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Posted on 04/16/2002 2:29:49 AM PDT by sourcery
My thesis goes below the level of laws and Constitutions. My attack is pointed at the roots of of the system. From whence comes the right of the US to dictate laws to me? From whence comes the right of the Constitution to grant any power to Congress? From whence comes the right of the voters in 1789 to grant power to the Constitution?
No one has any right to freely dictate the behavior of anyone else. Each person has the right to require that all other persons respect his rights. That's the only right anyone has to control other people. That goes for me, for you, for the voters in 1789, and hence for Congress and the US government. You can require me to respect the rights of others. To do more than that is to infringe my inalienable right to liberty.
It may be that you don't like the way I expressed the pro-tax arguments, but I assure you they are not my invention. They are the actual arguments I have encountered, seriously put forth by others. If you think you can do better, then by all means, lets hear it.
I ommitted the economic arguments because they have no bearing. I don't give a hoot what the optimal tax policy may be according to economic theory. The issue is not one of economics, but of morality. If you can't prove your optimal economic policy is moral, and that you have a morally justified right to implement it, then all the economic justification in the world won't save you from rightfully being accused of being morally corrupt, if you go ahead and implement the policy anyway.
Put up or shut up.
"Whosoever, therefore, out of a state of Nature unite into a community, must be understood to give up all the power necessary to the ends for which they unite into society to the majority of the community, unless they expressly agreed in any number greater than the majority. And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one political society, which is all the compact that is, or needs be, between the individuals that enter into or make up a commonwealth. And thus, that which begins and actually constitutes any political society is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of majority, to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is that, and that only, which did or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world." -- John Locke
TANSTAAFL
What good is a debate, rehashing old territory :O)
I submit that the characterisation of the Constitution as some kind of contract, or taxation as some kind of payment for contracted debt for service to the individual to be totally invalid. Such arguments miss the central issue of what the Constitution or any document perporting to create a government is. As you have shown, they are wide of the real mark. It behooves us to investigate the real nature of such nation forming documents which take the form of ratified declarations rather than contractual agreements.
What are some things that paying $50k in taxes could keep you from doing? Oh, tithing, starting a new business and thus creating jobs, building a new house, buying cars, large endowments to charity...pretty much anything that $50k will buy.
Moderate conservative? Yeah right. With your understanding of economics, I rather doubt that you earned enough money to pay $300K in taxes last year, but that too is just a guess.
Just spread the cheeks of Big Government and suck a little harder, Torie. Feed that useless, little liberal mind of yours with all the goodies Big Government can push your way.
Do you think its possible for there to be an unjust or illegitimate law?
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Actually, your salary would be far higher. But then you'd have to pay "government insurance" so that you could afford to pay fees for any government services you might need. Or else you'd have to pay the fees out of pocket. You'd probably pay some fees out of pocket, and others using insurance (with some deductible out of pocket, of course). But the net would still leave you with considerably more money left over.
Many more of us would have money left over at the end of the month, instead of month left over at the end of the money.
[sourcery:]By what right did a supermajority of citizens in 1789 give themselves the power to tax everyone who might ever be under the power of the US Government?
By the fact that the trust they created was out of their own rights, properties, and wealth. The same as any parent may create at trust out of what that which they own.
So, if I create a trust out of my own property, that gives me the right to tax you? I disagree. But if you think otherwise, the tax bill for this year that you owe to the trust I've set up is $50,000, payable immediately.
They had the right to obligate themselves to the provisions of the trust, which they did. They had the right to pass that trust on to their Posterity, and to make whatever provisions for those who voluntarily applied for and accepted membership (i.e. naturalization).
Yes, they would have the right to pass title to whatever property they owned to any trust of their choice. But I ask again, what about those citizens in 1789 who voted no? They did not consent to have all their property given to the trust to which you refer. Worse, they didn't consent to relinquish their rights. And one's parents or ancestors have no right to relinquish in advance the adult rights of their children and descendants. It is not moral to sell one's children into slavery.
Also, I don't see any documentation from 1789 (or any time, for that matter) that actually sets up a trust such as you describe. The documentation shows that, instead, moral and legal title to all property remained with the original owners, who passed it on in fee simple to their heirs. There were no restrictions in the wills that stipulated that the heirs had to submit to the rules you allege, in order to take title. This trust appears to be a fiction you have concocted in order to justify the morality of taxation.
I think the Founders would be shocked to discover, that their Constitution, whose purpose was to form a government for the purpose of protecting and defending the rights of the people (including the rights to Life, Libery and Property,) was in fact nothing more than a stealth taking of all property from all private individuals, with the effect that the government would be the de facto owner.
The conditions of membership in that trust include the financial support of it.
One is not forced to remain within the jurisdiction of that trust, one if free to unitlaterally renounce their beneficiary status (citizenship) and depart.
It's true that a club can set whatever conditions for membership that it wants, so long as there is nothing about those conditions that would be intrinsically wrong morally. This follows from the right to Liberty, which is the right to do whatever is not morally wrong.
Justification of the right to Liberty: if an action is not morally wrong, it logically follows you have the moral right to do it. To deny this right is to deny your right to to do anything, including any denial of the right to Liberty [based on the definitions of 'right,' 'morally right' and 'morally wrong'].
Of course, a person has to agree to be a member of the club. And the club has to agree to accept the person as a member. A person is free to terminate his membership in a club [by the right to Liberty], and a club is free to revoke any person's membership [also by the right to Liberty]. That's all clear, and so far we apparently fully agree on the issue of club membership principles.
But suppose that you are a member of a local chess club, but have now become unhappy with the yearly dues they charge for membership. So you decide to cancel your membership. But suppose the club responds to this by a) claiming that you had to pay your membership dues for the next ten years, as though you were still a member (even though you won't have any of the privileges of membership), and b) sending armed men to your home and evicting you from your community, on the grounds that only members of the chess club can live in the community?
By what right does the club do either of these things? The latter is especially unfathomable (assuming you own your home, and the club does not). How can the club's actions be morally justified?
My problem with the US tax situation is precisely analagous to the problem you would have with the chess club in the example. I would have no problem cancelling my membership, except for the friendly members of the local organized crime gang [US Marshalls] who would show up and escort me off my own property, and off to some other continent (probably)--at gunpoint.
I have an inalienable right to Liberty. I have an inalienable right to Free Association with other people. I have an inalienable right to acquire and hold property, as long as I acquire it without doing anything that is morally wrong.
The purpose of property is to finally and universally decide whose will should prevail regarding the use of land, or of an object, whenever there is a conflict of wills regarding that issue among two or more persons. To say that I own my land, is to say that my will is sovereign there, as long as I do nothing with or on my property that is morally wrong (i.e., violates someone else's rights.) The owner of land has the Liberty right to decide who or what may be located there, and his will morally supercedes that of all others regarding the use and disposition of his own property. No one has any moral claim to use land owned by someone else, nor to dictate to the owner when the owner may occupy the land. This is fundamental to the purpose and social function of individual ownership of property.
Therefore, the US has no moral right to remove me from my own land, just because I decide to renounce my membership in the club. So my apparent continued "acceptance" of the club's rules is invalid, because it is coerced by the threat of having my inalienable right to Liberty, Free Association and Property violated (in other words, by extortion).
[sourcery:]I have no right to tax whomever I choose, so I cannot grant this right to others.
You have the right to obligate yourself to the financial support of any instution or person you wish. You have the right to create a trust and expect that its provisions will be honored by those who are beneficiaries under that trust.
True, as far as it goes. This is all justified by the right to Liberty. But it is also limited by that very same right to only those actions that are not morally wrong.
You may not force any individual to remain under the trust, but then the Constitution does not demand that either.
The Constution also neither demands, nor authorizes, the coerced deportation of those who fail to agree to its terms. And even were that not so, it would still be morally wrong.
Note that the argument I am making here is simply a more concrete exposition of what I said in section three of the essay. I don't see any fundamental difference between what you claim and the "social contract" argument I refuted in section 3. Whether it's a "social contract," a "trust," or a "club," the refutation is the same: it is not moral to coerce me to agree to acceptance of a "social contract," or conformance to the provisions of a trust, or membership in a club, as a condition for being allowed to exercise my rights to Liberty, Free Association and Property.
[sourcery:]I assert they had not the power to grant this right to Congress, because they didn't have any such right themselves.
Your assertion misses the point, They had the right to create a trust obligating themselves, and selecting from themselves those representatives(a Congress) to maintain and exercise the provisions of that trust in their behalf. They had the right to pass that trust to suceeding genertions.
They certainly had the Liberty right to create a trust. They didn't, though. But even if they had, they still would have no right to do what is morally wrong--such as violating the rights to Liberty, Free Association and Property of those who don't care to be beneficiaries of such a trust (or members of the club, which is a more accurate analogy of what actually pertains).
The only right they did not have, is a right to force anyone to remain beneficiaries. Thus the each citizen retains the right to renounce that citizenship and depart.
The only right they didn't have, was to violate the rights of others.
I submit that the characterisation of the Constitution as some kind of contract, or taxation as some kind of payment for contracted debt for service to the individual to be totally invalid. Such arguments miss the central issue of what the Constitution or any document perporting to create a government is. As you have shown, they are wide of the real mark. It behooves us to investigate the real nature of such nation forming documents which take the form of ratified declarations rather than contractual agreements.
I essentially agree with this, except: I see the Constitution as the deed of title whereby those who voted in favor in 1789 granted certain authority to a designated agent for certain specified purposes. Of course, I also claim that only those who voluntarily (without extortion) have so voted (or otherwise committed themselves), have relinquished any rights, or title to any property.
Don't confuse society with government or nation. They're not the same thing--that's why we have different words for them.
Society is owned by no one. Each member of society is free to interact with any other member who is also willing. This is the inalienable right to Free Association.
What you meant to say is that I am not obligated to remain a citizen of the country. That's true. Unfortunately, I am being wronfully extorted into remaining a citizen, in spite of the fact that I would immediately become a non-citizen were that extortion not present.
If you won't accept the obligations our laws impose, then you aren't entitled to their benefits.
Also true. But I am not interested in the benefits of US law, since the net effect thereof is detrimental to me personally, and to society as a whole. All I require is that my rights be respected--which all persons are morally required to do, regardless of which country I may have citizenship in.
Our society created our government.
You aren't under any obligation to remain within our society. If you won't accept the obligations our laws impose, then you aren't entitled to their benefits.
I know that your argument is based on morality, and not economics, but I'd like to know if you think it is possible to overcome the "free-rider" problem of voluntarily funded government services.
"Allow me to be irresponsible, and I'll allow you all to pay for the consequences of my irresponsibility." -the old, tired, discredited liberal ideal
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