Taxes & Tyranny [Jonah Goldberg deconstructs the most frequent Leftist complaints about tea parties]

NRO ^ | April 17, 2009 | Jonah Goldberg

[Tolik]

Amidst all of the hooplah, I've heard a lot of complaints from liberals. Here are the most frequent complaints and my responses.

1. All of this tyranny talk is overheated and idiotic.

Well, some of it surely is. But look. According to that reason video I posted below, Americans work an average of 103 days a year just to pay their taxes. If you had to work 365 days a year to pay your taxes, that would be a kind of slavery or indentured servitude, because all of your productive labor would be going to the government. You would have no resources of your own to provide for the life you wanted. Instead the government would provide you not with what you want, but what the government decides you need.

That sounds like a kind of tyranny to me.

And, I think if we had to work 364 days a year it would still be a kind of serfdom (after all, serfs were allowed a little plot of their own). Ditto 363 days, 362 days, 361 days etc. Now, at some point the difference of degree becomes a difference in kind; working one day a year to pay for the government doesn't sound oppressive to me. But it seems to me that it's hardly absurd to think that 103 days a year is too much, or to believe that if that number goes even higher, we're losing something important.

I would also add that it's sort of crazy for liberals to equate government hand-outs (positive liberty, FDR's economic bill of rights and all that) with "freedom" but to equate the desire to keep more of the money you make yourself with greed and oppression of some kind. Money does make all sorts of liberties possible (you have to pay for your megaphone and all that). But government money only pays for the "liberties" the government thinks you should have, and therefore it can determine how you exercise them. That turns liberties into privileges dispensed at the whim of the state.

2. The original tea parties were about taxation without representation, today's spending is the result of Democrats winning elections, so it's taxation with representation.

There's some fairness to this objection. But one response would be that Democrats are tripling the debt, which means that generations of Americans not yet born will be taxed to pay for spending today. That is a kind of taxation without representation.

A second, more political than philosophical objection, would be that today's spending is being achieved under false pretenses. Obama says he's spending this money to fix a crisis, but much of his spending has nothing to do with the crisis but with shopworn liberal action items. However, since Obama campaigned on many of these items, I don't think it amounts to taxation without representation. But it does seem like the sort of duplicity worth a protest or two.

3. These protests are unpatriotic astroturfing by plutocrats.

So much for "dissent is the highest form of patriotism"!

I find it sort of amazing that when groups like ANSWER, a Mos Eisley cantina of America-hating nut cases, take to the streets it's a full-flowering of democracy in action. When ACORN pays their ragamuffins to protest, or when Rainbow/PUSH shakes down businesses through racial extortion, it's the sort of direct democratic action Thomas Paine dreamed of. And when labor unions pay people to protest, it's populist. But when a bunch of independent Americans, talk show hosts and email campaigners organize hundreds of protests around the country, it's astroturfing.

4. Republicans are hypocrites for suddenly caring about deficits.

Well, maybe. But then so are liberals for suddenly not caring about deficits. (That part always gets left out.)

Moreover, I don't get it. Republicans didn't care enough about the deficit when it went up a "little" under Bush (to pay for a war), therefore they can't complain when Obama sends it through the stratosphere (to pay for socialized medicine)? How does that work? If my wife spends too much on a shopping trip, does that mean she can't complain if I lose our house on a trip to Vegas?

5. The populist anger out there is the real face of America's homegrown fascism.

Sigh. While I think Rick Perry's secession talk is idiotic and unfortunate (even accounting for Texas' unique history), I am at a loss as to how any of this stuff smacks of fascism. Even Perry is talking in the context of the federal government doing too much, taking away too much liberty, getting too involved in local communities and interfering too much with the individual.

How do I say this so people will understand? Fascism isn't a libertarian doctrine! It just isn't, never will be and it can't be cast as one. Anarchism, secessionism, extreme localism or rampant individualism may be bad, evil, wrong, stupid, selfish and all sorts of other things (though not by my lights). But they have nothing to do with a totalitarian vision of the state where individuals and institutions alike must march in step and take orders from the government.

If you think shrinking government and getting it less involved in your life is a hallmark of tyranny it is only because you are either grotesquely ignorant or because you subscribe to a statist ideology that believes the expansion of the state is the expansion of liberty.

[Tolik]

Taxes & Tyranny Cont'd   [Jonah Goldberg]

From a reader:

Jonah:

This is about taxes as tyranny, and though I likely won't articulate this as well as I could, I think you'll get the point. When folks equate taxes with tyranny or stealing their productive labor or whatever, they seem to me to be missing a fairly important point; namely, what would be the value of their labor if there were no government or the government were not a democracy? You can argue about how much value having a democratic government adds to your labor, but I don't see how you can argue that the level of that value isn't very significant. For example, what do you suppose the difference in wages would be that you would have been paid or would be paid in a totalitarian government as opposed to the amount of wages that you earn right now? I would guess that the difference is pretty significant and that even if you have to pay 25% of your income for the benefit of the democratic government that we live in, it's well worth it.

Me: While I agree with the basic point, I think the reader steals a couple bases here.

Most libertarians — and all conservatives — aren't anarchists. They believe in some minimal form of government to ensure what the reader calls democratic government. I would have no problem whatsoever paying 25% of my income to ensure democratic government, if that is what it cost. The problem is that democratic government doesn't cost anywhere close to that. It is deeply misleading or dishonest for liberals to argue that we need high taxation to pay for the security of our democratic liberty while that taxation goes to paying for things that have nothing to do with those liberties and, in many cases, goes to pay for things that are inimical to liberty.

Taxes are a necessary evil, but they are an evil. Taxes are tyrannical simply because they are not voluntary. The state takes money from individuals whether they like it or not. (If you prefer, we can say that taxes restrict liberty.)

At the same time, poisons are alwas determined in the dosage. Censoring kiddie porn is a restriction of liberty, but it is a necessary one. Censoring political speech is a restriction of liberty and an unnecessary one. I see nothing wrong with making such distinctions.

Update: From a longtime liberal reader:

Government DOES cost "anywhere close to that"

To what part of the pie do you object? Are you really saying, "We should not have Medicare"? Are you saying, "We should not have Social Security"? Are you saying, "When people are laid off, they should not get unemployment benefits"?

Do you think that's what the pissed off teabaggers are saying? 

If so, please just go ahead and say it. Say that government costs way too much because we have Social Security and Medicare and unemployment benefits and we should get rid of those programs.

Me: Umm, no. When I hear the first reader saying that democratic government costs 25%, I hear him saying that a reliable system of democracy (constitutionalism etc) costs that much. It doesn't. Today's government costs that much (actually it costs far, far, far more, which is why we have such deficits) but generic liberty-protecting "democratic government" costs far, far, far less than what we pay for today.

A minarchist state isn't very expensive. A welfare state is.

Now if these two readers mean to say that "democratic governments" means whatever government program people vote for — or decline to vote to get rid of — that is a different argument and they should be more explicit in what they mean. Moreover, simply because people vote for something doesn't mean it isn't or can't be tyrannical. In a pure democracy, a majority could vote for me to be burned at the stake or to make a certain class of people slaves. It'd be democratic government, but I wouldn't want to pay for it — at any price.

04/17 11:37 AM

[Tolik]

Some resent posts on Tyranny:

Tyranny Grows When Majority Rules The Law
Walter E. Willliams

Got news for the Marxist media. It's not about the Tea, or the Tax. It's the Tyranny, stupid.
Jim Robinson

'Liberty and Tyranny' reviewed
Toney Blankely

"The Tyranny of the Majority" - from Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America"
Alexis de Tocqueville

Rush Limbaugh Interviews Mark Levin About His New Book "Liberty and Tyranny" - Video 3/25/09
 

Obama volunteers: "We're not looking for a fight. That will come later, when we have an army."

[Nonstatist]

Stop trying to make sense. Youre all a bunch of fascists , and whats more, you’re racist.

[Tolik]

Nailed It!

This ping list is not author-specific for articles I'd like to share. Some for the perfect moral clarity, some for provocative thoughts; or simply interesting articles I'd hate to miss myself. (I don't have to agree with the author all 100% to feel the need to share an article.)

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[reaganaut1]

I was disappointed with Goldberg’s reply regarding #2, “taxation with representation”. He should have mentioned that a very “progressive” income tax system where only a small fraction of taxpayers pay more than 50% of the taxes effectively becomes “taxation without represenation”.
There is a reason the Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution which did not permit an income tax (a constitutional amendment was needed to impose it).

[Hardastarboard]

Another really good article by Jonah Goldberg. Jonah - if you lurk here, good job. I read "Liberal Fascism", also a great read.

If I may be the critic here, sometimes Jonah pulled his punches a bit in "Liberal Fascism" when calling liberals out as being anti-freedom and ideologically related to Nazis, possibly because he's so used to being set upon by liberal hyenas that he feels compelled to land glancing blows.

The above critique may also just be my own expression of frustration that liberals have far more coming to them than they've gotten. They've certainly earned whatever ills befall them.

[EdReform]

Ping

[Tolik]

Did you read this excellent article by Dennis Prager?  Why Doesn't Communism Have As A Bad A Name As Nazism? (Its Leftist Apologia Stupid Alert), quote:

... 2. Communism is based on lovely sounding theories; Nazism is based on heinous sounding theories.

Intellectuals, among whom are the people who write history, are seduced by words -- so much so that deeds are deemed considerably less significant. Communism's words are far more intellectually and morally appealing than the moronic and vile racism of Nazism. The monstrous evils of Communists have not been focused on nearly as much as the monstrous deeds of the Nazis. The former have been regularly dismissed as perversions of a beautiful doctrine (though Christians who committed evil in the name of Christianity are never regarded by these same people as having perverted a beautiful doctrine), whereas Nazi atrocities have been perceived (correctly) as the logical and inevitable results of Nazi ideology.

This seduction by words while ignoring deeds has been a major factor in the ongoing appeal of the Left to intellectuals. How else explain the appeal of a Che Guevara or Fidel Castro to so many Left-wing intellectuals, other than that they care more about beautiful words than about vile deeds?

... 6. There is, simply put, widespread ignorance of Communist atrocities compared to those of the Nazis. Whereas, both Right and Left loathe Nazism and teach its evil history, the Left dominates the teaching profession, and therefore almost no one teaches Communist atrocities. As much as intellectuals on the Left may argue that they loathe Stalin or the North Korean regime, few on the Left loathe Communism. As the French put it, "pas d'enemis a la gauche," which in English means "no enemies on the Left." This is certainly true of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cuban Communism. Check your local university's courses and see how many classes are given on Communist totalitarianism or mass murder compared to the number of classes about Nazism's immoral record.

... 2. Communism is based on lovely sounding theories; Nazism is based on heinous sounding theories.

Intellectuals, among whom are the people who write history, are seduced by words -- so much so that deeds are deemed considerably less significant. Communism's words are far more intellectually and morally appealing than the moronic and vile racism of Nazism. The monstrous evils of Communists have not been focused on nearly as much as the monstrous deeds of the Nazis. The former have been regularly dismissed as perversions of a beautiful doctrine (though Christians who committed evil in the name of Christianity are never regarded by these same people as having perverted a beautiful doctrine), whereas Nazi atrocities have been perceived (correctly) as the logical and inevitable results of Nazi ideology.

This seduction by words while ignoring deeds has been a major factor in the ongoing appeal of the Left to intellectuals. How else explain the appeal of a Che Guevara or Fidel Castro to so many Left-wing intellectuals, other than that they care more about beautiful words than about vile deeds?

... 6. There is, simply put, widespread ignorance of Communist atrocities compared to those of the Nazis. Whereas, both Right and Left loathe Nazism and teach its evil history, the Left dominates the teaching profession, and therefore almost no one teaches Communist atrocities. As much as intellectuals on the Left may argue that they loathe Stalin or the North Korean regime, few on the Left loathe Communism. As the French put it, "pas d'enemis a la gauche," which in English means "no enemies on the Left." This is certainly true of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cuban Communism. Check your local university's courses and see how many classes are given on Communist totalitarianism or mass murder compared to the number of classes about Nazism's immoral record.

[Lorianne]

Great article. Thanks for posting!

[expatpat]

Americans work an average of 103 days a year just to pay their taxes. If you had to work 365 days a year to pay your taxes, that would be a kind of slavery or indentured servitude

We are serfs, not slaves.

[WOSG]

“1. All of this tyranny talk is overheated and idiotic.

Well, some of it surely is. But look. According to that reason video I posted below, Americans work an average of 103 days a year just to pay their taxes. If you had to work 365 days a year to pay your taxes, that would be a kind of slavery or indentured servitude, because all of your productive labor would be going to the government. You would have no resources of your own to provide for the life you wanted. Instead the government would provide you not with what you want, but what the government decides you need.”

Most serfs did NOT have to work 365 days for their Feudal Lords, nor did the lord’s own or get all of their production.

Likewise, sharecroppers got a portion and had a portion given to the landowner.

Of course, these are landowners, not Govt. What is Govt *providing* to make it worth it to stay?

[YankeeReb]

Whereas, both Right and Left loathe Nazism and teach its evil history, the Left dominates the teaching profession, and therefore almost no one teaches Communist atrocities.

Don't forget the left in this country was pretty much OK with Hitler during the days of the Hitler/Stalin pact dividing up Poland. The left became anti Nazi only after Hitler attacked Stalin.

[JENINMO]

I have always admired Jonah Goldberg, but I found his arguments lame and apologetic.

[Lucky Dog]

... very “progressive” income tax system where only a small fraction of taxpayers pay more than 50% of the taxes effectively becomes “taxation without represenation”.

You are correct, but should have added the word, proportional in front of "representation." At some point that proportion becomes effective, or de facto, "disenfranchisement." When that point is reached your statement stands as true without modification.

No one should be able to "buy" more votes that anyone else. However, no one should be forced to "pay" more for a vote than any one else, either.

[mjp]

"I've heard a lot of complaints from liberals".

Sorry liberal commies, but rationality and justice is earning what you get and keeping what you earn, and not being forced to give it away to parasites out pity, guilt, and so called "need".

[SunkenCiv]

NY Times Gives Tax Day Tea Parties the Kiss-off
Boycott The New York Times | April 17, 2009 | Don Feder
Posted on 04/17/2009 10:31:02 AM PDT by AIM Freeper
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2231605/posts

[Marmolade]

bfl

[Billthedrill]

Fascism isn't a libertarian doctrine!

Well, no, it isn't. Nor is it a conservative doctrine. Fascism is a progressive, utopian doctrine that is totalitarian in nature. These days it wears a Green face but it hasn't changed.

[WOSG]

While I think Rick Perry’s secession talk is idiotic and unfortunate (even accounting for Texas’ unique history), I am at a loss as to how any of this stuff smacks of fascism. Even Perry is talking in the context of the federal government doing too much, taking away too much liberty, getting too involved in local communities and interfering too much with the individual.”

Nothing Rick Perry said was wrong, idiotic or unfortunate. You give too much ground to
the hypeventilating Left in saying that. Perry has spoken properly of the need to let Texas run Texas.
He defends state sovereignty and is unafraid to mention the 10th Amendment. He never advocated secession.
When Perry says that Texas can handle Texas better than DC can handle Texas, he states a
simple principle of good Government: Government is best when it is closest to the people.
DC politicians should respect this concept or should be fired.

I was at the Austin, TX, rally where Gov Perry spoke. He contrasted Texas success with DCs bailouts.
He was preceded by 10 speakers with a common theme of “Don’t Mess with
Texas”, pointing out successful conservative Texas Governance compared with what is going on in Washington DC,
They explained why we dont need the path of spending money we dont have on programs we dont need to
help people and corporations who dont deserve it.

Yes, there was a guy in the crowd who shouted “Secede!” behind me a few times,
but this was a boisterous crowd with libertarians, activist conservatives, other groups,
non-political agitated taxpayers, etc. It can be taken about as seriously as the few folks in the same crowd
who want to abolish the Fed etc. (good spinkling of Campaign for Liberty / “Paulistinians” in the crowd).
You also had the “Dont Tread on Me” flag and the flag from Texas Revolution (”Come and Take It”).
I felt it appropriate to bring the Texas flag myself, and it fit right in to the rally’s theme.

There was and is no serious secession talk,
... imho, ‘secession’ is another liberal (MSNBC) baiting tactic, to marginalize via
guilt-by-association/isolation technique.

Rather the serious discussion is over how to assert Texas’ right to run our state
without Federal rules and strings attached to their ‘giveaways’, like they put into the stimulus.
We don’t want or need stimulus handout/bailout money.
In reality, Gov Perry has touted how Texas is a great place to work, and just wants to point out that
Texas can take care of Texas:
http://governor.state.tx.us/news/press-release/11797/