Eliminate Non-Essential Government Now

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In Friday’s last hour, a federal government “shutdown” was averted by a last-minute deal struck by House Democrats and Republicans to approve a federal budget for the remainder of the fiscal year. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Republicans achieved $39 billion in spending cuts out of a federal budget that will run an approximately $1,600 billion deficit this year alone. The Democrats were able to prevent defunding of Planned Parenthood and minor curbs on the power of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). As a result of the compromise, the 800,000 “non-essential” government employees that would have been laid off will be back at work on Monday, providing their non-essential services without interruption.

Politicians and media pundits ranged from frightened to hysterical at the prospect of this so-called shutdown lasting even a day, as if some epic blight would have consumed the land, marked by cars turned over and burning, wells dried up, and livestock lying dead at the side of the road.

Of course, no reduction in government spending can be discussed without the usual round of Keynesian economic gibberish. So, we also had to hear about how the economy would be devastated due to those 800,000 lost jobs, resulting in the loss of their own spending and the elimination of all of the money those employees help the government spend into the economy. Among the burning cars and dead livestock we would find shanty towns full of former Wall Street billionaires, wiped out by the sudden and devastating drop in demand for their products.

While even less exaggerated claims about the harm that would be caused if the shutdown had occurred are meritless, there is a much more important question to be asked that virtually every media outlet has been silent on. This is not surprising. Like all other political and economic debate in America today, the discussion is completely focused on results. To ask the most important question, we have to shift the discussion from results to rights. On that basis, the distinction made here in terms of essential vs. non-essential services provides a unique opportunity.

The shutdown would not affect the military, any core law enforcement functions, or any other federal government activity deemed “defense of life and property.” This assumes that our present bombing of Libyans is “defense of life and property,” although whose lives or properties are being defended while Libyan lives and property are being destroyed is an inquiry for another day.

The shutdown would not affect entitlement spending, which together with military spending makes up almost three quarters of the present $3.7 trillion budget. Social Security checks would still go out, Medicare and Medicaid claims would still be paid, and HUD landlords would still get their rent checks.

While the most important questions of rights actually revolve around this “welfare-warfare state,” it is not at issue in the so-called shutdown. Only those services deemed by the government itself as “non-essential” would cease. That begs the question:

Can even a democratically-elected government force its citizens to pay for services that everyone acknowledges are not needed?

One must remember that every dollar that the government spends, whether it is bombing some far-off nation, paying medical claims, or investigating the mating rituals of the Namibian Tiger Beetle, has been collected from taxpayers under the threat of violence if they do not pay. If you doubt this, just ask Wesley Snipes. There is a process that you can go through to get approved to visit him where he currently resides. All manner of propaganda is employed to distract the victims of taxation from this basic reality. However, any government, whether elected by the people or autocratically maintained by a military dictator, is invested with the power to force people to pay taxes.

It is this reality that inspires the occasional clear-thinking individual to suggest that there be some limit to what individuals can be forced to pay for, regardless of how their government is constituted. In other words, one must define what government spending is necessary and what is not. Proponents of different political philosophies define “necessary” in terms of government activity in different ways.

For founding fathers in Thomas Jefferson’s camp, individuals could only be forced to pay for the protection of their own life and property, which translates to national defense for the federal government. Their opponents, led by Alexander Hamilton, argued that individuals can and should be taxed for other activities that contributed to “national greatness,” including the building of infrastructure, the maintenance of a large military establishment, and the protection and subsidization of government-connected corporations.

Modern liberals or progressives go a step further, saying that in addition to Hamilton’s program, the government has the legitimate authority to tax individuals for the purposes of providing needed benefits to others, such as retirement benefits, medical care, housing, food, and clothing. Some conservatives argue that this is merely legitimized theft, as the government here is not providing services equally accessible to the whole tax base, but rather transferring wealth from some individuals to others.

In any case, none of those debates were in play in regards to the recently-avoided shutdown. Assuming that the arguments made by both conservatives and liberals are valid, and that all of the above services are necessary for a peaceful and just society, neither conservatives nor liberals would give up anything in a government shutdown. The only services that would be interrupted would be those that both conservatives and liberals agree are non-essential, i.e., UNECESSARY services.

Under what theory of government can individuals be forced to pay for unnecessary government services? They are not needed for individual or national security. They are not needed to ensure “social justice.” By the government’s own admission, they are not needed at all. If individuals can be taxed to underwrite even these services, is there anything at all that they cannot be forced to pay for?

There is a further philosophical question to be answered here in terms of the huge federal deficits that these unneeded services contribute to, which have resulted over the years in a $14 trillion national debt. It is not only present taxpayers’ rights that are in question, but the rights of people who are not even born yet. Even if you believe that the United States government is one “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” do “the people” have the right to force future American citizens to pay for unnecessary services provided to taxpayers today? Won’t those future taxpayers be people? Don’t they have any rights at all?

Looking at the founders again, Thomas Jefferson argued that future generations could not be legitimately forced to pay for any services provided to present taxpayers, not even “essential” services like national defense. His opponent Hamilton made no such philosophical distinction. In fact, he argued that the national debt would be a national blessing, as it would tie the corporate creditors to the government. His only qualification was that the debt not be “excessive.” Hamilton, the original American conservative, believed as conservatives do today that the greatness of the empire (the collective) outweighed the rights of the individual, even those individuals not yet born and therefore unable to give their “consent” via participation in the election process. Who was right, Jefferson or Hamilton?

Sooner or later, anyone truly interested in liberty has to come to the grips with the fact that any taxation, even taxation to provide defense of life and property, violates that natural law that no one should be forced to do anything or deprived of his property to pay for anything, as long as he is not harming others. Once this natural boundary is crossed, the limit of what one person or group can force another to do or pay for must be set artificially by men. Certainly, the most liberal limit on what citizens can be forced to pay for by their government is what the government itself deems as necessary. If government spending cannot be limited even to its own expansive definition of “essential services,” then what right is left to anyone to keep any of their own money? Why not just turn it all over to the government to spend as the government sees fit?

Obviously, if you believe that individuals have any rights at all, you must call for an immediate and permanent government shutdown of all “non-essential services.” This should be the bare minimum limit on government spending even if the government wasn’t running a deficit that represents theft from future generations.

But what of results? Fortunately, the idea that there is a choice to be made between individual rights and the “needs of society” is just another myth propagated by those who wish to extort your money for their own ends. There is no compromise or “balance” needed between individual rights and the benefits of these non-essential government services, because there are no benefits. The quality of life for Americans would be immediately and dramatically improved if they were eliminated.

Primarily, the present roster of 2.1 million federal employees, even in terms of percentage of population, is orders of magnitude larger than the “swarms of officers to harass the people and eat out their substance” sent by King George in the 18^th century. Reducing this modern swarm of federal employees by roughly 40% would significantly reduce the amount of government meddling in Americans’ lives and overriding of their otherwise sound decisions about what to spend their money on, how to conduct their business, what to eat, what medical services to purchase, etc.

Assuming that this subset of federal government employees earns the overall average of approximately $100,000 in salary and benefits, this also would be an immediate reduction of $80 billion in government spending, twice the amount cut in the compromise between Republicans and Democrats to pass this year’s budget. That doesn’t count all of the spending associated with these people doing their jobs, which could be as much as $500 billion.

The somewhat popular services provided such as national parks would not cease to exist without the government providing them. In fact, there could be a two-fold benefit in eliminating these particular government services. First, the land and assets associated with them could be sold at public auction, enabling the government to make a huge payment on the existing national debt. Second, these services could be taken over by more competent private enterprises which would risk their own money to provide them. As they would be competing for customers with other amusements such as Disney World or Carribean cruises, they would provide these services with higher quality and at a lower overall cost than the government does. In addition, that cost would be paid voluntarily by those who actually use the services, rather than involuntarily by everyone.

Finally, there would be no loss of demand in the economy due to the wages of those 800,000 employees no longer being spent into the economy. Remember, those wages all represented demand that was forcefully taken away from taxpayers and paid out to those employees. Should those government jobs be eliminated, the money would merely be spent by its rightful owners on whatever they chose to spend it on, rather than spent by other people. Wealth created by productive activity is not increased when forcefully extorted from its rightful owners, and therefore does not decrease when returned to them.

In conclusion, Americans should not be apprehensive about the prospect of a “government shutdown” as defined in the recent budget crisis. They should demand it. Neither conservatives nor liberals would be compromising any of their values. Under even the most “extreme” interpretations of conservative or liberal philosophy, there is no legitimate authority for the government to tax individuals to pay for these services. Eliminating them would provide an immediate fiscal, economic, and social benefit to American society, and Americans would regain a tiny smattering of that liberty we all claim to cherish. New national elections are coming next year. Solving our biggest problems, like entitlement and military spending, will not be on the table. So, let’s set a more achievable goal and at least make this demand: No Non-Essential Government.

Welcome to Tom Mullen’s New Website

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Dear Liberty Lover,

I’m Tom Mullen, author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. I want to welcome you to my new website here at tommullen.net, which is dedicated to ideas that are conspicuously absent from our current political discourse: the natural law and our natural, inalienable rights.

Some people say that these ideas are outdated; that they don’t work in the complex, technological world that we live in today. I disagree. In fact, I argue that not only are natural rights and the natural law still relevant, but that they are the key to solving every one of our societal problems.

Today, all political and economic debate focuses on aggregate results, with each side arguing that their program will achieve better ones. These are collectivist arguments, which sacrifice individual rights for collective goals. I believe that before we can solve any of our problems, we must first shift the discussion from results to rights. Only then are we prepared to take just and equitable action.

So, this website sets out to rediscover the natural law, our inalienable rights, and the true meaning of liberty. On it, you’ll find all of my latest articles, television appearances, speaking engagements, and radio interviews. There are also links to other great writers and educational resources on the subject of natural law. I invite you to participate in this discussion and to encourage your family, friends and neighbors to do the same. Together, let’s go wherever these timeless ideas take us…and reclaim the freedom that we were born to enjoy. Thank you for your support.

Best regards,

Tom Mullen

Check out Tom Mullen’s book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!

Government Solutions Are Anti-Intellectual

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One of the first things that children are taught is that might does not make right. When a fight breaks out among children, their parents tell them that the person who threw the first punch was wrong. Not only was the aggressor wrong, but he was acting unintelligently. It is the one who has run out of ideas that resorts to the use of force. The bully is the dummy, while the child who seeks to resolve disputes through conversation and agreement is the intelligent one.

Most adults continue to recognize this fundamental law of nature, at least most of the time. An adult who resorts to initiating violence to solve disputes is recognized as childish and unintelligent – except when it comes to public policy.

Somehow, we have forgotten that all government action represents the use of force. This is obvious when the government is utilizing its military during wartime, but it is no less true when the government provides healthcare, education, or regulates business activity. Regardless of what problem the government is attempting to solve, it is applying the use of force in order to solve it.

When the government runs a health care program, those who must pay for it are forced to pay. When the government guarantees loans for education, taxpayers are forced to pay when those loans default. Even the most minor laws are backed up by the threat of force. If anyone doubts this, he should neglect to pay a traffic ticket and see what happens.

America was founded upon the principle that government action was only justified when one individual or group had committed aggression against another. As Thomas Jefferson put it,

“Our legislators are not sufficiently apprised of the rightful limits of their powers; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.”

How far we have drifted from this basic understanding of the natural law. Today, Americans not only look to government to address every aspect of life that they find displeasing, but they hold up those who advocate this use of brute force as the intellectuals and those who argue that most issues should be addressed through consensual agreement as unsophisticated or unintelligent. While Jefferson said that governments are instituted solely to secure our rights, we now have a government that violates them on a massive and systemic scale.

Instead of trying to understand elaborate theories on how government intervention into our lives is good for us, we should remember what we learned when we were five years old. Only dummies resort to the use of force.

Check out Tom Mullen’s book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!

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© Thomas Mullen 2011

Austrian Economics Is Scientific (Keynesianism Is Not)

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Ronpaul1 On February 9th, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas chaired his first meeting of the House Monetary Policy Subcommittee he now leads due to the Republican victories in last November’s congressional elections. Congressman Paul invited several expert witnesses to testify on monetary policy. Among these were Austrian economist Tom Dilorenzo.

Much has been made of Rep. Lacy Clay’s attack on Dilorenzo’s credibility due to Dilorenzo’s alleged association with a “politically incorrect” group called the League of the South. However, Clay also attacked the Austrian school of economics itself, calling the Austrian deductive method “a non-rigorous scientific method.” According to Clay this is because the Austrian theory is not based upon “an empirical method to study economics.” He further states the Austrian school does not recognize the Keynesian theoretical models or the aggregate data that those models rely upon to “prove” their theories scientifically.

As Robert Wenzel observed, Nobel Prize winner F.A. Hayek already addressed this criticism, arguing economists should indeed use the deductive method, rather than an empirical one, to understand economic principles. Wenzel even suggests Robert Rubin would likely agree with Hayek’s argument, because of what Rubin called “the very nature of reality–its complexity and ambiguity.”

It is somewhat futile to try to win this argument with entrenched government policy makers. The Keynesian school advocates massive government intervention into the economy to protect us from the supposed shortcomings of the free market. When crises in the economy occur, the Keynesians recommend even greater intervention in the form of increased government spending, regulation, and monetary expansion.

The Austrian school advocates no government intervention into the economy at all. They argue monumental crises are actually caused by intervention, so their cure is to cease whatever intervention has brought on the crisis, to relax regulations that impede adjustment in the labor market, and to allow the economy to rebalance itself through natural market forces.

Therefore, governments are not likely to reject Keynesianism, which grants them enormous power, and listen to the Austrians, who would strip it all away. One is reminded of the medieval governments which refused to acknowledge the world was round and called upon appointed court scientists to legitimize their assertion it was flat.

However, it is important for investors to understand which theory within the “dismal science” truly passes scientific muster. If you cannot dissuade the government from basing their policies on the wrong theory, you can at least choose the right one yourself to protect your own wealth and economic viability.

Anyone who has taken a basic chemistry class in high school remembers how you prove or disprove a theory. You conduct experiments to determine whether the predictions the theory makes are correct. For example, your theory might predict that mixing two colorless chemicals in a test tube will result in the mixture turning blue. To prove it, you must not only conduct the experiment once, but over and over again, each time yielding the same result. If your test tube turns blue under the same conditions every time, you have proven your theory. If not, your theory is considered invalid and a new one must be formulated.

Austrian economists like F.A. Hayek predicted the Great Depression when the Keynesians said that the economy was fine. Once the crisis hit, the Austrians argued that the Keynesian policies prescribed to cure it would fail, as they were merely repetition and expansion of the interventions that caused the crisis in the first place. When massive government spending and devaluation of the currency failed to pull America out of the Depression, the Keynesians argued more spending and inflation to underwrite WWII would finally do the trick. But the Depression lasted throughout the war and only subsided after massive post-war cuts in government spending, consistent with the predictions of the Austrians.

The Keynesian answer to this anomaly? Ignore the results and just state that Keynesian policies did cure the Depression, regardless of verifiable facts to the contrary. This is science?

The Keynesians were also explicit that high unemployment and price inflation could never coexist together. The Austrians made no such claims, as they recognized that monetary expansion causes both price inflation and the malinvestment that leads to unemployment. In the 1970’s, Austrian theory was again proven correct and Keynesian theory proven wrong.

Most recently, the Keynesians argued that the technology and housing bubbles were not bubbles at all, but sustainable increases in wealth caused by their wise stewardship of the economy. If you listened to them, you were either wiped out by the NASDAQ crash, left owning a house with an underwater mortgage, or both. If you listened to the Austrians, you got rid of your technology stocks early, during the formation of the bubble, and avoided buying houses whose prices had been bid to unsustainable levels by the combination of monetary expansion and government intervention.

Even after all of this proof is in, the Keynesians are still employing the only defense they have left that their theory is sound. Deny, deny, deny. With government and consumer debt threatening to cause cataclysmic economic collapse, the Keynesians are encouraging government and consumers to borrow and spend more. The Austrians advise consumers to pay down their debts and investors to avoid the next bubble. They urge investors to protect their wealth in gold and other commodities, as they have for the past decade. Those that have listened to them have turned huge profits during this historic economic calamity.

Imagine that you are back in your high school chemistry class lab, conducting experiments. In the row behind you, an Austrian economist is testing his theory. The test tube turns blue one time after another, just as he predicted it would. In the row ahead, a Keynesian economist is testing his theory. His test tube turns a different color every time and then finally explodes, lighting his beard on fire. Which one would you deem the better scientist? Which one would you bet your life savings upon in the next experiment? If you wish to take the scientific approach, listen to the Austrians.

Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

Release the Kraken

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Titans_Kraken I prefer the 1981 film version of Clash of the Titans for many reasons. Among them is its nuanced portrayal of Zeus’ decision to release the Kraken upon the city of Joppa. He clearly does this reluctantly due to the immense power and possible unforeseen consequences of letting loose this uncontrollable force. When Poseidon opens the undersea gate and watches the creature emerge, he is clearly awestruck by the size and destructive potential of the beast. One can imagine what question must have been preeminent on his mind. “How am I going to get this thing back into the cage?”

There is no better metaphor for the United States and its government since the turn of the 20th century. It was at that time that government was released from its chains – and it has been on a rampage ever since.
In his seminal book, The New Freedom, Woodrow Wilson wrote,

“We used to say that the ideal of government was for every man to be left alone and not interfered with, except when he interfered with somebody else; and that the best government was the government that did as little governing as possible. That was the idea that obtained in Jefferson’s time. But we are coming now to realize that life is so complicated that we are not dealing with the old conditions, and that the law has to step in and create new conditions under which we may live, the conditions which will make it tolerable for us to live.”

While Wilson’s unqualified dismissal of America’s founding principle of government might startle 21st century readers, the reasoning he employs to justify it is even more incredible. Just a few pages after declaring that Jefferson’s system is no longer viable, he goes on to say that the Americans of his time are actually living under Alexander Hamilton’s system. He is to a great extent correct on this. By 1912, the Republican Party, philosophical descendants of Hamilton’s Federalists, had indeed made great strides in establishing the Hamilton platform of corporate welfare, protectionism, and a large and adventurous military establishment.

However, this system was completely antithetical to Jefferson’s truly free market, whereby the government merely enforced contracts and protected individuals from aggression against their rights. Here, Wilson has made a colossal non sequitur – that Jefferson’s system should be scrapped because Hamilton’s system isn’t working. The confusion – between crony capitalism and truly free markets – persists to this day.

Thus, we have not only released the Kraken, but we have done so for completely illogical reasons. It has been rampaging over our lives, liberties, and properties now for over a century and shows no signs of tiring. It is time to either get it back in its cage or find a man on a flying horse to save us.

Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Part One and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

Orlando Sentinel Op Ed: Vitriol Has Been a Proud Tradition

But I Paid Into It…

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The left criticizes Tea Party activists who oppose President Obama’s “socialism” as hypocritical because they do not oppose Social Security for themselves. The most common rebuttal is something along the lines of Social Security being fundamentally different because the recipients pay into it. This is no different than arguing for a right to steal your younger neighbor’s car because an older neighbor stole yours.

Most people are aware Social Security has begun paying out more in benefits than it collects in payroll taxes. However, it had run surpluses for decades that most beneficiaries honestly believe is funding the shortfall until the demographic imbalance caused by the baby boom evens out. Since they “paid into it all of their lives,” supporters of Social Security distinguish it from Aid to Dependent Children or other wealth transfer programs. Inherent in this thinking is both factual inaccuracy and flawed logic.

First, even if those surpluses had gone into a “trust fund,” no one disputes Social Security has always been a predominantly “pay-as-you-go” program. The overwhelming majority of the money collected from payroll taxes went to fund benefits for current beneficiaries. Thus, payroll taxes were taken from one group of people and paid out to another, just like public welfare.

One might argue the surpluses generated previously mean at least part of the money being paid to current beneficiaries is their own money, held in trust for their retirement. This is also completely untrue. The surpluses have not been held in cash since 1939. Instead, when the program runs a surplus, the government is legally obligated to use the money to purchase U.S. Treasury bonds, which are securities documenting you have loaned the federal government money. So, by law, any surplus collected in payroll taxes for Social Security must be lent to the federal government, which immediately spends it on operating expenses. In return, Treasury Bonds are put into the trust fund.

For those who decry this 1939 change as a betrayal, remember the FDR administration had also taken the U.S. off the gold standard (domestically). Had the government continued to merely hold reserves in cash, those reserves would have been outstripped by inflation by the time the benefits were payable to most beneficiaries.

Most people think of the treasury bond arrangement as the government putting their money into a “secure investment” which will pay them interest with very little risk. This is absurd. Treasury bonds are not “an investment.” An investment is a loan or advance of capital made in the hopes of earning interest from a producer of goods or services. The fundamental question anyone asks before risking their money with a bond issued by a private business is “How are you going to pay me back?”

The private sector business answer would be, “By using the capital you have loaned us, we are going to expand our productive capacity. With the new products we will produce and sell, we will be able to pay back your investment with interest and still make a profit.” Thus, if you purchase a bond issued by a computer manufacturer (i.e. lend it money), then the computer manufacturer repays you with interest from sales of the new computers it produced using the money borrowed from you.

But the federal government doesn’t produce computers. The federal government doesn’t produce anything. How does it answer the question, “How will you pay me back?” There is only one possible answer: “We will tax people in the future to pay back your loan principle and interest.”

Thus, even the so-called “trust fund” does not represent a store of your own money, held in trust for your retirement. 100% of your money was spent the moment the government received it. Most went to underwrite current beneficiaries’ benefits. The rest was spent on other government boondoggles and replaced by promises to repay you by taxing other people. Not one dime of current benefits represents a “payback” of one’s own money. Social Security is every bit as “socialist” as Aid to Dependent Children, Medicaid, Medicare, or any other government transfer of wealth. Where do you think it got its name?

There is a bit of irony here that probably also escapes most Americans. While the federal government’s modus operandi for many years now has been to merely pay off the interest on its debt and issue new debt to cover the principal as bonds come due, let’s consider what would happen if they actually started repaying the principal on their bonds.

The longest term bond is a 30-year Treasury note, which means you loan the government the money for 30 years. Suppose that in 1970, you were a 34-year-old, dutifully paying your Social Security taxes. Most of your money went to pay current beneficiaries, but a small portion (your share of the surplus) went into 30-year Treasury notes. In 2010, you are one year from retirement and ask the government, “Where are you going to get the money to pay back the principal and interest on that 30-year Treasury bond?” As bizarre as the answer might seem, the answer would be, “Why, from you, of course.”

However, the most socialist aspect of Social Security is not that it represents a transfer of wealth. It is that the program is mandatory. The only way for the government to accomplish a transfer of wealth from one party to another is to force people to participate. This is why George W. Bush’s proposal to “privatize” Social Security would not have made it any less “socialist.” People would still have been forced to participate; only they would now have the option of handing their money over to W’s tax-subsidized buddies on Wall Street rather than to the federal government. Imagine if he had been successful in implementing this in 2004.

Free market capitalism and socialism truly are opposites, but the fundamental difference is one of rights, not economics. True free market capitalism recognizes every individual’s right to keep the product of his labor and dispose of it as he sees fit. Social Security denies this right. It should be responsibly phased out and replaced with nothing. That prospect should scare no one at this point. With a government $14 trillion in debt and planning to borrow more every year for the foreseeable future, I would trust the most irresponsible individual I know before the federal government – with his retirement money and mine.

A Modest Proposal for Interposition

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So, the Tea Party Congress is seated and the “revolution” is underway. After voting to repeal Obamacare, a largely symbolic gesture that has no hope of passing in the Senate or overturning a presidential veto, the new Congress has outlined its plan to attack the federal deficit. The result: A proposal to cut $100 billion in “non-defense discretionary spending.” While that may sound like a lot of money to someone who hasn’t taken a gander at the federal budget in about 50 years, it amounts to a little under seven percent of this year’s deficit.

That’s right. Seven percent of the deficit, not the budget. In other words, the tea parties, the stormy town hall meetings, the supposed “mandate from the people” to cut the size and scope of the federal government will result in the government spending $1,380 billion more than it collects in taxes this year instead of $1,480 billion more. Worse yet, the same people who “stormed the Bastille” and threw the former bums out will defend this proposal with half-hearted panaceas like “you have to start somewhere.”

However, if history has taught us anything, it is that this isn’t “just the beginning,” with more substantial cuts to follow. This will be the high water mark as far as reduction in government spending is concerned. We should expect that by the time that this proposal goes through the process of back room deals and compromises with special interest-motivated committee members, that the $100 billion number will be reduced by at least half, perhaps more. They may even end up increasing federal spending. Would anyone honestly be surprised?

It has been obvious for at least a century that “throwing the bums out” doesn’t make a lick of difference in the behavior of our elected officials. Now we know that staging protests, waving signs, raising a ruckus at town hall meetings, and then throwing the bums out doesn’t make a difference either. Clearly, it is time to stop doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

The nullification movement has been decried by the left as right wing extremism at its most dangerous, despite the fact that it was conceived and introduced by Thomas Jefferson, the father of the Democratic Party. However, I have a proposal that I believe both conservative and liberal Americans would find very reasonable. There is a way to use the idea of state interposition to force the Congress to at least listen to its constituents. Let’s put the idea of interposition together with another of Jefferson’s ideas, drafted by him in a resolution of the Continental Congress in 1775 in response to Lord North’s Conciliatory Proposal.

“That this privilege of giving or of withholding our monies is an important barrier against the undue exertion of prerogative, which if left altogether without our control may be excercised to our great oppression; and all history shews how efficacious is its intercession for redress of greivances and reestablishment of rights, and how improvident it would be to part with so powerful a mediator.”

Let me be clear. As opposed as I am to all taxation, I am not suggesting that one dollar be cut from the existing tax schedule for 2011. What I am suggesting is that the people exercise their right to withhold their taxes until the Congress does what the people have clearly mandated them to do – balance the budget. A seven percent cut in the deficit just isn’t enough and we are running out of time. We can argue later about the role of government and the wars in the Middle East and Social Security and the rest. Right now we have to take away this Congress’ ability to borrow any more money or we’re going to be in the same boat as Greece.

I am not calling upon people to exercise civil disobedience or rebel. The stakes are high in either of those endeavors and we have other options. I am calling upon people to utilize their state legislatures to support them in withholding their taxes until a balanced budget is passed by Congress. As much as I’d personally like to see them withhold their tax money permanently, they would then release the funds to the federal government.

This would be accomplished in the same way as several other recent nullification/interposition efforts. The state legislatures would pass a law indicating that no person or business in their state could be prosecuted or fined by the federal government for failing to file an income tax return or failing to pay their quarterly payroll tax deposits, so long as said filings and payments were made within sixty days of the Congress passing a balanced federal budget. For those who still trust the people less than they do the government, a stipulation could be added that the funds go into escrow and be audited by the states, if necessary.

This would accomplish two things. First, it would reestablish exactly who works for who in this relationship. Obviously, elections have failed to do that. More importantly, it would work. The blind fear that would grip our legislators when they realize that the party is really over would at least scare them sober enough to balance what would still be an over $2 trillion budget. While it wouldn’t solve our long-term problems, that truly would be a start.

Bloated governments are imploding all over the world and ours is poised to do likewise for all of the same reasons. Now that we have seen what “extremism” really looks like in Greece, Egypt, and Tunisia, this proposal should strike any rational person as reasonable and moderate. We do not need a rebellion or violence to balance the federal budget – just a little adult supervision.

Check out Tom Mullen’s hit book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!

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You’re On Your Own

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There are no end of commentaries on the recent murders in Arizona, resulting in the usual debates. Pundits argue over whether there should be stricter gun laws, whether talk radio, the movies, or “extremism” contributed to the tragedy, and, most obtusely, what the government should do to prevent a similar incident from occurring again. What is lost is the fact that this tragedy provides yet more proof of something that has been demonstrated to Americans repeatedly over the past decade. The government cannot protect you from the harsh realities of life.

Most people are good people, most of the time. Under normal circumstances, most people would rather cooperate with their fellow human beings in order to achieve their goals rather than steal from them or kill them. However, some people, at least some of the time, do not “live and let live.” During every moment that we are alive, someone somewhere is committing a crime. Someone is experiencing hardship, whether due to their own bad judgment, laziness, or just plain bad luck. Worst of all, someone is planning to commit an act of violence. These truths are confirmed by all of human history.

What is unique about the time that we live in now is the extent to which people believe that the government can shield them from these challenges. Never has a society had such high expectations of their government to ensure their security – both personal and economic security. The early 21st century is truly a high-water mark in terms of belief in government to eliminate all risk from the game of life. Over and over, we are offered proof of how foolish this misplaced faith is.

On 9/11/2001, a group of insane fanatics defeated what was at the time the most sophisticated security apparatus in human history and perpetrated heinous crimes against thousands of innocent civilians. The government failed to prevent this crime. The one set of murderers that was not successful was thwarted by private citizens acting on their own. They did not save their own lives, but saved the lives of hundreds, possibly thousands, of others. Our response to this outcome was to give the government more power and private citizens less liberty and privacy.

A few years later, another unbalanced individual tried to blow up a plane with explosives concealed in his shoes. He, too, had defeated the by that time even more powerful government security apparatus and was thwarted by private citizens. Our reaction to that incident was identical.

Last year, the pattern repeated with the so-called “underwear bomber.” The government failed and private citizens thwarted the killer. Again, more power was given to the government and more liberty stolen from the people. We are now allowing ourselves to be photographed naked and physically violated by the government in the hopes that the next time the results will be different.

In 2002, a deranged man walked into the Appalachian School of Law and began shooting students and faculty. There were no police on hand when the shooting started. This is not meant as a criticism of the police. It is unreasonable to expect that there will be an officer present whenever a random act of violence occurs. In any case, when the shooting started, two private citizens ran to their cars and retrieved their firearms. They confronted the shooter, forced him to drop his weapon, and tackled him to the ground. He was eventually arrested and prosecuted.

However, the fact that private citizens bearing firearms had prevented further bloodshed was omitted in the media coverage of the incident. Following the familiar pattern, the government was given more power and private citizens lost more of their liberty. Stricter gun controls were enacted in Virginia. A few years later, with campuses forced by law to be “gun free zones,” the victims at Virginia Tech were powerless to resist.

Luckily, this latest incident in Arizona did not take place on a college campus, an army base, or any other “gun free zone.” The brave man who tackled the shooter in Arizona said that he was not afraid to do so “because I was armed.” More importantly, this was another example of private citizens defending themselves and their neighbors. The police arrived after the shooter was subdued and fulfilled their proper function in a free society – to arrest the person who had committed the crime.

The repeated failure of government to protect us from the uncertainties of life is not limited to violent crimes. Over and over again, we have looked to government to provide us with economic security and have been similarly disappointed. We sanctioned its war on poverty and got more poverty. We allowed its central bank to loot our wealth in the hopes that it would prevent recessions and inflation and we got more severe recessions and more rampant inflation. We let the government bail out corporations to save jobs and restore economic growth and we got higher unemployment and less new businesses.

As with personal security, our reaction is to reward these failures with more power for the government. More wealth redistribution. More power to the central bank (but I repeat myself). More bailouts. Consistent with the pattern, the only economic security we get comes from private individuals cooperating voluntarily with each other to create new products, new industries, and new opportunities for those seeking work.

In a free society, the government should never be charged with preventing anything. The very definition of the word “prevent,” when used in relation to government, is a repudiation of liberty. Since government is nothing more than the societal use of force, it cannot prevent anything without initiating force against the innocent. The whole idea that someone is “innocent until proven guilty” assumes that the government is not allowed to act until after a crime is committed. Force must be initiated by one party or the other. Until a criminal commits his crime, he is innocent. To apply force against him at that point is a crime itself. Moreover, since we do not know who will commit the next crime, the government can only attempt to prevent it by initiating force against everyone. This is the trap we fall into by relying on government to prevent hardship in our lives.

If liberty and the state can coexist, the state’s role must be a retrospective one. It must only be allowed to act when one human being has committed aggression against another. This applies to crime, economics, safety, and foreign policy. At one time, the United States did not go to war unless the president could convince Congress that direct aggression had already been committed against the United States. If you doubt that, read the requests for a declaration of war made by Madison, Polk, McKinley, Wilson, and Roosevelt. Read the subsequent resolutions by Congress to declare war. In each case, those documents demonstrate the principle that military action by the government is not justified until aggression has been committed by the other nation.

This might prompt some to respond that in order to be free, we must relegate ourselves to being victims, or “sitting ducks,” able to act only after it is too late. This is a false assumption, rooted in a failure to recognize one undeniable fact of our existence. As far as the preservation and security of our lives is concerned, we are all on our own. No government, no matter how powerful, can assume the responsibility we each have to defend our lives and determine our own destinies. We can allow the government to rob us of our liberty, our property, and our privacy. We can create the kind of police state previously relegated to dystopian fantasies like 1984 or V for Vendetta. Even then, the government will fail – and then ask for more power as a reward for its failure. Must it come to that before we acknowledge the obvious?

Check out Tom Mullen’s book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!

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Jesus Christ, Libertarian

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“Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. They said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he bent down and wrote on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him. Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, (and) from now on do not sin anymore.” (John 8: 3-11)

As we approach the new year with conservatism again ascendant in the political sphere, this story of Jesus’ uncompromising libertarianism seems even more timely than stories of his birth, despite the approach of his celebrated birthday. Nowhere does Jesus admonish “social conservatives” more harshly.

There is an important distinction here. By “social conservative,” I do not mean anyone who disapproves of certain human behavior. The freedom to follow the dictates of one’s conscience was the first inalienable right recognized by the founders of our nation. If one truly believes that homosexuality, adultery, or other “non-conservative” behavior violates the laws of God, it is that person’s inalienable right to disapprove of it, even to voice his disapproval of it, regardless of the anguished cries of the political correctness lobby on the left.

However, no one has a right to use violence against those who engage in behavior that does not harm another person, regardless of whether or not that behavior violates the laws of God. Since all laws are enforced under the threat of violence (as this story illustrates wonderfully), Jesus makes it clear in this passage that it is not for men to enforce the laws of God. With the exception of cases in which one human being has done injury to another, the right to punish human behavior is reserved for God.

It is important to recognize that Jesus does not condone the sin that the anonymous woman has committed. When he has shamed away the mob who would have stoned her, Jesus commands her to sin no more. Neither does he insinuate that her behavior might not have consequences for her soul. With flawless libertarian reasoning, Jesus teaches us the true meaning of freedom: that God grants us the liberty to do as we wish, even to reject him and his laws, but that we also bear the full consequences of our actions. If we harm another person, then we are subject to the laws of men. However, it is otherwise left to each individual to determine the will of God according to his conscience and to choose whether to act accordingly or not. There never has been nor can there ever be any body of corruptible men who can save an individual’s soul.