The Freedom Factory

“ In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” Thomas Jefferson

For those of us who love individual liberty, free-markets and limited government, we face each day, burdened, with more news of the march toward socialism and the destruction of the principles of constitutionalism. The principles, upon which this nation were founded, are being discarded for the failed elitist theories of socialism.

I believe, however, that the move, by the current administration, toward a centralized, messianic government, does not reflect the will of the majority of the American people nor does it reflect the intent of the Framers of the Constitution.

We must be reminded, then, by what authority government operates and what limits the Framers of the Constitution intended to impose on government? Russell Kirk explains, in his excellent book, “The American Cause,” writing,

“The constitutions of the American commonwealth are intended – and have successfully operated – to restrain political power: to prevent any person or clique or party from dominating permanently the government of the country. Sir Henry Maine, the nineteenth-century historian of law, remarked that the American Constitution is the great political achievement of modern times. The American constitutional system reconciles popular government with private and local rights. It has been called “filtered democracy” – that is, the reign of public opinion chastened and limited by enduring laws, political checks and balances, and representative institutions. It combines stability with popular sovereignty.

It is one of the great premises of American political theory that all just authority comes form the people, under God: not from a monarch or a governing class, but from the innumerable individuals who make up the public. The people delegate to government only so much power as they think is prudent for government to exercise; they reserve to themselves all the powers and rights that are not expressly granted to the federal or state or local governments. Government is the creation of the people, not their master. Thus the American political system, first of all, is a system of limited, delegated powers, entrusted to political officers and representatives and leaders for certain well-defined public purposes. Only through the recognition of this theory of popular sovereignty, and only through this explicit delegation of powers, the founders of the American Republic believed, could be the American nation keep clear of tyranny or anarchy. The theory and the system have succeeded: America never has endured a dictator or tolerated violent social disorder.

I firmly believe that Americans are not ready to abandon the Constitutional principles of limited government, nor are they ready to allow the federal government to continue to overstep those principles. We have achieved the greatest freedom of any people on earth and history has not provided another prospect for bettering mankind. What it has shown us is that government must be bound “…from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

Like you, I am upset at the egregious pace of government spending without restraint.  I am upset more and more people are using the force of government to take from the responsible, productive, and tax paying American people in order to re-distribute wealth.  Wealth, gained through honest, industrial, and capitalistic work.  Wealth gained by free market exchange of materials, services, and ideas.  Wealth, the reward for sacrifice, hard work, planning, and thrifty living.

We learned at young age thriftiness means: working to pay one’s way and to help others, saving for unforeseen needs, and protecting and conserving natural resources.  Thriftiness is a virtue absolutely lost on large populations today.  The loss of virtue is evident in the reward for people who extended beyond their own means.  People who knowingly agreed to contract to repay for a dwelling they had no means to pay for are without virtue.  Virtue is gone as a growing populace continuously uses government to forcefully take from those of responsible means and give to those who have not earned it. Virtue is found in the entrepreneurs, the inventors, and the industrialists inside the very fabric that made America great.  The same virtue is found in every hard working American who puts in extra time, strives for extra hours or works multiple jobs in order to provide a better quality of life.  Abraham Lincoln:

Property is the fruit of labor…property is desirable…is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

As we work harder, more and more people feel entitled to the fruits of our hard work.  These people have organized and elected a federal government that sees fit to transfer 100% of the tax burden to the upper 49% of wage earners in this country.  If successful, please tell me how 51% of the population who is receiving some form of entitlement from the 49% of tax-paying Americans ever give that power up. Thomas Jefferson said it better:

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

or maybe even more telling, Thomas Jefferson:

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

When you only tax a certain portion of the populace, you have already set up class warfare because the people not paying taxes have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

And I have to include my favorite quote from Alexander Fraser Tytler:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been about 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: ‘>From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.

What we are presented with today is not just doom and gloom for free-market capitalists because the government is applying more regulations and taxes for the “common good” to promote the “general welfare.”  But rather, we are experiencing the largest transfer of power from the American people to the government in the history of this great nation. We, the worried liberty loving, free market capitalists who generate jobs and fortunes never before seen on this earth will soon be silenced.  Soon, we won’t have a vote because we will be in the eternal minority of achievers who make this country run.  We,  are the motive power behind economic superiority.  The take-over of our liberty and property is being cheered as popular change.  Change that promotes giving people an equivalent fish to eat today, while relying on hard working individuals to fish harder tomorrow in order to provide more fish to the same undeserving people.  You have the right to pursue happiness, i.e. go fishing, you do not have the right to be given a fish at the expense of someone else.

The system works because we’re too busy working harder in order to be taxed more in order to maintain a quality life we have earned.  They rely on us and our ingenuity to invent new wealth such that they can tax it and redistribute it.

Ludwig von Mises:

It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. The funds that a government spends for whatever purposes are levied by taxation. And taxes are paid because the taxpayers are afraid of offering resistance to the tax gatherers. They know that any disobedience or resistance is hopeless. As long as this is the state of affairs, the government is able to collect the money that it wants to spend. Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men… Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.

I understand if you are frustrated. I am frustrated too.  It seems as if we don’t have a voice to be taken seriously because we are called selfish for wanting to keep the property we have earned in our lives.  Never forget, we earned our property such that we have the personal choice to do with it as we please. That choice is called liberty.  When you exercise your choice, you have experienced freedom.    It’s not selfish, it’s your constitutional protected right to have the choice on how your property is distributed.

William Boetcker:

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men’s initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

Death and taxes a given?  We can’t die without at first living.  We can’t pay taxes without at first prospering.  I ask the government to get out of the way of the industrialists, the capitalists, and the hard workers such that we can prosper.  A government that strives to guarantee equality of outcomes is in direct violation with a constitution that guarantees equality in opportunity.

The government relies on our taxes every pay period, every month in order to provide entitlements to those who have not earned them.  They won’t pay attention until they know we are serious about fighting back.  If we want them to pay attention, we need to withhold, even for just a little while, the very thing they rely on us to provide.  Without the legalized looting of their plunder, our property, the government won’t be able to fund the programs that enable and promote the very anti-thriftiness ideals that are so popular today.

Raise your federal and state tax withholding to the maximum for 2009. When April 15, 2010 comes along, file the maximum extension.  Delay paying into a system that only wants to drain you as long as legally possible. Let this be the wake up call to all liberty loving Americans. Let this be our generation’s tea party.