thinking out loud . . .

Charles,

I wasn’t certain if this was the question that you would like me to answer:

“how do you propose to return the United States to its virgin, pre-corrupted, state? That is, if we could even agree on what that state would entail to begin with”

If it is, here’s my answer (please feel free to post it to your blog):

Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution itemizes all of the powers that are authorized to the U.S. Congress. To reinforce this understanding of the Constitution, the Founders included the 10th Amendment, which reserves to the States respectively, or to the people, all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States. All appropriations of funds that may be spent by the federal government must be approved by the U.S. Congress. Only those items that are specified by Article I, Section 8 may receive funds. The Constitution can be amended to authorize the U.S. Congress to have additional powers and to appropriate funds for other items. Just because the Constitution has been violated in the past is no reason to permit these violations to continue or to permit new violations.

With that basic understanding of the limits on the powers, size, and scope of the federal government as authorized by the U.S. Constitution, the two questions to answer are: 1) What should the source of revenue be to fund those authorized items? 2) How do we eliminate all of the items, including Social Security and Medicare, that are not authorized?

Prior to 1913 (except for a brief period during the Civil War), duties, imposts, and excises (as authorized by the Constitution) were the only taxes collected to fund all of the federal government’s authorized items. With a federal government that is limited to the powers as authorized by the Constitution, those types of taxes would provide sufficient revenue today.

There are many references which explain why the 16th Amendment exists (including to provide revenue to pay interest to the private Federal Reserve banks which were given control of the creation of our money in 1913) and why the word, “income,” does not include earnings received by individuals in exchange for their labor. Regardless of any arguments against the income tax (including the moral argument of self-ownership, which means that an individual does not owe anyone, including the government, anything just because he/she lives in the U.S. and produces goods or services in exchange for money), a federal government that’s limited to doing no more than the Constitution authorizes can operate on revenue from duties, imposts, and excises.

As for Social Security and Medicare, those who have been forced to pay part of their earnings for them should be reimbursed for the amounts plus interest (based on the annual rates of inflation) that was stolen from them. To do that will require higher duties, imposts, and excises to be levied until the federal government has satisfied those obligations. Those programs should be abolished and no one should be forced to pay another cent of their earnings into them.

I’m not a libertarian purist or anarchist who thinks that it’s likely that no government or government that’s funded entirely by fees or other voluntary contributions can exist in the near future. I acknowledge that there are too many people in the world who are thieves and thugs that cause harm to others or others’ property. Those criminals make a common national defense and local/state police, courts, and jails necessary. I’m also not a typical conservative who is willing to tolerate the existence of all or most of the unconstitutional programs, departments, agencies, and laws that have been created in the past 75+ years.

Very truly yours,
Steve Gresh

Steve,

How do you accomplish that? How do you get enough people to go with you on everything that would need to change?

I mean, you’ve laid out a good, logical case for your position. But almost no one (statistically speaking) agrees with you. A majority of Congress doesn’t agree with you. The Courts dont’ agree with you. The vast majority of voters don’t agree with you.

Even you believe that this world is too dangerous to get by with a small, inexpensive defense.

My question remains:

How do you get the genie back in the bottle?

Helping the more liberal guy win by peeling votes and enthusiasm away from the more conservative guy sure isn’t going to do it.

Demanding that any candidate you support is going to have to be straight-down-the-line just like you isn’t going to do it.

Refusing ever to compromise isn’t going to do it (after all, the original Constitution and Bill of Rights were themselves a series of stunning compromises and vivid examples of logical and rhetorical artfulness).

How are you going to do this?

How do you get that genie back in the bottle?