Why government stealing can't be stopped

In 1850, Frederic Bastiat published his book, The Law, in which he said: "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." It is time to resurrect Bastiat and have a national debate on whether citizens have a constitutional and moral right to steal from each other.

With the exception of morons, liars and Ted Kennedy, no adult can deny that the United States government has morphed into No. 2. Since the passage of the 16th Amendment, the New Deal and the Great Society, we have become a nation that engages in widespread legal theft, a nation that believes that stealing is a moral and legitimate role of government.

In that sense, we are no different from Cuba. Thankfully, unlike Cuba, we have a Bill of Rights and civil liberties. But like Cuba, we no longer have a right to the fruits of our labor. In Cuba, money is stolen from citizens by Fidel Castro and the Communist Party. In the United States, money is stolen by elected politicians from some citizens for the benefit of other citizens.

Sometimes the theft takes place by means of a majority vote, which is a fancy way of saying that if 51 percent of voters want to steal money from 49 percent of voters, they can vote to do so. But in most cases the theft is sanctioned by a minority of citizens, since many citizens do not vote and many others are not eligible to vote yet have their money stolen.

I fail to see the moral distinction between the Cuban form of theft and the American version. Sure, the amount that is stolen and the process by which it is stolen are markedly different between the two countries, but the state has the power to take your money under both systems and give it to people who have no moral right to the fruits of your labor. And if you refuse to hand over your money under both systems, you end up in jail.

In Bastiat's day, less than two percent of government spending went to transfer payments, er, theft. Almost all spending was for the true general welfare -- for those government services that benefited all citizens as equally as practical, such as national defense, a court system and police protection. Today, transfer payments comprise over 40 percent of government spending.

Unfortunately, theft occurs in more ways than transfer payments. As Bastiat said, it also occurs in the form of "tariffs, subsidies, progressive taxation, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on."

Virtually no one would disagree that it would be wrong for a retiree to steal money from a kid's piggy bank for his retirement expenses. But through a leap in logic, many people believe that it is not wrong for a retiree to receive retirement benefits from the government and to send the bill to children.

And what a bill it is! According to a recent report by the Cato Institute, based on Congressional Budget Office numbers, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid now account for 41.3 percent of total federal spending. By 2020, the entitlements will consume 56.5 percent of federal spending, and by 2040, 78 percent.

Medicare alone has a $37 trillion -- yes, trillion -- imbalance between future tax revenues and current entitlement promises. The difference will be made up by future generations -- by today's children.

Granted, retirees do not see the theft as theft, because the government, public schools, AARP and the establishment media have led them to believe that the theft is something other than theft -- something other than the taking of other people's money for themselves. But it is unquestionably and undeniably theft. The following fictional exchange between a retiree and his neighbor illustrates the point:

Retiree: I need to buy some medicine and would like you to start giving me your kid's allowance.

Neighbor: Are you nuts? What right do you have to ask for my kid's money? Why don't you sell your fully loaded Buick, buy a Corolla, and use the savings to purchase your medicine?

Retiree: Where is your social conscience and sense of justice? The younger generation has a moral responsibility to support the elderly. It's for the common good.

Neighbor: Don't give me that common good crap. It's for your own selfish, greedy good. Besides, you've got three adult kids with good jobs. Why don't you ask them to support you or ask your church for help?

Retiree: Look, I'm entitled to your kid's money and am not going to take no for an answer, even if it means that I have to go home and get my pistol.

Neighbor: Yeah, do that and make my day. I'll call the police and have you arrested.

Retiree: Try it. I'll just ask my fellow AARP members to persuade Congress to vote for a prescription drug benefit, which will cost your kid and other kids about $7 trillion dollars over their working lives. If they refuse to pay when they start working, the police will arrest them. You'll save everybody a lot of time and trouble if you just hand over the money now.

Theft has become so commonplace, so accepted by the American public and so endorsed by both Republicans and Democrats, that the following exchange never takes place on Meet the Press between host Tim Russert and a politician:

Russert: Why doesn't the xyz group spend its own money instead of taking money from the public treasury?

Russert: Not according to my understanding of the U.S. Constitution and its general welfare clause.

Russert: Oh, so the supreme law of the land is malleable enough to allow one special-interest group to take money from the national treasury for itself? Based on your understanding of the law, then, there is no constitutional or moral limit to what the government can take and to whom it can give the money.

Politician: (Fidgeting, coughing, sweating) I say that Americans are a generous people and want to help their fellow Americans. Only a mean-spirited person would not want to help the xyz group.

Russert: You didn't answer my question. Is there any constitutional or moral limit to what the government can take?

Politician: I don't think this is the time or place to debate constitutional and moral issues. I came here to talk about the x program.

Russert: We are talking about the x program, but you refuse to explain why the xyz group thinks it has a right to take other people's money. You've left me no choice but to end the interview here.

Of course, Russert would never ask such important and relevant questions. But he does invite John McCain and other politicians on Meet the Press to rail against money in politics and to justify restricting free speech in the name of campaign finance reform. It never seems to dawn on Russert and his dimwitted guests that over half of American politics is about theft -- about which group is going to receive stolen property that is fenced through the political system. If the government were to stop stealing, politicians would lose a substantial amount of campaign contributions and power, and campaign finance reform would be a non-issue.

And that's why government stealing cannot be stopped and why we have an immoral government.

Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and founder of Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT). He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.

You cannot call it stealing.

You can call it "taxation" when the funds collected go to the legitimate expenses of government. When the government gives those funds not to legitimate providers of services and materials for the administration of government but to other individuals to pay their personal expenses of living, you have to call it "theft".

There is simply no other word that describes the process.

"When the government gives those funds not to legitimate providers of services and materials for the administration of government but to other individuals to pay their personal expenses of living, you have to call it "theft". "

Even when doing so helps protect and stablize the economy? Like following a disaster?

What about Medicare where people have paid in all their life. Shouldn't government honor it's promises there? I know you'll say it's a giant ponzi scheme, and I'd probably agree. But it was our duly elected representatives that voted it in, so we have nobody to blame but ourselves. And how do you propose getting out of it? Cut off the care to people after they have paid in all these years?

"You have not established that taxation is not theft you have only established that *you* perceive some taxation to be generally useful and that it upsets your sensibilities when the victims call you a thief. "

Well here's what the Bible says about taxes. It says pay them.

1 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. 2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: 4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. 5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. 6 For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. 7 Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.

As you may have noticed from the tenor of many responses to your various posts, a form of socialism is now the 'default' position of both Rats and Pubbies.

It is automatically presumed that it takes a government to perform any effective societal function whatsoever, essentially on the grounds that any non-universal program will be deficient in equity. Even though individuals and their varied social institutions are perfectly adequate to educate children, tend the ill, help the poor, and etc, most people today take for granted that government should direct ALL of these tasks formerly performed by communities, families, and individuals.

Politically, our side's only hope is that younger voters wake up to the insanity of the unfunded SS and Medicare obligations, and the growing pension burden of retired public sector employees.

At some point, they will say "NO!"

The equity fetish is destroying America through its court system, imo. The courts have become the vanguard element of American-style Socialism. Profiteering lawyers are merely a surface phenomena of this cannibalism of American society.

All IMHO.

Even when doing so helps protect and stablize the economy? Like following a disaster?

Disaster relief in terms of use of government services, like the Corps of Engineers, to the states, not individuals. Robbing Peter to pay Paul only appears to help the economy in the sort run, but leads to disaster, like a trillion dollars owed to world financial institutions.

Cut off the care to people after they have paid in all these years?

So, by that reasoning it must continue forever. There will always be those to be hurt with the phasing out of socialist programs. The entire nation will be hurt with the collapse of the socialist programs.

"We did fine without an Income tax before the 16th. If anything you own can be taken from you, if you don't pay your taxes (property , for example.) You are in fact not an owner, but are a renter. Of course, that reality doesn't sit well with our founding documents. "

But property taxes existed in the early colonies even before the constitution. And property taxes are state taxes not federal. So that's an invalid argument.

"Disaster relief in terms of use of government services, like the Corps of Engineers, to the states, not individuals."

So now your are ok with robbing some states to pay other states, but you aren't ok with taxing the nation to help one part of the nation if it's individuals? I don't see the distinction. It looks to me like you are arbitrarily drawing lines in the sand, because you don't want to pay taxes.

I don't want to pay excessive taxes either, but lets look at the programs and decide whether they are good for the nation or not. Instead of anything that causes ME to be taxed is bad.

"Even though individuals and their varied social institutions are perfectly adequate to educate children, tend the ill, help the poor, and etc, most people today take for granted that government should direct ALL of these tasks formerly performed by communities, families, and individuals. "

If you are assuming that government played no role in these matters in the colonies, you would be wrong. It was done at the local and state levels, but it was considered very much a "civil" duty.

And actually it didn't work well at the local levels that's why states got involved. Towns became bad about kicking out their poor and sick and orphans or dumping them on the edge of more responsible towns. Eventually the state did get involved on equity grounds and began mandating that certain individuals be cared for by certain towns to even out the load.

Which is probably the same reason the Feds got involved in it, to keep irresponsible states from dumping their responsibilities on the more responsible states.

The real question is, what is an civil responsibility and what crosses the line over into socialism? I think we all agree that if Government started nationalizing all of the workplaces, that's clearly socialism. But are poor houses socialism? Is care for the poor socialism? Is care for the sick socialism? Is care for orphans socialism?

Or has socialism become just a label that we attach to any responsibility that might cause us to be taxed?

"Yes, I was making a veiled reference to this little thing: Amendment X "

While I agree that is an important thing. You have admendment XV1 to deal with. And you haven't established that any of the spending is not covered under the things delegated.

...what crosses the line over into socialism?

I would say that one crosses that line when one thinks that the primary job of government is the 'care' of its citizenery.

It's not so much the effects of a single state intrusion into civil society, but the habit of mind that sees all inequities as somehow reparable by the state. Indeed, the creation of a 'just' social order becomes the prime purpose of government.

This is the core of the utopian, or socialist world-view, imo.

#6..[ But the answer isn't to resort to non-democratic means to force our will on others. If you want to talk about a dangerous slippery slope, let's talk about government without consent ]

Spoken like an true ex-democrat....or worse a current one

...democracy: 3 wolves and one sheep deciding what's for dinner.....

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.-Thomas Jefferson

[ Politics trumps economics, property rights, your own "right to life", and mine as well. Not much can be done about it, although it is worth while to do what is possible. ]

Seems like you have no idea of why the American Cconstitution is so special... The American Constitution has at its base rights given BY GOD and not by gov't... because rights given by gov't are MERELY permission(s) or privledges granted by the gov't... God given rights can not be taken away except by God... and surely NOT by any gov't...

THAT is the difference... But in a country where God is being deported instead of illegal aliens it becomes OBVIOUS that the base(God) of constitutional RIGHTS has been long since been eroded... and what I stated above is an anachronism... and as the founders stated and recommended there is only one remedy for such a case... REVOLUTION...

"The "servants" have run amok and are stealing from their masters. "

Are the elections not free or fair? If the politicians are putting the money in their back pocket, then I would agree that is stealing.

But if they are implementing laws that they believe is in the best interest of the nation as a whole. Then that is not stealing.

Chances are most of them are doing nothing other than what they said they would do when they ran for office.

I agree that we the people are the ruler here. But we have fair elections and delegate authority to those representatives. Most of them are probably doing what they promised in the campaign. Bush certainly is when he promised a drug benefit.

I agree if the servants are lousy, there should be judgement and we should vote them out.

But before you go considering that all entitlements are unjust, you better consider what God told kings about the poor. Because if it applied to Kings in the old days, then it applies to "we the people" who are the rulers today.

"I would say that one crosses that line when one thinks that the primary job of government is the 'care' of its citizenery.

"It's not so much the effects of a single state intrusion into civil society, but the habit of mind that sees all inequities as somehow reparable by the state. Indeed, the creation of a 'just' social order becomes the prime purpose of government.

I agree with the second statement. I do not agree with the first. Justice does not demand that all inequities be addressed. Nor should government attempt to address all inequities. Rather they should focus on making sure that the rules are fair and that the citizenry abide by the rules.

However, to say that the government has no obligation to "care" for it's citizenry is also wrong. That government had an obligation was recognized by every one of the colonial states.

So now your are ok with robbing some states to pay other states, but you aren't ok with taxing the nation to help one part of the nation if it's individuals?

Disaster relief at the state level is for the good of all the population. It is supposed to be what people pay taxes for. Relief to an individual helps only that individual.

The action of taking from others, against their will and over their objections, for the profit and gain of another is called "theft". There is no other word for it, besides maybe a euphremism or two.

"Disaster relief at the state level is for the good of all the population. It is supposed to be what people pay taxes for. Relief to an individual helps only that individual. "

It's the same thing, just a different scale. Helping individuals recover helps the state as a whole, just as helping a state recover helps the nation as a whole.

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