Sunday, September 30, 2012

Think It Over, Part I


Back in the old days, writers who were putting forth their arguments in an attempt to influence their fellow citizens might have put a series of essays in the papers once a week or once a month (depending on the paper).  Although this would mean their position unfolded more slowly over time, I think there may have been an advantage in that it gave the readers some time to ponder and digest the author’s ideas, and to discuss them with one another.

Nowadays, it seems you better get to your point much more quickly before your readers decide their time is better spent on YouTube.  This is not meant as an insult to today’s readers at all – it’s just the nature of the beast (and, hey, I happen to love YouTube!).  I am sorry to just keep pushing ahead without giving people much time to think about the last post.  What I am sharing has come from weeks, months, and years of reading and thinking and observing.  If I had run across a blog like this eight or nine years ago without having thought much about the income tax, I’d have been pretty skeptical myself.  “What?  We don’t need the income tax?  What a bunch of hooey!”  I hope you will be able to take the time to revisit some of these posts, research things yourself, and spend time thinking – and thinking and thinking and thinking.

I’m going to quickly touch on a few ideas that could be essays in themselves.  I just want to throw them out there as sort of a short preface to the “eureka” moment that will be the heart of this post.  These ideas are sure to keep popping up in front of you like giant STOP signs after I’ve shared what I’ve been wanting to share for the last several days – popping up like giant, unnecessary STOP signs.  Though I will not spend much time on these points, I would encourage you to take the time to reflect on them whenever you can.  (I’ve touched on them before, so if you are familiar with them already you can skip ahead.)

First, it will never be correct to say that the income tax is the price we pay for living in society.  Society is the natural state of all human beings.  We are born into society as full-fledged members and spend our entire lives in it.  There can be no fee or debt of any kind to be paid for existing in our natural state.

Second, civilization (that is, the nice things society likes to put in place for itself to make life a little easier) does have costs.  Those costs are paid for by taxes.  There are many kinds of taxes besides the income tax that raise amazing amounts of revenue, and can be adjusted to raise even more amazing amounts.  Not only is the income tax not necessary for this, but I hope to show you that it should actually be avoided.

Finally, when Ben Franklin wrote in 1789 about nothing being certain “except death and taxes,” he was not thinking of the income tax as we have come to know it, because it didn’t exist in his day.  He would have had in mind the tax system that Seligman was describing in my last post – you know, the system that easily handled all of the financial needs of government (and then some) right up to and beyond his 1911 book.  So, to think of Franklin’s quote as applying to our income tax, and to think of the income tax as something that is inevitable and permanent, is completely baseless.  So don’t sweat it!

Rights and Responsibilities

People love talking about rights in this country, and we have a pretty good history for standing up for our rights.  In light of our Constitution  (with its Bill of Rights), and considering the language we celebrate in the Declaration of Independence, it is highly ironic and very unfortunate that people in this country have felt compelled to take the stands they’ve taken since our founding.  I am not unaware of the hypocrisy in this country when it comes to people being able to exercise their rights – it’s as if our government has been slowly coming to grips over the last couple of centuries with that whole “land of liberty” thing.  There have been fantastic strides to be sure, but we must never forget that we are a work in progress.  We have not arrived.

In almost any discussion of rights, the concept of “responsibility” will come up.  “Don’t yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater.”  As we know, recent events have reinvigorated the conversation on balancing free speech with the responsibilities that go with exercising that right.  It is a valuable – a critical – discussion.

If “How else will we pay for…?” has been the go-to response when I challenge the necessity of the income tax, then the most frequent response to my saying that we have a fundamental right to work (which shouldn’t have a tax connected to it) has been, “But rights come with responsibilities,” inferring that paying the income tax to help pay for government programs and services is the responsibility that comes with exercising our right to work.

I was sitting in my car the other day waiting for my oldest boy to finish up his cross country practice.  My youngest sat in the back seat listening to music on his iPod.  I scribbled something down in my appointment notebook that expounded on something I only touched upon about a week or so ago: “When a right is at the same time a responsibility in itself, it should magnify and elevate that right above others that, though still essential to protect, are exercised as a matter of choice.  I can identify three rights that are of this nature – the right of self-defense or self-preservation, parental rights, and the right to earn a living.”  You see, these particular rights also happen to be the most basic of human responsibilities, and should have no artificial obligations attached to them when exercised.

Think about our most basic trajectory as a part of human society: we’re born into a family, we mature, and we move out with the goal of supporting ourselves.  Is this path familiar to anyone else, or is it just me?  Society, for all its complexity, is organized primarily to support this simple cycle.

Meet Jerry.  He’s a sophomore in high school.  He loves sports, video games, enjoys math, and plays the trombone in jazz band.  We see him at a family reunion enjoying time with his cousins, aunts and uncles.  One of his aunts asks Jerry what he’s thinking of doing after high school.  Everyone is eager to hear what he has to say.

“Well, nothing,” he says with a smile.  “I figured you’d all be around to take care of me.”  He meets blank stares.  “Why is everyone looking at me like that?  I know I have every right to go out and earn a living, but I have other rights, too.  The cool thing about rights is that we’re not forced to exercise them, right?  I mean, I don’t have to vote.  I don’t have to voice dissenting opinions.  I don’t have to worship.”

It is my humble opinion that Jerry is missing something when it comes to exercising his right to go out and earn a living.  Jerry has a responsibility to society as a mature adult to support himself and his family (if he chooses to start one) so society doesn’t have to.  Jerry has a fundamental human right to earn a living, a right that is simultaneously a responsibility of the highest order.  So long as he is of sound mind and body, society has every reason to expect that Jerry will exercise his right to work and earn his living, but without the luxury of its being a choice like many of his other rights.  What’s the alternative realistically?  To become an unnecessary burden to society.  Jerry’s alternatives to earning a living amount to begging, borrowing, and stealing – in short, being a trombone player.

If working for a living really is something we can choose to do or not do as casually as choosing to exercise or not exercise our right to free speech or to vote, then what in God’s name have we been doing generation after generation after generation?  Why all the fuss?  Why education?  Why earn degrees?  Why seek job interviews?  Why the obsession with unemployment figures?  Why all the hand-wringing and stress over layoffs?  Why does everyone seem to have this yen for getting on the treadmill of work?  The fact is, as far as earning a living goes, it’s not the right that creates the responsibility, it’s the responsibility that creates the right.

If connecting a tax to our right of free speech is wrong, a right we exercise as a matter of choice, how much more does our right to earn a living deserve to be free of any possible impediment placed on it by the government?  Talk to anyone who’s in prison right now whose punishment has any connection with the income tax.  Does this tax not have the potential to impede or control a person’s fundamental right to work for their living?  Talk to anyone who has thousands or millions of dollars due in back taxes, a debt that accrued as a direct result of meeting one of their primary responsibilities as a human being.  Does this not place a burden on the exercise of their fundamental right to work?  For that matter, look at your own pay stub every month.  The consequences of not meeting the added obligation you see on that stub could mean the destruction of your being able to meet one of your foremost responsibilities – working the very job that earns you your living!

This leads to my conclusion, which I will have to write and post tomorrow.  I’ve been writing and parenting all day and it’s after midnight.  My body says sleep, and I have the right and responsibility of self-preservation.

J

2 comments:

  1. A nice point. Very thought-provoking. It raises a question in my mind, though: could not the same argument be made about many of the taxes that are imposed upon us? I might argue, "I have a responsibility and fundamental right to provide food, clothing and other necessities for myself and my family. To do so, I must engage in commerce with the society around me, yet that commerce is taxed by sales taxes/ excise taxes. These impede my ability to exercise this necessary right and responsibility." Or similarly, "I have a responsibility and right to provide shelter for myself and my family. Yet the government imposes property taxes on me. This causes me to incur a debt simply for fulfilling this fundamental responsibility."

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    1. Great questions. But how do we engage in those other activities without first exercising that right and responsibility of working? All those things you've mentioned proceed from that. Working is the well-spring that makes those other activities even possible, and so I believe the process of earning our living deserves the highest protection from being impeded or burdened in any way.

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