Posted on 01/28/2004 6:47:57 AM PST by Theodore R.
America the Unfree Paul Craig Roberts
Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2004
The Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal's 10th annual Index of Economic Freedom pulls the wool over our eyes. The deception is unintentional and arises from a fatal flaw in the index.
The index delivers the comforting conclusion that the United States is the 10th-most free country, far ahead of 155th-ranked North Korea. However, the index ignores the simple truth that people who do not own the product of their labor are not free. People subject to an income tax do not own the product of their labor.
Our Founding Fathers understood this. Indeed, historically the very definition of freedom has been self-ownership. Serfs and slaves are not free, because they do not own their labor.
Any American who thinks he owns his labor can test the proposition by refusing to pay his income tax. He will quickly discover that he is not a free person.
The Heritage index is ahistorical. It is blind to the enormous loss of freedom in the 20th century, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom. It takes as its starting point the re-enserfment of populations and predicates a "freedom" index on unfree labor.
This extraordinary failing reduces a valuable study to a propaganda device.
Compare an American taxpayer's situation today with that of a 19th century American slave. Not all slaves worked on cotton plantations. Some with marketable skills were leased to businesses or released to labor markets, where they worked for money wages. Just like the wages of today's taxpayer, a portion of the slave's money wages was withheld. In those days the private owner, not the government, received the withheld portion of the slave's wages.
Slaves in that situation were as free as today's American taxpayer to choose their housing from the available stock, purchase their food and clothing, and entertain themselves.
In fact, they were freer than today's American taxpayer. By hard work and thrift, they could save enough to purchase their freedom.
No American today can purchase his freedom from the IRS.
Slaves could also run away. Today, Americans who run away are pursued to the far ends of the earth. Indeed, the IRS can assert its ownership rights for years after an American gives up his citizenship and becomes a citizen of a different country. The IRS need only claim that the former American gave up his citizenship for tax reasons.
I challenge Heritage and The Wall Street Journal to initiate a broader index of freedom, one that includes not only self-ownership but also the Bill of Rights that defines our civil liberties and the 14th Amendment that insists on equality before the law.
Such an index would reveal that the United States is a stunningly unfree country. The lowest federal tax rate in combination with the Social Security and Medicare tax confers serf status upon lower income groups. The top tax rate, federal and state, converts successful Americans into government's slaves.
The protective principles in law that ensure our civil liberties no crime without intent, no bills of attainder, no retroactive law, the attorney-client privilege, no self-incrimination have been eroded beyond recognition. Wars against the Mafia, drug dealers, child abusers and terrorists whose convictions are thought necessary at all costs have eviscerated the Bill of Rights. Today not even multi-billionaires can fight off prosecutorial frame-ups.
Americans believe that they are free until they encounter the "justice" system, at which time they learn that they are as helpless as medieval serfs.
The "civil rights revolution" destroyed equality before the law. Today rights are race- and gender-based. We have resurrected the status-based rights of feudalism. The new privileges belong to "preferred minorities" rather than noble families.
Neoconservative delusion that America has a monopoly on virtue and the right to impose American values on the world prevents a realistic look at the deplorable state of freedom in America today. It is a paradox that a country that has abandoned freedom and re-enserfed its population sees itself as role model for the world.
COPYRIGHT 2004 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Dr. Roberts is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy, Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of "The Tyranny of Good Intentions."
I'm suprised we scored that high.
That ain't no lie. I was caught up in the 'justice' system a few years ago, and I wouldn't wish that experience on my worst enemy. You are totally at their mercy.
- Hong Kong (for the 10th straight year)
- Singapore
- New Zealand
- Luxembourg
- Ireland
- Estonia
- United Kingdom
- Denmark
- Switzerland
Any so-called freedoms they enjoy were granted by their governments, and could be (and have been) rescinded overnight.
by Steven Greenhut
America is such a wonderfully free country that I thoroughly understand why the Bush administration, like the Clinton administration before it, is so eager to take our freedoms and spread them across the globe. Without the U.S. government, backwards peoples will have to labor on in their own delusions, never understanding what true liberty is all about.
I am so free. If I want to paint my house, or build a deck out back, or install a new air-conditioning system, I am free to call the building inspector and get his approval first. If I want to put a new toilet in the bathroom, I am free to buy only the low-flow toilets the government approves. I am free to buy a property near the beach, provided the government Coastal Commission approves whatever I want to do with that property. That approval might take decades, and the final thing that I build will be what the commissioners want there, not what I want, but I am free nonetheless.
I know I am free because this is America. And America is a free country ? the best one in the whole darned world. If you don't like our freedoms, you should move somewhere else.
Any other questions?
Unlike those pathetic souls in other less-free and non-free countries, I am free to open my own business, provided I pay my employees the minimum salary demanded by the government, and give them overtime in the exact proportion stated by the government, and offer them breaks that conform exactly to the standards set by government. I can operate my business in complete freedom, provided that I meet every one of the hundreds of pages of air-quality standards promulgated by the state and federal governments.
I am free to offer my employees any benefits I choose, provided they are ones approved by the government. I am free to operate my building in compliance with all the building codes and standards defined by the government. I am free to place a sign on that business provided it conforms to the city?s sign ordinance. I am free to hire a lawyer to defend against the government's charges that I discriminate because I have fewer minority employees than the government says I should have. I am free to pay a $100,000 fine if I complain that a male employee suddenly is showing up in dresses.
I am free to have exactly the same number of parking spaces the government says I should have, and to follow the specific standards the government established when it gave me a conditional-use permit. True freedom always has conditions. I am free to vote in elections, provided that the ethnic balance of those elected conforms to the dictates of the Justice Department. I am free to invest money in the stock market provided I don't take advice from anyone who knows any real information about the stock. If I do, I am free to spend several years behind bars. I am free to pay half my earnings in taxes. You know what they say, taxes are what we pay for a civilized society. Civilized and free. What more could a person ask for?
I am free to get to work on government-built and managed roads, in a car that meets government safety and pollution standards. I am free to pay hundreds of dollars a year in car taxes and gas taxes. I am free to borrow money from a bank to pay these taxes provided that the lender meets every government code and offers special terms to those people the government says should get special terms. I am free to send my children to the government-run schools, where they are taught whatever the government wants them to learn. I am free to raise them exactly as the government demands, or watch child protective services take them from me and give them to a foster parent.
I am free to get on an airplane and fly anywhere I want in this free country, provided that I let a government employee search my stuff and even my person. I am free to tell the federal government exactly how much I earn and let agents audit me and take me off to jail if I fail to tell them every source of income.
I am free to take any drug I need or please provided it is sold by a pharmacist or a drug store. I am free to work in any sort of profession, provided that I gain the proper government-granted licenses. If I work in manufacturing, I am free to give a union a lot of money or am free to find another job. I am free to hand over my property and take a pittance in return for it when the government uses eminent domain on behalf of a politically well-connected developer.
I am free to have a dog provided I buy him a government-issued license. I am not free to own a ferret, although in truth I hate those nasty little critters and don't really want one. I am free to let a police officer search my car for any reason. I am free to let federal agents search my property, tap my phone lines, look at my library records.
I am free to live my life in total freedom provided that all my choices are approved by government, all my earnings are taxed by government, and all my moves are subject to close examination by government. No wonder the Iraqi people are so eager for their American overseers to show them how this freedom thing is done.
I've seen it before, but still good.
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