Teaching the Ultra-Left
Mood:  rushed
Topic: The Left
It always kills me how na?ve the ultra left wing is. I am talking about the staunch, anti-korporate klass, anti-WTO, anarcho-environmentalist, green party types. The thing is that I love their passion. They believe they are right with all their hearts, yet if they really knew the truth instead of the propaganda supplied to them by the elites, I believe they would turn their energy to aid in the fight for liberty.

Their error is in their belief that the State is somehow a more moral vehicle for society than a free market. If only the State heavily regulated all businesses, workers would get a better deal and the environment would be saved. If only the State would force multinationals to pay their workers in Indonesia $7.50 an hour with benefits we wouldn't have sweat shops around the world. If only the State would raise taxes on the rich and redistribute the wealth to the poor, we wouldn't have poverty. If only the State would give more money and aid to other countries, those countries wouldn't hate us and we wouldn't have war. The State is the answer to all our problems.

This misguided faith in the State is truly frightening. So how do we convince the ultra left that the focus of their hate should be the very object of their faith? Many people will tell you that you can't--that you are wasting your energy. Maybe that is true. What is for certain is that most people who firmly believe something will tend to believe in it no matter how many facts and truths you assault them with. What you have to do is start with a general idea--a frame.

For example, if the discussion is about evil corporations, take WalMart. WalMart is a common evil sited by the ultra left (pretty much because they are big and successful). Ask them if WalMart is more of an evil than the State. Does WalMart force you to buy its products? No. Does the State? Yes, at gunpoint.

Is the poor worker better off if the State sets a minimum wage at $15.00 an hour or if the market determines the minimum wage is $5.00 dollars an hour? Ask the two people who lost their jobs so that the employer could pay the minimum wage of one, and ask the consumer who now has to pay $10.00 more per man hour for everything they buy.

Would the people of Indonesia be better off if they were paid $7.50 an hour to make Nike shoes? Ask the Indoesian who can't find a doctor or a teacher because they are all making shoes at Nike where they can make far more money than practicing medicine or teaching children.

You get the idea.

The Confusing Constitution
Mood:  bright
Topic: Constitution
"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."

- Thomas Jefferson


Ask someone on the street, "What do we have a constitution for?' and you are likely to get a variety of answers. When I walked the streets of my quaint little piece of suburbia I expected my neighbors would know quite a bit about our founding documents. I was surprised to find the opposite to be true. Answers ranged from, "It freed us from England" to "It gives us our Rights."

A few people I asked at least understood that the constitution outlines how our government functions, and many people I talked to knew quite a lot about the circumstances and history surrounding the birth of our nation (presumably avid History Channel watchers) but still did not have a very clear understanding of the purpose of the Constitution of our country.

One common problem I ran into was that people often confuse the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and The Bill of Rights. These three documents which make up our national foundation serve separate and completely different purposes. The first, The Declaration of Independence isn't even part of The Constitution. Many People, however, continue to invoke various phrases from the Declaration and other works by our founding fathers as proof that this or that action is unconstitutional.

The document that we call the Constitution is made up of three parts. The first is the actual Constitution, The second is made up of the first ten amendments ratified by the constitutional convention, which is commonly known as the Bill of Rights, and the third are all the amendments passed since that time.

The Constitution is a document that enumerates the powers of our government. You can think of it as a numbered list of Things the Government Can Do. If it is on the list, the government can do it, if it is not on the list the government can't. It really is that simple.

The founding fathers knew better than anyone the dangers of an unchecked and powerful centralized government. They feared such a government so much, in fact, that in their first attempt to create a federal government under the Articles of Confederation they gave the federal government (if it could be called that) almost no power at all.

Under the Articles of Confederation the country had no President, and no Supreme court (or any Judiciary Branch to speak of). Amendments to the Articles could only be made with the unanimous consent of the member states. The new nation could raise a navy but only the states would raise armies and only the states were allowed to collect taxes.

Of course the founders of our nation soon realized that such a weak confederation of states could quickly be torn apart by internal strife or external threats. They needed a stronger alliance among the states but they still wanted to ensure that the United States remained a republic and not a centralized Nation State.

So our Founders carefully penned the Constitution to Unite the States in a stronger union yet maintain the republican form and libertarian values on which the union was founded. And just to make sure that future generations did not forget. They attached the Bill of Rights.

Now this is the confusing part. Because while the Constitution was meant to be a list of things the government CAN do. The Bill of Rights seems to be a list of things the government CAN'T do. Why would the founders write a constitution enumerating the powers of government, withholding from government all powers not given it by the constitution, and then turn around and make a list of things that the government can't do anyway. The founders discussed this very issue and the confusion it bring later. One important reason for adding the bill of rights was to make sure these rights were protected in the individual States.

Still there was a concern that the Bill's addition to the Constitution would confuse the enumerated powers to which the Fed is restricted. In part to allay any fears of that confusion, the 10th amendment was added to the Bill of Rights in order to cement the intention that the Constitution be an enumerated list of government powers.

What does that mean? Well, for one it means that even if there were no Bill of Rights, no First or Second Amendments, you would still have "freedom of speech" and the "right to bear arms" simply because the government does not have the constitutional power to take those rights away. So it is helpful to remember that the Bill of Rights is really directed at the States not the Feds.

The Slavery of Taxation
Mood:  sharp
Topic: Taxes
Taxation, especially taxation on income and property, are morally reprehensible in my view. It represents the use of force to confiscate the property of individual citizenry to either redistribute to other citizens (or non-citizens) or to pay for programs which may or may not be useful or desirable to the individual paying for them. This sort of action is exactly what caused the revolution which founded this nation in the first place. As a nation we have turned our backs on our foundation and we allow the government to constantly violate the constitution.

Below is a simple logical exercise. If you agree with the assumptions I list below you cannot logically disagree with the conclusions.

STATEMENT: "To tax is not constitutional under article 13."

Definitions: These Definitions are provided for reference as back up for many of my assumptions.

PROPERTY:
1 : something (as an interest, money, or land) that is owned or possessed

FORCE:
1 a : to compel by physical means often against resistance b : to break open or through
2 : to impose or require by law

TAX:
1 : a charge usually of money imposed by legislative or other public authority upon persons or property for public purposes
2 : a sum levied on members of an organization to defray expenses

 Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Law, ? 1996

Article. XIII. of the US Constitution [Ratified by Congress in 1865] :
Section. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Assumptions: An assumption is a statement that is assumed to be true. To test the truth of the assumption try its opposite by adding the phrase "It is not the case that..." before the assumption. The result should be a false statement. If the result is a true statement the assumption must be false.

A. PROPERTY is something (as an interest, money, or land) that is owned or possessed. = TRUE by definition.

B. To FORCE is to impose or require by law. = TRUE by definition.

C. A TAX is a charge usually of money imposed by legislative or other public authority [law] upon persons or property for public purposes. = TRUE by definition.

D. A person X's labor is owned or possessed by X. = TRUE, inasmuch as a man owns his mind and body, the labor which his mind and body produce is owned by him, and may be traded (for a wage) or the produce of which may be sold or kept by him as his choice dictates.

E. A person X's government is a legislative or other public authority, and is not X. =TRUE, our government serves as a legislative or public authority, which creates and upholds our laws under a constitution. In order for a person X's government to be X, X would have to be a sole dictator.

F. For a person X, An entity other than X is not X. = TRUE, obviously anyone or anything that is other than me, is not me.

G. To enslave is to FORCE a person X to forfeit X's labor to an entity other than X. = TRUE, a very general definition of what slavery entails. I think most people would agree that if I force you to work for me (whether I compensate you or not), that is slavery.

H. To enslave is NOT constitutional under article 13. = TRUE, "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." Just read the article yourself.

Statements: A statement is something that is not assumed to be true. The goal of a logical exercise is to prove your statements to be true through the use of assumptions. Once a statement is proven to be true it may be used to prove the truth of other statements.

I. a person X's labor is X's PROPERTY.

J. To tax is to impose or require by law a person X to forfeit X's PROPERTY to a legislative or other public authority.

K. To tax is to FORCE a person X to forfeit X's PROPERTY to a government.

L. A person X's government is an entity other than X.

M. To tax is to enslave.

N. To tax is not constitutional under article 13.

Logical Conclusions:

IF (A and D), THEN I. True.
IF (A and C), THEN J. True.
IF (B and E and J), THEN K. True.
IF (E and F), THEN L. True.
IF (G and I) and (K and L), THEN M. True.
IF (H and M), THEN N. True.

Exercise Conclusions:

This exercise logically proves (as long as my assumptions remain true) the statement that "To tax is not constitutional under article 13" is a true statement.

Posted by trueliberal0 at 8:15 PM PST

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