Government Ripoff #3778457

Tibor R. Machan

Yes, that number is a phony and simply suggests the high number of ripoffs perpetrated by the government upon the citizenry. In this case the ripoff consists of government failing to consider inflation when it taxes capital gains. So if in 1995 you bought stocks for $1000.00 and sold it in 2008 for $2000.00, you are still going to be taxed for a $1000.00 capital gains, never mind that the $2000.00 isn't worth what it was originally, inflation having eroded its worth.

But then why would extortionists ever give you a break? Once a system is unjust, dickering about bits and pieces of it is virtually pointless and makes little sense anyway. There is no way to deal justly with stolen goods.

And there is that other matter, one of the triumphs of the American revolution, that has gone south big time. It is the idea of "No taxation without representation." Arguably the revolution began because this idea was violated by the Brits. Never mind. Our current extortionists--for never forget that something like the income tax amounts to flat out extortion, a major source of revenue for organized criminals--borrow against the expected wealth of members of future generations, committing those people to pay back what the current regime borrowed. Yet, of course, those members haven't even been born yet, or are so young that they may not vote. So these folks are being taxed with no one representing their voice in the so called democratic process.

Of course, this policy of taxing the unrepresented is widespread. Airport and hotel taxes are typical cases in point--one is taxed in the locale of the airport or hotel but of course hasn't any voice there at all concerning the disposition of the "revenues" thus collected. Clearly this again violates the idea of no taxation without representation. Another triumph of the American revolution that's routinely betrayed.

But of course the policy of taxation is never a just one, be the taxpayer represented or not. For taxes are nothing but a phantom rent collected by the government for permitting the citizenry to live and work within the realm. That is how taxation made sense in feudal times, where it amounted to rent paid to the owner of the realm for the privilege of living and working there. In effect, everything was owned by the monarch and one who lived in the area had to pay for that privilege. Only the monarch had rights--sometimes dubbed "the divine rights of kings"--and he or she had the authority to issue permits to the subjects who lived within the realm.

It is just this arrangement that was supposed to have been overthrown by means of the American revolution. Sovereignty was supposed to have been taken from the monarch and assigned to individual citizens in accordance with their natural rights to their lives, liberty and property. But today there is little sign of this in America, the so called leader of the free world! So it isn't just that governments tax earnings at their nominal value though they have effectively been made worthless over time by inflation.

The very idea of taxation is a fraud, despite such noble designations of it as "the price we pay for civilization." Because taxation was kept in place after the regime change, from a feudal to a free society--unlike serfdom, for example, as well as in time slavery--today it is the major instrument of tyranny. All these bailouts that amount to committing members of future generations to pay for the widespread irresponsibility of present ones could not be perpetrated without this vicious instrument of coercion. Yet in the mainstream hardly any mention is made of just how inconsistent is the financial foundation of the policy of bailouts and just how predatory is the policy of taxation.

What is even worse is that throughout the academic community, where radical ideas are supposed to be proposed and considered, the notion that taxation is unjust, with or without representation, doesn't even get discussed. Instead