Oddball
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America needs about 500 guys like Bumper Hornberger in office.
Ten Tenets of Freedom, Part 1 by Jacob Hornberger
by Jacob G. Hornberger, Posted December 8, 2009
Even while resisting the steady erosion of liberty in America, it is important that we keep in mind an overall vision of what a free society looks like. For if people lose sight of the “big picture,” the risk is that they end up settling for — and even celebrating — an unfree society whose controls have simply been modified or reduced.
This two-part essay will discuss ten tenets toward which we must continue to strive in our efforts to restore freedom to our land. Part 1 of the essay will cover the first five tenets and Part 2 will cover the other five tenets.
1. Income taxation
Repeal all taxes on income and, better yet, enact a constitutional bar to imposing income taxes. That includes taxes on wages, on capital gains, and on estates. People have the moral right to keep everything they earn and to do whatever they want with it, including saving their money and passing it on to their designated beneficiaries.
How can a person be considered truly free if the state has the power to take whatever percentage of income it wants from him? Whether the state sets the percentage at 5 percent or 100 percent, the principle remains the same: By wielding the power to set the percentage, the state effectively becomes the master of the people, who in turn become the servants.
2. Free trade
Freedom entails the unfettered right of people to enter into mutually beneficial exchanges with anyone anywhere in the world. When two people enter into an exchange, each benefits, from his own individual perspective. How do we know that? Because in every trade, both parties are giving up something they value less for something they value more. Otherwise, they would not enter into the trade.
Suppose John has 10 apples and George has 10 oranges. What would be a fair exchange? Five apples for five oranges? Not necessarily. Value is subjective. It lies in the eyes of the beholder. If John and George enter into a trade in which John gives 7 apples to George in return for 3 oranges, each side has raised his standard of living. The reason, again, is that they have both given up something they value less for something they value more.
3. Welfare
Repeal it all. No reforms. No modifications. No ridding the programs of waste, fraud, and abuse. Abolish every single program in which people receive largess from the government. That includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, education grants, food stamps, small-business loans, bailouts, and every other welfare-state program.
The welfare state has been a disaster for the American people. For more than a century, Americans were characterized by such values as self-reliance, independence, and voluntary charity. That was the era in which there were no paternalistic or socialistic programs.
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The problem, however, is that all too many people no longer believe in themselves or in others. Or they think, “I would help others but no one else would.” Thus, a restoration of freedom entails not only an understanding of the principles of freedom and the virtues of a free market, it also entails a heightened sense of self-worth, self-esteem, and faith in freedom.
4. Economic regulations
Ditch them. Get rid of them all, including minimum-wage laws, price controls, rent controls, antitrust legislation, licensing laws, insider-trading laws, banking regulations, product-safety regulations, and stock regulations. In fact, the best thing would be to enact a constitutional amendment stating, “No law shall be passed respecting the regulation of commerce or abridging the free exercise thereof.”
What actually is meant by the term “free enterprise”? It means enterprise that is free of government control or regulation. “Free” means free, as in no control and no regulation. If economic enterprise is controlled or regulated, it is not free enterprise. It is controlled or regulated enterprise.
5. Open immigration
Every American living today takes it for granted that Americans are, by and large, free to cross borders from one state to another without governmental interference. The reason I say “by and large” is that in the Southwest and West, Americans traveling east and west are now required to submit to document checks and vehicular searches at the hands of the U.S. Border Patrol, an agency charged with stopping the flow of people illegally crossing the international border into the United States.
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Ironically, what 19th-century Americans discovered was that open immigration contributed to the enormous rise in the standard of living of the American people in the 1800s. While having no income taxation, no welfare state, few trade restrictions, and no economic regulations was a critical factor in improving the economic status of people, open immigration also played an important role. Immigrants brought a vitality and an energy that were immeasurable, not to mention the benefits that came from the division of labor they provided.
6. Gun control
It would have been more appropriate to have made the Second Amendment the first amendment to the Constitution. Without the right of the citizenry to keep and bear arms, the fundamental rights enumerated in the First Amendment are worthless. When the citizenry are well-armed, government officials tend to exercise caution in infringing such fundamental rights.
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It is that insurance policy against tyranny that was the primary guiding force behind placing the right to keep and bear arms immediately after the protections regarding freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom to assemble peaceably. The purpose of the Second Amendment is not to guarantee the right of hunting deer or self-protection against criminals. It provides the means by which the citizenry can protect the First Amendment.
7. Civil liberties
In the aftermath of the Iranian elections, Iranian officials began rounding up dissidents, incarcerating them, charging them with crimes against the state, and threatening them with kangaroo trials and punishment. That’s the way that tyrannical governments ensure that their orders for people to shut up and stop criticizing government are enforced.
It is that power — the power to arbitrarily seize people and incarcerate and execute them — that supplies the teeth to the decrees ordering people to shut up. After all, if the government wields the power to tell people to keep silent but lacks the power to do anything to people who refuse to obey the decree, then the first power becomes worthless. The government’s power to arbitrarily arrest, jail, and punish people provides the enforcement mechanism for enforcing its orders for people to cease their criticism of government.
8. The drug war
The drug war perfectly encapsulates the loss of freedom that the American people have suffered under the paternalistic regulatory state. What could be a more perfect assault on the freedom of the individual than for the state to have the power to arrest someone and punish him for doing nothing more than selling, purchasing, possessing, or ingesting some substance that government officials don’t approve of?
Everyone would agree that some substances can be harmful if ingested, especially in excess. Alcohol, tobacco, sugar, and fatty foods are examples. That’s not the point. The point is whether freedom entails the right to ingest whatever a person wishes to ingest and, if so, whether the state should be permitted to infringe that important aspect of freedom.
9. The monetary system
The United States was founded on a monetary system based on gold coins and silver coins. The reason for that was that the Framers understood that one of the greatest threats to the freedom and well-being of the citizenry was the government’s propensity to plunder and loot people’s wealth through the excess printing of paper money. Thus, by rejecting paper money in favor of gold coins and silver coins, our ancestors removed one of the most popular means that government officials have used to inflate the currency.
That intent was manifested in the Constitution. For example, the powers delegated to Congress did not include the power to issue paper money, establish a central bank, or enact legal-tender laws. There were also express provisions prohibiting the states from making anything but gold and silver coins legal tender and from issuing “bills of credit,” i.e., paper money.
10. Militarism and empire
When the United States was founded, the world was shocked by an unusual feature of American life: No standing military force, no conscription, no alliances with other nations, and a steadfast refusal to get involved in foreign conflicts.
The fact is that Americans had had a bellyful of empire, militarism, and foreign wars, which is what the British Empire was all about. They were also sick and tired of the debts, taxes, bureaucracy, regulations, gun control, and infringements on privacy and civil liberties that come with empire.
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Through the CIA and the Pentagon, the U.S. empire engages in all the things that our American ancestors found abhorrent: foreign interventions, foreign wars, entangling alliances, foreign aid, foreign meddling, assassinations, coups, torture, invasions, wars of aggression, and brutal occupations. It’s all done, of course, in the name of “freedom,” the bogus buzz word that has guided empires throughout history.
Ten Tenets of Freedom, Part 1 by Jacob Hornberger
