The power to tax is the power to destroy. -Daniel Webster
The government cannot love you, and any politics that
works on a different assumption is destined for no good. –Jonah
Goldberg
In Jesus’ Parable of the
Talents he tells the story of a master who is about to take off on a long trip.
The master sits down with three of his servants to delegate responsibilities.
He gives one servant $5,000, another $3,000, and the third gets $1,000: “each
according to his abilities.” Servants Number One and Two doubles their master’s
investment and, upon the master’s return, were made partners in his business.
Servant Number Three, having buried his master’s money in the ground, is
castigated for not at least having the wisdom to put the money into a savings
account. The master kicks him out and casts him off, but not before taking his
$1,000 and giving it to Servant Number One. (Matthew 25)
Yes,
Christ’s parable is about far more than money and speaks to eternal realities.
But stick with me here because this Parable can help cast some light on the
realities of a Socialistic (Power concentrated in the State) v a Free Market Economy
(Power dispersed): the latter being largely based on the presupposition of
private property and one of God’s Big Ten: Thou. Shalt. Not. Steal. This Commandment
applies to individuals and to
Governments.
It is a fact
of life that we each come into this world with differing gifts and opportunities
for investing those gifts for our “master.” Such things are in God’s hand’s
alone. It is a waste of breath and a demonstration of a severe lack of
gratitude for me to whine to God, begging Him for the gifts and opportunities
of another. What is in my hands, however, is what I will do with the
opportunities He gives me for investing my gifts for His sake.
Many people
today don’t like the Almighty’s arrangement. So if God won’t be manipulated by
our bellyaching about what we are “entitled to” then maybe the State will have
pity on us. But, however god-like the State seeks to become, it cannot relegate
or redistribute gifts, capacities, opportunities, character, or wisdom. What it
can do, however, is a reverse on the Parable of the Talents: it can, through a
confiscatory tax-system, take from the two faithful servants and give to the
servant who choose to bury his gifts in the ground. This is called “income
redistribution” for the sake of “income equality.”
You may call
this “fair” or even “compassionate.” I call it an infringement upon my stewardship before God, an injustice,
and thievery. The men and women who founded this nation would say the same. *
On the other
hand, if a politician wants the authority to arbitrarily define Fair Profits, Just
Wages, and Social Sensitivity, and to secure his political party’s base, this
is a most awesome model. Come on now: who doesn’t like to see the State as
Robin Hood stealing from the greedy rich and passing it out to the poor? “You
got my vote!” And if some unenlightened business owners speak out against such
foolishness, well then the State can punish or destroy their businesses with
taxes, fines, and increased regulations. Need the votes of more Servant Number
Threes? Increase taxes so as to increase social programs. Win. Win. Win.
Of course,
if you own a business in the Servant Number One category, you can collude with
the State (“Master”) to excuse you from paying the taxes Servant Number Two’s
business is most assuredly going to pay and, thereby, rid yourself of your
competition. And to get this spiffy deal all you have to do is donate huge sums
of money to the appropriate politicians and their political party. “Wow, Monte,
where do I sign up?” “It’s easy. Dial 1-538-442-8426. That’s 1-538-442-8426 or
just remember: 1-Leviathan.”
“But
Monte. What does this all have to
do with the poor?” Nothing. It has always been about the State’s insatiable
thirst for ever-increasing control and power, never about the poor or the
“disadvantaged.” When a politician starts waxing eloquent about the
compassionate and fair redistribution of wealth or increased taxation to
redress some aggrieved identity group (“social justice”), or of how
compassionate it is for the State to begin managing our medical insurance and relationships
with our doctors, what you are most always hearing is a Machiavellian
obfuscation that has nothing to do with the poor, with justice, or with compassion:
only power.
You still doubt
me? Then ask yourself this:
If the State’s
intent for taking from Servants One and Two and giving to Servant Number Three is
that there will be income equality (something no State has ever achieved in all
of history) but the results—over a period of seventy-five years here in the US—have
been an ever-increasing number of Servant Number Threes, don’t you think that
any sane person with even a double-digit IQ would see that redistribution is
not working? Wouldn’t people who truly cared for the poor want to ditch these
policies and try something else, anything else? Sure they would: if that was
their intention.
_____________________________
* I am not
suggesting that all taxes are evil. But when you see a State requiring more
from its citizens than God does from His (10%) you have to admit that there is
a distinct possibility that it is developing a Messianic Complex.
Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2014
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