From http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=192293.15;wap2
Is Kurt so determined to wrap the anarcho-capitalist dogma of the Austrian School in the American flag that he's willing to imply (without stating so outright, of course) that the taxation authorized in the Constitution was not meant to be levied at "gunpoint"?
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States."
-- http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#A1Sec8
And is he unaware of the fact that many of the Founders initially called for a tax on land values?
-----------------------------
http://savingcommunities.org/foundersplan/whyfounders.html
Why America's Founders Wanted a Property Tax on Land Value, And NOT a Sales Tax!
Why a Land Value Tax?
Land for ordinary citizens
William Penn wanted to keep aristocrats from grabbing up land as they had in Europe. He declared Pennsylvania a "commonwealth" where each landholder would pay a modest rent that "would put an end to taxes, leave not a beggar, and make the greatest bank for national trade." The first tax in Pennsylvania was a land value tax.
Thomas Jefferson also saw that land monopoly made ordinary Europeans poor, while cheap land made Americans rich. He also proposed taxes on real estate to prevent land grabbers from driving land prices up.
Keeping taxing power local
Under the Articles of Confederation, the federal government taxed each state on its land value. Each state would tax each county, and citizens would never have to deal with state or federal tax collectors. Our founders did not trust strong central governments. They believed that people govern their own communities better than powerful states can govern them.
[Continued...]
-----------------------------
I, of course, agree with Kurt that -- contrary to what Michael Moore and his fellow socialists believe -- there's nothing wrong with earned profit.
There's plenty wrong, however, with profit derived from privilege (see this, this and this). And just as the Marxist-dominated "Left" loves to equate the former with the latter in order to attack it, the Austrian School-dominated "Right" loves to equate the latter with the former in order to defend it.
-----------------------------
"When we tax houses, crops, money, furniture, capital or wealth in any of its forms, we take from individuals what rightfully belongs to them. We violate the right of property, and in the name of the State commit robbery. But when we tax ground values, we take from individuals what does not belong to them, but belongs to the community, and which cannot be left to individuals without the robbery of other individuals."
-- Henry George, http://schalkenbach.org/henry-george/the-single-tax/
"Disregard of the equal right to land necessarily involves violations of the unequal right to wealth."
-- Max Hirsch, Democracy vs. Socialism, p. 372
"I do not wish to be misunderstood as falling into the trap of the socialists and communists who condemn all privately owned business, all factories, all machinery and organizations for producing wealth. There is nothing wrong with private corporations owning the means of producing wealth. Georgists believe in private enterprise, and in its virtues and incentives to produce at maximum efficiency. It is the insidious linking together of special privilege, the unjust outright private ownership of natural or public resources, monopolies, franchises, that produce unfair domination and autocracy.
"The means of producing wealth differ at the root: some is thieved from the people and some is honestly earned. George differentiated; Marx did not. The consequences of our failure to discern lie at the heart of our trouble."
-- Agnes George de Mille, http://www.progress.org/books/george.htm
"Marx's biggest error was to suppose that society could be improved by grand design: that the solution was to impose a new order, rather than to abolish privileges embedded in the existing order. His scheme actually rescued the aristocracy he had condemned, as it required an aristocracy to run it, and it pitted labor against capital, when, in fact, true capital is nothing more than the fruits of labor, and is a natural ally of labor against privilege....
"The errors of anti-Marxists derive mostly from overreaction -- from denying whatever Marx asserted, replacing Marxist half-truths with equally false anti-Marxist half-truths. Often, in so doing, they fall into the trap of accepting underlying Marxist assumptions....
"While Marx treated land as capital to attack it, anti-Marxists treat land as capital to defend it. This not only accepts the Marxist redefinition of capital, but causes anti-Marxists to say absurd things about land that make sense only with regard to true capital.
"Buying into the Marxist equation of wealth and privilege, anti-Marxists defend privilege as if it were wealth. They do this with regard not only to land, but to banking, incorporation, franchises, the overextension of patents, etc. While there are sometimes glimmers of theoretical distinctions, there is a near constant defense of those parties whose wealth comes almost entirely from capitalized privilege, and only minimally from true capital. Such errors defy logic, are inconsistent with classical liberalism, and are intuitively rejected by the unindoctinated."
-- Dan Sullivan, http://geolib.com/sullivan.dan/commonrights.html#marxist
___________
I know Mr. Cartalucci means well, but he contradicts himself when he says that "no personality should be followed, rather the ideals they represent," and then, in the very next breath, advocates renaming the Tea Party after a "personality."
That might free (if only partially) the Tea Party from the left-right paradigm, but in the process of doing so would completely enslave it within another false paradigm -- namely the Austrian School "capitalism"-vs.-Marxist "socialism" paradigm.
The reason for this should be obvious: because Ron Paul (whom I greatly respect and agree with on many issues) is an avowed Austrian Schooler. His economic policy agenda and that of the Austrian School are practically one and the same.
Thus, to name it the "Ron Paul Revolution" would be to name it (in effect) the Austrian School Revolution.
The inevitable result? Scores of Ron Paul supporters emulating (however unwittingly) all of the worst behavioral aspects of the very slogan-parroting Obama-worshippers they were making fun of (and rightly so!) just a few years ago. Remember how, during the 2008 presidential race, Obama supporters would always mindlessly scream "racist" if you so much as questioned their messiah's policy positions (or lack thereof)? Well, if we follow Mr. Cartalucci's advice, we'll end up seeing Ron Paul-worshippers screaming "socialist," "communist" or "freedom hater" every time an ideological heretic commits the blasphemous sin of challenging the presumed infallibility of Austrian School dogma.
Sorry, but the solution to the Obama cult is not to create a personality cult of our own. And I'm almost certain Ron Paul himself would agree with me on that.
What's the true solution, then? Instead of narrowing the political base of anti-war/anti-police state/anti-NWO candidates (as Mr. Cartalucci's proposal would do), we should broaden it!
How do we broaden it? For the answer, see the following:
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=198869.0
-geolibertarian
________________
From http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=198869.0
Below are points of agreement behind which I think a critical mass of conservatives, libertarians, liberals, progressives and independents could all unite:
Election Reform
* Institute fair and equal ballot access criteria.
* Enact both Congressman Ron Paul's Freedom Debate Act and Senator Herb Kohl's Weekend Voting Act.
* Repeal both the Federal Election Campaign Act and Bipartisan Campaign "Reform" Act.
* Institute instant runoff voting for Presidential, U.S. Senate, and gubernatorial elections.
* Institute proportional representation for both U.S. House and state house elections.
* Mandate the use of hand-counted paper ballots for all elections.
* Require all election ballots to include a binding NOTA option.
Monetary Reform
* Put all derivatives-infected mega-banks through Chapter 11 bankruptcy and, in the reorganization proceedings, legally void all of their derivatives contracts.
* Liquidate all of the ill-gotten assets of criminal scam artists such as Henry Paulson, Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon, and use the resultant proceeds to help replenish whatever retirement funds they raided.
* Replace our current debt-based money system with a debt-free money system, whereby all new money -- instead of being loaned into circulation at interest -- is spent in at no interest to fund both (a) the production and repair of public goods everyone can see and benefit from (e.g., roads and bridges) and (b) a "National Dividend" -- all at a rate pegged by law to the general price level. (More on this here.)
* Institute a new round of international agreements modeled on the Bretton Woods Accords, with an aim towards replacing the current “floating” exchange rates for national currencies with a fixed rate that, as such, is pegged to the value of either an agreed-upon standardized price index or an agreed-upon “basket” of diverse, widely available, everyday commodities. (More on this here.)
Foreign Policy
* In view of the fact that 9/11 was an inside job orchestrated by traitors within our own government (see this and this), bring an immediate end to our imperialist, terroristic, hornets' nest-stirring wars of aggression, and pass the hundreds of billions in resultant tax savings onto the bottom 90% of income earners.
* Abolish the CIA. (See this, this and this.)
Civil Liberties
* In view of all the false flag terror attacks in addition to 9/11 -- e.g., the "underwear bomber" -- that have been orchestrated by criminal elements within the U.S. government, immediately repeal the "Patriot" Act, Homeland "Security" Act, Military Commissions Act, Presidential Directive 51, and any and all other post-9/11 police state expansion measures.
* Abolish FEMA. (See this, this, this and this.)
Drug Policy
* End the drug war, and with it all of the corruption, hypocrisy and police state thuggery it breeds.
Energy Policy
* Use antitrust action to break up the oil cartel.
* Educate the masses about the manufactured myth of "peak oil."
Excessive Power of Corporations
* Abolish corporate personhood. (See this and this.)
* Abolish corporate welfare. (See this and this.)
National Sovereignty
* Withdraw the U.S. from both NAFTA and the WTO.
* Enact the American Sovereignty Restoration Act.
I have more, but I'll leave it at that for now.
-geolibertarian
No comments:
Post a Comment