Tax Day

Tax Day.

Keep in mind that with the exception of the Civil War, the American people lived without an income tax from the beginning of the United States until 1913, when the 16th Amendment was adopted.

Americans living during that period of time understood that freedom and an income tax were contradictory notions. If people wanted to live in a free society, it would have to be a society in which government was prohibited from levying taxes on income. Conversely, if people wanted to live in a society in which government is taxing income, then the price they pay is the loss of freedom.

In an income-tax free society, everyone is free to keep the fruits of his earnings. He keeps everything he earns. He is free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth. He is free to do whatever he wants with his own money. He also has to keep the retarded child and the elderly mother-in-law in the house and is expected to take care of them by themselves. Their burden is all their own.

And there is nothing the government can do about it because the government is prohibited from taking any portion of a person’s income from him. There is also no responsibility from a government who's primary concerns are the 1) Defense of the nation, 2) the Post Office.

There was no IRS. There were no income-tax returns. There were no deductions to keep track of. There is no need to keep records.

There was no withholding tax.

Again, everyone simply keeps everything he earns and decides for himself how to spend it, invest it, donate it, or otherwise dispose of it. But there was also no help from anyone but your bootstrapping self. If you didn't invest, or gave the deed to the farm to a snake oil salesman, well - too bad. Pull up those boot straps and quit whining.

Americans lived without an income tax for more than 100 years.

Everything changed in 1913, when newfangled ideas about fairness and the role of the government were being imported from Europe into the United States. That was the watershed year, the year that brought into existence what would become the twin jugular veins for the "welfare state and warfare state" — the income tax and the Federal Reserve System. The Evil Fed.

From that date forward and continuing through today, Americans would be coerced, on pain of fine and imprisonment, into sending some governmentally imposed percentage of their income to the IRS.

But there was also a safety net - which was so new fangled an idea, FDR actually called it "The New Deal." Kind of saying "do over."

Most folks will tell you they like their corporate job and also like teachers and schools, along with sex drugs and rock and roll. You leave me alone, I'll do so in kind to you. Americans, for the most part, are libertarian and don't even know it. The government (was) already a very big thing that didn't need to get any bigger. The social issues like gay marriage and abortion didn't impact them on a daily basis, if ever. Some see the ballooning government as an encroachment of their liberty. I see their point.

However, make a list of all those great government services that you take for granted... the Eisenhower Expressway System, the EPA, the FDA, the FCC, the IRS, The Fed, The CIA, MX Missiles... er, uh, let's stop this exercise?

So be a good little citizen. Pay your taxes. Plop on the couch with a KFC Double Down, and watch American Idol until you fall asleep. That's a good boy. Roll over.