STRAIGHT FROM LUDWIG VON MISES

FOR A WELL-REASONED and well-written treatise on the virtues of property ownership as the salve for what curses us as a people in constitutional crises, check out this essay...

AN AMERICAN DILEMMA

DOES THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NEED a drastic realignment of ideas and physical framework to deter another civil war and provide direction for the coming age?

Yes. That is the opinion outlined in the penetrating Ludwig Von Mises Institute essay "On the Impossibility of Limited Government" described in more stringent detail in the book, The Reassessing the Presidency:

At the outset of the American "experiment," writes Hans-Hermann Hoppe, the tax burden imposed on Americans was light, indeed almost negligible. Money consisted of fixed quantities of gold and silver. The definition of private property was clear and seemingly immutable, and the right to self-defense was regarded as sacrosanct. No standing army existed, and a firm commitment to free trade and a noninterventionist foreign policy appeared to be in place. Two hundred years later, matters have changed dramatically. What can possibly be done about this state of affairs? First, the American Constitution must be recognized for what it is—an error.

Read it all. It's not what you think.

THE CHARLATAN'S TENT

MY FAVORITE LINE from the charlatan's tent so far has tumbled out of the mouth from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. When confronted with the fact that Mister President has not done a single thing he promised during the campaign and is instead spending money as if there is no tomorrow while gutting the potential of people by raising taxes, Gibbs replied, “It’s not like you weren’t told. McCain’s campaign said we were going to be doing this right from the start.”

Methinks Gibbs won't last a year, perhaps not even six months. He's a giggling goofball.

TALE OF TWO CANDIDATES

AND JUST FOR KICKS, let's have a look at the respective tax plans of the two candidates. ABC news posted this comparison. In general:

If you make up to $18,725, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will give you a tax cut of $65, while Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., will give you a tax cut of $567.

If you’re in the second tax quintile, earning between $18,725 and about $37,000 a year, McCain will give you a $259 tax cut, Obama will give you a $892 tax cut.

If you’re in the third quintile, earning between about $37,000 and almost $66,000, McCain will give you a $608 tax cut, Obama will give you a $1,118 tax cut.

If you’re in the fourth quintile, making between almost $66,000 and about $110,000, McCain gives you a $1,487 tax cut, Obama will give you a $1,264 tax cut.

If you’re in the top quintile, making above $110,000, McCain will give you a tax cut of $12,144 while Obama will raise your taxes $4600 more.

Here’s where the starkest differences come in. If you’re in the top 1 percent of wage-earners, making $602,000 to around $2.8 million, McCain gives you a $109,214 tax cut on average, while Obama raises your taxes on average by $121,689.

If you’re in the top 0.1 percent, making $2.9 million a year or more, McCain gives you a $577,148 tax cut, Obama raises your taxes $699,872.

So if you’re voting based on the tax proposals a candidate is making — there you go. ABC promises more on this tomorrow morning on “Good Morning America.”

ED AND ELAINE BROWN

Posted: June 18, 2007 | 1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Doug Powers of WorldNetDaily

Every now and again, I hear people being interviewed who believe federal income taxes are constitutionally invalid, and, as a result, they refuse to pay them. My first thought is usually "have fun in prison," but recent statements and proposals from some of our politicians have led me to believe that this is a cause worth fighting for.

Enter Ed and Elaine Brown, New Hampshire residents who don't believe in paying income taxes. As a result, the Browns have been sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison and ordered to pay more than $200,000 after being convicted of tax evasion and are now holed up in their home, complete with solar and wind power. So far, Al Gore has offered no defense of the carbon offset to his mansions and heated pools.

Federal authorities now have their property surrounded, and the standoff could last indefinitely – ending much sooner if the Clintons are elected and put Janet Reno back in the Attorney General's office.

CBS News reports that federal authorities have "cut phone, power and Internet service at the fortified compound" of the couple.

The terms "fortified compound" and "tax evasion" usually seem to go hand-in-hand in stories such as these. "Fortified compound" is a term applied by the government for psychological reasons that is repeated by the media out of psychiatric reflex.

The government has trillions of dollars, tanks and armies of heavily armed individuals at their disposal. Our politicians have access to around the clock protection and bunkers that can withstand a direct nuclear strike. Not only that, but try running into any mainstream media building in New York or Los Angeles without being tackled by armed guards and tasered until your nose gives off a 75-watt glow.

But a married couple who lives in a six-bedroom colonial that might have an extra bolt on the door are the ones who the government and media says have a "fortified compound."

The government and media parrot terms such as "fortress-like home" to imply paranoia, which implies mental illness, which implies there's a good reason for the government to move in and save the "fortified compound" dwellers from themselves and the rest of us.

What's gone wrong?

Taxes weren't always such a treacherous undertaking. For a long time, this country was run on very limited funds. Up until the early 1800s, the government was run purely on internal sales taxes and revenue from a gigantic powdered wig closeout sale. Then, in 1817, the government got rid of internal taxes and functioned completely on tariffs on imported goods.

Can you imagine running the bloated monster of a federal government we have today solely on the 4 percent we'd get from taxes imposed on imports of running shoes and plastic novelty poop?

We were created with the ability to create. All this is evidenced in the brilliance of many of our finest moments, from medicine to art to science – but that all came to an end with the adoption of the 16th Amendment in 1913. The amendment gave Congress legal authority to tax income and resulted in a revenue law that taxed incomes of both individuals and corporations.

At that point, all the creative energy that would have gone into curing disease, designing grand buildings, creating art and music and exploring the farthest reaches of the universe now goes into trying to figure out a way to write off our lawnmower as a dependent or simply to hide out in a "fortified compound" in New Hampshire waiting for the tear gas to come flying through the window.

Here's what is really irksome about Ed and Elaine Brown's situation. They are legal American citizens surrounded by their own government. In the meantime, many members of Congress, along with President Bush, are pushing to legalize 12 million "undocumented workers" (the artist formerly known as "illegal aliens") while forgiving them any back taxes owed, along with any IRS fines.

Ed and Elaine Brown should renounce their citizenship, declare themselves "undocumented workers" and then push for the passage of an immigration "reform" bill. Their tax problem would be solved, and they'd be free. Maybe we should all do this.

Until American citizens are afforded at least the same rights and privileges that our politicians seek for illegal aliens, the government must free Ed and Elaine Brown!

Now if you don't mind, I have to run along and repair the screen door on my "fortified compound."