This letter to the editor to the Rocky on Aug. 5th brings up so many issues I hesitate to address it at all, but here goes....
Letter writer Steve Fickler writes that income tax is a kind of slavery (July 24). I am amazed.
In my lifetime, I have never felt the lash of the whip. I've never been beaten by a foreman. I lived with my parents without fear that I might be sold to someone else. I grew up free.
I have to agree with the letter writer here. Whips are SO out of style. When it comes to tax collection, guns are the standard of the age. If you care to argue the point, stop paying your taxes. When someone comes to collect, offer some resistance. See what happens next.
Or at least so I thought. I had always thought that slavery was forced servitude. I must thank Fickler for correcting my misunderstanding.
Last time I checked, Congress has the power to tax "for the common defense and general welfare of the United States . . ."
Everyone in this country should take some time to read the Constitution.
I'd say you should read it at least once a month. It's a short, well-written document. Knowing what it says might clear up some of the crackpot ideas that people have about the government.
Thomas Neville
Aurora
Many poeple, libertarians included, fall into the trap of equating moral rectitude with the rule of law. Just because the income tax is permitted by the constitution doesn't mean it isn't slavery. If the institution of slavery itself was protected by the constitution would our letter writer still rush to its defense?
Time now for a very brief primer on human rights. Volumes could, and have, been written on the subject, but to allow for our letter writer's attention span I'll keep it very short.
There is one basis to the concept of human rights, that each individual owns him or her self. A person who does not own him(her)self is a slave. It follows that the fruits of each individual's actions, income, belong to the individual. To say otherwise is to claim ownership over the individual. So when anyone, including a government, claims ownership of someone's income, they are claiming ownership of that person.
In the U.S. these days the tax burden is only about half of the average person's income. So we are about half free. I'm one of those glass-is-half-full types.
Posted by Walter at August 9, 2003 11:02 PM