mirror of
https://github.com/nhammer514/textfiles-politics.git
synced 2024-12-26 07:49:37 -05:00
115 lines
5.1 KiB
Plaintext
115 lines
5.1 KiB
Plaintext
The Moral Case _For_ Taking Federal Matching Funds
|
|
|
|
by Michael Emerling
|
|
|
|
As a "matter of principle", Libertarian Presidential candidates have
|
|
refused to seek federal matching campaign funds. Taxation is theft and
|
|
accepting tax funds makes us party to the crime. By taking the loot, by
|
|
welcoming stolen goods, the Libertarian Party betrays the
|
|
non-aggression principle. We surrender our morality, integrity and
|
|
principles.
|
|
|
|
So we've been told.
|
|
|
|
This position is not merely wrong. It is the exact opposite of the
|
|
truth.
|
|
|
|
As Frank Chodorov observed, "Taxation is robbery." Government is funded
|
|
by legalized looting. Government has no right to the proceeds of
|
|
plunder. Nor does it have the right to "assign" or "transfer" the booty
|
|
to others.
|
|
|
|
Who has the right to this loot? The rightful owners. The victims of the
|
|
tax crime: those who earned and owned it. The tax payers.
|
|
|
|
Let's look at Libertarian taxpayers. How many Libertarians are there in
|
|
America today? No one knows. Libertarians don't like being counted or
|
|
registered by the State.
|
|
|
|
Individuals who believe that they have a right to their life, liberty,
|
|
and property; Individuals who know that their life is their own and
|
|
intend to run it by their own judgement; Individuals who value
|
|
voluntary relations and oppose force and fraud; these individuals mind
|
|
their own business and live their lives as they see fit. Their privacy
|
|
is their protection, so they jealously guard it. They live by the code
|
|
of liberty. They are libertarians, whether they know it or not. But
|
|
their way of life makes them invisible, uncounted and forgotten.
|
|
|
|
A few Libertarians organized to reclaim their rights to life, liberty
|
|
and property. They did so as a matter of self-defense. They called
|
|
their organization the Libertarian Party.
|
|
|
|
Today there are 9000 dues paying National Libertarian Party members in
|
|
America. And perhaps another 6000 local Libertarian Party members.
|
|
There are over 50,000 voters registered as Libertarians, even though
|
|
many states do not allow us to register Libertarian.
|
|
|
|
For the sake of discussion, assume that there are only 10,000
|
|
Libertarians in America. Assume that the average Libertarian earns
|
|
$30,000 a year. (Probably a low figure, with all the professionals and
|
|
computer programmers in the Libertarian Party.) A person earning
|
|
$30,000 a year is paying a minimum of $3,000 a year in federal income
|
|
taxes. Using these deliberately low figures, we can see that
|
|
Libertarians are paying a minimum of $30,000,000 each year in income
|
|
taxes. That's $2,500,000 each month.
|
|
|
|
Libertarians have a right to recover this money. Or authorize another
|
|
to recover it.
|
|
|
|
In light of this, let's reframe the matching funds issue:
|
|
|
|
1. "Do taxpaying libertarians have the right to authorize the
|
|
Libertarian Presidential Candidate to use the matching funds process to
|
|
recover taxes taken from them?"
|
|
|
|
2. "Do they have the right to authorize their candidate to use the
|
|
recovered taxes to fight the looters?"
|
|
|
|
An example from history might highlight the issue. During the
|
|
Revolutionary War, Francis Marion ("the Swamp Fox") organized a
|
|
guerilla army in South Carolina. Marion staged midnight raids, hit and
|
|
run attacks and sabotage. This frustrated the British officers and tied
|
|
up troops that might have been used to defeat Washington or Lee.
|
|
|
|
Marion and his men ran out of ammunition. So they raided British
|
|
armories, taking all the weapons and ammunition they could carry. They
|
|
did return the bullets to the British ... one at a time.
|
|
|
|
These British weapons were paid for by past taxation and the source of
|
|
future taxation.
|
|
|
|
Did the Swamp Fox have the right to seize and use the weapons against
|
|
the British? Or should Francis Marion have left them in the hands of
|
|
the enemy?
|
|
|
|
***Libertarians not only have the right to recover their taxes through
|
|
matching funds, they have the moral obligation to do so.*** The taxes
|
|
we do not recover will fund the State... or be turned over to
|
|
Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates who will seek to make
|
|
Big Government bigger. Your taxes either fund the State or Statist
|
|
Campaigns. Every tax dollar we do not reclaim will be used to sustain
|
|
or expand the State. As State Power grows, individual liberty and
|
|
self-responsibility dies.
|
|
|
|
Can you afford to have the money you've earned used against you? You've
|
|
been disarmed and your own weapons have been turned against you. Take
|
|
them back.
|
|
|
|
After all, whose money is it? Yours.
|
|
|
|
Do you live off the State or does the State live off you? Are you a tax
|
|
producer or a tax consumer? Are you a tax victim or a tax beneficiary?
|
|
|
|
When you fill out your 1040, if you have a refund due from the IRS, do
|
|
you take back your money? Why? Because it's yours. It's not welfare.
|
|
It's recovering a part of what is rightfully yours.
|
|
|
|
Matching funds are tax refunds. By contributing to the Marrou
|
|
Libertarian Presidential Campaign, you are allowing us to recover money
|
|
looted from you through federal income taxes and use it to fight the
|
|
government for liberty.
|
|
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
This text appeared in a brochure distributed by the Marrou for President
|
|
campaign in November 1990.
|