Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom

by Ron Paul

  TAXES

  Taxes are the price we pay for civilization,” according to Oliver Wendell Holmes. This claim has cost us dearly. Civilization comes about through economic, moral, and social development. Freedom is a precondition. Taxes and the power to tax have been destructive to civilization and all progress. The whole notion of running the economy and the world and paying for it through forcibly extracting taxes from productive individuals violates the principle of natural rights, and when carried to an extreme, destroys the means of production and the wealth of the country.

  Throughout the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, Americans were largely untouched by any taxes. Federal revenue was provided by the tariff—a regrettable form of indirect taxation but one that didn’t actually attack the property rights of the citizens directly. The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution changed that. After income could be taxed, the whole structure of the relationship between government and the citizen changed. Now we had a different philosophy at work, one that presumed that government had a claim on the productive efforts of every worker.

  Though taxes begin low, human nature is such that the politicians and the recipients of government largesse see to it that taxes inexorably rise. Though most think only of the harm done by excessive income taxes, there are many other taxes as well. Sales, property, school, county, city, state, excise, and inheritance taxes all take their toll.

  The greater the government taxes, the greater the need, since government management is inferior to individual management and the money is always misallocated. As long as people believe the nonsense that taxation is a blessing and any objection to it means opposition to civilized society and is morally wrong and unpatriotic, we will see a continued decline of civilization. The early American patriots understood the destructive nature of taxation.

  People tolerate taxes for a while because they have previously accumulated wealth. As the tax burden grows and productivity falls, tax revenue falls and the only answer seems to be higher taxes. If the people can no longer tolerate higher taxes, government merely borrows and creates new money, and then the inflation tax is paid with higher prices. The whole process destabilizes the political system and eventually becomes a threat to civilized progress.

  The idea that it’s a fair exchange when citizens “pay” taxes and receive the benefits of a compassionate government can do irreparable harm to a civilized society. Depending on government to take care of us sharply diminishes any desire for assuming responsibility for oneself. Government spending is unwise and interferes with the wisdom of the market on how capital should be allocated. The only people who benefit are the politicians, bureaucrats, and the special interest recipients of government spending programs. The country becomes poorer and anger is generated.

  For a long time, people claimed the wonders of taxpayer funding of free public education for the masses. The results today are now being seriously questioned as more Americans are moving their children into private schools and participating in homeschooling. Our public schools are grossly inefficient, and very costly. The costs are spread around in ways that do terrible economic damage and waste resources.

  Government control of health care paid for by taxation has not been successful and yet the American people are demanding more of the same. Increased taxation hardly provides a more modern and civilized system of medicine.

  Sometimes there can be a false sense of security with a taxpayer-funded program’s partial success. But we need to ask, what would be the alternate way of offering the program, without government taxation? The dollars spent on government-provided services like medical care don’t disappear if taxation is limited or abolished. They would just be spent elsewhere and more efficiently without corporate and government bureaucrats placed between the doctor and the patients.

  Many people forget that regulations act as a tax, and we have plenty of those. People believe that without massive government regulations society would deteriorate into an uncivilized mess. A system that is absent a huge bureaucracy and high taxation is not anarchy. Rules of contract, property rights, honest money, and voluntary exchanges with the necessary bankruptcy laws provide order and efficiency.

  As bad as is the economic harm done by giving government blanket authority to tax, the greatest uncivilized consequence of this power is to finance senseless war and provide largesse to the military-industrial complex. Using funds from a system of taxation and inflation, and wars being fought without declaration have created a dangerous situation for all of us. Our presence around the world in more than 130 countries could not be maintained without the power to tax. Our policy of preventive war around the world makes the world a perilous place—a threat in itself to civilization.

  Taxation is realized only by force and threat of force. This always means a violation of civil liberties and the Constitution. Freedom suffers from it. Yet the freer a country is, the more productive and civilized it becomes. Taxes are a hindrance to both.

  The philosophy of big government generates the need for revenues. The bigger the government, the more revenues required, which threatens economic and political stability.

  The argument for big government and unlimited taxation is collectivist in nature. A system of private property ownership, free market exchanges, and a sound monetary system doesn’t require high taxation. A minimalist approach to government and taxation places an obstacle to wars abroad and waste at home.

  Groups and individuals that justify high taxation and big government automatically reject constitutional restraint of federal government activities. They cannot be champions of personal liberty and at the same time promote government interference in our economic and personal lives. Nor could those who champion military adventurism overseas maintain credibility when they talk about personal liberty and balanced budgets.

  Once the politician embarks on militarism or welfarism the spending becomes even a greater problem than taxation to pay the bills. Politically, there are limits on the degree of taxation that the people will tolerate, but the appetite for government spending is never diminished. That is why borrowing and debt continue and grow exponentially, ultimately leading to the inflationary tax to be paid at a later date. If we as a nation continue to believe that paying for civilization through taxation is a wise purchase and the only way to achieve civilization, we are doomed. It’s a bad deal for the cause of liberty.

  Chodorov, Frank. 2007. The Income Tax: Root of All Evil. Auburn, AL: Mises Institute.

  TERRORISM

  It is very likely that young people today believe that terrorism is a new kind of problem, something that emerged as an issue sometime after the end of the Cold War. In fact, terrorism has been around my entire public life. Cracking down on terrorism—defined very loosely as non-state violence perpetuated for political reasons—was a priority during the Clinton years, the Reagan years, and all the way back to the early 1970s, when law enforcement agencies first named it as a serious problem in need of a solution.1

  The use of the term “terrorism” in relation to political violence has much earlier origins, tracing most directly to the French Revolution, when the Reign of Terror wrought mass violence in the name of political obedience. During the Cold War, U.S. officials would frequently speak about communists and their penchant for terrorism.

  Of course, what is and is not called terrorism is ultimately determined by the point of view. The United States has bombed dozens of countries in the name of retaliation, but innocent people in those countries are more likely to think of U.S. actions themselves as a form of terrorism. The United States might call resisters against a U.S. occupation terrorists, while the resisters might regard their own violence as an expression of patriotism. It all depends on the perspective.

  Even so, there is no question that terrorism of the sort we most often think of—violence against innocents to punish the United States for its foreign policies—is a serious issue that requires a response. If Americans do not feel safe abroad, or are willi
ng to subject themselves to humiliating searches at airports just to avoid it, our very liberty is at risk from the terrorist threat.

  Whenever this subject comes up, I always urge that we look more carefully at the problem than most people are willing to do. We need to ask what drives anyone to criminality. This is an important consideration for all efforts at law enforcement. We must examine the roots to understand the actions. If we want to end violence, we surely need to look at what gives rise to it, especially if it is of a political nature. If we neglect to do that, we usually end up making the problem worse rather than better.

  If we listen to what the terrorists themselves say, the message is very rarely about religion or some irrational desire to slaughter the innocent. Rather, it is usually very specifically about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and elsewhere. It is about our occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, our involvement and troops in Saudi Arabia, our subsidization of the border expansion of Israel, and our sanctions and war belligerence in other countries. This is not to say that changing these policies would engender a universal brotherhood of peace and love, but it is to draw attention to the undeniable reality, the plain fact, that most terrorism is not irrational, but rather driven by specific grievances. We would do well to examine those policies and consider their costs before plunging into even more wars that make a bad situation far worse.

  This leads to the very important subject of why there is an al Qaeda, and why people are motivated enough to commit suicide in the service of a political goal. They are motivated because our troops are in their country. So what do we do? We send more troops in order to send a signal that there will be no tolerance for dissent. The problem is that this has not worked throughout history. Plainly speaking, when we fight terrorism by exacerbating the very reasons for that terrorism, we increase the violence against us.

  This should not really be any surprise. Whenever government wages war on anything (poverty, drugs, illiteracy, etc.), it is likely to make the problem worse. Of course, government has no incentive to discover the problems created by its wars because the wars themselves enhance the power of the government, bring in more revenue, provide a good excuse for bureaucratic expansion and violations of liberties, and keep the population whipped up in a state of fear and thereby easier to control. I have my doubts that, just as with the war on poverty or communism, the government really desires to win. The incentives are exactly the reverse: The worse the problem becomes, the more excuse there is for government power.

  Robert Pape, a researcher at the University of Chicago, did a study of six years and 2,200 terrorist attacks that was based on ten thousand records from publicly available databases. He concluded: “We have lots of evidence now that when you put the foreign military presence in, it triggers suicide terrorism campaigns… and that when the foreign forces leave, it takes away almost 100 percent of the terrorist campaign.” He has written a book explaining his thesis.2 Such studies help vindicate what I’ve been saying my entire public life: Invading other countries is a bad idea, especially if the goal is to stop terrorism; quite the opposite will be the result.

  The government is incapable of doing what it’s supposed to do. A job like the provision of security is something best left to private institutions. Airlines are a good example. They should be required to deal with their own security needs. Of course, some airlines like all of the responsibility to fall to the government, so if anything goes wrong, it’s the government’s fault. But when we leave the job to private companies, they handle it creatively. Think of how efficient an armored car company is in protecting the money in those trucks, and nobody has to worry about it. Or think of a jewelry store or a bank. They all have security issues but handle them through private means.

  If we really wanted to put a huge dent in the problem of terrorism, there is a way to do it. We should start withdrawing troops from foreign countries. We should not go to war without a declaration. We should not go to war when it’s an aggressive war. We should take an honest look at all the ways in which U.S. policy incites desperate people to take extreme measures as retaliation for U.S.-sponsored political violence.

  TORTURE

  Polls show that anywhere from half to two thirds of Americans support the power of government to use torture. Few just say: “I support torture.” The words are minced to make it sound less barbaric. President George W. Bush started calling it “enhanced interrogation technique,” but everyone knew what that meant; it was agreed on that in polite company it was not to be called torture.

  In recent years, especially since 9/11, a majority of the American people have been brainwashed into believing that our national security depends on torture and that it’s been effective. The fact is, our Constitution, our laws, international laws, and the code of morality all forbid it. Civilized societies, for hundreds of years, have rejected its use.

  When Americans endorse torture they think they are endorsing rough treatment of militant terrorists guilty of committing violence against us. They would rather not think that they are talking about innocent people, or people not convicted or ever charged with a crime, including American citizens who are the recipients of this heinous act.

  There’s no desire to know that people die during torture and that some commit suicide. And now we read of evidence that some of those whom our government has claimed committed suicide actually were murdered by American torturers—usually CIA agents.1 The agents who destroyed evidence of their torture did nothing wrong, according to the Obama administration, and will not be prosecuted.

  The old ruse is to ask what if you knew someone had vital information that, if revealed, would save American lives. But this is purely hypothetical. One can never know that for sure. If you had a strong suspicion that there might be such evidence, using persuasion and a justified approach is preferable. The evidence shows the odds are greatly increased that vital information is more likely to be gained in this manner.

  The question that supporters of torture refuse to even ask is, If one suspects that one individual out of 100 captured has crucial information, and you don’t know which one it is, are you justified to torture all 100 to get that information? If we still get a yes answer in support of such torture, I’m afraid our current system of government cannot survive.

  Many terrorist suspects arrested in the past ten years have been caught because of paid informants. Accusing your enemy of terrorism gains you a bonus check from the U.S. taxpayers and lets the agents of torture have a field day. Of course they claim falsely that this can only happen on individuals captured outside the United States and held in indefinite detention without counsel and without the right of habeas corpus.

  Quickly the argument then becomes: These aren’t people or citizens deserving the protection of our Constitution; they are enemy combatants. And who defines an enemy combatant? The President or the Attorney General can do it without judicial overview, and this applies to American citizens as well. Though only a couple of American citizens have been thusly treated, a precedent has been set just in case there’s political disturbance in the United States.

  It’s not difficult to believe that American citizens might become vulnerable to the charge of supporting terrorists for merely challenging our foreign policy and claiming to understand why thousands, if not millions, of Muslims around the world would like to do us harm.

  It looks like secret prisons, clandestine rendition, unlimited detention, and torture are all still part of our policies. No effort has been made by the new administration to investigate charges of misconduct in the previous administration. Protecting state secrets is just as strong a policy today as it was in the last administration.

  The supporters argue that we must not be rigid in protecting the civil liberties of those who have been arrested as suspects; such information is of tremendous benefit in preventing attacks in the United States. The protorture fanatics were outraged that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the twenty-year-old from Sudan, was not tortured to extract vi
tal information regarding any future plans to attack us. Subsequently, though, the Obama administration said that they were getting information from him with less violent means.

  The odds of extricating any significant information from him were utterly remote. The evidence is clear that information obtained from torture is rarely if ever of any value. Those suffering severe mental or physical pain will say whatever they think the torturers want them to say. There is concrete evidence that a more humane method of persuasion yields more information than physical torture does.

  The real tragedy is that sadistic cruelty is contagious and dehumanizes those who employ torture. Sadism begets sadism. The “need” for torture and the acceptance of it comes from unabashed fear, insecurity, and ignorance. For a single individual like the “underwear bomber” to intimidate an entire nation demanding his torture is not an encouraging sign for the future of our country. Yet there was no torture, and so far no events could have been prevented by employing it.

  For those who still care about our laws and international law (United Nations and Geneva Conference), all torture is illegal. The American government claims that the rules are different because we’re in a “battle zone” and any information is urgent. Of course today the war, though undeclared, is everywhere in the world, which allows capture and a chance of torture in any country in the world, including the United States.

  It is this argument that provides that anyone—including an American citizen—can be declared an enemy combatant and thus be denied any rights of habeas corpus and eventually tried in a military court.