Committed to the First Amendment and OUR Freedom of Speech since 2008
Resolution: Calling for a Progressive Voting System (paralleling progressive income tax liability)
Background: It is acknowledged that the views and the writings of philosopher John Locke played a crucial role in our Founders' view of liberty. His influence was most apparent in the Declaration of Independence, the constitutional separation of powers, and the Bill of Rights. James Madison drew his most fundamental principles of liberty and government from Locke. Locke inspired Thomas Paine, George Mason, Benjamin Franklin, and others. Thomas Jefferson believed Locke to be the most important thinker on liberty and natural rights.
Drawing inspiration from John Locke, Jefferson, the drafter of our Declaration of Independence, our charter of freedom, believed strongly in the right to property, which he understood to be part of the natural right to pursue happiness. He believed that government is morally obliged to serve people, namely by protecting life, liberty, and property, and our government, as based on limited powers and the principle of checks and balances, was crafted to protect these fundamental rights. The Declaration was initially written to read: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by the Creator with certain natural rights that among these are the Enjoyment of Life and Liberty, with the Means of acquiring and possessing Property, and pursuing and obtaining Happiness and Safety." This language was believed, especially according to Virginia's George Mason, to be a literal improvement of Locke's phrase "Life, Liberty, and Property."
Locke established that private property is absolutely essential for liberty: "Every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his." He explains that the primary reason for men to organize themselves into societies and to institute a common government is for "the Preservation of their Property."
Locke believed people legitimately turned common property into private property by mixing their labor with it, improving it. He insisted that people, not rulers, are sovereign, which also happens to be the bedrock principle underlying our Constitution. Government, Locke wrote, "can never have a Power to take to themselves the whole or any part of the Subjects Property, without their own consent. For this would be in effect to leave them no Property at all." He makes his point even more explicit: rulers "must not raise Taxes on the Property of the People, without the Consent of the People, given by themselves, or their Deputies." Thus, according to Locke, an individual's labor, his intellect, his personality, the good will he earns through his honest and ethical conduct, and the fruits of all of these are his PROPERTY and are to be protected with the greatest zeal by any legitimate government.
Locke went further and affirmed an explicit right to revolution: "Whenever the Legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience, and are left to the common Refuge, which God hath provided for all Men, against Force and Violence."
In 1772, John Adams wrote "The Rights of the Colonists," which he delivered to a Boston Town meeting. He started his
historic document with these words: "Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature." As the colonists were British subjects at the time, Adams further wrote in his essay: "The absolute rights of Englishmen and all freemen, in or out of civil society, are principally personal security, personal liberty, and private property."
Arthur Lee of Virginia (1775) wrote: "The Right of property is the guardian of every other Right, and to deprive the people of this, is in fact to deprive them of their Liberty." William Blackstone, the great British legal scholar, wrote: "So great is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community." Ayn Rand, author and philosopher, wrote: "Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property." And finally, Thomas Jefferson wrote: "To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association--'the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.'" Frederic Bastiat, a French economist, wrote: "Each of us has a natural right - from God - to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of one is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two."
The nation currently faces a crisis not only financially, but also of conscience. It also faces a crisis of Constitutional proportions, under both the very language of Article I and under the Equal Protection Clause which requires that laws must be applied equally to all Americans. In 2009, the Democratic-led Congress enacted a series of tax reforms and generous exemptions and tax credits and then in 2010, it passed the gargantuan economic stimulus bill. The result of these reforms, credits, and stimulus bill is that millions of Americans have been dropped from the federal tax rolls. Now, this number is well over 50% and shows every indication of continuing to climb higher. As if that weren't enough, the bottom 40% of income earners actually receive a cash payment from the government at tax time. This is a re-distribution of wealth in its most recognizable form and is not covered under the "General Welfare" Clause. Hence it is not a legitimate exercise of Congress' powers.
Under the Obama administration many Americans accustomed to paying their share of federal taxes are being taken off the tax rolls. Recent tax law changes mean that for the first time, in 2009, a family of four making $50,000 can pay no federal income tax at all. A family at this income level has surely suffered in this recession, but should they really pay no federal income tax at all? By the way, can you guess which political party they will now side with?
The fact is that America has become divided between a growing class of people who pay no income taxes and a shrinking class of people who are bearing the lion's share of the burden. Despite what critics have said about former President Bush that the tax cuts enacted in 2001, 2003 and 2004 favored the "rich," these cuts actually reduced the tax burden of low- and middle-income taxpayers and shifted the tax burden onto wealthier taxpayers. Everything the government does continues to shift the tax burden onto wealthier taxpayers and at some point it has to stop before the notion of fundamental fairness we so treasure in this country is made a complete mockery.
The current mindset of the Democrats and progressives is dangerous and alarming. It goes against the fundamental principles of our founding documents. Democrats and progressive politicians have turned John Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country" on its head. And telling so many Americans that they don't need to make sacrifices for our government, as we are now saying, is dangerous new territory for our nation and for the health of our democracy and economy.
Furthermore, by placing the tax burden so heavily on a certain class of Americans and continuing to do so by excluding so many others, the situation is almost tantamount to institutional slavery, or involuntary servitude (to be free only when he or she retires, loses his job, or takes a job at a very low pay). In other words, a taxpayer can only be freed from this immense burden (over 4 months of the year are spent in financial hock to the federal government) if he or she betrays her own conscience and inalienable right to pursue the career of his/her own choice. The 13th Amendment promises that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, shall exist within the United States."
Recognizing that there is an inherent laziness and "degree of depravity in mankind" which will unfortunately flourish greater in a republican form of government (James Madison), we would expect non-taxpayers to behave as they do. Their demand for entitlements and government programs is naturally insatiable because they don't care at all about the cost. Others are providing the funding who, in their eyes, have "more than enough." Consequently, they will always support increasing government programs as a long as they get even a small benefit from them because it does not cost them a cent. And so they will support politicians who favor more spending. Representatives who need the support of such persons to be elected will continue to take from the pockets of others to provide to this solid voting block.
Therefore, by taking more and more Americans off the federal tax rolls, Democrats and progressives are creating a permanent base of supporters for themselves. In doing so, they have abused the progressive income tax too much and too flagrantly. And it has to stop now, in the name of the law and in the name of fundamental fairness. Conservatives are entitled to look after the interests of those supporters of the Republican party.
Whereas, we acknowledge that the above is true and provides great cause for alarm.;
Whereas, we acknowledge that sovereign power rests with the individual and not with the federal government or any governmental agency;
Whereas, we acknowledge that the individual is endowed with inalienable rights from our Creator and not from the government;
Whereas, we acknowledge that the right to property and the right to the fruits of one's labor (including a paycheck) are as fundamental a right as the right to life itself;
Whereas, we acknowledge that the federal income tax, a direct tax on property, is an unconstitutional burden on inalienable personal freedoms;
Whereas, we acknowledge that Declaration of Independence gives each individual the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness (embodied in all types of property), and under the U.S. Constitution, the federal government MUST protect these rights equally for all Americans;
Whereas, we acknowledge that our Founders created a republic form of government to protect the rights of minority groups from mob rule, but they never expected Americans to be required to support them through forced and regulated charity (spreading the wealth);
Whereas, we acknowledge that something very fundamental is at risk (meaning our very liberty) when self-anointed visionaries of social policy, particularly those in government, infringe on property rights;
Whereas, we acknowledge that income tax is no longer so much a tax system as it is a wealth distribution scheme;
Whereas, we acknowledge that non-taxpayers have no financial "stake" in the fiscal responsibility, or irresponsibility, of the government and have no "stake" in the decisions of the government to spend taxpayer money or to raise taxes;
Whereas, we acknowledge the changing dynamics in this country whereby the numbers of those individuals not paying taxes are increasing much faster than the numbers of those paying taxes;
Whereas, this changing dynamic makes one thing very clear for our republican form of government - that taxpayers are not being properly represented in government due to voter dilution;
Whereas, we acknowledge the very reason the colonists and founding Americans went to war against Britain to secure independence and that reason can be summed up in the immortal words "No Taxation Without Representation!";
Whereas, we acknowledge the fact that taxpayers are no longer fairly represented in government because a greater percentage of Americans have no tax liability and are therefore voting to spend other people's money;
Whereas, we acknowledge that such non-taxpayer votes lack the proper nexus to the "checks and balances" that keeps government responsibly tied to person's property; and
Whereas, we acknowledge that Congress bears a moral responsibility to provide for and protect individual Liberty, including economic Liberty, and personal property (whether real or intellectual);
Therefore, if the current income tax structure is permitted to exist in its arbitrary and progressive nature, then immediately, there will need to be voter reform to institute a progressive, or weighted, voting system to protect the inherent property interests of taxpayers. While each person is entitled to one vote, additional voter weight will be given to those who pay taxes, own property, own a business, and otherwise engage in activities which are subject to the onerous and burdensome taxation requirements of the federal government.
Be it Resolved: That the Eastern NC Tea Party requests that NC representatives put forth a proposal to institute a progressive voting scheme to combat the inherent unfairness of the current income tax scheme. In the alternative, the Eastern NC Tea Party requests that the NC representatives put forth a proposal or support current legislation (HR 25; S 13) to repeal the 16th amendment which permits this gross inequality and travesty of justice to continue.
Submitted by:
Eastern NC Tea Party, on this day __________ of ______________, 2011
Diane Rufino has her own blog For Love of God and Country. Come and visit her. She'd love your company.
Go Back
Drawing inspiration from John Locke, Jefferson, the drafter of our Declaration of Independence, our charter of freedom, believed strongly in the right to property, which he understood to be part of the natural right to pursue happiness. He believed that government is morally obliged to serve people, namely by protecting life, liberty, and property, and our government, as based on limited powers and the principle of checks and balances, was crafted to protect these fundamental rights. The Declaration was initially written to read: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by the Creator with certain natural rights that among these are the Enjoyment of Life and Liberty, with the Means of acquiring and possessing Property, and pursuing and obtaining Happiness and Safety." This language was believed, especially according to Virginia's George Mason, to be a literal improvement of Locke's phrase "Life, Liberty, and Property."
Locke established that private property is absolutely essential for liberty: "Every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his." He explains that the primary reason for men to organize themselves into societies and to institute a common government is for "the Preservation of their Property."
Locke believed people legitimately turned common property into private property by mixing their labor with it, improving it. He insisted that people, not rulers, are sovereign, which also happens to be the bedrock principle underlying our Constitution. Government, Locke wrote, "can never have a Power to take to themselves the whole or any part of the Subjects Property, without their own consent. For this would be in effect to leave them no Property at all." He makes his point even more explicit: rulers "must not raise Taxes on the Property of the People, without the Consent of the People, given by themselves, or their Deputies." Thus, according to Locke, an individual's labor, his intellect, his personality, the good will he earns through his honest and ethical conduct, and the fruits of all of these are his PROPERTY and are to be protected with the greatest zeal by any legitimate government.
Locke went further and affirmed an explicit right to revolution: "Whenever the Legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience, and are left to the common Refuge, which God hath provided for all Men, against Force and Violence."
In 1772, John Adams wrote "The Rights of the Colonists," which he delivered to a Boston Town meeting. He started his
historic document with these words: "Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature." As the colonists were British subjects at the time, Adams further wrote in his essay: "The absolute rights of Englishmen and all freemen, in or out of civil society, are principally personal security, personal liberty, and private property."
Arthur Lee of Virginia (1775) wrote: "The Right of property is the guardian of every other Right, and to deprive the people of this, is in fact to deprive them of their Liberty." William Blackstone, the great British legal scholar, wrote: "So great is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community." Ayn Rand, author and philosopher, wrote: "Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property." And finally, Thomas Jefferson wrote: "To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association--'the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.'" Frederic Bastiat, a French economist, wrote: "Each of us has a natural right - from God - to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of one is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two."
The nation currently faces a crisis not only financially, but also of conscience. It also faces a crisis of Constitutional proportions, under both the very language of Article I and under the Equal Protection Clause which requires that laws must be applied equally to all Americans. In 2009, the Democratic-led Congress enacted a series of tax reforms and generous exemptions and tax credits and then in 2010, it passed the gargantuan economic stimulus bill. The result of these reforms, credits, and stimulus bill is that millions of Americans have been dropped from the federal tax rolls. Now, this number is well over 50% and shows every indication of continuing to climb higher. As if that weren't enough, the bottom 40% of income earners actually receive a cash payment from the government at tax time. This is a re-distribution of wealth in its most recognizable form and is not covered under the "General Welfare" Clause. Hence it is not a legitimate exercise of Congress' powers.
Under the Obama administration many Americans accustomed to paying their share of federal taxes are being taken off the tax rolls. Recent tax law changes mean that for the first time, in 2009, a family of four making $50,000 can pay no federal income tax at all. A family at this income level has surely suffered in this recession, but should they really pay no federal income tax at all? By the way, can you guess which political party they will now side with?
The fact is that America has become divided between a growing class of people who pay no income taxes and a shrinking class of people who are bearing the lion's share of the burden. Despite what critics have said about former President Bush that the tax cuts enacted in 2001, 2003 and 2004 favored the "rich," these cuts actually reduced the tax burden of low- and middle-income taxpayers and shifted the tax burden onto wealthier taxpayers. Everything the government does continues to shift the tax burden onto wealthier taxpayers and at some point it has to stop before the notion of fundamental fairness we so treasure in this country is made a complete mockery.
The current mindset of the Democrats and progressives is dangerous and alarming. It goes against the fundamental principles of our founding documents. Democrats and progressive politicians have turned John Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country" on its head. And telling so many Americans that they don't need to make sacrifices for our government, as we are now saying, is dangerous new territory for our nation and for the health of our democracy and economy.
Furthermore, by placing the tax burden so heavily on a certain class of Americans and continuing to do so by excluding so many others, the situation is almost tantamount to institutional slavery, or involuntary servitude (to be free only when he or she retires, loses his job, or takes a job at a very low pay). In other words, a taxpayer can only be freed from this immense burden (over 4 months of the year are spent in financial hock to the federal government) if he or she betrays her own conscience and inalienable right to pursue the career of his/her own choice. The 13th Amendment promises that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, shall exist within the United States."
Recognizing that there is an inherent laziness and "degree of depravity in mankind" which will unfortunately flourish greater in a republican form of government (James Madison), we would expect non-taxpayers to behave as they do. Their demand for entitlements and government programs is naturally insatiable because they don't care at all about the cost. Others are providing the funding who, in their eyes, have "more than enough." Consequently, they will always support increasing government programs as a long as they get even a small benefit from them because it does not cost them a cent. And so they will support politicians who favor more spending. Representatives who need the support of such persons to be elected will continue to take from the pockets of others to provide to this solid voting block.
Therefore, by taking more and more Americans off the federal tax rolls, Democrats and progressives are creating a permanent base of supporters for themselves. In doing so, they have abused the progressive income tax too much and too flagrantly. And it has to stop now, in the name of the law and in the name of fundamental fairness. Conservatives are entitled to look after the interests of those supporters of the Republican party.
Whereas, we acknowledge that the above is true and provides great cause for alarm.;
Whereas, we acknowledge that sovereign power rests with the individual and not with the federal government or any governmental agency;
Whereas, we acknowledge that the individual is endowed with inalienable rights from our Creator and not from the government;
Whereas, we acknowledge that the right to property and the right to the fruits of one's labor (including a paycheck) are as fundamental a right as the right to life itself;
Whereas, we acknowledge that the federal income tax, a direct tax on property, is an unconstitutional burden on inalienable personal freedoms;
Whereas, we acknowledge that Declaration of Independence gives each individual the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness (embodied in all types of property), and under the U.S. Constitution, the federal government MUST protect these rights equally for all Americans;
Whereas, we acknowledge that our Founders created a republic form of government to protect the rights of minority groups from mob rule, but they never expected Americans to be required to support them through forced and regulated charity (spreading the wealth);
Whereas, we acknowledge that something very fundamental is at risk (meaning our very liberty) when self-anointed visionaries of social policy, particularly those in government, infringe on property rights;
Whereas, we acknowledge that income tax is no longer so much a tax system as it is a wealth distribution scheme;
Whereas, we acknowledge that non-taxpayers have no financial "stake" in the fiscal responsibility, or irresponsibility, of the government and have no "stake" in the decisions of the government to spend taxpayer money or to raise taxes;
Whereas, we acknowledge the changing dynamics in this country whereby the numbers of those individuals not paying taxes are increasing much faster than the numbers of those paying taxes;
Whereas, this changing dynamic makes one thing very clear for our republican form of government - that taxpayers are not being properly represented in government due to voter dilution;
Whereas, we acknowledge the very reason the colonists and founding Americans went to war against Britain to secure independence and that reason can be summed up in the immortal words "No Taxation Without Representation!";
Whereas, we acknowledge the fact that taxpayers are no longer fairly represented in government because a greater percentage of Americans have no tax liability and are therefore voting to spend other people's money;
Whereas, we acknowledge that such non-taxpayer votes lack the proper nexus to the "checks and balances" that keeps government responsibly tied to person's property; and
Whereas, we acknowledge that Congress bears a moral responsibility to provide for and protect individual Liberty, including economic Liberty, and personal property (whether real or intellectual);
Therefore, if the current income tax structure is permitted to exist in its arbitrary and progressive nature, then immediately, there will need to be voter reform to institute a progressive, or weighted, voting system to protect the inherent property interests of taxpayers. While each person is entitled to one vote, additional voter weight will be given to those who pay taxes, own property, own a business, and otherwise engage in activities which are subject to the onerous and burdensome taxation requirements of the federal government.
Be it Resolved: That the Eastern NC Tea Party requests that NC representatives put forth a proposal to institute a progressive voting scheme to combat the inherent unfairness of the current income tax scheme. In the alternative, the Eastern NC Tea Party requests that the NC representatives put forth a proposal or support current legislation (HR 25; S 13) to repeal the 16th amendment which permits this gross inequality and travesty of justice to continue.
Submitted by:
Eastern NC Tea Party, on this day __________ of ______________, 2011
Diane Rufino has her own blog For Love of God and Country. Come and visit her. She'd love your company.
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