One of the problems with government is that it can’t be trusted, ipso facto. This ought to be obvious, because thieves cannot be trusted.
Every government official is a thief.
The thing speaks for itself – as another old Roman saying has it.
He takes rather than earns his salary – and he takes more than just that. He is a person with the power to make you pay for things you already bought (freely) in order to be allowed to keep them. For things you don’t want to buy, too – such as granite-faced and marble-counter-topped office buildings for the government worker – rather than a new countertop for your kitchen. For his car, which you also pay to fuel. His retirement – always generous, since he can decide how much you’ll pay to fund it, at the expense of your own.
A government worker is also a specialized kind of thief. One with legally sanctioned power to steal. This is his spectacular achievement. To be able to take your money without (usually) having to actually stick a gun in your face or even meet you, face to face. He can sit at his marble-topped desk in his air-conditioned office and send you a “notice” demanding payment instead.
With the threat of the gun implied, which is usually enough.
It is easier to cognitively-dissonance the theft in this bureaucratic and euphemized way. The government thief avoids feeling like a thief by making you into a “taxpayer” – or a “customer” – rather than someone who just got robbed (by him).
He can feel good by imagining that he provides “services” never asked for and never mind how they got paid for – or the willingness of the payer to finance them. He can posture as servant of the people – an inversion so spectacular it beggars the language to describe it.
But behind their smiles and superficially genial countenances and the coerced civility that government workers propagate between themselves and their victims there is always the ugliness of force.
You know it’s there and they know it’s there.
It is why you – the victim – do not tell the bureaufrau at the DMV to find honest work when you hand over das geld to get a sticker you have no use for in return for being allowed to keep what is hilariously styled “your” car for another year. The car you know the bureaufrau and her fellow bureau-apparatchiks will seize next year, if you do not hand over das geld.
It is why you go, hat in hand, to the DMV in the first place. Would you go if you didn’t have to? How about “withholding”? Would you “withhold” a large chunk of your weekly paycheck if paying the government were optional?
It is why the small business “owner” – again, hilarious in a very sad way – posts Gesundheitsfuhrer decrees about Face Diapering muss sein on “his” door and enforces the decrees on behalf of the Gesundheitsfuhrer, whom he knows can revoke his permission to do business at the whim of the GSF.
The government thief can legally shove his hand in your pocket – and force a Diaper over your face – and you are legally powerless to prevent it. The government worker can force you to pay for “services” you don’t want – and certainly don’t want to pay for. He can revoke his permission to live at whim – and you are compelled by law to obey.
It brings up a number of questions, including a pertinent one about the nature of government services.
What if we had services rather than government?
You want ’em, you can pay for ’em – and if you don’t want ’em no one can force you to pay for ’em.
A perfect solution?
No, but a much better one – because it relies on cooperation rather than coercion. Freedom, ultimately, is defined by the power to say no. If you are forced to say “yes” then you are not free and it’s degrading to pretend otherwise. People in prison are under no illusions; they do not wave the flag of the prison and cheer the warden.
It comes down to:
Would you rather be at the occasional mercy of individual thieves you could lawfully defend yourself against – or a vast collective of legally anointed thieves whose “services” you are forced to accept – and pay for? Would you rather be at the mercy of random people you’ve never met and whose names you will never know who voted to make you do what they want and to pay for it, too?
Or your annoying neighbor – in whose face you can slam the door?
Would you prefer to “vote” for what you want by paying for it yourself, without a gun put to your head?
Would you like to be able to choose whether to wear a Face Diaper? To be free to choose to open the doors of your business to the Undiapered? Would you like to be able to decide for yourself whether to get the WuFlu vaccine?
Or be told you cannot say no to it?
This is the true choice – as opposed to the false choice argument of the defenders of government theft as payment for “services” you didn’t ask for – who claim the counterargument that services freely offered and freely accepted or declined is utopian.
Their argument is that unless a perfect alternative to their system is presented, the alternatives are illegitimate. It is an argument akin to the one that a man ought to never marry the good woman but wait – endlessly – for the perfect one.
Meanwhile paying alimony to the worse one – also endlessly.
The point being that while no human being is perfect – much less perfectly good – and that, accordingly, sometimes you will be taken in by bad people in the absence of the government. But it is axiomatic that all government workers are bad people – because good people don’t steal or (worse) pretend they don’t while they do just that.
Better an honest thief than a cognitively dissonant government worker. Better a street mugging or a burglar through the window than a “notice” from the IRS about what you “owe” them.
Better being able to decide for yourself whether to Diaper – or do business with the Undiapered.
And far better to able to say no to the Needle.
. . .
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Eric,
You can trust thieves-to be THIEVES! You can trust them to be what they are. As the Bible says, a leopard doesn’t change its spots…
MM, speaking of the Bible:
Proverbs 1:10-19
My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.
11If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:
12Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:
13We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:
14Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:
15My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path:
16For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.
17Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.
18And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.
19So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.
The mind of a thief/politician/socialist!
There is perhaps no publicly used term more deceptively used than “tax payer”. Taxes are not paid, they are collected, at gunpoint. You will be killed if you refuse to pay and resist incarceration. Those parties that are proclaimed to be criminals by the state are inconsequential compared to the REAL criminal, which is the state. I can prepare for, and deal with a burglar, mugger, or home invader, unless they are sponsored by the state. Since the state has granted itself unlimited funds, AKA stolen private property, it is able to bring irresistible levels of force against me. Any government of any form is the ideal environment for psychopaths of assorted varieties. Being such, they are all eventually, and most often quickly, saturated with them. The ink wasn’t dry on the US Constitution before a sedition act was passed, making it a crime to disparage the government. Hell, the Constitutional Convention that created the current Constitution was a coup. The proposed purpose was to amend the Articles of Confederation, which was the Constitution in effect at the time. The Articles of Confederation were summarily disposed of in the convention. Much as if a gang of delegates were to abolish the existing Constitution and substitute the Communist Manifesto.
Amen, JWK –
It is critically important to challenge political speech whenever used.The left is expert at using words to suborn agreement with the unspoken.
Unfortunately, most people these days are tax payers- in the sense that they dutifully narc on themselves and pay willingly, out of some perverted sense of obligation, because they actually believe they must “pay their fair share”, and they seem to somehow think that it is a moral transgression to evade the official state mugger. The coercion is just for the minority who object. Those same payers will happily cast a verdict to throw you or I in jail for not paying homage to the god of State.
An attorney/lawyer will often be required to get written permission to gain any authority in a clients legal affairs. Your signature on a power of attorney affirms your acquiescence to such. That anyone centuries ago could do the same ought to be seen with extreme skepticism. I’m left with the feeling voters are ignorantly oblivious to this martial/militant relationship with their neighbors which is in no way civil, the system as it is knows this at base and thrives upon the victims not recognizing it. If I am ignorant of all the intricacies of any agreements before the age of majority why should I be held to them, even after the age of majority one might still be ignorant of the mechanics of what is presented to them as if authorized by them.
I had a co-worker tell me he was happy/proud to be all wound into this mess, all I was hearing was someone talking himself in to a debt that wasn’t his. As I explained it his demeanor went blank. if I really pushed it might have gone to anger/hate thus the militancy as mentioned in the previous. To be fair he’s a teacher getting hours doing construction because of the covid hysteria
No one BELIEVES in the shoe rifle.
Hi Max,
Indeed. It is absurd to speak of a “contract” – whether legal or social – that the parties to it have not given their free and informed consent. Imagine someone walking into a court asserting that the defendant is bound to honor a contract never presented to him, that he never signed but which the prosecution claims he gave his “implied” consent to.
Yet that is what is claimed as regards the current regime, legal as well as social.
When I was in college, I had to take a business law course. One of the topics we covered was contracts. A contract made under duress is not a valid contract! IOW, if Luca Brasi holds a gun to your head and forces you to sign a contract, you are not legally obligated to perform your end of the contract, because it wasn’t entered into freely…
“The tax man’s taken all my dough
And left me in my stately home
Lazing on a sunny afternoon
And I can’t sail my yacht
He’s taken everythin’ I’ve got
All I’ve got’s this sunny afternoon”
Sunny Afternoon by the Kinks
You just have to grin and bear it, just the way it is. Gordon Kahl home! lol
If I didn’t have to spend money on everything and anything, could save every nickel ever earned, I’d be rich!
It’s only money, until you don’t have any.
Engulf and Devour, Inc. is government, THE government, I think. har
All taxes from local to federal all go to Washington, District of Criminals, every single penny, down to the penny, everything.
its tough for small businesses. Youre caught in a vice between employees and customer “karens”. The owners really have very little flexibility on this. Its a weird self-inflicted hysteria.
A friend of mine owns a dance studio. During lockdown, she and her husband had the police called on them several times. What were they doing? Filming videos to put up on the studio Facebook page! Sometimes with the assistance of their daughter, who lives with them!
They put up reflective film on the windows so people couldn’t see in as easily. I’ve noticed that one of the local barber shops has also done this.
Hi Publius,
The people who “call” are the sort who called the People’s Commissars back in Lenin’s (and Stalin’s) Soviet Union. They deserve one thing – and may God have mercy on their souls. If they had one.
Such people breed little Pavliks.
Eric, can you imagine a more dreadful nightmare than breeding a Pavel Trofimovich Morozov?
Every business must now operate as if it were a de facto speak-easy….
“Pssst! Buddy, want a haircut? Go to that little door down those steps and give two long knocks and one short, and then when the peephole opens, tell the guy Roger sent you”.
May all those who have foisted this upon the world, and all who enable it be damned!
“To be able to take your money without (usually) having to actually stick a gun in your face or even meet you, face to face.” — EP
A prominent exception is asset forfeiture, a poisonous outgrowth of the War on Drugs in which property can be seized without any criminal charge or conviction … and the burden of proof is then on the victim to get it back.
In one recent year, government thieves wielding asset forfeiture stole more money and property from Americans than “freelance” (unauthorized) thieves and robbers.
This makes it risky to buy a vehicle with cash, which police can grab as alleged “drug trafficking funds.” Yet fraudulent cashiers checks make many sellers unwilling to accept anything BUT cash.
When the state openly steals from its citizens, that state should be abolished and replaced by one that serves rather than plunders its people.
Watched a 2 hour video on Vaccines. Robert Kennedy Jr. is on our side against mandated vaccines even though he is a democrat. These four vaccine companies are making billions from mandated vaccines then many billions more for drugs to treat the adverse side effects of the vaccines. They cannot be sued for vaccine side effects which gives them no incentive to make them safe as possible. In fact the opposite is true. Give you some idea of the evil these companies are doing. Before 1989 Autism was 1 in 10,000. Today it is 1 in 32 and for boys it is 1 in 22. Vioxx has killed over 250,000 – 500,000 before being withdrawn. Now check out how NPR phrases the loss of Vioxx.
“: The Downfall of a Drug Merck removed one of the world’s best-selling painkillers from the market in 2004 after a study showed Vioxx caused an increased risk of serious cardiovascular events …”
He is also against mandated mask wearing. He need our help in getting his message out. I’m at a loss on how to do it.
You really need to watch the video or at least enough to get the gist of it.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/08/no_author/robert-f-kennedy-jr-destroys-big-pharma-fauci-the-pro-vaccine-movement-youtube/
Careful Eric. You’re not supposed to figure these things out. The assorted Ministries will come and force you down the memory hole. On the other hand, I wish more journalists actually pointed out the absurdity and thievery of gubmint like you do. Keep it up Sir.
Thanks, Skeptic – and, count on it!
I’ve had all’s I can stand… and I can’t stands no more!
-Popeye
Yes,,, I have a good example right outside my door. The County is mowing the easement. Now 90% are already mowed by property leasers so they run up and down the road ‘playing’ The equipment they are using are the best our money can buy. Brand new truck and trailer to haul them around. Did we ask for this…. no. It’s just a ‘service’.
Daily we see our governments and law enforcement overstep their bounds,,, by imposing ridiculous mandates for a virus they haven’t proved even exists. Around the world, Australia, NZ. Spain, Italy, UK, Canada literally beat their citizens for not wearing masks or not wearing them correctly or not antisocial distancing while those doing the beatings aren’t wearing them at all.
We have been deprived of justice, our right to work and be left alone our rights under the constitution. Our money is being destroyed by an illegal central bank. Presidents and Congress are now dictators waging wars on us and across the world while we pay for it all. And worse… most accept this as necessary.
We have another useless election year where everyone pretends we choose who runs the joint.
Which kind of person are we bickering about to run this asylum? Yes, an asylum,,, just look around when shopping. Is what you see “normal” or is what you see be more expected in an asylum.
The Statesman: who must be something of a prophet, one who has an historical perspective and says what he believes to be true and in the best long range interest of the people, whether it’s popular or not…….
OR
The politician that does whatever he thinks will get or keep him in power and his historical perspective is limited to the next opinion poll or brown bag full of unmarked bills.
I’ll let the reader decide but note I didn’t allow for “the lesser of evil”.
And what terribly important items are those in the running debating…. wearing masks and taking the shot,,, which ALL advocate.
Heh, yeah, Ken, That’s “democracy” for ya: All of those masked fools we see determine who will rule us. Not to mention that it is just assumed that we have been subjugated and thus are obliged to be ruled!
Re mowing the ROW: I mow in front of my place because the county only mows 2 or 3 times per year, and if I didn’t do it myself, the grass/weeds would be 4-5′ tall like they are in front of many other people’s places. So we are paying for NOTHING- and because “the county does it” few landowners bother to do it themselves. The grass is so tall most of the summer, that in many places it obscures the ability of drivers to see when entering from a side street, etc. If it was up to use to maintain the front of our own places, we would surely be fined for allowing a dangerous condition to exist…..but since it has somehow become the county’s obligation to maintain the first few feet of everyone’s property, it doesn’t matter.
Back on Lawn Guyland where I used to live, they spent millions installing new fancy sidewalks with red tile medians between the sidewalk and the roadway. Of course, they never maintained all of the fancy new frills, so weeds quickly grew up 3-4′ tall through all the tiles, and between the expansion joints in the sidewalks….so now it looks like a third-world country (In a place where “cheap” property taxes are $10K a year) and everything’s getting ruined and needs replacing again, just a handful of years after it was installed- whereas the old sidewalks, decades old, had been just fine and weeds were never a problem….but they were destroyed by government…so that they could be replaced with “something better”- which requires infinitely more maintenance- for which there is a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars…but of course, the work never gets done- and even if it did, what gives government the right to obligate taxpayers to take on such an expense? There was never a vote for such- and even if there had been, why should that obligate you or I to pay for something that some of our neighbors desired to have?
This is the absurdity of a collectivist system. (Not to mention the cops and train ticket-takers who make over $100K a year and retire with pensions often exceeding $200K a year……
Hi Ya Eric!
Sad thing is, it’s not just the threat of violence that keeps people compliant; it’s to the point where it’s just as much if not more to mind-control which has elevated obedience to the level of being a religious or “moral” “duty”- manifested by such concepts as “If you do not pay your taxes you are “cheating” the government” (LOL).
They are basically saying that if you withhold any of your money from the mugger, you are “cheating” the mugger. Or “You are not paying your fair share” (As if you are obligated to pay for whatever other people decide to impose collectively on all of society, and that “your share” is determined without regard to any proportion of services you personally avail yourself of, but rather by how much money you earn, or the value of whatever you own- And of course, those who pay the least or no taxes (the “poor”) usually use the most services, but the guy who may live in a &00K house and who may earn $150K a year pays infinitely more the McDonald’s employee or welfare queen, while consuming virtually no “free” services, merely because he has to pay for all of the services that Qwaaneesha and her brood of fatherless offspring consumes.
I fail to see the difference between this and “From each according to his ability to each according to his need”- but the religious indoctrination has worked so well, that the average American thinks that this is somehow “freedom” and the opposite of communism/Marxism whose tenets they are practicing to the letter.
Nunzio,
“Government” is mind control. That’s why it is so important for the people masquerading as “government” to get the children into the indoctrination camps while they are young.
“From each according to his ability to each according to his need”…
America has been practicing the 10 planks of the communist manifesto for several generations.
In 1913 they instituted the 5th plank of the communist manifesto.
In the 1930’s they instituted the 1st plank, though the groundwork was laid with the 14th amendment.
In the 1940’s they instituted the 2nd plank.
In 1979 they formalized the 10th plank, but they were practicing it before that.
Asset forfeiture is the 4th plank.
While they haven’t officially abolished all rights of inheritance, they’ve done a pretty good job of making sure most people spend their last few dollars on “healthcare” and other expenses before they pass.
Many Americans are communists and they don’t even know it…
They are afraid of freedom and they love their chains.
Be careful if you tell Americans they are communists, some of them get very angry.
☮
Well-said, Adam!
And I agree completely. Luckily, I started seeing this very early in life; pretty much had stopped going to the indoctrination camp by 6th grade, and officially dropped-out the day I turned 16. One either buys into and participates in this whole charade, or they stand apart; there is very little middle ground.
I do sometimes tell other ‘Mercans that they are communists- but only after some discussion in which I first see if they are in agreement with some of the planks of ther manifesto- like compulsory “education” and progressive taxation (and what American isn’t these days?); and or that they reject the concepts of private property by advocating property taxes and anti-discrimination laws; zoning and code enforcement, etc.
Then I reiterate their concepts back to them as stated in the commie manifesto- and then mention the source of those words. Sad thing is, they don’t care; they always just rationalize it- “Yeah, but ya GOTTA have taxes, schools, gun control…”.
I often do the same with many professing “Christians”- explaining how not only are the concepts they espouse unbiblical, but actually in agreement with Satanism!
You would think it would make at least the sincere question their premises- but it doesn’t because there is safety in numbers- and what they believe is what the majority believes, and as long as what the majority believes is labeled “Freedom” or “Christianity”, the facts don’t matter to them. Better in their eyes to be a member of the majority, than an outlier who actually gets it right.
If the majority does a 180 and preaches the diametric opposite tomorrow of what it beleived yesterday…they will be onboard with the new BS- just as most have accepted buggery as perfectly legitimate, and now are aghast at any who would dare dissent.
Such is symptomatic of a very sick, superficial and easily-manipulated society. Uncle, and his mouthpiece- the media- have learned how to control people’s minds and actions to the point where such is now easy and routine.
No amount of reason or logic can counter this, as it is emotionally based, and propped up by a huge infrastructure and has been ingrained for generations now- only those who see and who want to opt out are reachable.
Excellent comment Nunzio,
I too agree wholeheartedly.
You’ve touched upon a few important things about the psychology of most people, especially groups of people…
“Better in their eyes to be a member of the majority,” Have you ever heard of Solomon Asch’s conformity experiment? Facts clearly do not matter. Who are you going to believe, a group of strangers or your own lying eyes?
It seems you’ve also touched lightly upon the Stanley Milgram effect. Most people will do as they are told when told to do so by someone in a perceived position of authority. How could we possibly live without taxes, schools, gun control, zoning and code enforcement, social security, insurance, etc. Who will build the roads? (I’m sure you’ve noticed the absurdity of the charade.) Most people have been conditioned for obedience to “authority”. They wouldn’t feel comfortable without someone to obey.
“You would think it would make at least the sincere question their premises- but it doesn’t…” Most people seem very uncomfortable when presented with ideas that run contrary to the beliefs they have internalized. As you say, no amount of reason or logic can counter this.
Thanks for the comment.
I hope you have a great day.
☮
Thank you, Adam!
To take it even one step further, I don’t think that most people today even think- or have any serious internal dialogue. Between the massive and endless indoctrination, and the fact that everyone is now entertained 24/7 by screens full of superficial trivialities….any actual thought or internal voices have been snuffed out (Except for those of serial killers for some reason…they always seem to hear the bad ones! 😀 )
If every child had been taught The Law, by Frederic Bastiat, since it was written in 1850, mankind would probably have colonized the Universe by now. Its still not to late, just don’t expect Godvernment schools to do it. There’s free copies all over the internet and it’s still being published after 170 years. After every election here in Hall county Nebraska I send a copy of The Law to all the virgin politicians up to the county level. I have been doing this for several decades with no positive results that I have been able to discern. It is my opinion that 99.9% of the people who want to run for public office are beyond hope.
I’ve done something similar, but not quite as impressive as your consistent effort. When traveling for work, I’ve kept a few copies of Rothbard’s “Anatomy of the State” in my laptop bag. If a conversation at the airport bar went the right way, they’d get a copy.
Larry, I think you are being generous with that 99.9% – its higher.
“Their argument is that unless a perfect alternative to their system is presented, the alternatives are illegitimate.”
BINGO!!
Anyone that objects to the current system MUST come up with a Utopian Alternative. Those that supports and benefit from the current system are NEVER challenged to prove why and how their system is somehow superior to any and all alternatives and sacrosanct.
I have come to the conclusion that at some point in history civilized men instituted government to advance civilization. I say the experiment has failed. To that end I give you Exhibit “A”, The United States of America. A government allegedly based on limiting government to a small area of life. It has grown like kudzu to engulf the entirety of society.
We need to find other means of arranging our affairs as civilized people that do not involve the coercive, destructive and murderous entity known as The State. This needs to be done while acknowledging that Utopia is not an option. If mankind could create Heaven on Earth, God would not have created the two as separate.
“Their argument is that unless a perfect alternative to their system is presented, the alternatives are illegitimate.”
The fact this sentence can even exist is it itself is an argument that would not be if all were perfect, it fails its own test.
Yeah, that’s what I think — people everywhere need to start a new system/method for running civilization, but seems to me most/all people are just putting up with the current system. They don’t think of things like this, but we humans need to start having a better vision/dream, or else we’re not going to get anything at all. If you don’t have a goal, you’ll get nothing, actually you’ll be the victim of other peoples’ goals. The only people with goals & organizing nowadays are global cabals.