Wednesday, August 30, 2000

We must destroy our income tax code because it is wrong.

The Declaration of Independence mentions a few of our inalienable rights: “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” The first right mentioned is the individual’s right to his own life. The Declaration declared it; the Constitution used it as its underlying principle. This right is the most important. From this right, all others flow. It is this right that our income tax code violates.

A government must raise money to carry out its proper functions, but in so doing it must not violate rule number one — the individual has the right to his own life.
Rights are not to be voted away (those that think they can need to look up the definition of “inalienable.”) For example: two individuals enter a store and vote to take money from the store owner against his will. Although the owner objects, he is outvoted. He is robbed. The owner has a right to his property; this cannot be voted away, but it can wrongly be taken away by force. It is not acceptable to solve your problem by violating someone else’s rights.

Today’s politician does the same thing with just a little twist: the politician encourages individuals to vote for him and in exchange, the politician will do the robbing and share the booty with those that voted for him.

This twist describes many of our taxes: income, Social Security, Medicare. They are wrong because they violate rule number one. The fact that they were voted into law (and for the income tax, added to the Constitution) does not make them right.
Our current income tax code takes from the individual against his will (also known as stealing), stealing from the individual his life, his productivity.

On a personal level, we all face the daily challenge of raising money to provide for our own existence. We choose to observe or violate rule number one. In observance, some choose to earn money to trade for items such as food. In violation, some choose to steal from someone else to provide for their existence. Our government now chooses the latter. Why? It is not acceptable to solve your problem by violating someone else’s rights.

When our country was formed, the brilliant founders realized and put into writing that an individual has the right to his life. Even so, they chose to live with a contradiction — slavery. A system that is based upon the principle of the individual’s right to his life cannot survive for long while violating that very premise. Many decades passed and many lives were destroyed before that violation of rule number one was corrected.

Several decades after slavery was ended, our government created laws that again violated rule number one — income taxes, Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes. In effect, enslavement again. Instead of some individuals’ productivity being enslaved 100 percent, we now have the productivity of all individuals approaching 50 percent enslavement.

Detractors will claim that, “this is not slavery.” Bunk. Refine it down and you will find the essence of slavery to be, “the continual taking by force the productivity of an individual.”

Again, it is a contradiction for our system of government to be based upon the principle that the individual has the right to his own life, yet by force take up to 50 percent of the individual’s life and productivity.

The United States is the only country that put into writing that the individual has the right to his own life, and the only country to use that underlying principle to craft its Constitution. Other forms of government based upon socialism, communism, Nazism, fascism, etc., do not believe that the individual has the right to his life; instead, they believe the individual belongs to the government (a slave/master relationship).

Our government in the past has raised money by means that were consistent with rule number one and can do so again. Our government instead chooses enslavement. Why? Slavery was wrong before because it violated rule number one, slavery is wrong again for the same reason. Today, those that do not object to slavery are either ignorant or evil.

First, our tax system must be labeled for what it is — slavery. And second, it must be corrected. Who has the right to your life? Is slavery acceptable to you?

Jeff Czysz
Peachtree City

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