When The Government Is Immoral

02 Oct, 2008 by Melissa Clouthier

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“Through the Mercy of Fools all Justice is lost.”

-Nachmanides on Deut. 7:16

Dan Friedman sent that to me and it landed in my inbox along with the best article that R.S. McCain has written (yet). It’s about the immorality of the American taxation system. You’ll want to read the whole thing:

Whereas transactions in a market economy are voluntary and peaceful, the actions of government are essentially coercive, backed with the threat of violence to those who disobey. What government does, it does “at the point of the bayonet,” so to speak. Therefore, the fearsome power of government ought to be constrained to limited and specific purposes — defending the life, liberty and property of citizens.

When government begins to meddle in the economy, picking winners and losers, using appropriations and fiscal policy to transfer money from one group of citizens to another, it divides society into two classes, taxpayers and tax consumers, punishing the former in order to reward the latter.

Such a policy is not merely misguided, it is immoral — indeed, it is sinful, as I told the Christian homeschoolers — and by displaying the spectacle of government engaging daily in legalized theft, the welfare state tends to corrupt the morals of its citizens.

Many people viscerally dislike the bailout because it seems obviously wrong. It offends anyone who has a sense of fairness. For those who want a new car or a new house or a business line of credit and don’t qualify, they are not so happy. But should they be getting this money to begin with.

I wonder if the House Republicans will have the strength of character to withstand the pressure coming to bear upon them now. Michelle Malkin quotes Margaret Thatcher: “This is no time to go wobbly.” Michelle has a list of Congressmen and their phone numbers. I just got off the phone with my Congressman’s staffer and hope to do an interview with him, because he alone, in Houston, voted for the bill the first time around. Is he seeing something other conservatives are not?

And to those of you who might lose a significant chunk of your 401K should the whole banking system go South: Are you willing to lose it in the greater principle of free markets, eliminating unfair taxes and keeping this sort of financial power out of the hands of the government?

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com