In an upside down world of tyrants and masses of deluded sheep people, the only sensible thing for an honest soul to do is become an extremist.

In today’s feature article Brandon Smith shows you why you should embrace extremism and tells you how to do it…with panache…

How to Become an American Extremist…In Style!

For most of us in America today, childhood was a time of vast and unassailable dreams. What we could become, what the world could become, was limited only by the strength of spirit setting aloft our ideas, and this strength, as all young people instinctively know, is infinite. While the possibilities of the future seemed boundless, few of us, including myself, ever considered “political extremism” as a viable lifestyle decision. Astronaut? Maybe. Filmmaker? Sure. Enemy Belligerent? Not so much…

Frankly, history has proven over and over again that the majority is usually wrong about most things. Groups and collectives do not create, or discover, or advance humanity. Only individuals are capable of this. All great concepts begin as seeds within independent people, and then spread like wildfire as they educate others. A society that strives for artificial normality and collectivist harmonization is a society on the verge of chaos and death. Only free hearts and minds give man hope of survival.

In my view, that which is extreme is NOT that which violates the boundaries of “normal” society, but which violates the boundaries of inherent truth, and conscience. In an honest society, an extremist is someone who denies the universal foundations of existence, and tries to play demigod in a fantasy world of moral relativism and rationalized criminality. A disjointed freak of nature that seeks to impose his twisted will upon others. Unfortunately, “normal” society is not honest. And the honest definition of extremism is not the most popular amongst the frothing elitists that reside over the functions of our political structure today.

Life is a bummer like that…

So instead, why not embrace the label that the establishment is so keen to pigeonhole us with, and make it our own? I have found that the less I care about the critical eye of others, the more free I am to change things for the better. Certainly, by any standard of our current national leadership and by the throngs that support it, I am an extremist. Luckily, this does not concern me. It is not important to be accepted by the mainstream, it is only important to remain objectively correct in one’s position. In the grand scheme of the world, to be a thorn in the side of so-called “proper society” is a sure fire path to a life without regret. America was founded by undesirables, and built by non-conformists. We are a nation whose blood is thick with defiance and outright knock-out revolutionary badass anti-authoritarian hostility. We cut kings down to size.

At least, we used to…

In modern America, it’s not nice or pleasant or practical to approach political problems with the attitude of a radical. That puts people off. And there’s nothing worse than having people not like you, right? Better to play the game and hope that a better world will simply materialize out of the ether. Don’t rock the boat, especially when you’re in it…

For those of us in the Liberty Movement, this passive approach just doesn’t satiate our ravenous hunger for the bizarre. And by “bizarre”, I mean honest. Our time here is short, and usually ugly, and filled with people and circumstances and disasters and biases and abhorrences and painful moments and sometimes smells that we would much rather not deal with. The least we can ask for is a little truth. If I have to be confronted with crusted wheezing gas-bloated nightmare figures like John McCain or Joseph Lieberman, men who would label me a terrorist if they could, then I should be allowed the satisfaction of a concrete fact or two before I am shipped of to the nearest Halliburton run military sanctioned prison facility for re-education and naked dog-piling (which these men seem to particularly enjoy).

The truth is the first and greatest sin in the dark pestilent pit of any active tyranny. I recommend it highly. Seek the truth, and ye shall be fined…or jailed. This is the first step towards a glorious career as an American extremist, and living such a lifestyle can be fun and exciting, if one follows these simple guidelines:

1) Make A Ruckus

Identify the imperative issues of the day that most people don’t want to be confronted with……..and then talk about them constantly. But don’t just talk about them; talk about them intelligently and with an informative stance. That really drives the willfully ignorant crazy. Make your position and the facts behind it visible in the mainstream, through writing, videos, protest, graffiti, bumper stickers, tatts, whatever…

The establishment’s first line of defense is not necessarily to suppress the truth, but to keep it on the fringe of society, out of sight of the average citizen. Your job is to shove the truth in people’s faces, so that they are forced to at least acknowledge that it exists, even if they don’t want to accept it.

2) Laugh At Petty Authority

Most authority in our modern world is, really, only petty authority. True authority is fostered by a sense of respect that is earned through leadership by example. The greatest authorities are those who teach, not those who command, and political governance is null and void if that governance was attained through subversion and lies.

Of course, this view is a proven fast track to the nearest solitary confinement cell, but hey, living such a rock ‘n roll flavored “extreme” existence is not without risks…

Extremists recognize that a dishonest politician is only a conman in a nice suit, and nothing more. They recognize that a law enforcement official that has no regard for Constitutional liberties, or for human decency, is just a gun toting goon in a badge and costume, and is not due any more respect than a common criminal. They see alphabet agencies as extensions of a system that no longer holds any principles beyond sustaining its own wretched existence, and rightly look down upon those who would sell out to such cancerous bureaucracies for a paycheck and some undeserved prestige. They laugh at such people, because in the grand scheme of things, these “great pillars” of our nation are, in fact, tragically ridiculous.

3) Refuse To Be Pegged With Arbitrary Labels

I once entered into a debate with a long time Democrat over the painfully farcical presidency of Barack Obama. After discovering that I held the same exact views on George W. Bush, he became frustrated and nearly infuriated, because he could not place me into a preconceived political box. He complained that my stance could not be readily categorized, and this interfered with his ability to argue with me.

I replied…. “Good! That’s exactly the way it should be!”

Extremism itself is an arbitrary label, whose definition is shifted by those in power to fit any person or group that happens to get in their way at any particular time. However, to take this label and make it ours, we definitely can’t allow ourselves to be affiliated with hollow and meaningless political parties like the Democrats or the GOP, not to mention all the prefabricated and shallow philosophical platforms they engender. Every problem and situation should be approached as new, and should be dealt with using social and legal methods that WORK, as opposed to those that happen to follow a particular party line. There should be, at bottom, as many political viewpoints as there are individuals, not only two homogenized standards that we are forced to choose from in the hopes that one will be “less destructive” than the other.

4) Prepare For Life Without Window Shopping

A surefire way to become an extremist today is to suggest preparation for any kind of disaster. For the average American, there is no such thing as a tomorrow without Happy Meals and Nikes. To suggest the possibility is akin to dancing naked on the freeway with a Gadsden Flag. Despite the fact that in countries across the planet setting aside goods for survival is as common as mowing the lawn here in the U.S., many in America can’t fathom adopting such habits. This is because many still believe that the system will protect them from harm no matter what happens. The “extremist” thinks differently.

He realizes that there have been too many instances in the past when government was not helpful to those in the midst of catastrophe, and in some cases, was even the cause of greater harm. He seeks to remove his dependence on this system, and procure the insurance necessary to help himself if the need ever arises.

The Federal Government has seen fit to identify the mere act of prepping as a sign of possible extremism, so, let’s get “extreme”, shall we? I would rather be extreme and alive, than a non-threatening and law abiding corpse.

5) Build A Terrifying Gun Collection

If the contents of your house doesn’t scare the living hell out of your yuppie next door neighbor, then you aren’t an extremist yet. Time to pay off the layaway on that 50. Cal!

Firearms ownership is a widespread American pastime, and is growing by the month. However, there seems to be a misconception that this pastime is about our “sportsman’s heritage”, or self defense against local crime. Nope. That’s not why the extremist stockpiles an arsenal (an arsenal is defined as however many guns you happen to have when the ATF shows up at your doorstep). He owns scary guns to defend against rogue governments and the rise of the totalitarian dynamic. Freaky, I know…

Forget all this sportsman nonsense! We own weapons to dissuade oligarchy from getting comfortable on our couches! Our concern is not the wildlife…

6) Question The Accepted Reality Of Everything

You can’t be an extremist if you believe everything you hear from the TV. Actually, you can’t be an extremist if you believe ANYTHING you hear on the TV. An extremist takes absolutely no stock in what the mainstream media says without further investigation, and would rather be caught dead than caught parroting talking points from cable news broadcasts.

Is a certain philosophical or political position suddenly considered “common knowledge”? Be suspicious. Is a particular methodology or debate point appearing in every journalistic outlet at the same exact time with the same exact one sided narrative? Time to pull out the B.S. detector. Is a politician opening his mouth and talking? Have a shovel handy…

The extremist’s job is not necessarily to be contradictory just for the sake of contrariness. It is, though, his job to be critical, discerning, and discriminating against that which doesn’t hold up to the light of candid examination. While there is always room for a certain amount of “interpretation”, ultimately, if a circumstance rings false, it must be exposed. Period.

Even if that exposure is harmful to the state of our country or our culture in the short term, deceit left unchecked in the long term is the single greatest destroyer of entire civilizations, and is absolutely unacceptable, especially to the extremist…

I think it is clear that extremists in an environment of despotism are in most cases people who refuse to abandon that which makes humanity whole. We are, indeed, dangerous, but only to those who would do liberty harm. A life of conformity is a life wasted, and a life of slavery is no life at all. Whatever we may be called today, what we leave behind is ultimately what defines us. Labels are irrelevant.

If I am an “extremist” because I refuse to participate in the delusion that is America in the new millennium, then so be it. I am more than happy to join the long list of insurrectionaries who inhabit this nation today and who have been the legitimate makers of the world for generations. Everything in history revolves not around governments, but rule-breakers. They alone decide whether humanity will live tight in the fist of the authoritarian machine, or live free in the wilds of unbridled independence.

“One man with courage is a majority.”
—Thomas Jefferson

Regards,

Brandon Smith
Alt-Market.com
You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.com.

Alt-Market is an organization designed to help you find like-minded activists and preppers in your local area so that you can network and construct communities for mutual aid and defense. Join Alt-Market.com today and learn what it means to step away from the system and build something better.

A Parting Shot:

We are dying to hear your get your responses to today’s article! Please send them to ggibsonagora@gmail.com.

And be sure to tune for tomorrow’s weekend conversation. Keep an eye out for it in your inbox.

Regards,

Gary Gibson
Managing editor, Whiskey & Gunpowder
ggibsonagora@gmail.com

How to Become an American Extremist… In Style! was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

For over 25 years the Westport, Connecticut industrialist battled the federal withholding tax, which she refused to collect from employees’ wages. If the government wanted her “to be their agent,” Kellems declared, they “have to pay me, and I want a badge.”

In For a New Liberty, economist Murray Rothbard discussed Kellems’s stance: “What moral principle justifies the government’s forcing employers to act as its unpaid tax collectors? The withholding principle, of course, is the linchpin of the whole federal income tax system. Without the steady and relatively painless process of deducting the tax from the worker’s paycheck, the government could never hope to raise the high levels of tax from the workers in one lump sum.”

“Temporary” Measure

The withholding tax on income had been introduced in 1943 as a temporary measure to finance World War II. Called “the Victory Tax,” it required businesses to use their own resources to withhold taxes, to maintain records, and to remit money; mistakes or noncomplaince could result in severe penalties. Thus businesses became unpaid accountants and tax collectors for the federal government.

After the war there was no sign of withholding’s repeal and so Kellems, who had master’s degree in economics and a nearly completed Ph.D, ceased to comply. Her rebellion was based on far more than the lack of a badge.

In her 1952 book, Toil, Taxes and Trouble, Kellems explained that her rebellion was based on constitutional grounds. Article I Section 2, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution declares, “Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States . . . according to their respective Numbers. . . .” Section 9, Clause 4 states, “No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the Census or Enumeration. . . .”

Kellems concluded, “[O]ur forefathers bound fast the hands of Congress and secured the liberty and freedom of the American people. How? By making it utterly impossible to levy an income tax. An income tax is certainly a direct tax [which] must be paid by the person receiving the income. By specifying that direct taxes must be levied in accordance with the number of people, not upon what they produced, as in the days of ancient Egypt, an income tax was simply out of the question.”

(Contrary to Kellems’s position, however, Americans courts have long held that the income tax is a constitutional indirect tax.)

Asked for Prosecution

In February 1948 Kellems publicly invited the government to prosecute her. Instead, four IRS agents arrived and demanded $1,685.40 even though her employees had been paying the correct amount. The rebuffed agents intimidated her bank into surrending that amount from her account.

The conflict became famous nationally when television shows such as “Meet the Press” interviewed Kellems. On Eleanor Roosevelt’s 1950s talk show, “Today With Mrs. Roosevelt,” Kellems explained, “As you know, Congress can pass all of the laws it wishes to. The President may sign all of the laws that he wishes to. But no law is a valid law in our country until it has been declared constitutional by the Supreme Court. Any citizen doubting the constitutionality of a law has the right, and in my opinion the duty, to break the law in order to provide a test case. That is all I did.”

Kellems also organized a nationwide group called the Liberty Belles and Boys to seek the repeal of the withholding tax.

Sues the Government

In 1949 tax agents demanded $6,100. Despite proof that her employees had paid their own withholding, the agents once again forced her bank to turn over the money. In January 1950 Kellems sued for its return in the federal district court in New Haven. She was not permitted to argue constitutional grounds, but she secured a full refund nonetheless.

Eventually Kellems abandoned her legal pursuit of the IRS because of its expense, but she never abandoned the fight. In 1969 she disobeyed a court order to produce financial records on the grounds that it violated her Fifth Amendment rights. According to some reports, she also refused to file tax returns; other reports claim she filed blank forms. In a 1975 interview with the Los Angeles Times — the same year as her death — Kellums declared, “Our tax law is a 1,598-page hydra-headed monster and I’m going to attack and attack and attack until I have ironed out every fault in it.”

This little known and indomitable crusader deserves a place in individualist history, standing proudly beside contemporaries such as Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel Paterson.

Regards,

Wendy McElroy

Vivien Kellems: Giving the Taxman Hell was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

The news is mostly the “fake news,” as Saturday Night Live many years ago put it. What matters and what doesn’t matter is designed for certain effect that doesn’t reflect anything really going on in your life at all. The North Star of the network news is the state and the political theater that serves as a kind of glossy finish on the top of the structure. The reporters prioritize their stories and values based on the state’s own stories and values, and the rest of us mostly just pretend to care.

The television shows are unapologetic fabrications of life, with idealized actors and preset plots that do not and cannot really exist in real life. People don’t do the normal things the rest of us do. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it is not reality. Even “reality” shows are this way. If you are starring in an episode of Bridezillas, for example, you are going to go out of your way to be as witchy and horrible as possible.

Ah, but with advertising, you get the real story, the unvarnished presentation of real-life problems that affect everyone. One I just saw for the Neat scanner points out that our problems with paper have gotten worse, rather than better, since the advent of digital media. Unless we are making a concerted effort to de-physicalize things, we are going to be snowed under with 8.5×11 sheets piled to the ceiling. The Neat scanner shows us a way out of this problem, and it is a good way out. This is a serious problem that all of us have to deal with every day.

Another ad begins with a lady shopping for adult diapers in the grocery store while feeling profound humiliation as she checks out and others look on. Ouch. But now comes the solution. There is a website called adis.com that provides every manner of undergarment that you can order online at good prices. The goods arrive at your house in an unmarked package so that you don’t have to feel that sense of humiliation.

In the daytime, there is a constant stream of products to deal with aging, which, we might point out, is a ubiquitous feature of the human condition. The normal problems people have hardly ever appear on the shows or the news, but the commercials are not even slightly squeamish in dealing with balding, bankruptcy, sexual dysfunction, weight gain, energy loss, depression and every bodily function and real-life malady one can imagine.

This is the real stuff of daily life that consumes people. Am I too fat? Why do I have to get up three times in the night to go to the bathroom? Why do my feet hurt at the end of the day? What should I do about my sky-high credit card debt? These questions are way more important to people than the latest political poll or Middle Eastern flare-up.

Maintaining a household turns out to be another center of people’s real lives, and the advertisements fail us not. They deal with the problems of greasy meatloaf, knives that don’t cut properly, silver that is tarnished, vacuums that don’t stay plugged in, leftovers that do not store well — and in each case, the advertiser proposes what turns out to be an ingenious solution at a surprisingly low price.

Yes, of course, the advertiser wants us to buy the product, but it is your choice to do it or not. You are invited, not coerced. And even if you do not buy, you have to admit feeling a sense of inspiration to solve the problem in some other way, an element of collegiality with your fellow human beings just to know that you are not alone in your problem and a sense of empowerment just to know that all is not lost and that there is some hope.

It is beyond comprehension to me why advertising has been the target of brutal attacks ever since television came into existence. The top criticism is that advertising is somehow socially inefficient. Instead of giving price cuts to consumers or spending money on research and development. We can dispense with this nonsense quickly: If it weren’t efficient for the company, the company would not do it. Every ad is tested against profitability insofar as this is possible.

Recall, too, that the major reason for advertising is to overcome the core problem that every enterprise faces, which is its obscurity. You have to get yourself known to people. But knowledge alone is not enough. You have to to ascend the value scale of their preference rankings. You have to persuade people that what you have to offer is going to make enough of a difference in their lives to get them to cough up the money.

You might complain that these advertisers are only after your money. I don’t see why this is a criticism. After all, the consumer is only after the product. The consumer gives the money, and the producer gives the product. It’s called mutually beneficial exchange. And you might say that the advertiser only wants ever more of your money. Well, so too for the consumer: You want ever more of the product, which is why we are constantly told on ads to wait because “there’s more!”

Another criticism of advertising is that it generates “false wants.” The people who say such things imagine that they alone are the arbiters of what is a legitimate want. In other words, they want to rule your choices and tell you what you can and can’t want. Down with those types, I say.

A final criticism is that what the ad says is often false or exaggerated. No kidding. Compare the content of advertising with the content of the average human conversation, of which lies and exaggerations are an integral part. We can’t expect of advertising what we don’t even expect of regular human interactions. At least there is accountability and a profitability test on advertising that tend to select out the liars over time. I’m not sure you can say the same with casual human interactions on a day-to-day basis.

I see that several infomercial makers have been prosecuted for making false claims, such as the guy who promoted a calcium product he said would reduce cancer risk. He was charged $150,000 and banned from television for life. I don’t get this. Why should the government be policing what people can and cannot claim on television? Buyer beware. Besides, if the state is to rid the TV of all false claims, the State of the Union address should never again be aired.

You know those ads from the government that you see at airports? They are announcing their policy. They tell you what you must believe or else. No private-sector ads are this way. They invite you to believe something. They seek to change your values. Then they want to bring something new and special to your life. It is up to you to go along or not. This is the way all human interaction ought to take place.

It is for this reason that advertising gives such a gritty, down-to-earth, truth-telling look at the human condition. It is a window into who we are, what we do, what makes us tick. And better than that, advertising seeks to improve the human condition and give us a better life. In this sense, it does for us what no state can ever really do.

Truth in Advertising was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

It’s true that mail still has a place in the digital world, as the post office says. But the government shouldn’t be the institution to run it. It already has competitors in package delivery but the government stands firmly against letting any private company deliver something like first class mail. And so it has been since the beginning. The state and only the state is permitted to charge people for non-urgent paper mail in a letter envelop.

It’s a control thing. The government is into that. And it is far from new.

Do you know the amazing story of Lysander Spooner? He lived from 1808 to 1887. His first great battle was taking on the post office monopoly. In the 1840s, he was like most people at the time: fed up with the high prices and bad service. But as an intellectual and entrepreneur, he decided to do something about it. He started the American Letter Mail Company, and his letter business gave the government some serious competition.

It opened offices in major cities, organized a network of steamships and railroads, and hired people to get the mail to where it needed to be. His service was both faster and cheaper than the government’s own. Then he published a pamphlet to fight the power: “The Unconstitutionality of the Laws of Congress Prohibiting Private Mails.” It was brilliant. It rallied people to his side. And he made a profit.

The government hated him and his company and began to litigate against him. It dramatically lowered the price for its services, and used public money to cover its losses. The goal was to bankrupt Spooner, and it eventually succeeded. Spooner’s private postal system had to be shut down. It’s the same way the government today shuts down private schools, private currencies, private security, private roads, private companies that ignore the central plan, and anyone else who stands up for freedom.

From this one anecdote alone, you can see that the post office is hardly a “natural monopoly” — something the government has to provide because free enterprise can’t do so. It is a forced monopoly, one kept alive solely through laws and subsidies. If the post office closed its doors today, there would be 1000 companies rushing in to fill the gap. Just as in the 1840s, the results would be cheaper, better services. The government runs the post office because it wants to control the command posts of society, including communication. The Internet as a global communication device snuck up on the state before the state could kill it.

Let’s return to the 19th century. Spooner didn’t go away. He was more than an entrepreneur. He was a brilliant and pioneering intellectual, as the collection The Lysander Spooner Reader makes clear. He was a champion of individual liberty and a passionate opponent of all forms of tyranny. He was an abolitionist before it became fashionable but he also defended the South’s right to secede.

Most incredibly, he was probably the first 19th century American to return to the old anti-Federalist tradition of post-Revolutionary America. He did this by asking the unaskable question: why should the US Constitution — however it is interpreted — be binding on every individual living in this geographic region?

This document was passed generations ago. Maybe you could say that the signers were bound by it, but what about those who opposed it at the time, and what about future generations? Why are the living being forced to live by parchment arrangement made by people long dead? Why are the living bound by a privileged group’s interpretations of its meaning?

In his view, people have rights or they do not have rights. If they have rights, no ancient scroll restricting those rights should have any power to take those rights away. Nor does it matter what a bunch of old guys in black robes say: rights are real things, not legal constructs to be added or reduced based on the results of courtroom deliberations. Plenty of Americans before his time would have agreed with him! It’s still the case.

Now, keep in mind that Spooner lived in a time where the living memory of these debates had not entirely disappeared. He knew what many people today do not know, namely that the Articles of Confederation made for a freer confederation of states than the Constitution. The Constitution amounted to an increase in government power, despite all its language about restricting government power. Remember too that it was only a few years after the Constitution was rammed through that the feds were suddenly jailing people for the speech crime of criticizing the US president!

Spooner spoke plainly: what you call the Constitution has no authority to take away my rights. Hence his famous essay: “Constitution of No Authority.” In “No Treason” he argues that the state has no rights over your freedom of speech. In “Vices Not Crimes,” he shows that people in any society are capable of doing terrible things but the law should only concern itself with aggression against person and property. Reading them all together, as they are in this book, is a radicalizing experience — a liberating experience. It makes you see the world in a completely different way.

It’s true that they aren’t teaching about Spooner in public school. But he was a giant by any standard, the 19th century’s own Thomas Jefferson (but even better than Jefferson on most issues). There is still so much to learn here. It’s no wonder that his legacy has been suppressed.

This edition of his best work is published by Fox & Wilkes, an imprint of Laissez-Faire Books. Incredibly, you are still permitted to buy this and read it without getting arrested — for now.

Regards,

Jeffrey Tucker

Spooner the Prophet was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

For the sake of clarity, I do not advocate the abolition of all laws. However, we must define legitimate laws as those that prohibit an act that is in itself bad. An example of this type of law is one that prohibits the infliction of bodily injury on another. Those laws that make an otherwise innocent activity unlawful are simply political in nature. They are what the philosopher Thrasymachus, best known as a character in Plato’s Republic, labeled “the advantage of the stronger.”

In order to enforce the “advantage of the stronger,” an increasingly larger bureaucracy is needed. And in order to fund this bureaucratic watchdog, money is needed. Without money, there would be no bureaucracy and there would be no army of legislative staff members writing truckloads of laws aimed at limiting your “inalienable rights.”

The money to feed this bureaucratic Goliath comes from your taxes! Since the inception of the income tax, government intrusion into our lives has grown by leaps and bounds. According to the Tax Policy Center, 57 percent of federal tax revenue comes from individual and corporate income taxes. An additional 36 percent is appropriated through the payroll tax. Since 1950, the individual income tax has been the largest growth area of federal-government tax revenue.

According to the US Census Bureau, there are 2.8 million civilian employees working for the federal government and paid for with your taxes. The state governments employ an additional 5.3 million civilians. These employees are dispersed throughout countless agencies, bureaus, and divisions.

I was once briefly associated with a local politician who constantly reminded his constituents that he had authored over 120 pieces of legislation. He thought that this was a big accomplishment on his part and a reason he should be elected to higher office. However, I was confused as to whether he was running for an elective office in New York or for a seat on the Soviet Politburo!

In any event, without the confiscatory tax system, all of these laws and regulations that limit your freedom would not be possible. We would see a return to the days when the American government was small, the free-enterprise system was strong, and the visions of the Founding Fathers were still present in the body politic.

The Power to Tax Destroys Prosperity

Quite simply, if one is taxed, he has less money either to invest or to spend. The higher the tax rate, the more money is taken from those individuals who can invest and create economic opportunity for themselves and for others.

An accumulation of capital is essential to increase the productive capacity of a nation. Therefore, it is important to understand the true meaning of savings. When money is deposited in a bank, it is usually lent out to someone else. The money is then used either to invest in business expansion or to purchase the products produced by business — cars, televisions, boats, etc. An accumulation of wealth is essential for a prosperous economy.

Cuba does not allow an accumulation of wealth. It was recently reported in the press that the Cuban leadership will now allow limited monetary payment to employees. However, the Communist administration will still not allow anyone (except themselves, of course) to accumulate wealth. Is there any doubt as to why there is no capital formation and viable industry on that island?

In the United States, a supposedly capitalist nation, wealth is taxed at all levels. For example, if you sell a piece of real estate for more money than you bought it for, the gain from the transaction is taxed. This is so even though the gain was due to your foresight and entrepreneurship. The taxman is a silent partner with a participation in your profits, even though those profits were the result of your business sense. The same scenario exists if your gains were the result of profits made in stocks, bonds, or commodities.

If you are a wealthy person, beware. The estate tax will destroy what you have created through your hard work and diligence. Unless you have spent a small fortune on financial planners, accountants, and tax attorneys, the fruits of your labor may be enjoyed by the government instead of by your heirs. Even when family members are active participants in making a business successful, there is no guarantee that they will not be supplanted by the government through a confiscatory system of taxation.

One of the main reasons that many small business establishments have difficulties is because of the regulations and tax burdens imposed upon them. A small business is subject not only to income taxes but also to a host of others taxes and requirements. These include the payroll tax, workmen’s compensation insurance, and a list of fines aimed at fattening the government coffers. If small business fails, the economy will stumble because small business is a major engine of employment growth.

Parenthetically, we should not fall prey to the class warfare that is so often employed by the taxman. Discussing politics, an electrician who once worked for me stated, “I have no problems with rich people. I need to make a living. I never benefited by being hired by a guy who didn’t have the money to pay me.” This is an important point that should be kept in mind by all those looking for a job.

The Power to Tax Destroys Market Efficiency

Beginning with Joseph Stalin, Soviet leaders engaged in centralized, nationwide efforts toward rapid economic growth. At first, these so called five-year plans emphasized heavy industry. By 1970, the focus had shifted to the production of consumer goods.

In fact, Paul Samuelson was so impressed with Soviet industrial production that he believed it would surpass that of the United States, even in light of undeniable facts to the contrary published in his own textbooks. He referred to unregulated capitalism as “a fragile flower bound to commit self-suicide.” Though I must admit that I am perplexed as to how a flower commits suicide, I am even more perplexed as to how deregulation causes “capitalist suicide.”

Nevertheless, the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its centralized economy. The reason for this is that planned economies are inefficient. Central planners cannot properly gauge the sentiments of consumers.

The tax system in the United States produces the same inefficiencies as did the planned economy of the former Soviet Union. When a tax is imposed, money is taken away from individuals and spent by government. And, as the Soviet example has proven, government is an inefficient producer of goods. The reason for this is simple: central planners do not have the mechanism to determine what consumers want.

When government planners produce, they do so based upon political directives. Obamacare is a perfect example of this. Although highly unpopular with the American public, healthcare reform has been pushed through Congress simply to achieve the administration’s political goal. Unless repealed, it will result in the misallocation of resources and higher healthcare costs for all.

Central planning does not work because the central force behind economic decision-making is the individual. Rothbard explains, “Only individuals have ends and can act to attain them. There are no such things as ends of or actions by ‘groups,’ ‘collectives’ or ‘states,’ which do not take place as actions by various specific individuals.”

Therefore only an individual can determine what products should be produced. The actions of producers must focus on the needs and desires of the individual expressing his utility in the marketplace. The producer needs to get it right because his capital is at risk.

Money given to a bureaucrat to spend is inefficient because there is no at-risk capital. If a mistake is made, the project is simply terminated or more money is thrown at it until it achieves a politically favorable outcome. However, as in the Soviet case, no economy can sustain this structure for very long.

Free-market capitalism has given the consumer more goods and services than any other economic system ever employed. It is the only system in which the consumer is king. If an entrepreneur does not gauge the desires of consumers correctly, he will not be in business for long. This is not the case with the central planner. From this stems the inefficiency of taxation.

Conclusion

There are many other ways in which the power to tax destroys. Nevertheless, the point has been made. Taxes are an unproductive waste of resources.

The current administration is wrestling with a trillion-dollar-plus budget deficit. This deficit was created by a massive government intervention into the economy — one supposedly aimed at creating jobs.

But what has this intervention accomplished? Not much. Unemployment is still high, commodity prices are skyrocketing, and credit is still tight. Obviously, the Keynesian-induced tinkering with fiscal and monetary policy has once again fallen short of success.

Does the administration acknowledge this undisputable fact? Obviously not, since it is attempting to push through Congress another massive tax hike! Ironically, the president is trying to justify his tax increase by stating that the deficit is a “major job killer.” He seems to have gotten the connection between budget deficits and slow job growth. Is it possible that he picked up a copy of Economics in One Lesson and actually read it?

Regards,
Fred Buzzeo
Whiskey & Gunpowder

April 29, 2011

Fred Buzzeo is a real-estate developer and a consultant to small property owners in the New York City area. He resides with his wife and two sons in the Town of Oyster Bay, (Long Island), NY. During the 1990s, he held executive positions in city municipal government. It is during this employment that he saw firsthand the pitfalls of government intervention and regulation.

To Tax Is to Destroy was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

If you have ever been to a kindergarten or a playground where very young children play, you might have realized that, although the kids are too young to understand many things, they already have a surprising sense of justice.

Take a toy away from a toddler who cannot yet speak a word, and you will often be met with a very clear protest. As far as the toddler is concerned, you have stolen her toy, you have initiated violence, and therefore it’s time to cry. The toddler’s reasoning probably isn’t this sophisticated, but the understanding is there.

Slightly older children are even more amazing. They understand that there is illegitimate violence (when a toy gets stolen), but they also understand that there is such a thing as legitimate violence as well, which is when the victimized child goes to the thieving child and takes her toy back. The astonishing thing is that the usual focus is on getting the toy back rather than punishing the aggressor. Punishment is a concept that they learn later, probably from us.

The initiation of violence is the act of an aggressor against you or against your property. This can be done through actual violence or through intimidation, because the mere threat of violence is an act of violence in itself. A good example would be a thief that points a gun at you to get your wallet without actually pulling the trigger. Another less obvious example is the way the government takes our money. To say that taxes are a form of theft may seem a bit over the top, but refuse to pay your taxes and you will be thrown in jail. Refuse to pay your property taxes and you will see who really owns your house.

Governments have done a wonderful PR job: They call us taxpayers, not victims, and the taxes are somehow “collected,” not stolen. Taxes are also called contributions, as if it had been a matter of choice. And because it is the government that decides whether this form of theft is legal or not, there is nothing we can do legally to get restitution. No playground justice for us.

Many actually see the crime but take it as a necessary evil, and when you ask for the complete abolition of taxation, they ask in minute detail how we would pay for roads or law enforcement.

I admit, it is hard to imagine how our society would work in a completely new order, but I would like to offer some ideas and historical facts that may ease these worries.

One important thing to remember is that all of the services now funded by taxation and provided by the government were at one point in the not-so-distant past funded and provided privately. Indeed, many are being provided privately today, from affordable private education in Ghana to the luxurious streets being built every day in our North American cities for new residential developments (which are later handed off to local governments).

Another reassuring example for those who want answers right now regarding a future without taxation is that not so long ago slavery was normal, and in many parts of the world nobody could have conceived of life without it. When some pointed out the ethical and economic problems behind the practice, the vast majority of people claimed that, not only was it impossible to abolish slavery, but even the slaves themselves were actually better off in captivity than in liberty. Today these claims seem ludicrous to us.

Some were genuinely concerned about the slaves. Because they had no property, some said they would all be homeless and scattered around. Such well-meaning conservatives even feared that without their masters the slaves would be unemployed. And above all, the worriers claimed that the entire economy would collapse, putting everyone — former slaves included — in a state of abject poverty.

The idea of a world without taxes is hard for us to imagine, and there are many unanswerable questions that we would like answered. But we need to stand for liberty regardless of our reservations, just like we still stand against slavery.

While I agree that lots of neat things can be done with stolen money, we need to remember that we would never go to our neighbors with a gun and tell them to pay for our education or retirement, regardless of how rich they were. We wouldn’t do it because it’s wrong. Even a toddler knows that.

Regards,
Rod Rojas
Whiskey & Gunpowder

April 27, 2011

Rod Rojas is a holder of the Canadian Securities Course designation and performs as a financial adviser in personal, corporate, and public-policy matters. He is a proud member of the Ontario Libertarian Party.

The True Nature of Taxation was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

Whether they realize it or not Americans live in a constant state of fear every day. I’m not referring to the fears of everyday life like losing a job or having an accident of some kind, but rather a more sinister and devious fear; a fear that Americans only dare talk about around the water cooler or at cocktail parties so as not to be taken seriously; a fear they try to mask with a with a whimsical tone of sarcasm or indifference. Whether Americans want to admit it or not, it’s the single greatest fear in their lives: fear of the government.

Right about now there are those reading this thinking: Don Cooper is a drunk. To which I reply: what’s that got to do with it? Maybe more people should drink if that’s what it takes to sober up and confront what they are really afraid of.

In their defense, I’ll admit that reality is scary. No argument that living in delusion is warmer, safer, cozier, and easier. Pretending is always more fun than reality, that’s why we go to the movies. But fear of the government is a fear that invades a person’s soul and – since the government intervenes in every aspect of our lives – it affects every move we make every day.

Fear of the government is hard to recognize and acknowledge. It’s a fear that we are taught early on in life and to which we become accustomed. We inevitably end up tucking it away in the far reaches of our minds in order to function “normally” every day and live our lives. But just as a car backfiring will trigger a sense of fear from a shell-shocked veteran, so too can the State trigger that sense of fear they’ve instilled in us.

One need only ask: when you see a cop in your rearview mirror with his lights on, do you feel a sense of safety and comfort or do you get a shot of adrenaline from your body’s “fight or flight” reflex? Do you immediately start asking yourself what he could possibly pull you over for, other than the fact that he was abused as a child, bullied at school and his mother didn’t love him, and now he’s going to whittle away at that chip on his shoulder by abusing you.

As you search for your proof of government permission to drive (i.e., your license), and your government permission to own the car ( i.e., your registration ), and your proof of government mandated insurance, do you do so calmly and with a smile on your face and with gleeful anticipation of speaking with someone who gives of himself to serve and protect you, or do you do so nervously, fumbling through your papers hoping everything’s up to date and acceptable to him for fear of being detained for whatever reason and having it affect your job, your family, and every aspect of your life?

And when it’s all over, do you feel glad that it happened or are you just glad it’s over? Later that evening do you recount the story to others with a sense of pride, or do you do so with a sharp tongue and kick yourself for all the things you wish you would have had the presence of mind to say at the time but didn’t? Do you feel happy that you have to pay $150 to the government because you were driving down the street faster than the government allows you to, or are you angry?

And in the end, do you send the money to the government even though you don’t agree with it? Even though you feel it’s unfair to have to pay so much money yet you’ve harmed no one? Of course you do. And why? Because you’re afraid of what the government will do to you if you don’t. In the end, you’ll retreat back into your cubby-hole of delusion in order to justify paying the fine by convincing yourself that what you did was wrong, the government was right, and you deserve the punishment.

My favorite delusional argument from those still attached to the matrix is that they pay their taxes voluntarily. To these people I ask: when you do your tax returns, do you take as many deductions as the government will allow you? Of course, the answer is always yes. Then I ask them that if they could take enough deductions such that their tax liability was zero would they do so? Again, not surprisingly, the answer is yes. I then ask them that if their preference is to pay zero taxes then why don’t they simply refuse to pay taxes. Inevitably, that’s where their train of thought always runs out of track. Of course everyone knows the answer: because they’re afraid of what the government will do.

I challenge everyone to ask themselves: when was the last time you even thought about the possibility you might be robbed, your house broken into or shot at? Can you even remember? Now ask yourself when was the last time you were afraid of doing something that could be deemed “illegal” by the government and for which you could be fined, detained or arrested? Something like not wearing a seatbelt, speeding, making a U-turn, going through a yellow light, not crossing the street at the cross-walk, riding a bike on a sidewalk, forgetting your license at home, taking too many deductions on your taxes, talking on your phone while driving, not allowing strangers to touch you or your children at the airport, cutting down a tree on your own property, owning and transporting a gun, collecting rain water and the list goes on. I would wager the answer is: daily! The first word out of everybody’s mouth when asked a normal, completely benign question these days is: “Well legally …” It’s first and foremost on our minds, and why wouldn’t it be, there are 76,000 pages to just the federal register alone. Some argue that everyone commits at least three felonies every day!

Ignorance is a dangerous thing, and it must be stopped in our lifetime, fo’ it kill somebody.

At the end of the day, all government mandates are enforced at the end of the barrel of a gun, and that scares the hell out of everyone, as it should. But if we truly believe we are free then we have to start acting like it. It’s time we cared about something bigger than ourselves. It’s time we stopped living our lives in fear.

Having said all that, I’m not holding my breath. It’s proven to be difficult to convince people that freedom is more important than the real housewives of New Jersey.

And that’s why I drink!

Regards,

Don Cooper

What Is The Quiet Fear That Troubles Us All? was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

According to popular opinion it was a combination of the two that got six people killed and left Rep. Gifford in critical condition.

Gun-ownership supporters are getting the usual flack after Jared Lee Loughner used a gun to kill six people and injure fourteen others. But the political environment is such that a bunch of other groups are getting smeared for having ever opened their mouths…

Libertarians, conservatives, Tea Party members, advocates of small governments of every stripe, anyone who’s ever criticized the government too vigorously…They’re being told to “tone it down a bit.” The complaint from lovers of the state is that we’ve gotten too vicious, that all the strong words have finally led to someone taking extreme measures.

Never mind that the shooter was a just a lone nut whose main concern with government was that it was using mind control.

One does not list the Communist Manifesto or Mein Kampf in one’s top ten list if one is for smaller government. In fact, anyone who thinks these books belong in the same list as We the Living — a warning against the dangers of communism — cannot be thinking too clearly.

And it seems that Loughner wasn’t thinking too clearly at all. In fact, he seems to have had all the usual earmarks of the mentally unbalanced who occasionally pop up and kill somebody famous or slaughter innocents in a fast food joint or from atop a tower.

Jared Lee Loughner didn’t kill and injure all those people because he listened to Sarah Palin…or because he loved liberty. He did it because he was a murderous lunatic.

Never ones to let a disaster or tragedy go to waste, lawmakers immediately got to work on legislation to curb liberty a little bit more.

The Left immediately went on the offensive and claimed that this was all Sarah Palin’s fault. They claimed she practically instructed the mentally unstable among us to start shooting Democrats…that with their charged rhetoric the Right had been fostering a political atmosphere ripe for violence.

The Right immediately went on the defensive. They pointed out that the Left had been just as bad. They also pointed out, as I have here, that Loughner was just another deranged killer. He was bound to shoot up innocent strangers somewhere. It could just as easily been a Burger King.

But it wasn’t a Burger King. It was a political event. It was a U.S. Representative who was the main target and a federal judge among the slain. So now there’s an excuse for extreme legislation. Milo Nickels writes:

And, so it begins. There is already an article on The Hill titled “Dem Planning a Bill That Would Outlaw Threatening Law Makers.” The article begins like this:

Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.) reportedly plans to introduce legislation that would make it a federal crime to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a federal official or member of Congress.

Look at that language. The language (or symbols) doesn’t have to be threatening or actually incite violence. It doesn’t even have to be perceived that way. If it could be perceived that way — through the widest, loosest, and irrational interpretations imaginable — that is sufficient to charge someone with a federal crime. This kind of broad, widely subjective legislation would make it potentially illegal to disagree with the government about anything.

That’s right, virtually any political discussion or comment, especially if you express frustration or opposition, could be perceived as a call for violence. Laws like this are nothing more than an assault of free speech. Of course, they will forge ahead with this legislation — whether it’s constitutional or not. They will probably name it after Gabrielle Giffords, and call it the “Giffords Act against Political Hate Speech” (or something like that). Then, if you oppose the legislation, they will question your compassion and say you must agree with Jared Loughner.

I would say that we must stand up against tyrannical laws created by exploiting tragedies, but that could be perceived as a call to arms. Rather, I will just implore you to read the Constitution, and employ some common sense.

So legislation is on the table that will make what I’m about to do a federal offense…

A little while back I recommended a book called An Act of Self-Defense, a work of fiction in which a group of patriots take it upon themselves to enforce term limits on U.S. representatives by any means necessary…

I’m recommending it again. I’m recommending it even more strongly now that Rep. Brady plans to introduce this legislation.

Understand that I am against acts of non-retaliatory violence. Like most liberty-lovers I live by the non-aggression axiom…

…But this book is a great read that illustrates just how far removed the political class has gotten from those they are supposed to serve. Violence is a desperate act and these people are indeed desperate. Ultimately, however, their actions really are ones of self-defense. They — like all of us — have been pushed around all their lives by violent thugs with a veneer of political legitimacy.

If you haven’t been brainwashed into loving your masters in the political class or their enforcers, then you’ll find yourself rooting for the small band of freedom fighters in the book.

Get your copy of An Act of Self-Defense to see exactly what I mean.

Regards,
Gary Gibson
Managing Editor, Whiskey & Gunpowder and Laissez Faire Books
gary@whiskeyandgunpowder.com

January 12, 2011

Mass Killing Was Insanity, Not Politics was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

Puritanism

Politicians and other patriotic posturers like to declare that the Europeans came to America seeking freedom. The claim is at best a half-truth. In the colonial era, most Europeans arrived in North America bound in some form of indentured servitude, many of them children or convicts put out to work. Disregarding such servants, one finds that the free colonists sought mainly to improve their economic well-being.

To be sure, some of them, including the early arrivals in Massachusetts, were fleeing religious oppression, but the Pilgrim Fathers had absolutely no intention of establishing a community in which individuals would be free to behave according to the dictates of their own consciences. The Puritans had already seen the light, and, by God, they intended to use all necessary means to ensure that everybody comply with Puritan standards. Far from free, their “City upon a Hill” was a hard-handed theocracy.

For them, pleasure seemed the devil’s snare. Their vision of the good life was austere, and they looked askance on the possibility that others might embrace hedonism. In H.L. Mencken’s famous characterization, Puritanism was “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” Moreover, if the Puritans suspected that someone might be having fun, they had no compunction about using government coercion to knock some sense into the offender. Mencken might have had this proclivity in mind when he observed, “Show me a Puritan and I’ll show you a son-of-a-bitch.”

In view of the Puritans’ dispositions, it is unfortunate that they exerted an immense and lasting influence of American social and political affairs. Puritanism’s “central themes recur in the related religious communities of Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and a whole range of evangelical Protestants,” and Puritanism “established what was arguably the central strand of American cultural life until the twentieth century.” Even today, ghosts of the Pilgrim Fathers haunt the land.

Paternalism

Paternalists are more ambitious than Puritans. Whereas the latter are content to steer people away from sinful behavior, the former go further, seeking also to promote the worldly health, safety, and welfare of their wards, coercively if need be. Of course, paternalists direct their deepest compassion toward saving children.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when American social life was more rigidly hierarchical and dominated by WASPs, the paternalistic impulse came naturally to those who took themselves to be the respectable class in society. In their efforts to uplift the rabble, however, they perceived a need to rid the poor wretches of their vices. Hence the succession of campaigns against, among other things, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, and engaging in unseemly sexual activity, including autoeroticism. A century ago, groups such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Society and the Anti-Saloon League enjoyed legions of supporters. The Anti-Cigarette Movement campaigned vigorously, especially against smoking by women and children; and the Social Purity Movement, followed shortly after 1900 by the Social Hygiene Movement, strove to stamp out pornography, prostitution, marital infidelity and masturbation.

Government Power

As the Eighteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1919) reminds us, the better sorts did not hesitate to employ government coercion to promote their rehabilitation of society. They previously had saddled the nation with the Comstock Act (1873), which forbade sending sexual information through the mail, and the Mann Act (1910), which banned taking women across state lines for immoral purposes. In many local jurisdictions, they had obtained legal prohibitions of smoking by women and of commerce in liquor.

In these and many other ways, the respectable campaigners shamelessly combined Puritanism, paternalism, and government power. As David Wagner succinctly expresses the matter in his recent book The New Temperance: The American Obsession with Sin and Vice, “the Victorian and Progressive Period movements were characterized by what scholarly observers consider an exaggerated…notion of their ability to change behavior, by a huge faith in government’s ability to regulate every aspect of private life, and by a strong ethnocentric belief in the correctness of white, Protestant, middle-class social norms.”

These crusaders labored under no burden of doubt about the rectitude of their own standards of personal behavior or about their right to impose these standards on everybody else at gunpoint. Although they ceaselessly proclaimed their Christianity, they overlooked some of Christ’s admonitions, especially “judge not, lest ye be judged” and “he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.”

Respite and Calamity

In 1933, after a decade of gang warfare and growing disrespect for law, Americans abandoned their “great experiment” and repealed the Eighteenth Amendment. The homicide rate, which had risen by about 50 percent during the previous fifteen years, immediately began a secular decline that continued until the 1960s. Mark Thompson, a careful student of these events, concludes that “the repeal of Prohibition appears to be the best explanation for the dramatic reversal in 1933 and the return to the long-run decline in crime rates” because “alternative theories have a difficult time explaining the continuous decrease in crime during the remainder of the 1930s.”

Despite the continuation in force of the Harrison Narcotic Act (1914) and the passage of the prohibitory Marijuana Tax Act (1937), during the 1940s and the 1950s the crusading class largely shifted its attention away from domestic uplift and toward resistance to fascism and communism.

In the 1960s, however, the tidy world of the self-righteous came crashing down as antiwar protesters, hippies, and other elements of the counterculture flaunted their disrespect for the bourgeoisie and its standards of conduct. The long-haired, free-loving, dope-smoking scorn of youths, poor people, and blacks — the very groups traditionally regarded as most in need of strict supervision and control — unbearably goaded the guardians of respectable society.

War on Drugs

In response, government officials pandering to the ire of the well-behaved “silent majority” declared a “war on drugs,” which meant of course the punishment of selected individuals for the crime of offensive personal behavior, notwithstanding the absence of harm to nonconsenting parties. As a political tactic, this legal offensive was a no-brainer: “For political leaders, temperance wars, like foreign wars, are mobilizations that can serve as strategies to excite the masses of people and, for this reason, enjoy continued use.” Hence the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970), the Comprehensive Crime Act (1984), and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act (1988), among many other enactments. The drug war helped to divert citizens from dwelling on such annoyances as futile foreign wars, high taxes, obnoxious regulations, poor government services, and meager protection of life and property.

In this so-called war, the police needed no postgraduate training to discern how to promote their own interests. Drug arrests could be arranged virtually at will to bulk up the score sheet of police accomplishments, and once civil forfeitures became an option in the war on drugs, the police possessed the added opportunity of wantonly seizing private property to enhance their resources.

Meanwhile, the police and others could blame the use of drugs for growing violence among youths, especially big-city blacks, when in reality the increased violence occurred mainly because the drug trade was illegal. As Thornton observes, “violence is used in black markets and criminal organizations to enforce contracts, maintain market share, and defend sales territory…Street gangs profit and expand based on their role in organizing retail drug sales. Their violent criminal activity has been a growing and very visible result of the war on drugs during the 1980s and 1990s.”

As the prohibition of commerce in “controlled substances” has spawned a vast, global black market, recently estimated by the UN International Drug Control Program at $400 billion in annual sales, opportunities for government officials — everyone from street cops to heads of state — to enrich themselves have grown enormously. In several countries, governments appear to be, from top to bottom, in league with the drug merchants. In the United States, the news media routinely report the arrests and convictions of police and other government officials for services to drug dealers, and these reports most likely represent only the unlucky tip of an iceberg of corruption. David E. Sisk writes, “If the true consequences of such laws [and the extent of] police corruption… were well publicized, supporters of such laws could no longer hide behind a shield of morality.”

Endless Crusades

Sisk may be right, but I am inclined to think that no matter how horrible the consequences, the desire to butt into other people’s personal affairs, employing the police and even the military as agents, is deeply ingrained in the American national character. A Gallup poll found that 85 percent of the respondents were opposed to legalizing drugs and 87 percent were in favor of greater funding for drug police. Search the Western world and you will find no other nation similarly obsessed. Europeans, themselves no stranger to government intervention, often view the United States as a nation of lunatics. Notwithstanding forms and temporal fluctuations, the penchant for acting as self-righteous busybodies has animated the bourgeoisie of this country ever since Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock in 1620. Because this proclivity provides an irresistible opportunity for politicians to promote their own interests at public expense, one must expect that we Americans are doomed to an endless procession of costly, futile, and destructive crusades.

Excerpt from Against Leviathan by Robert Higgs.
Whiskey & Gunpowder

January 10, 2011

This article is reprinted with permission from Against Leviathan, by Robert Higgs. © Copyright 2004, The Independent Institute.
www.independent.org

Puritanism, Paternalism, and Power was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

The disappointment in my old man’s voice was hard to endure.

“After all so many people went through…for you to go along with people like Rand Paul…

“I can’t even talk to you right now.”

The subject had turned to politics again, good patrons. It often did on the drive to the airport. We got on the topic of liberty and government. When it comes down to it, I can’t ever think it’s OK to use force to get others to see or do things my way…even when it hurts my feelings.

Dad was thinking of commerce. Of countertop dining and windows with “No Colored” signs. He hadn’t seen them himself. We didn’t come to this country till the late ‘70s, when he’d been in his 20s and I under three. Back home in our tiny Caribbean nation, black was pretty much all there was.

I’d had more direct experience with that sort of thing, however. I’d spent a couple formative summers in the South. Not the Deep South — rural central Florida — but not quite shallow, either. There were Confederate flags on the road signs announcing the town’s name and on many of the license plates of the local vehicles. There still are.

Once when I was 17, my two good buddies and I spent the day with a couple of local girls at a stream and then drove around for hours with them. It had grown dark and the pretty blonde suggested we all head back to her house to hang out a bit more. All except for me, that is…

“My parents don’t allow black people in the house. I’m sorry.” It was 1994.

And so that was it. My friends were more concerned about hanging out with pretty girls than they were in showing solidarity. Seventeen is apparently not the time to be making a stand.

That experience stayed with me as I learned more about liberty and individual rights from the perspective of a foreign “darkie.” Was my experience with that sort of discrimination fundamentally different from similar discrimination in commerce? A home, a business…they were both someone’s personal property. Either a man owned himself and his property…or the collective — the community, the state — did.

If he really did own his property, then whatever his reasons, he could exclude any person from entering it if he so chose.

At least he ought to be able to.

If we can argue that an unwilling bigot has to sell to me, then why don’t we force him to entertain me at his home too?

The home is still off-limits from forced integration…for now. In this degenerate age, businesses generally require license. They exist at the mercy of the state. Our businesses are no more ours than are our earnings. At least not in the eyes of the state.

Sincerely,
Gary Gibson
Whiskey & Gunpowder

December 22, 2010

But What if the Customers Are Bigots Too? was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.