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Four Branches of Dysfunction in US Government, Part III

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By Mike Cronin

Another dysfunction that has corrupted the fabric of our freedom in countless ways is the confiscatory (i.e. to take) income tax system.  It is a dysfunction because it corrupts all of us.

Income taxation allows lawmakers and appointed bureaucrats to use the coercive power of government to take our property (i.e. the fruits of our labor) from us without our consent. That power then further corrupts our elected leaders by enabling them to “re-distribute” the collected revenue by spending it on government programs that favor their own constituencies. It has corrupted the citizenry by enabling us to obtain “benefits” that exceed the limits imposed on our government by its founding charter. Such “benefits” ultimately come to us from our neighbors’ pockets, which is property we had no right to. Our taxation system has essentially made Americans simultaneously into thieves and slaves.

Prior to the Civil War, there was no income tax. During that war, there was small tax of 3% on high incomes ($600-10,000 per year – a lot of money then!). It was abolished after the war. Congress flirted with income taxes a few more times between the Civil War and the turn of the century. In 1913, the government started taxing our income again, and it hasn’t stopped since.

Our founders went to war with Britain over far fewer provocations, including unfair taxation, than our own government imposes on us today. In fact, their grievances were listed on a single sheet of paper – the Declaration of Independence.  Could we catalog all of the grievances our tax laws generate today on even just one ream of paper? Our taxation bondage may not seem brutal to you, especially compared to what people living under fully tyrannical governments have to endure, but the proper comparison of our burden is not to what others have to endure elsewhere, it is to what it means to be “the land of the free.” If your government takes half of everything you earn, or more, either directly or indirectly, are you free?

Perhaps it sounds to you like I am advocating violent revolution, or that you break the law and dodge your tax obligations.  I am not.  As long we have the freedom of speech, we have the means to peaceably restore a bit of sanity to our system. One possible way is by switching from a confiscatory income tax to a national sales tax, such as that espoused by The Fair Tax proposal.

When it comes to income taxation, you may be happy to “pay your fair share,” or you might deny that withholding income taxes is any kind of slavery, but consider: If your property is taken from you by threat of force by  another, we call it robbery. When people are treated as property and forced to work for others, with no right to keep the fruit of their labor, that is slavery. Our taxation system is a whole lot of both .

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Four Branches of Dysfunction in US Government, Part II

War

By Mike Cronin

“What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright in 1993, to then Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin Powell, in reference to Bosnia

In Part I, I opined that slavery was the first of four major branches of dysfunction that plague our government, and that slavery led us to the worst instance of the second: the Civil War. George Washington once compared government to fire: “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” Government attracts the power hungry, and war is the most attractive method for the power hungry to exercise their power. War negates reason, and provides a fertile field for yet more power to accrue to the government.  It changes the balance of power in the relationship between people and government – war gives unjust power to the government, powers NOT derived from the consent of the governed.

It is to America’s credit, and to the genius of the founders, that for the most part our government’s powers have retracted somewhat after our wars, but it is to our detriment that that power has never ebbed to the level it was at before each war.  In other words, our government assumes new and greater powers with each war, and then sheds some measure of the accrued power after the war, but never all of it. Hence, with each succeeding war, our government grows and become more intrusive.

Certainly, some wars are more just than others, and our nation must be prepared to them. I felt strongly enough about that to serve in the military, but not blindly. Which wars are just?  Smashing Al-Qaeda was (and remains) a national defense imperative. Going after Saddam Hussein was just, but appears to have also been unwise. Was the Spanish-American war just and wise? It put America on map as a great power, but was it necessary to the defense of the nation?  We weren’t attacked or threatened by Spain.  Historians have alleged that President Roosevelt pressured and goaded the Japanese in to attacking us in order to get us into WW II. We probably would have been drug into the war at some point, regardless, but, if true, was it just and wise to encourage and hasten it? If the Spanish-American War put us on the map as a great power, WW II left us (briefly) as the only superpower, and the Cold War left us alone on the superpower stage. It may be good to be the king, but is it wise to be the largest target in a hostile world?

Slavery and war have exposed us to several virulent strains of hypocrisy: Our founders held that all men were created equal…unless one didn’t count as a man. We abolished the chattel slavery of Africans and their descendants in the south, but periodically enslaved men of all colors and creeds through conscription until the 1970s.  We want to bring peace and freedom and prosperity to the world, but we have allowed (or engineered) ourselves to engage in the biggest wars in history, and suffered internal paroxysms as a result.  If there can be such a thing as a national psyche, these dichotomies are not conducive to its health.

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Four Branches of Dysfunction in US Government, Part I

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By Mike Cronin

Ronald Reagan once said that government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem. What did he mean by that? After all, he was president at the time; surely he must have felt that at least some government is good and necessary. As I have expressed in previous posts, our government has become dysfunctional. Just as cancers are flawed cells that grow uncontrollably, consume resources, and displace healthy tissue, dysfunctional government supplants healthy government.  This is what Reagan was referring to.  How is our government dysfunctional? In my opinion, there are four major, interlocking branches of dysfunction: Slavery, war, confiscatory taxes, and currency debasement. In turn, these branches of dysfunction are fueled by ignorance and ambition to power.

Our government was established to protect our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but dysfunction was present right from the start. The founders articulated the notion that all men are created equal – but they didn’t recognize slaves as wholly men. Slaves counted only as 3/5ths of a person. Our nation began its life trying to cope with a terrible cognitive dissonance and human injustice – one that would cause arguably the greatest existential crisis it has yet faced: the Civil War.

You might argue that the Civil War was about states’ rights, not slavery. Well, there was one “state right” in particular that the South’s economy relied on: slavery. The Southern States seceded in order to hang on to the institution of slavery, but President Lincoln would not tolerate the dissolution of the union, so the first dysfunction led to the second: war. While Lincoln is widely hailed as the Great Emancipator and one of our best presidents, he assumed virtually dictatorial powers during the war, and expressly violated the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, thus setting precedent to his successors that might wish to do the same. One example: Lincoln ordered two newspapers critical of him to be shut down and had their owners and editors arrested for disloyalty.

While the aftermath of the Civil War may have seen the restoration of the country and the abolition of one form of slavery, it did not absolve us of the original dissonance slavery caused. It took another hundred years before the law and most of the nation accepted the full humanity of blacks, but vestiges of racism still haunt us, and our presidents still exercise more power than the Constitution allots them.

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Thoughts on Illegal Immigration

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By Mike Cronin

The topic of amnesty and “a path to citizenship” for those illegally present in the US has been making the news lately.  Illegal immigration is a complicated issue; perhaps we can unravel it a bit.

Illegal immigration occurs for a variety of reasons (economic opportunity, drug smuggling, social benefits, joining family, human trafficking, etc.) but only one principle applies: Incentive. People come here (or are brought here) illegally because they (or their abductors) perceive a benefit that outweighs the risk.

There are about 11-12 million people present in the US illegally.

Illegal immigration is not a felony, such as robbing a bank. It is a civil offense that comes in several forms: illegal entry and overstaying a visa are two. These violations carry relatively minor penalties. Nonetheless, illegal immigration is a violation of federal law.

PC police would have us believe the terms “illegal immigrant” and “illegal alien” are racist.  The reasoning goes that the terms should be treated as slurs because most (about 70-75%) of those to whom they apply are Hispanic and hale from Mexico and Central America, or because no person is illegal, only acts are. “Undocumented” is the preferred substitute. No doubt, there are racists who use one or other of the terms as code for those of Hispanic descent.  That does not mean everyone who uses the terms is making a slur. If I drive faster than the speed limit, I am a speeder.  If I steal candy from a convenience store, I am a shoplifter. People who commit such minor offenses and misdemeanors earn themselves appropriate sobriquets, which do not brand them for life. Likewise, people who are illegally present in the US, especially those who remain so of their own free will, have earned a descriptive moniker; “illegal immigrant” is factual, fit for polite company, just like “speeder” or “shoplifter,” and it can be overcome.  It certainly has a more benign connotation than many other terms one can think of.

Amnesty has been granted at least once before: By Ronald Reagan. Whatever their opinion or stance on amnesty, Republican politicians are generally not in favor of providing a path to citizenship, because, as has been mentioned, the vast majority of those who would benefit from such a path are Hispanic, and Hispanics, as a demographic, tend to vote for Democrats. By the same token, whatever their stated rationale may be for supporting a path to citizenship, Democratic politicians are aware of the huge voting bloc that would accrue to them if “path to citizenship” legislation came to pass.

In my opinion, this entire problem can be greatly reduced in the following ways:

  1. Legal immigration is a nightmare unless you are related to a citizen, rich, or eminent. We need to bring back the “Ellis Island” style of immigration: One shows up at the port of entry, gets documented, enters legally, and works towards citizenship. No quotas.
  2. We need to eliminate the incentives for immigration that stem from dysfunctional governance, such as minimum wage laws that incentivize paying paltry wages under the table to migrant workers, draconian drug laws that ensure the street prices attract the most ruthless minds to the narcotics trade, and “in-state” tuition rates at colleges and universities.
  3. Any “amnesty” or “path to citizenship” for those already here illegally must include paying the routine fine for the applicable original offense(s). Amnesty should only be from deportation, not from being cited and fined for the original immigration offense. Exemptions should be given for those who were brought here as minors or demonstrably against their will. Any “path to citizenship” should not be rewarded to those already here illegally simply because they are here illegally. It should include being placed last on current applicant lists – in other words, people who have followed the law and are waiting to gain entry, legal residency, and/or citizenship should be ahead of “path” applicants for citizenship consideration. Public or military service for qualified candidates could serve as an alternative mechanism, provided the same opportunity is given to standard applicants.
  4. We need to secure our borders.
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A Response to TIME Magazine’s Mark Thompson

Veterans-Day

By Mike Cronin

Writing for TIME magazine, Mark Thompson asks: Are U.S. Veteran’s Selfish?  

In the article, he argues that since veterans have received substantial pay and benefit increases since 9/11, they should not be so testy about recent cuts to the cost-of-living raises for retirees and proposed cuts to commissary subsidies.  I wrote the following response: (full disclosure: I am a military retiree).

Veterans aren’t selfish for wanting to keep the benefits they were promised and that they earned with their blood and sacrifice, anymore than any civilian corporate employee is selfish if they get upset when their company unilaterally cuts pay and/or benefits. Veterans understand the need for cuts and savings; they simply demand that ways be found to do it honorably. Regardless of how military compensation has increased over the last decade (those increases were meant to close a significant pay gap, by the way), there is no moral justification for reducing promised compensation to those who held up their end of the bargain. If cuts to military pay and benefits must be accomplished, it would be moral to make new promises to new troops (before they sign on the bottom line), but cuts could also come from other sources that are, at the moment, off the table.

We are in the current predicament because Congress has boxed the military in by not allowing more strategically considered fiscal savings, such as a round of stateside and/or overseas base closures, or cancellation of major weapons systems.  It’s simply not politically expedient for an elected official to face their constituents and tell them the base is closing or that they won’t be needed to build ships, tanks, or fighters.

That political expediency is further exposed by Congress’ refusal to reign in the Fed’s “qualitative easing” to the tune of $85 billion per month. If we need to make spending cuts so bad, (and we do) how about we start by picking the ridiculously-low hanging fruit first and turn off the free-money tsunami?

So Mr. Thompson: who is really selfish?  The vets who more than earned what they were promised through their sacrifices, or the politicians who make empty promises and no sacrifices at all?

Read more: Veterans fighting benefit cuts sought by Congress and the Pentagon | TIME.com http://swampland.time.com/2014/01/26/are-u-s-veterans-selfish/#ixzz2rf7JYtI5

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Your Income: Earned or Distributed?

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By Mike Cronin

When you received your pay check, was it because you earned it by trading your time and skill for money, or because it was just “distributed” to you?  I suspect you answered that you earned it. Most of us do. That’s why talk about the vast “income inequality” in our country can be very misleading.

When a statistician talks about income distribution, he or she is referring to how income brackets fit in a bell curve, like in the chart above.  When a politician or a pundit talks about income or wealth distribution, we are supposed to just act as if our money has been unfairly distributed and not earned, and  certain adjustments are necessary to make things “fair.”  These adjustments take the form of taxes, if you “received” too much, or hand outs and benefits, if you “received” too little.

The statisticians’ usage of the term distribution is neither bad nor good, it’s just math. The politicians’ and pundits’ usage of the term distribution is insidious, because it sounds so fair, but it drops contexts in at least two ways.  Every dollar that is “given” by the politicians to those who didn’t have “enough” income “distributed” to them, either:

  1. Had to be taken away from those who had produced it, then “redistributed” to the “have nots;”
  2. or, it had to be minted, printed, or digitally conjured up out of thin air and “pumped” or “quantitatively eased” into the economy.

The first is literal and direct theft (though we call it income taxes) and the latter is indirect theft, because it steals value from our existing money. (Full disclosure: I work for the government, so almost my entire income during my working life has come from your taxes – and my own. The part of the government I work for is clearly derived from the enumerated powers in the Constitution, and I favor The Fair Tax vice the confiscatory taxation system we have today. Decide for yourself whether I am a hypocrite. The thought has given me pause from time-to-time.)

So, statistically speaking, we have a vast disparity between the highest income earners and the lowest. That does not mean income distribution is unfair, because it does not mean that the “haves” with huge incomes somehow just got lucky and received an unfairly large distribution of money. Maybe they earned it, maybe they inherited it, maybe they embezzled it. The fact that they have It is not proof that they got it unfairly. Likewise, the fact that “have nots” at the low end of the income bell curve don’t have more doesn’t mean that they have somehow been cheated. Perhaps it means that they can work hard, gain skills, and climb into higher income brackets.

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Are You Guilty of Enjoying White Privilege?

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By Mike Cronin

On the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I find myself recalling a class on multiculturalism in my MA program. During the class, one of the topics was “white privilege.”  The essence of white privilege is that being born white, especially as a male, comes with certain privileges that members of other demographic groups don’t get.  The course hinted that white men could and should feel guilty about this privilege, and that they should take unspecified actions to atone for this guilt. 

I had very mixed feelings about this. I acknowledge that, as a white American male, compared to most people in the US and the world, I have a relatively benign position in life. I even accept that due to the accident of my birth, I began life with more advantages than most. If life is a game, then I acknowledge that I started on the easiest setting.  What I could not, (and still cannot) accept, is that I should feel guilty about it.  Guilt implies wrongdoing, and wrongdoing implies a choice between right and wrong. Infants have no understanding of right and wrong, and have not developed the mental faculties to make conscious choices. I cannot be guilty of being a white male, because it is not wrong, and because I had no choice in the matter. 

That means I have nothing to atone for. On the other hand, knowing that just about every other demographic may be “playing life” on a more difficult setting than I am requires that I ask: As an adult with the ability to understand right and wrong and to make conscious choices, what should I do, if anything, about “white privilege?”  I cannot undo history, nor can I change  anyone’s heritage.  I could give money to various causes, but that would have mixed results at best. 

The answer that I arrived at: Context matters.  While, as whole, white males may get the best “starting position” of any group, all groups are made of individuals, and individual circumstances vary. Some white males had it worse than I did, and some had it better. Likewise, while as a group, Asians, blacks, Hispanics, women, or others might not have had as good a starting position as white men, there are individuals in each cohort that started life out in an even better position than I did. In other words, the answer to “white privilege” is not to feel guilty and attempt to atone for something outside of one’s control, but rather to see and interact with every person as an individual, not as a representative of a demographic group (race, ethnicity, gender, etc.). The best thing anyone can do to create a level playing field is not to dole out compensatory advantages to some members of this or that “underprivileged” group, but simply to not hate or act against others because of their differences – to not purposely be bigoted, prejudiced, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, etc. Instead, respect individuals, and be a proponent of individual rights. Since the smallest possible minority is an individual, individual rights ARE minority rights.

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America: Republic, Democracy, or Empire? Part III

UncleImperialist

By Mike Cronin

In parts I and II, I opined that the U.S. is supposed to be a republic, but that we have become dysfunctional as such, and that people think we are a democracy, but if we adopt true majority rule vs the rule of law, we will descend into dictatorship.  Whether we are a republic or a democracy or a dictatorship speaks to our domestic governance, but what about our foreign relationships?  Some say America is an empire, and we have certainly done things that are imperialistic. But what is an empire, exactly? According to Paul Schroeder, Professor Emeritus of History, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:

“…empire means political control exercised by one organized political unit over another unit separate from and alien to it. Many factors enter into empire–economics, technology, ideology, religion, above all military strategy and weaponry–but the essential core is political: the possession of final authority by one entity over the vital political decisions of another. This need not mean direct rule exercised by formal occupation and administration; most empires involve informal, indirect rule. But real empire requires that effective final authority, and states can enjoy various forms of superiority or even domination over others without being empires.”

America certainly wields enormous power and influence across the world. We have the most powerful military and the largest economy. We have a military presence in something like 75-80% of the countries, and our Navy and Air Force can hold any target anywhere on the globe at risk. A few words from the president or the Chairman of the Federal Reserve can affect the fortunes of investors the world over.  We have acted imperialistically in many historical cases, but we are not fully an empire yet. The critical distinction is that we do not maintain “final authority” over other polities. In the historical cases where we had such power, we kept it only temporarily. (For example: the Philippines, Japan post WW II, Panama, Iraq.) We may not ever become an empire…unless we do descend into dictatorship. A dictator needs to accumulate power in order to keep accumulating power. An American dictator would have enormous power indeed – certainly enough to enable his or her ambition for empire.

So, to sum up this series of posts: are we a republic, a democracy, or an empire? If the answer eludes you, don’t feel bad. If you asked 100 historians or social scientists, you’d get 100 different answers.  In my opinion, we are stuck between modes of governance, that is, we have a mix of systems, and pressure is building.  “We the people” are supposed to have a republic, with representation in furtherance of protecting our rights; instead we get lip service. Where our votes are supposed to matter, instead corporate lobbyists and issue-based pressure groups buy or bully for the legislation they want and turn America against itself in the doing. Our elected leaders pass laws we don’t want, waste money that isn’t theirs on programs the Constitution doesn’t authorize, and empower armies of bureaucrats to regulate with the force of law. Then they then exempt themselves from their own handiwork. Our Supreme Court to often tries to legislate new rights out of thin air in an effort to achieve “social justice” and ignores the  Constitution, or says it’s a living document and re-interprets it to mean exactly the opposite of what it says. Ayn Rand was prescient when she wrote: “… no one’s interests are safe, everyone’s interests are on a public auction block, and anything goes for anyone who can get away with it. Such a system—or, more precisely, anti-system—breaks up a country into an ever-growing number of enemy camps, into…groups fighting one another for self-preservation in an indeterminate mixture of defense and offense, as the nature of such a jungle demands.”

If it seems like we are the most powerful nation on the planet, but that we are in decline because we can’t get our governmental act together , you are seeing things pretty clearly.

 

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America: Republic, Democracy, or Empire? Part II

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By Mike Cronin

In modern usage, the original meaning of the word “democracy” has been camouflaged. Whereas most folks understand it to mean electing our leaders and having a say in the affairs of our government, that is not what democracy means.  The hard reality is more insidious: the word democracy comes from the Greek word dēmokratiā, which was coined from dēmos (“people”) and kratos (“rule”). Democracy literally means “the peoplerule.”  We interpret that as “majority rule.” That sounds pretty good, right?  Isn’t that what we are supposed to have in America?

“Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner. In a republic, the sheep is well armed and able to contest the vote.” – multiple attributions.

But what if you are not in the majority?  Especially for an issue that has to do with your rights?  Should the majority be able to dispense with your rights just because they are the majority? The founding fathers didn’t think so; through the Constitution, they gave us the rule of law and a republic, not the rule of the majority. Our Constitution is designed to protect our rights – both from the government and from any majority who might wish to “democratically” vote them away. It does so via the techniques of splitting the government into three branches (legislative, executive, judicial) and by placing various checks and balances against them. For example, we elect our leaders, but they can’t legally impose any law on us that violates the Constitution. To make those laws requires great effort. First, both sides of Congress can pass proposed legislation, i.e. bills, by a simple majority vote, but they don’t become law unless the president signs.  If the president vetoes a bill, Congress can try again, but it takes a two-thirds majority to overcome the veto.  Meanwhile, if a law comes into dispute, the Supreme Court can rule it unconstitutional and order it struck down. In our system, the people are supposed to get their say by electing their representatives; the people don’t get a direct vote on legislation, and neither “we the people” nor our elected representatives can legally bypass the structures and processes our Constitution imposes on the government. Thus, we are supposed to have the rule of law, not a democracy (in the strict sense of the word).  In fact, believe it or not, the word “democracy” does not appear in either the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence! But  why shouldn’t we have a democracy? I’ll let historian Alexander Frazier Tyler explain:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policies, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.” 

Well, judging by the state of 237-year-old America today, it looks to me like the republic is giving way to democracy, but the transition is not complete, nor assured. Will we complete the transition and give in to dictatorship, or will “we the people” restore the republic?

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America: Republic, Democracy, or Empire? Part I

framers

By Mike Cronin

At the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Ben Franklin was asked what kind of government had been created. He replied “A republic, if you can keep it.”   Yet today, you almost never hear people call the U.S. a republic. It’s often called a democracy.  It is also sometimes spoken of as an empire, usually in a derogatory way.  So what are we supposed to have, and what do we actually have?

Let’s start with “republic.” The word republic, derived from the Latin res publica, or “public thing,” refers to a form of government where the citizens conduct their affairs for their own benefit rather than for the benefit of a ruler. It’s the form of government we are supposed to have, it’s the form of government our Constitution establishes, and that our presidents, military, and other public servants swear oaths to support and defend.   That’s what our founders gave us.

So, do we Americans conduct our affairs for our own benefit, or for the benefit of a ruling power?  How long do you have to work each year to pay your tax bill? How much paperwork do you have to fill out to file your taxes? Is the NSA spying on you? Can you sell your product without some kind of mandatory labeling to warn idiots not to do something stupid with it? If you decide to home school your kids, or send them to private school, do you still have to pay for your neighbors’ kids’ public schooling? If the local government thinks your house and yard would be put to better use as a shopping mall, will you be able to keep your own property?  Can you conduct any financial affairs without government scrutiny? Can you travel anywhere you like via any mode of transportation you want without having your papers checked and/or your property or your person searched? Are your particular vices allowed or prohibited?  Can you marry whichever mutually consenting adult(s) you’d like? Can a male over 18 NOT register for the draft without consequences?  If you decide to hire candidate X instead of candidate Y, are you going to get into hot water for not supporting affirmative action or diversity goals?  Once that has been settled, can you pay the candidate what the work is worth, or do you have pay them what the government says you must?  Are you obligated to provide a benefit package to boot? Do you have to take a drug test in order to work, so that the government can give some of your money to people who don’t work and couldn’t pass a drug test? Can you keep your insurance plan and /or your doctor this year? Are you in compliance with all of the millions of pages of other laws and regulations our government has levied on us over the last 237 years?

I think we can say, that based on the definition above, we are no longer fully functioning as a republic. To be sure, and for now, we still have many freedoms, including the freedom to write a blog like this one, and many other trappings of a republic, including the ability to vote. But are we truly able to conduct our own affairs for our own benefit?