From: larocqu@gaul.csd.uwo.ca (JOHN LAROCQUE)
Subject: Re: Taxation as Theft (was Re: Negative Income Tax)
Organization: Computer Science Dept., Univ. of Western Ontario, London, Canada
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 17:25:03 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.114721.13338@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy) writes:
>Voting is not a privilege...it is a right...an individual is a sovereign
>entity, and any government must seek the consent of the members of its
>society to gain any legitimate authority.   
>
>Gerald

I really hate to get on Gerald's case here, but this paragraph just about
exemplifies the whole thread between Gerald, Mark and Chuck. Rights.

I don't mean to offend anybody deliberately, but IMHO rights are a fiction
invented by people to justify institutions that supposedly protect them.
In reality, people are born with nothing, and people die with nothing.
What they do in between is their own business. 

The Darwinian law of survival applies to humans as it does to animals,
except the humans have made this into a fundamental human right -
simply speaking, the right to life. I have a right to exist - they say -
because Nature/God/Government gave it to me. Once again, the whole
authority fix that people have. They need authority figures like God
or Nature or Government to give them rights. They never really think
that maybe the desire to survive is just something purely natural. That
people need to exist because they only live once and once they die they 
are gone and can never come back. That as humans grow up and discover that
people die, that their day will come and that that it is best if that day
is later rather than sooner. In essence, a reflexive reaction - not a 
God-given human right - and also a necessary reaction. People die. It is
better that people live.

As for the fiction that people have a right to vote, that is just another
scam. Goverment rarely ever reflects the "will of the people", and even if
it does, that still does not guarantee the rights of the individual. Only
a constitutional regime that actually CONSTRAINS government to the MAXIMUM
degree possible can keep these vipers from stealing more money on behalf
of the "people". Only relationships based on consent can actaully benifit
society. That means putting governments out of business for good. And also
ripping the Linus blanket from the hands of 26 million Canadians and asking
them to think for themselves instead of relying on prelates and politicians.
Quite impossible, and a far fetched dream - but that's political theory. No
matter how far you may go, things in the real world will never change.

So what are human right? Just formalized dogmatized expressions of human
wants and neccessities. And when rights are created out of nothing because
of human want - society degrades further. The right to a job. The right
to food, housing etc. As if people cannot rely on themselves and on the
good graces of people who actually care and don't steal strangers money
to look after people. Rights based on human wants are a fiction. Marx was
wrong. The Christians are wrong. You are not your brother's keeper. And
governments just get in the way of real charity anyways. Take away the
middle man and do things on your own.

Rights based on necessities are another matter. Freedom is not something
that Natural Law gives us. It is something that we discover, and the more
we discover, the more we guard it from those who would take it away.
Freedom is a necessity once you rip out that Linus blanket of "social
rights". With freedom you realize that only you can be truly your own
master, and that authorities exist to take away your sovereingty over
yourself. A free man struggles against authority till the day he dies.
It is a never ending battle. The first words of a free man are "I 
shall not serve." Anything that is not based on consent is a denial of
personal freedom. All authority strips away consent from every day life.
Hence authority is an enemy of freedom. 

No matter how well intentioned neo-conservatives and objectivists are,
they too are advocates of authority. When they proclaim as rights what
is merely a necessity, they are just reinforcing the order that reigns
over us today. I have heard neo-conservatives who say that they love
freedom but are the worst war mongers and believe that it is OK to tax
people against their will to fight wars that that they want people to
fight, simply because the "enemy" doesn't share values like freedom. What
these warmongering neo-conservatives do not realize is that they are
reinforcing the idea that people are nothing and that the state is
everything. That it is OK for people to be taxed and conscripted to
kill and die in a foreing country based on the whims of evil politicians.
That ultimately the State is God.

War is the enemy of freedom. Fight your own battles. I will fight my
own. I will not serve. Government is the enemy of freedom. Govern yourself.
I will not serve. Taxes are the enemy of freedom. Paved roads and schools
and armies are conveniences. Pay for your own protection. Pave your own 
roads. Build your own schools. I will not serve.

"I will not serve" is the battle cry of every free man. Like Prometheus
who stole fire from the Gods, those who fight for freedom are condemned
to live out their lives forever as anarchists and enemies of society.
They will be imprisoned or killed or marginalized or laughed at by the
gods of authority. But their battle is never forgotten. And the torch of
freedom never dies so long as one single human being believes that 
freedom from others is a human necessity. That ultimately only the 
individual is sovereign. That government and taxes and war are wrong.
That you are your own master.

pax

-- 
***FEAR*AND*LOATHING**FEAR*AND*LOATHING**FEAR*AND*LOATHING**FEAR*AND*LOATHING**
**  John LaRocque         **   "If you're the new messiah.. I'm going to be  **
**  marshall.law@uwo.ca   **   the one to drive in the nails"  MARSHALL LAW  **
***FEAR*AND*LOATHING**FEAR*AND*LOATHING**FEAR*AND*LOATHING**FEAR*AND*LOATHING**