Americanly Yours

To all conservatives (and especially those in the Republican Party),

You probably enjoyed yesterday’s post quite a lot.  You have probably enjoyed many of my posts so far.  But that is because they have focused almost exclusively on economic issues.

The term conservative is far more difficult to define than liberal.  Almost 25% of registered Democrats consider themselves to be conservatives.  Then there are those in the Constitution Party who declare that they are the real conservatives.  Of course, there is also the crowd that calls former President George W. Bush a liberal.

Who is a conservative?  Is John McCain a conservative?  Is George W. Bush?  Is Ron Paul?  Is Mitt Romney?  Is Sarah Palin?

Does conservativism seek to maintain the status quo?  Or, does it seek to return to the “good old days?”

Just as with liberals, there are a range of people who are considered conservatives.  I am writing to the broadest range of them.  This is much more difficult to do with conservatives than with liberals.

You claim to be the party of small, limited government.  Yet, each Republican administration that has come to power following a Democratic administration has increased the size and scope of government by more than the Democratic administration preceding it.  I have little doubt that if a Republican candidate were to defeat President Obama in 2012 or win in 2016, he or she would increase, rather than decrease the power of the federal government.

In the months after 9/11, President Bush’s approval ratings reached 90%.  Did the Republican Party use its new political capital to eliminate wasteful programs?  Did it use this power to create any committees to review proposals for the reform or elimination of Social Security, Medicare, or any other significant government program? No, in fact, you pushed for—and got—a large expansion of Medicare. The No Child Left Behind debacle which was an extremely expensive bill which was pushed by conservatives and Republicans and gave the Federal government much more power over education.

You claim to be the defenders of the Constitution.  You rail against liberals for violating the 2nd and 10th Amendments.  True, they do ignore those amendments.  But you do your fair share of ignoring them too.  President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program was an unconstitutional violation of the 4th Amendment.  And lets at least be consistent on the 4th Amendment.  When President Bush and his team pushed for the monitoring of phones, you called it necessary for the protection of America.  Yet, when Democrats and President Obama want similar powers over the internet, you cry foul.  As if your defense of warrantless wiretapping didnt set this up.

And while we are on the Constitution, you have also ignored the 10th Amendment and used it for your own political purposes.  Whether you support or oppose abortion, the federal government has no Constitutional basis for setting abortion policy.  The same is true for gay marriage.  The 10th Amendment gives this power to the States, where it belongs.  This power was delegated to the States so that divisive social issues would not be played out on the national arena.

How can those who claim to support limited government continue to push for so much expanded power of the government? The simple answer here is that many of those who claim to be opposed to government control are actually only opposed when their side is not in control.

You claim to be the party which supports freedom.  You claim to be the party of personal responsibility.  Yet, you have prosecuted an endless war on drugs.  Your policies have sent millions of your fellow citizens to prison for offenses which harmed no one but themselves.  I know that the Democratic Party has not exactly come out in favor of legalization or decriminalization of drugs, but the Republican Party has been relentless in promoting the prosecution of drug offenders.  [Plus, President Obama has made some great moves in this area.  More on that in a future article.]

You rail against President Obama for supporting bailouts and stimulus, but remember that the first stimulus bill was passed last year and signed by President Bush.  The TARP bill and several other bailouts, including that of AIG were all pushed through by President Bush.  I know that many of you have been against these moves since the beginning, but plenty of you were not and did not take a stand until President Obama took office.

You have supported economic populism, creating and continuing policies which have contributed to the current financial crisis.  Using the government’s power of regulations over financial companies to force banks to lend to those who couldnt afford to buy homes is exactly what caused this mess.  Yes, this practice was made government policy under President Clinton, but Republicans controlled Congress then–and did for another 8 years.

You criticize the Democrats for supporting inefficient social welfare programs which you say infringe on the free market.  Yet, you support corportate welfare.  You have given American companies tax breaks to ship jobs overseas.  Yes, outsourcing is a good, natural step that our economy needs to take, but the government should never subsidize private companies, especially for the purpose of eliminating American jobs.

Previously, I wrote that I found “it ironic that the same people who criticized President Bush for every little thing that he did–whether it was right, wrong, or unimportant have now resorted to questioning the Patriotism of people like me for simply disagreeing with President Obama.” You conservatives probably loved that comment.  But when did this start?  Anyone who criticized the previous administration was criticized as unpatriotic, un-American, or was accused of being soft of terrorists.  The medicine doesnt taste so great when you have to take it.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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To all liberals (and especially those who are members of the Democratic Party),

Your policies idealistic and utopian.  You push your utopian views on the rest of us. They are proposed with no consideration of reality, practicality, present or future costs. Just because it sounds good doesn’t make it so. Every penny that our country borrows has to be paid back, either through taxation or inflation. There is no way around it. Yet, you continue to push for policies which will expand our national debt.

It is completely laughable that the Democratic Party Platform—the platform under which our current President was elected contains the following quote: “We will maintain fiscal responsibility, so that we do not mortgage our children’s future on a mountain of debt.”

Anyone who disagrees with your policies is slandered as “barbaric,” “unfeeling,” or is told that they “dont care about the poor.”  Your policies of statism are barbaric.  Your policies of welfare are hurting the poor.

Your policies are schizophrenic. You offer farmers price supports and subsidies to “help out poor farmers,” yet these measures increase the costs of food which end up hurting the poor non-farmers. The same is true in tobacco: you subsidize tobacco farmers, yet push for increases in tobacco taxes. You bailout auto companies to help them survive, then you set high emission standards on their cars and fund mass transit which reduces the need for automakers.

You want to tie us all together into you definition of society: a society where were all forced to care for each other and where we are all forced to help each other.  The want to sacrifice all individual rights for the collective rights of society.  It is not wrong to care for people, it is not wrong to help people, but it is wrong for the government to force people to do so.  I dont want to be tied to anyone.  If i choose to help people, let that be my choice.  Why should I be forced to pay for the health care of others?  Why should I have to pay for their mortgages?  Why should I be forced to pay for anyone to do anything?

You conveniently ignore data and facts. For example, I have showed that no matter how high or low income taxes have been, the government still collects 19.5% of GDP and that when income taxes on the rich are lower the rich pay a higher percentage of taxes collected. Yet, for some reason which cannot be explained, you want to punish the rich and make them pay for the needs of the poor and you want to do this by raising taxes on them. No amount of graphs, facts, or charts can change your minds.

You base your decisions on feelings, ideas, and emotions, rather than logic, rationality, and facts.

You claim to seek equality for all people, yet you somehow think that this can be accomplished by treating people unequally. For example, no matter how well intentioned, affirmative action is unconstitutional as it gives preference to one group over another.

You openly disregard vast sections of the Constitution of the United States of America.  You ignore the 2nd Amendment and push for heavy restrictions on firearms, failing to realize that if these measures pass, only the law abiding citizens will give up their guns. The criminals never will.

You ignore the 9th and 10th Amendments and push for greater Federal control over the States and the People.  And yet, you demand that the government recognize the right to privacy [a right that is not explicitly mentioned in the constitution, although it is definitely a right of the people] for the purposes of allowing abortion.

You cant have it both ways, either follow the Constitution, or dont. Instead, you follow it and refer to it when it is convenient and ignore it the rest of the time.

Implementing the national health care system that you are pushing would be such a quagmire.  It will be unnecessarily expensive, it will involve the expropriation of American businesses by the government, and it will be inefficient.  It will also stifle future research.  Government does not innovate.  Private industries innovate.  The only reason that we can even talk about having a nationalized health care system is because of the innovations and improvements made by private companies in the past 100 years.  Furthermore, it is wrong to make people pay for the bad decisions of others.  What can be the rationale of forcing a person, say a Mormon who doesnt drink, smoke, over eat, or do drugs to pay for the health care of a person who drinks, smokes, and overeats?  Should the person who has a healthier lifestyle be rewarded by having to pay less for health care?  Shouldnt the person who has an unhealthy lifestyle be punished with worse health and higher health costs?

How can you possibly oppose free trade?  Free trade is the natural extension of trade.  By trade I mean the buying and selling of goods and services.  By natural extension, I mean that on the lowest level, trade exists between individuals and that free trade only means extending this practice to allow individuals and businesses from other nations to engage in this practice with individuals and businesses from our nation.  Free trade benefits all.  It allows the best quality good at the lowest cost to be sold on the open market to any person who is willing to pay for it.

You want the government to solve all of your problems.  Your policies expand the government run safety net and take away incentives to take risks. It is not the job of the government to provide the public with housing, health care, and welfare. Who is to pay for these things?

I support stem cell research too, but quite a lot of people in this country have serious moral issues with it.  I dont understand how one party can be so insensitive as to use taxation to force people to pay for a practice that they liken to murder.  Let private labs do their own stem cell research.  We have the greatest scientists in the world.  Lets set them free to do research, rather than placing them under government supervision.

You arent liberals either.  You have expropriated the term liberal and used it for yourself.  The term liberal was not used to describe people like you, in fact, it was used to describe people like me.  A liberal was known as someone who supported individual rights, civil liberties, property rights, free trade, free markets, and a gold currency standard. With the exception of some civil liberties, the Democratic party and most “liberals” disavow all of the above.

The term progressive is a far less accurate term than the term liberal. For the vast span of human history, the people were at the will of the government. The government provided the people with all of their needs, or chose to withhold the needs of the people, as it wished. It was only when classical liberal ideas like those listed above entered into the minds of the governments were people truly free to pursue their own interests. This freedom led to the progress that has been achieved in the past 250 years.

The United States of America was the first truly free society in the history of mankind. Our society stressed individual and property rights and in a relatively short span of time became an advanced nation. It is no accident that human history stagnated for so long when governments were in control of the people. It is no accident that it was 1,000 years after the fall of Rome—well into the Renaissance Age (a relatively free society) before standards of living rose to what they had under the Roman Empire.

The technological progress that we have seen in the last two plus centuries is wholly due to the fact that people have been relatively free to pursue their own interests in this period without government intervention, regulation, control, and most importantly without the government being responsible for the health and well being of its citizenry.

And yet, so called progressives continue to push for the very ideas, programs, and controls that are incompatible with continued progress.

You Democrats are proud to be a part of “The Party of Thomas Jefferson.”  If Thomas Jefferson were alive today, he would spit in your face and denounce you in the strongest terms possible.  Thomas Jefferson was a man who absolutely hated the idea of a strong central government.  He is the man who said “I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That “all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.” To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.”

Six time Socialist Party candidate Norman Thomas said: “The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of “liberalism,” they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened. I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform.”

Prophetic words.

[if you are a liberal, dont think im picking on you and leaving conservatives alone–tomorrow ill be writing about conservatives and Republicans]

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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I got quite a lot of comments on last weeks article on income taxes.  It may have even gotten me banned from Facebook.  I stand by my views, including the view that income taxes (especially when used for redistributive social programs) represent a form of slavery.

I am going to try and answer the questions posed by my readers below, with the exception of Young Conservative’s question on the definitions of morality.  This will have to be saved for a separate article.

Yes, Kristen, I was tossed off of Facebook.  I hope to be back soon.  In the meantime, dont forget to click the “share” button to help me out.

Jeffrey Bowman asked if I would favor a consumption tax like the FairTax.  Yes, I would.  I believe that taxation is a necessary evil, but that it is necessary.  As I said in my article, I am not an anarchist.  I believe that a limited government is necessary to protect the rights of its citizens.  In order to fund the government, taxes of some form must be levied.

I prefer the FairTax because it essentially makes taxation voluntary.  Under the FairTax, every family in the country would be sent a check at the start of every month for the amount of money that their family would spend on taxes if they lived at the poverty line.  Additionally, used goods (ie, used cars and used clothing) would not be taxed.  Every individual would essentially pay the taxes that they wanted.

Wealthy individuals would be encouraged to save and invest, as savings and investment would no longer be subjected to taxation.

Under this system, even illegal forms of business could benefit the economy, as drug dealers and other criminals would be able to put their money into bank accounts, rather than under their mattresses.

Businesses would no longer have to match contributions to social security and medicare.  These programs would be funded through consumer spending.

In fact, the abolition of corporate income taxes could lead to foreign companies relocating to America.

American workers industry would benefit as well.  Because the employers would no longer have to match employee contributions, and because they would no longer have to pay corporate income taxes, American made goods could be sold to foreign consumers at a cheaper–and more competitive price.

Several years ago I read an amazing book on the FairTax called .  Check it out.  It breaks down the FairTax and tells of its effects on every group in society, as well as the effects on many different types of industries.  It answers questions and concerns on the tax that you may have.

Hawk–I wrote about property taxes here.  If that doesnt answer your questions, lemme know.  Yes, a tax on consumption would decrease consumption.  However, the increased income due to larger paychecks and the monthly “prebate” could offset this drop in consumption.  Additionally, greater profit margins for businesses inevitably leads to entry of new firms into business, which in turn leads to lower prices, thereby giving another incentive to consume.

However, maybe consumption should drop.  After all, the typical American family is deeply in debt.  Furthermore, many of the consumer goods that Americans buy with debt are purchased from foreign nations, leading to an increase in our negative trade balance (trade deficit).  I dont think it would be the worst thing in the world if consumption did drop, however, I still think that it would not do so due to the facts that I mentioned above.

The argument that CPA’s would lose their jobs doesnt bother me.  So what?  Let them use their financial skills to find work in other areas.  We shouldnt have to live with an unjust and complicated tax system just to keep CPA’s employed–at the expense of the rest of society.  Just as we shouldnt forgo sentencing reform to keep prison guards employed.  In fact foregoing either tax reform or sentencing reform will keep many people employed, but it does so while keeping others in chains.

I had another thought on the nature of income taxes in this nation.  A [so called] progressive income tax is a violation of the 14th Amendment to our Constitution.  Section 1 of this Amendment states that the government may not “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”  This doesnt just apply to giving preferential or discriminatory treatment to people of different races or religions.  The Amendment prevents denying equal protection of the laws to all people.  This includes the rich as well as the poor.

Hawk, you are right that a debate is needed on taxes at this point.  This is exactly why FairTax supporters are proposing a Constitutional Amendment to repeal the 16th Amendment and allow for a tax on consumption.  The Constitutional Amendment process is a long and cumbersome one which would force this proposed change to be debated in the halls of Congress, the halls of State Legislatures, and most importantly among the citizenry itself.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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Facebook deleted my account.

I dont exactly know why.  Maybe because I use a false last name, but I dont think that can be it.  I have friends with names that are way more obviously false than mine; for example, I have a friend named “Political Housewife.”  Im pretty sure that is not her real name.  Maybe its because I had made hundreds of new friends recently and posted a lot of political stuff on my page.  However, I dont think that can be true.  I have several friends with over 4,000 friends who post political stuff nonstop.

Maybe its because in my last post I compared income taxes to slavery and someone was offended by that.

I dont know whats going on here.

The fan page for this site that I created on facebook is gone too.  It had over 175 fans, but there is no record of it ever existing.

I feel like this can only be political.  I dont really use Facebook for much else.  Plus, the government recently deleted some data that I linked to and removed all records of it.  Im not saying that theres a connection here or that something is up, because I think that almost seems to crazy to be true–after all, this is America.  But still, I cant help but feel that something strange is going on here.

Im going to need yalls help.  Facebook was the main way that I promoted my site.  Without Facebook, I am most likely going to lose a lot of regular readers.  On the bottom of every post, there is a link to “share on Facebook.”  If you read this site and are a Facebook user, please share my posts on Facebook, at least until I can [hopefully] get my account reinstated.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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I am not against all forms of taxation.  I am not an anarchist.  I understand that a government must exist to protect the rights of its citizens.  I understand that we need a military, a police force, and a well funded and objective court system.  It is not the taxation in and of itself that bothers me; it is the mode of taxation.  Even if you believe that the government should be in the business of building highways and providing social programs, a tax on income is immoral and is the wrong way for the government to collect funds.  A broad based consumption tax would be less intrusive than an income tax and would be able to provide the government with all necessary funds.  A tax on consumption is less intrusive than an income tax, does not discourage production, and does not reduce the laborers of this nation to involuntary servants–as does a tax on income.

For years, income taxes have been accepted by most people as a necessary evil.  Recently, however, a growing number of us have realized that while they are an evil, they are not necessary.

Many people do not realize that the income tax in this country is less than 100 years old.  Thats right.  The 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913, meaning that we had survived as a Nation for 137 years without an income tax.

A tax is an inducement to change behavior.  If you want to decrease smoking, you levy a tax on cigarettes.  If you want to discourage consumption of fatty foods, you levy a tax on those food items, as the city of New York is doing.  If you want to discourage speeding, you levy a tax on speeding (through a speed limit and fines).  If you want to discourage driving, you levy a tax on gasoline. If you want to discourage pollution, you levy a tax on carbon emissions, as President Obama has proposed.

And yet, the same people who openly admit that the above facts are true fail to admit that a tax on income can discourage wealth accumulation.  Taxes on income create disincentives to save, disincentives to invest, and disincentives to engage is risky entrepreneurial activities including starting new businesses or investing in new technologies or potential inventions.

But, besides economic issues, there are moral issues that need to be considered.

This blog is my property.  I use my mind to think about what to write and I write using my own hands.  I have advertisements on this blog that pay me money in exchange for referring my readers to their services.  Any money that I make from these advertisements is a direct result of me using my mind to write.  The government forces me to pay income tax on these advertisements, effectively taxing the products of my mind.  Even worse, the government uses the money that it expropriates from my mind to “serve the common good.”  They use it to fund social programs for others, without my consent or approval.

The same is of course true for any job.  Anyone who works is forced to pay income taxes.  The fact that everyone is forced to do pay them does not make it any less wrong.  Anyone who refuses to pay their income taxes risks being thrown in jail, hence the above usage of the word “force.”

On top of this, the government takes these taxes levied on the labor of men and uses them to fund social programs.  These programs provide money, health care, or other services to selected groups of people.

Think about this.  The government taxes your labor through force and gives it to others for their benefit.  In other words, you are being forced to work for benefit of others.  A person who serves others against their will is called a slave.  By using forced labor to fund social programs, the government has turned all workers into slaves.

The 13th Amendment bans both slavery and involuntary servitude.  Any tax which has the result of forcing one to work for the benefit of others is a blatant violation of the 13th Amendment.

In the Soviet Union, workers were forced to labor in order to build roads, highways, other public works, and provide for the welfare of their fellow citizens.  Here in the United States, the fruits of the labor of hard working Americans is expropriated in order to build roads, highways, other public works, and provide for the welfare of our fellow citizens.

The Soviets were threatened with being sent to Siberian prisons if they refused to obey.  Here in America, we are threatened with prison if we refuse to obey.  The end result is the same:  obey or lose your freedom.

No matter how much you feel that we “need” these social programs, you cannot deny the fact that the government is using forced labor (taxes taken by force and derived from the labor of men) to fund these programs.  As I said above, this is a blatant violation of the 13th Amendment.

Besides embodying a form of forced labor, our tax system is intrusive and does not respect the privacy of Americans.  The Supreme Court cited the right to privacy when it declared abortion to be legal.  Intrusive income taxes are a violation of privacy rights in the most basic form of the right.

The government expropriation of private citizens income for the purpose of protection is no more moral than the mafia doing the same to businesses in its sphere of control.  The only difference between the two scenarios is that the governments’ actions carry the force of law, while the mafia’s actions are outside the law.  However, the fact that there is a law behind an action does not make the action moral.  There were laws supporting discrimination against Jews in Nuremberg and against African-Americans in the American South, yet the force of law behind an action does not make it correct.  In the above example, both the government and the mafia collect the money through extortion.  They will both cause you harm if you refuse to pay, and they both justify their monetary expropriations on the grounds of protection.

And the sad thing about the above example is that if you were to pay both the government and the mafia for protection and you needed a favor, there could be little doubt that the mafia would be the one who would deliver the favor.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

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