denial of jury trials, obstruction of immigration, and sending “hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”
Those were the complaints of the Revolutionaries at the height of their fervor, a fervor which led to complete independence for 13 of Britain’s North American colonies and the birth of a nation which eventually grew to 50 states and a population of more than 300 million.
There was, however, a single complaint at the taproot of the tree of Revolution: “Taxation without representation.”
That complaint — set forth as early as 1750 by Reverend Jonathan Mayhew in a sermon at Boston’s Old West Church — started the ball of protest rolling slowly down the hill of history toward full-blown insurrection. By 1773 the protest had reached a fever pitch. On December 16th of that year, a group of Bostonians led by Samuel Adams held their famous “Tea Party” over taxes (and special tax breaks given to a company favored by the British monarchy) on the national drink.
As of ten years after that protest, Americans had successfully asserted, by force of arms, their right to taxation with representation.
So, how’s that working out for us?
This April 15th, thousands of Americans intend to gather in cities across the nation for their own “Tea Parties.”
They’re upset over the amount of money their (representative) government takes out of their pockets. That shouldn’t be surprising: Any way you look at it, it comes to a much greater tax burden than that imposed by Great Britain’s monarchy on its (unrepresented in Parliament) American colonists.
They’re upset over their (representative) government’s spending habits — and who wouldn’t be? Even after taking 28.2% of Americans’ income as tax this year, the federal government projects a $1.2 trillion deficit for the coming year, on top of its $11.1 trillion existing debt (a debt which grows by more than $3 billion per day).
They’re upset over their (representative) government’s “bailout” mentality — trillions of taxpayer dollars committed to saving failed enterprises from their own bad decisions — and about the trend toward direct government takeovers of those businesses (as if the federal government had a clue on how to make a profit; see the deficit and debt numbers above).
Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be upset about the one thing that matters most: That taxation — with or without representation — has now proven itself, beyond any shadow of a doubt, a failed experiment.
Taxation disconnects the act of spending from the values of the spender. It is a forcible redistribution of wealth from the pockets of those who create that wealth (the “productive class”) to the pet projects accounts of those who didn’t create it, but who delusively fancy themselves more qualified than its creators to dispose of it (the “political class”).
In a market transaction, each party to the transaction receives full expression of his or her values — either all parties believe they benefit, or the transaction doesn’t take place.
In a state transaction, the political class substitutes its own values for the values of those it claims to “represent,” having coercively separated the wealth to be spent from the “represented.” And while it has its powers of coercion handy, it generally makes additional use of them in negotiating the terms of the transaction itself. From front to rear and top to bottom, a state transaction is inherently designed to benefit the political class at the expense of everyone else.
“Representation” is a fiction, or at best a scheme of misdirection. The political class quickly integrates its newest members into this system of privilege, and any benefit those members’ constituents realize amounts to an incidental expense — a “political class membership maintenance fee” from the “representative,” ultimately paid by those constituents themselves in any case.
The problems of taxation and government spending are not problems of representation or lack thereof. They’re problems which inevitably accompany the exercise of coercive power. Until our “Tea Party” participants understand that, they limit themselves to pruning branches on the rotten tree which they’d be better off chopping down entirely.
Income Tax does not fit into either catagory – ‘without representation’ or ‘with representation’.
Income Tax is the ‘harvesting’ the labor of ‘owned slaves’. The term ‘farming’ meant just that.
The American people, (free will adult men (male & female), are converted to slave status by their attachment as an accessory to the State owned ‘legal identity name, the name one finds on the copy of the birth certificate they may have in their possession. That name has the family name changed to a primary name (surname) and is the ‘intellectual property’ of the corporate State.
That which is called tax is the fruits of labor of the slave collected by the slave owner. That which the slave gets to keep for his use and enjoyment is called a ‘benefit’. A ‘benefit to a slave is a privilege that can be confiscated for disobedience of the slave. The filing of an IRS 1040 is an accounting by the slave of the slave owner’s property – the fruits of the slave’s labor.
The income tax and disciplining of slaves is under the property right of the State, and not under Constitutional or statutory law.
The method used to enslave Americans is a legal maxim arising out of the unalienable property right – accessio cedit principali – an accessory attached to a principal becomes the property of the owner of the principal. The principal in question is the State owned legal identity name, regardless the case of the letters used in spelling it.
More information on this, and what one can do about it, can be found on this website – for free:
http://www.detaxcanada.org
The best argument to present to those who retain this mad belief in mob rule, is that non-voting is as valid an expression of preference as voting for any party.
Saying ‘none of the above’ is not lazy or ignorant, necessarily – and is arguably more intelligent that the decisions of the wide-eyed cretins who literally adore “their” Party’s candidate (be it the mad stares at the RNC, or the Nuremberg-like air of Obama’s inauguration).
As such, if a candidate fails to accumulate 50%-plus-1 of the entire franchise, they are not a valid representative even under the ‘mob rule is great’ hypothesis.
There is a further problem though – these ‘representatives’ only represent those who vote for the winner. Those who don’t vote, plus those who vote for the loser, are still forced to contribute to the winner’s policy-funding rapine. So those who vote are assumed to understand that they are placing a bet totalling half of their income – if they win, they get to use half of their opponents’ income as they see fit, but they still have to pony up half of their own income anyhow. It’s a dumb bet.
Let people participate in their stupid ‘rule by the mob’ if they wish, but let those who do not support such a system be spared the burden of funding the idiocy of those who do: let only those who vote, pay taxes.
Then see how popular ‘democracy’ is.
And finally – for those who vehemently oppose the system, the most pressing question is – on what basis does government arrogate to itself the right to coerce us? Do they believe that there is an implicit contract between people and government? How so, given the absence of sought agreement (offer and acceptance)? Moreover, how do they defend their behaviour as a counterparty to a contract whose terms THEY can vary at will, without seeking my consent?
Or do they simply believe that they have the ‘right’ because they can bring overwhelming firepower to bear on those who reject their predations?
If the latter, then they are valid targets for armed insurgency. That can be achieved very efficiently by targeting mid-level functionaries, and armed goons: let every lackey know that they face possible execution (or maiming) for their part in the support of tyranny, and watch their operational efficiency fall. Without its cadres of Little Eichmanns, tyranny cannot function.
Spare us the extremist rhetoric unless you like the status quo.
I agree with realigning the object of spending with the collection of revenue. For example, the income tax should be for high income earners only – and only for the percentage of this income at high rates (in other words, in the reconstituted Clintonian tax system the top 12% or 15% of income above the 25% or 28% tax rate). Those revenues would not go for current domestic spending at all, but to get rid of the national debt held by the public, any government funds, the federal reserve and any contingent liabilties held by the IMF. They would also fund any items which would otherwise rely on borrowing – like overseas conflict and sea power – and the transition costs from military retirement and social security to an employee-ownership based pension system.
There are those who would say that we can simply repudiate these costs – however that attitude will never win the day, either electorally or through armed insurgency. The armed insurgency model is equivalent to a mouse running up the leg of an elephant with rape on its mind. Don’t make me laugh – especially since many of the “little Eichmans” have veterans preference and are likely a better shot than most members of any militia you could mount. History shows that the success of the militia in any revolution is a myth. Regular armies are an essential feature if you want a revolution – and in that case you really would have to become what you despise.
Although the tea parties may well have been turned into “contested ground” by many genuine grassroots elements, and include people open to truly free market ideas, I think it’s pretty clear that in their origins–organization and financing–they’re 100% astroturf. Plutocratic outfits like Dick Armey’s “Freedom Works” (about as “free market” as the Adam Smith Institute and Heritage) bought the “tea party” domains last summer, after which they lay dormant until activated by Rick Santelli’s scripted performance on CNBC.
Re Michael Bindner’s comments on militia, the point is that an irregular movement doesn’t *have* to be able to win pitched battles or control territory. All it has to do is deny control of territory or make control unacceptably costly. In an age of Fourth Generation Warfare, the lines between insurgencies and territorial states are blurred. An irregular movement or insurgency can win majority support in a region by offering better public services than the de jure state (as with Hizbollah in Lebanon). And it’s increasingly common for a hollowed-out state, exhausted by civil war, to cut a deal in which an irregular resistance movement recognizes the de jure suzerainty of the state in return for de facto control of a given unit of territory. This was the arrangement between the Iraqi government and the Sunni tribes in Al-Anbar, and between the Pakistani government and the Taliban in Swat.
Re: Kevin’s comments in 4. Granted, militia’s can make life miserable for the rulers, but they can’t consolidate power. The kind of violence they put out is as toxic as the violence that Chairman Mao and the Marxist Leninists want for its own sake. I certainly would not want to live in such a society – which seems to be what GT is suggesting in 2. We can transition to anarchism peacefully. I would certainly rather try that than issue a fatwah on civil servants. While there are many middle-level manager that truly are jerks, many are fairly descent human beings with a desire to serve the citizens. It is the few thousand political appointees who do the damage – although many of them are patriots as well. They are, however, the products of a bad system. Let’s change that system instead of picking them off with an Uzi or blowing up their cars.
re: “…but they can’t consolidate power.”
Everybody who wants power consolidated, raise your right hand.
6. If you don’t actually win the revolution, even if the job is to remove the state, you have lost the revolution.
Well, yes and no. While “if you don’t win” is literally correct , this overlooks the wholesale methodological difference between winning a genuinely anarchist revolution on the one hand and winning a minarchist or Bolshevik revolution on the other. You’re assuming somebody has to assume state power by “consolidating power”. I challenge that assumption. To WIN, anarchist insurgents would have to promulgate ideas that make the populace ungovernable by anybody (including themselves).
Please note that I’m not arguing in favor of armed insurgency here, but since the topic came up…
More to the point, one doesn’t have to (one’s self) exert state power over one’s countrymen in order to successfully defend one’s self against the state or any other bandits. One only has to get enough people to *likewise* defend themselves.