The Morality of Liberty

In response to the claim that the United States has a moral obligation to do anything, I offer this scenario:

Suppose I were to encounter a homeless person on the street, suffering from a dire illness. It would be immoral for me to ignore that person's plight and leave them to die on the street. The moral thing to do would be for me to do what I could to provide that person with the medical care that they need in order to regain their good health. Now, suppose I don't have the money. Would it be moral for me, then, to put a gun to the head of the nearest passerby and demand from them their money? Even if I were to do some good with that money - provide medical care to the ill, homeless person - to obtain the money through theft by force is immoral. I would go so far as to say that to knowingly accept the money that was obtained through theft by force is also immoral. You see, it does not matter what ends I have when I steal the money; stealing is still wrong.

Now, suppose that ten people were to band together to steal that money. One hundred people? One thousand people? Three hundred million people? No matter how much of a consensus you have behind you, to steal is still immoral and wrong. If it is wrong for three hundred million people to take up arms and steal money from those who have rightfully earned it, is it any less wrong for those three hundred million people to elect 525 people to steal it for them?

Perhaps you might suggest that we have all agreed by tacit consent to give those 525 people our money to do with as they please. I would counter, however, that we have hired those 525 people to do a specific job, a list of tasks, and it is for those tasks that we have chosen to give them our money. If I were to hire a contractor to build a house for me, I would be obligated to pay for all services rendered under that contract. But suppose that contractor were to build a house twice as large as the one I contracted him to build? Would I then be obligated to pay him for the services performed, which I did not authorize him to perform? Would it be moral for him to take the payment from me by force?

Suppose the contractor were to claim that the contract that I signed was a living document whose meaning changes according to the whim of a board of nine legal experts appointed by the contractor himself. Would you stand for that if it were your contract, or would you expect that contract to be interpreted according to its original meaning and intent on the day that you signed it?

In the same way, we have enumerated by contract in the form of a Constitution those things which we have hired the federal government to perform. It is for those things that we are contractually obligated by tacit consent to pay. At least three-quarters of the signatories to the Constitution - the States - must request and agree to pay for any additional services by the federal government. The federal government does not have the authority to expand its purview by a simple majority vote among its own members, or even a simple majority vote among the people. Power at the federal level does not lie directly with the people, but with the sovereign States, and it is the States that must agree by super-majority in order to amend the contract. To suggest that "we won an election; therefore, we have the authority to do as we please and tax accordingly," is the same as suggesting that "we were awarded a contract; therefore, we have the authority to do as we please and charge accordingly."

There is a word for a government that exercises arbitrary power: a tyranny.

No Taxation Without Enumeration

"In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws: its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any." - Federalist Papers, No. 14, November 30, 1787

"Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution." - Federalist Papers, No. 39, January, 1788

According to James Madison, Founder and author of much of the original document that would go on to become the United States Constitution, our government is NOT a national government. We are, in fact, NOT one nation, under God, nor anyone or anything else. We are not, essentially, a republic, but rather a federation of republics with a republican federal governing authority.

The United States federal government does NOT have the plenipotentiary and extraordinary power of the fifty States combined - instead, to it have been enumerated through the Constitution ratified BY those States, very specific and limited powers. This government was never meant to have power to govern the individual's behavior, but rather, the power to govern interactions between States and between foreign powers and the States in their collectivity.

No matter what power the 16th Amendment may provide the federal government to tax the income of the individual without apportionment and without regard to an enumeration or census, the federal government simply DOES NOT HAVE THE POWER to appropriate funds from the treasury in order to finance ANY act, resolution, or order that exceeds the limits of its enumerated powers.

The federal government continues to raise taxes on business and individuals in order to fund rapidly expanding programs THAT IT HAS NO BUSINESS CONDUCTING. Federal entitlements (to include Medicare, Medicaid, and social security) as well as most discretionary spending in the realm of agriculture, labor, health and human services, housing and urban development, energy, and education are simply outside the realm of the federal powers enumerated by the Constitution, and are therefore unconstitutional. All of these powers - powers not delineated for the federal government - are specifically reserved for the States and the people by the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Therefore, because the federal government has no constitutional authority - and therefore no need - to appropriate funds for these programs, the federal government is needlessly taxing the American people.

According to the Congressional Budget Office's projection for FY 2010, the federal government will spend 1 trillion 463 billion dollars on Medicare, Medicaid, and social security alone. That's 1,463 million times a million dollars. On average, if the government simply did not levy these taxes, each American man, woman, and child would keep about $4,800 of their own money per year - and that's just the three biggest entitlement programs.

We can't cut all of these programs all at once. But for starters, we should stop withholding all taxes. The American people should see - all at once, every April 15th - just how much money Uncle Sam is pilfering, instead of receiving a refund check in the mail that makes them think they're receiving something instead of losing it. Maybe then, people will finally start to wonder just where all this money is going.