Appenzell
Switzerland |
A Daily Compendium
of Free-Market Thinking
|
|
|
|
Guest Editorial
Choice and Rights
Thursday, January 28, 2010 – by
Dr. Tibor Machan
Dr. Tibor Machan
It's about who is to choose! Our rights identify the realm of our choices, where we and not others get to decide about how things go. When rights are violated, the violator deprives the rights holder of his or her proper, morally justified authority to chose.
So often both defenders and critics of private property rights get this wrong. They contend that property rights are mostly about who gets to have something. And while that's part of it, the more important matter is who gets to choose what happens to something.
If the politicians and bureaucrats extort 40% of my earnings I do not get to decided what happens to this. I might have squandered it, yes, just as that enemy of private property rights Karl Marx argued. But I could also have done something else, such as sent part of it to a charity, contributed it to some innovation, stashed it away so my kids might get it when they grow up, or sent it to a political candidate I support. But this is just what the confiscators of my resources prohibit me from doing. They want to destroy my proper authority to use my resources and use it themselves.
Check me out. In all cases of taxation what happens is that the taxed lose the opportunity to allocate the resources that belong to them and those who tax gain this opportunity without any consent from the taxed. But why should they? Democracy doesn't justify such confiscation, nor does being some monarch or bureaucrat or whatever, only our permission would. We are supposedly equal in having rights, including private property rights. No one else may, therefore, take what is mine or yours or anyone's and start deciding what happens to it however good intentioned that tax-taker might be, however noble are that tax-taker's goals. This is why it is so important to understand that private property rights are about our choices to do one thing, another, or yet another, not primarily about having wealth, about greed or such.
But that is just what the enemies of private property rights, starting with Marx, cannot stomach--our having the opportunity to use and dispose of our labor and its results. They want it! This despite all that talk about how labor belongs to the laborer. No, that is not what the taxers believe. They believe, and many of them have actually said this, that your time and labor and skills belong to society! And they, of course, must be the representatives of the people, of society.
But that is a ruse, just as when kings claimed that they are the representatives of society or God or History. No, these folks represent only themselves and when they tax you and me and the rest and deprive us of the choices our rights entail, they are extortionists, thieves, or robbers. But most of all they remove from us the opportunity to exercise free choice with what belongs to us.
Some have tried to refute these points by the fairy tale that all wealth belongs to society, the people, or even the government. Again, these are lies. Sure, our resources are acquired with a lot of support from and cooperation with others, including the lawmakers who enacted sound principles way before we were born. But that's all irrelevant. Artists, too, paint with colors that have existed way before they started to use them but these colors, once made into pictures, become theirs and no one else has the authority to intrude on what they do with it, not unless it involves the violation of another's rights somehow.
It is best that whenever politicians and their cheerleaders speak "for us" it is recognized that they are speaking only for themselves and all that talk of "we" or "the people" or "Americans" or "humanity" is meant to disguise this fact. It's time they are stopped in carrying out this gross deception. If not, they will continue to shut off our choices in life and imposing theirs on us all.
Post Feedback
We look forward to reading your feedback. All comments are automatically posted. However, please note that any posts containing harassment, vulgarity, personal attacks or those which are deemed to be of a violent nature are not welcomed and will either not appear or be removed.
View Feedback
Posted by Stephen M. Robinson on 1/28/2010 12:59:21 PM
Please keep these thought provoking essays coming.
Posted by Nick LoCascio on 1/28/2010 1:16:47 PM
Paying taxes and living in a country where restrictions are placed on an individual's real property is a privilege that one should be grateful for. The author wanders all over many topics without proposing a solution to a specic one. Basically what I got was taxes and big government are bad. I've tried several times to be dropped from yout mailing list, but the stuff just keeps coming. Please remove me from your mailing list.
Reply from the Daily Bell:
Sorry you are disappointed. But you are nearly alone!
We will do as you request.
Posted by John Galt on 1/28/2010 1:18:31 PM
Dr. Machan has hit the nail on the head. When you hear that this is being done for the good of someone else, but you have no choice in giving, that is robbery plain and simple. With half of America now on the dole of the government in some way or another, change that you can really believe in will be long away. Unless the people getting robbed stand up and fight back, there will be no ending the stealing of our childrens' future. The voice of reason is being lost to the voice of Marx. You catch wild pigs by giving free food, then take them off to slaughter. Americans have been dumbed down so much, they think they are entitled to the free food and will vote for it... Silly fools.
Posted by Leon on 1/28/2010 1:24:53 PM
Your posting is on target. For too long American People have been income taxed and taxed on every aspect of trade and/or commerce. It appears the purpose is to fulfill the ideals of someone in political office. It might be interesting to know if those Senators and Representatives could even explain what most of this Legislation contains? I smell many rats in D.C., and it seems to matter little as to the party of which they claim to be a member. The political game in Washington has become so false that it is impossible to seek help for anything other that a program contrived to take more rights, money or hope from citizens of the true Republic for which true citizens will always stand ready to give their all.
Posted by Lance E. Schultz on 1/28/2010 1:29:26 PM
There exists but one singular motive for the ancient extortation of property by the state from its sovereigns. To destroy or materially affect the same's indistinguishable duty to offer that charity which is light enough to his fellow man to commend him to rise up beyond his present circumstance; never heavy enough to enslave him to dependence. Such motives of despotic emnity can only be found at the fountainhead of dependency; save only the State. The Lord of Hosts never relinquished such duty or transferred its solemn responsibility for one sovereign to the whims of a collective tribe. Are we all not but stewards of what our Maker imparts? Is it not said much will be required as much has been given? Is He not the Maker and Creator of all things therein contained?
As for me I wholly reject any State's claim and I will not transfer my duty or obligation for charity to any State. For on that great day of white throne judgment there will be no State to stand before me and give my reckoning for my works.
Posted by F.A. Hoischen on 1/28/2010 1:51:00 PM
This is concise, clear and precise, getting directly to the heart of the problem. A truly brilliant article! It`s the old war between collectivists and individualists. Collectivists are those who have the power and want to live at the expense of all the others, no matter if there is no moral or philosophical justification at all for that.
Posted by JustSomeDude on 1/28/2010 3:15:13 PM
"...the loss of freedom with the consent of the enslaved,or even at their request, is nonetheless slavery."~Marion G. Romney
If we don't have the right to the control of the fruits of our own labors, what do we have? What would stop the government from doing anything to us at all? Nothing. Indeed, history proves that the fulfillment of Marx's ideas led a Soviet government to force procreation for the state, to kill whomever and whenever for whatever reason, to imprison for any reason, to torture, to relocate, to force a certain education... the list goes on.
Basically they did everything that people generally believe to be evil all in the name of the "greater good". Without individual rights we have nothing and the right to the control of the fruits of our own labor is among the most natural and fundamental of these rights.
Posted by Jiff Diez on 1/28/2010 4:46:54 PM
Yes, very thought provoking , indeed. I can tell this author is intelligent by the way his hand is poised against his chin. He should run for office.
Posted by Bill on 1/28/2010 5:07:29 PM
Excellent essay. My father always used the old saying about paying taxes and dieing. He did both. It's always hard to look at my paycheck and see how much of what I have worked for going to a bunch of morons in the government. I wish I could do less quality work for the hours they get.
Posted by Iddy on 1/28/2010 6:18:50 PM
This is an improtant point.
Many believe it is okay to not pay income tax.bMany say it is illegal or unconstitutional.
If I join a club. The club has a defined purpose, defined rules for participation. If I join the club, I bind myself to the rules or codes and also if the club requires payment of some kind to be included, I am bound when I join. This is excactly how the FED. works. It is voluntary. You may say you never volunteered.
True, but you did not unvolunteer you accepted benefits from the kings table and are required to be taxed voluntarily. You can research on your own about the dual membership due to the wording of the 14th ammendment.
Before that there was no FED. membership. There was membership in the Republics. Through stealthy word-smithing the FED. Citizenship was oerlaid onto the already exsisting citizens. We have the freedom to undo the FED citizenship throug a lawful procedure. This would entail the waiving of all FED. benefits. SSI medicare Military service. IT is very costly to do due to the fact that the SSI number is now a universal indentifier ( which was never supposed to happen).
Try getting anything without it. It is a real hassle. NO bank account drivers license anything. This is how they maintain control your name is on the books as a FED member. It was put there automaticaly when you were registered. This is the only non violent way to overthrow these guys.
If enough people say I do not want to be a member it can work. This will mean great hardship for many of us but IF we can all come together in that, we could stop the elite in their tracks.
Sure they could bring on the big guns but as it has been pointed out they really do ot want to come down like that. Everything we think we own is by permission, licenes, permits, all kinds of legal paper. This also is what is behind the idea of a corporate person. The FED owns your corporate person. They do not own you. It is the corporate person who pays the tax, you are the agent. It is pretty slick.
Yes, I know Lincoln put this idea to rest when he "saved the union. IN the process the union was overtaken by the coporation know as THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. These States of America united, are not the same thing. MR. OHbama is the CEO HE has every legal right to to whatever He thinks. He does not rule over us but our CORPORATE PERSON.
Some try to fight using UCC law but that is not the same thing. We are members of Republics. This is how we can throw off the overlords. So basically as long as you remain a FED. citizen you are bound by its rules. Tie all this together with fracional reserve banking and imaginary money and there you have it... Tyranny voluntarily. Use their paper abide by the rules.
Reply from the Daily Bell:
Wow.
Posted by Gregory Barros on 1/28/2010 6:48:28 PM
I recognize and acknowledge his freedom to regard the payment of taxes as his privilege. A truly free society would respect Mr. LoCascio's disposition even as it would respect my right not to share his disposition or his obligation.In such a society as I envisage Mr. LoCascio would be free to pay as much in taxes as he valued his privilege to do so just as I would be free to choose not to do so.
However, neither Mr. LoCascio nor anybody presuming to know what's best and to speak for him or me; through appointment, anointment or election; would be free to impose Mr. LoCascio's preference for his privilege on me for any reason, noble or ignoble, by authorizing the government to take my property.
The truly free society of respect for property rights and equality before the law that Mr. Machan describes would respect individuals' rights to choose as long as their choices infringed upon nobody else's right to do likewise.How utterly simple!
And that's what stymies, perplexes, irritates and, in opposition, animates those who would presume to wield the power through the government to manage our lives according to their own preferences.In a truly free society, nobody would have a right to anybody else's property except through voluntary contract and transaction absent of: defalcation, fraud, malfeasance, theft and abrogation of fundamental, natural rights.
Posted by Thomas Herren on 1/28/2010 7:01:31 PM
Mr. LoCascio's feedback is sheer ignorance and borderline comedic. I refer him (and everyone) to the U.S. Constitution and more specificly to The Bill of Rights. The government has usurped our "Inalienable Rights" (that means God-Given Mr. LoCascio) and ever so slowly, so that few have noticed, replaced them with what most others (like Mr. Locascio) interpret as "privileges".
Freedom Law School in California has a standing offer and will pay ANYONE $300,000.00 if they can provide the law that makes the average working man liable to pay income tax. READ THE CONSTITUTION, THE BILL OF RIGHTS, THE FEDERALIST PAPERS, THE CREATURE FROM JECKYL ISLAND, THE FEDERAL MAFIA, ETC.ETC.ETC. and learn the truth!
Posted by Shawn on 1/28/2010 10:05:44 PM
Dr. Machan again in clear terms that anyone can understand nails the perpetrators cold. In 1950 Americans worked for the government until March, than the income produced after that belong to the people that did the work, now not until july before you can keep the fruit of YOUR LABOUR.There is a social worker in the white house who has never run a business and is in control of the largest economy in the world with Keynesians as advisers. Without a doubt, taxes are going up and the quiet inflationary tax is on the way. Whether you like or not.
Posted by Rose on 1/28/2010 10:07:29 PM
I have not received any issues since the first. Have you send them to my inbox? If not please do. Thanks.
Reply from the Daily Bell:
You need to subscribe.
Posted by Shawn on 1/28/2010 10:21:50 PM
Reply to post from Nick LoCascioHere is a perfect example of a brainwashed victim of cultural Marxism. Making a statement like he finds it a privilege to have his rights stolen by intimidation is incredible. He might like to look at a move to China or North Korea, they would welcome a good comrade, he is missing the point completely and bitter because of it.
Posted by Patrick on 1/29/2010 12:23:35 AM
Thank you for sharing Dr. Tibor Machan. People once believed the IRS was to be abolished after the war tax of WWII. Reflected today one county is flush with upgrades and wonderful amenities. The Stone Crest Golf Course billboard says the golf course has been built with the taxes from the restaurant businesses in the city. i see the beautiful maxed out college campus with a satellite university system and think how wonderful. Taxes properly applied. Then i reflect on the county next door. Its accounting practices are a cesspool of shocking book balance.
The most embarrassing in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Sometimes a business is driven out because the taxes it paid went to a grant to set up a competitor business. A fair flat tax would be more desirable than being taxed on everything from breathing to the last drop of your blood to the grave. After income and investment taxes; people are taxed for almost anything they purchase. Is taxation any different than the taxation of the British Crown during colonial times before the advent of the American Revolution?
To what extent does the citizen or corporate structure have a say to how taxes are spent or how much tax is fair? i remember the throw back ghastly experience of being told my parents made too much money for me to qualify for financial aid at college.
i hadn't lived with my parents for two years let alone received any financial help since i was 16 years old. This is the unfairness of taxes. They take what is yours and give to others. The Marines arrived at our campus. They offered a $10,000.00 education scholarship. Deal because everyone else turned their back on me and others like myself.
I remember guarding the armory without ammo for my magazine and with a telephone wire that could be cut. Turned away from sick call; i vowed to return as an EMT and to serve my boys who were turned away from sick call. The world is unfair. Taxes are used by some unsavory characters to feather their own nest and to buy off others.
Our treasure is spent keeping up the world security; while other countries grow fat and prosperous. Brazil is doing better than America. China faces the horror of resource scarcities high population growth and the terror of the boom bust cycles of their new found capitalism. Less taxation is a vehicle for the free flow of financial prosperity. The money comes back to the people and to business.
Some taxes end up fattening the wallets of the high stakes casino playing bankers and hedge fund managers. Shady vultures prey upon weakened citizens and weakened businesses. it is peculiar to learn ones taxes were put up for a corporation in America; only to see it was a poker bluff.
The corporation cleans up on the tax payers money and skips out to place its manufacturing base and job offerings into another foreign competing country. Some of the very politicians we gave money to have a squad on guard ready to prevent us from even saying "Hello friend."
Some of us really do feel like MIchael Jackson's song;"They really don't care about us." Yep, even if we wanted to score a touch down for The Gipper; some hedonist coke snorting narcissistic brought off goon politician would be diverting taxes for their own special interest.
Maybe there is a method in the madness of micro and macro world. The fox is watching the hen house in some cases; while chicken little is saying to the chicken hawk;" we have got to keep taxes in check. Sky high taxation will Bulkanize the agriculture and industries of a nation."
Freedom of choice verses L'estate. The state could abuse its authority by taking what is yours and giving it to others who do not merit your contributions. Sometimes there is not a reciprocation; only a theft by deception. i look at one county suffering from a culture of corruption and see the prosperous county next door not suffering from irresponsible book keeping and graft.
The difference is like night and day. Hell and heaven. One happy county and a suffering one next door. Authorities abused the taxes. 3 Million for a $300,000 dollar swimming pool. Citizens ask for fair taxation but not tax abuse. Thou shalt not steal. I still believe in fair taxes, non abuse of the coal severance tax and a well governed Commonwealth protected from the the criminal element. It is disheartening to observe homeless Australians in their own country let alone homeless children everywhere in the world. My Grandmother born in Bavaria Grace Folkers told me of orphaned children fighting for a piece of bread in a ditch of water because of war. Happily her family made it to America. Taxes for good not hate please.
Posted by Bill Ross on 1/29/2010 12:41:57 PM
"Standing offer and will pay ANYONE $300,000.00 if they can provide the law..."
It's the law of your guns, pointed at you. Surely, this is common knowledge? It is irrelevant what the written words of law are if those with guns can ignore or interpret them any way they want and will, until there is significant push back and I mean purposeful actions (by choice), not words.
Justice Defined: We are all free to profit or suffer and learn (adapt to excellence) by facing the consequences of our OWN choices. Injustice is to be forced to suffer the consequences of choices of unaccountable (irresponsible) others.In the realm of property, this means you chose to be productive, with the consequence of creating YOUR property.
Those who do not produce are incapable of having any rational opinion regarding the affairs of the productive."The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class." - Lord Acton
Darwin also warned us: Survival EQUALS ability to adapt to environment EQUALS ability to choose correctly EQUALS freedom:
Click to View Link
Posted by Eddie Phillips on 1/29/2010 10:35:39 PM
Causes one to think of our future or lack their of.
Posted by John K Euers on 2/2/2010 7:17:08 AM
Great! But may I take it to a more basic level? I suggest that when we are taxed as in this model, we are in fact being subjected to structural violence. That is, that we are not allowed to apportion our resources, but this is done 'for us' by being taxed and those that tax being supported by the law-makers. Also, to show that they, the taxers, are doing it for the 'good of all' as being the democratic process, they are not allowing us to use our resources as we, the real owners of those resources, would wish. But then they apply the old 'well you can use your vote' formula to evade having to answer any awkward questions.
Post Feedback
We look forward to reading your feedback. All comments are automatically posted. However, please note that any posts containing harassment, vulgarity, personal attacks or those which are deemed to be of a violent nature are not welcomed and will either not appear or be removed.
|
News & Analysis
Guest Editorials
Subscribe to the
Daily Bell Newswire
|
Exclusive Interviews
|
|
© Copyright 2008 - 2010 Appenzeller Business Press AG (ARBP). All Rights Reserved. The Daily Bell is an informative compendium of independent economic views and analysis, which is published by ARBP. The information contained in the Daily Bell is for informational purposes only, is impersonal and not tailored to the investment needs of any particular person and should not be construed as financial or investment advice. ARBP does not accept any liability or responsibility for, nor does it verify the accurateness of the information being provided in the Daily Bell. Daily Bell articles and interviews may include the contributions of several Daily Bell editors and may require factual editing after their initial post. Readers of the Daily Bell or any affiliated or linked sources or sites must accept the responsibility for performing their own due diligence before acting on any of the information provided within the report regardless of the source. In addition to proprietary, internally generated content, the Daily Bell publishes guest editorials from a selection of free-market thinkers, which may have been reprinted elsewhere and are not necessarily representative of ARBP's editorial views. Copyright is attributed to the author of any guest editorials featured at the Daily Bell, unless noted otherwise. ARBP often uses images licensed from Getty Images on the Swiss Confidential website. To unsubscribe from the Daily Bell, click here.
|
|
|
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/images/sp_en_6_207x100.gif)