By Kary Love
Tax slavery is bad, tax slavery to pay for war on your town is worse
“I am Spartacus!” rings out from the surviving freedom fighting slaves of the battle with Rome at the close of the classic film “Spartacus,” starring Kirk Douglas, and based on the book by Howard Fast, as they all claim to be the ferocious freedom fighter to protect him from crucifixion by the greedy Roman Marcus Crassus.
Slaves rebelling despite being disarmed, uneducated, beaten, separated from their children, denied their religion, raped, and robbed by Masters is a constant of human history. No greater testament to the human spirit exists.
The fact that those thought to be completely deprived of rights, respect, dignity, and hope refuse to be beaten may be the greatest legacy humanity will leave on its extinction. It is the legacy of “inalienable rights,” human rights intrinsic to, and perhaps defining, what it means to be human.
Those benefitting from slavery are the most hated and despised of all humanity, as they should be. The “Massas” (like all lords, aristocrats, etc.) were thieves, stealing all the slaves produced, depriving them of liberty and property, without due process or consent on top of all the other depredations they committed.
A more despicable mode of living can hardly be imagined. Living off the sweat of another’s brow without recompense, imposed by violence or the threat of violence, surely destroyed the humanity of the “Massas” more than that of the so-called slaves. The dehumanizing impact on the morality of the slave owners, transforming many into grotesque monsters, created an ecology of violence and death dooming it from within.
Taxation without consent is a modern form of slavery, though denuded of some of its more odious characteristics. The US struggled through a “Cold War” with the USSR because such tax slavery (among other denials of human rights) existed there and were repulsive to the “inalienable rights” for which America stood. America developed an “arsenal of freedom” to “defend” America from potential invasion and imposition of such ideas.
Ironically, in order to pay the bill for the ever-metastasizing military deemed sufficient to defend America against that threat, taxation blossomed in America, while at the same time consent declined as representation declined and the power of special interests increased.
Many polls showed the peoples’ views diverged from the government’s actions. This gulf is especially wide when it came to wars of choice based on lies, wars of aggression apparently conducted without the consent of those invaded.
Perhaps the people suspected that what took place “over there” could be precedent for doing similar things at home. Perhaps the people were right to so suspect, given Mr. Trump’s recent declaration of war on American towns and cities.
The only thing more revolting than paying taxes for government to do things you consider immoral on top of illegal, is to pay taxes for your government to declare war on your town. Sending your tax dollars to Washington DC so they can be used to send troops and other armed agents into your town against the will of the people is paying for war against your town. Without your tax dollars your government could not pay the bill for war against you.
It is difficult to conceive of a more insulting form of governance than that which demands a people pay its taxes to its government to storm the peoples’ own towns. At least enemies that attack don’t expect the victims to pay for the attack. Russia or China DC tells us are planning to attack us but no one claims they expect US taxpayers to pay for it in advance.
We have all heard the innumerable slogans about taxation: “The power to tax is the power to destroy.” “Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.”
But there are none for taxes charged by a government to declare war on its own people. The Mafia extorts “protection money” but even the Mafia does not demand payment to pay for violence committed against those “protected.”
Clearly, the power to tax is the power to destroy. If you are a nonprofit that speaks against government abuse, that government can retaliate by taking away your tax free status. If you are for profit and resist government abuse, you can be audited, suffer tax increases, penalties and interest that put you out of business, the same on individual taxes.
Perhaps under the rule of law, such abuse is limited or unlikely. But when a government decides to sweep away the rule of law, abuse will increase. When a government is led by a person who has a stated policy of revenge or law fare against persons or groups that person regards as enemies, then law is a feeble shield against armies, marines, national guards and armed government agents who have immunity from law.
If taxes are the price we pay for civilization, one must ask, given the facts on the ground, what kind of civilization does it buy? A police state combined with massive incarceration in for-profit prisons and forever wars sounds like the opposite of a civilization. It sounds like the jungle, and the law of the jungle that results, is the antithesis of civilized law.
Taxes in the USA require the consent of the people to be legitimate. Such consent requires actual representation of the people in the Congress which alone has power to make law.
If representation does not exist, as it arguably does not in Congress today (frozen at 435 representatives in the House since 1929 and woefully gerrymandered) then taxation without representation is the actuality. A government which declares war on the people by definition does not represent the people, it is the enemy of the people. A government that kowtows to special interests and monied oligarchs and disregards the interests of the people may be “the best government money can buy,” but it is not representative of the people.
There are no such thing as federal funds. People generate value by their work and value is what money represents. When money is taxed from the people and sent to the government, that is the “funds.” The government uses the people’s money as “federal funds.” If the people refuse to send their money to the government, the illusion of “federal funds” disappears. The government could “borrow” money and call it “federal funds,” but in fact without tax dollars to pay back the borrowed money, few would lend to the government. So, all “federal funds” are the peoples’ money.
California sends about $80 billion more to the federal government than it receives in “federal funds.” California could retain that $80 billion and continue to function, even improve its functions to the tune of $80 billion. Instead the federal government picks “winner states” and “loser states” and sends California’s money to those the federal government favors, like those states who “invite federalized National Guard troops” or otherwise support federalp rograms “loser” states regard as unconstitutional, illegal or immoral. American law purports to require “equal protection of the law,” so all states are treated equally by the federal government without favor or discrimination. This is not the case currently.
The Constitution originally did not give the federal government the power to tax incomes because the Framers, having experienced unjust taxation by Geo III, concluded the power to tax would be used to destroy. Checks and balances were established to avoid destruction by taxation. The fact the federal government is using people’s tax dollars to conduct war against their towns is precisely what Geo III did.
The Income Tax Amendment was adopted in 1916. Since then the power to destroy has grown. The differential treatment of states by the central government by use of tax dollars has become increasingly used to punish or reward political opponents and allies. The recent threat to “go after non-profit status of private groups the government (of the day) does not approve” is also a serious problem—depriving people of the chance to vote with their money by giving it to groups fighting for a better tomorrow as they see it.
The villainous results of such choosing of “winners and losers rewarded or punished with tax dollars” ought to be clear. How long will the American people tolerate the use of their own money to conduct war against their towns? How long will the American people deserve the noble title of “American” won for them by their ancestors who rebelled against such odious taxation? Remember, you are Spartacus!
Kary Love, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Michigan attorney who has defended nuclear resisters and many others in court for decades.
