The Failure of the Republican “Revolution,”

"Here was where the great Republican "revolution" of 1994 had arrived -- the leaders of the "revolution" pleading with the press to report that Republicans were, once again -- as always -- increasing the size of big government. The "revolutionaries" had come into office announcing the end of the New Deal and Great Society programs and now, just a few months later, were begging the press to report that they were actually expanding them."
...
"The problem with Republicans is actually a religious or spiritual one. On the one hand, they preach moral values, write books of virtues, and quote the Bible. On the other hand, they support Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schooling, and most other instances of political stealing. While quoting the Bible, they block out of their minds God's commandment: Thou shalt not steal."

The Failure of the Republican "Revolution,"
by Jacob G. Hornberger, February 1996

There have been four significant non-violent revolutions in American history: the Revolution in 1776, the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s, the constitutional amendments of 1913, and the Roosevelt revolution in the 1930s. To understand the Republican "revolution" of 1995 -- and its manifest failure -- it is necessary to place it in the context of the revolutions that preceded it.

The significance of the Revolution of 1776 did not lie in the military battles that took place between the British soldiers and the British colonists. Instead, the importance of that revolution lay simply in an idea -- an idea that was expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

Throughout history, governments had claimed the power to control and regulate the lives and fortunes of their citizenry. The king had the authority to issue rules, regulations, and decrees respecting any aspect of a citizen's life. For example, in the Age of Mercantilism, the age that preceded the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, government officials regulated the most minute aspects of people's lives. The rules told citizens what they were permitted to produce, the quantities to be produced, the prices to be charged, and so forth. Taxes in whatever amount the king deemed appropriate were assessed on the income and savings of the citizenry. Sometimes, the king found himself engaged in a war with another king. No problem -- he would simply order his citizens to take up arms against the enemy.

No one questioned the power of the king to do this. The king issued the orders; the citizens obeyed. Everyone accepted that the king had the power to regulate their activities, tax them, and conscript them.

No one doubted that the citizens "belonged" to their king. Sometimes a king was benevolent and permitted the people to have a wide ambit of personal "freedom" -- lower taxes, fewer regulations, and less conscription. When this happened, the citizens considered themselves to be privileged because their ruler was permitting them to live "freer," more pleasant lives.

Sometimes a king was less benevolent -- higher taxes, more rules, and more conscription. Citizens living under this type of regime considered themselves less privileged and less "free" than others.

But again, the basic idea was that the king had the sovereign prerogative to do whatever he wanted with the lives and property of "his" people. Everyone knew that "their" lives, "their" freedom, and "their" property were simply privileges bestowed upon them by their king. Since the king could legitimately regulate their entire lives -- since he could legitimately take all of their income -- since he could seize their bodies whenever he wanted -- then "freedom" from full regulation and control was viewed as an enormous privilege, for which the people were grateful to their ruler.

This was the belief mankind has always held -- that is, that "rights" are actually privileges bestowed by the collective -- the tribe, the government, the king, society, and and the like. This was certainly the mind-set that Europeans have held throughout the ages.

In one fell swoop, the Declaration of Independence in 1776 overthrew that age-old notion. The Declaration announced that individuals have inherent, fundamental rights that do not come from government. Rather, these rights preexist government. The Declaration pointed out that people call government into existence in order to ensure that others do not interfere with these God-given rights. What happens if a government itself becomes destructive of these rights? Then it is the right of the people to overthrow that government, either peacefully or violently.

Here is the way Leonard E. Read, the founder of The Foundation for Economic Education, put it in his book Castles in the Air (1975):

"More than two centuries ago in this land of ours men built castles in the air. What was their dream? A country free from authoritarian tyranny; each citizen free to act creatively as he pleased, government limited to inhibiting destructive actions, invoking a common justice, keeping the peace! No political arrangement had ever matched this dream, even remotely. Castles in the air, indeed!

"The challenge they faced was to put foundations under their dreams . And they did: The Declaration of Independence unseated government as the sovereign power and put the Creator there: '. . . all men are . . . endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty. . . .' The Declaration . . . was . . . the first stage in laying the greatest politico-economic foundation in the history of mankind."

This revolutionary notion that Thomas Jefferson was expressing in the Declaration -- that the individual in society is sovereign and supreme and that government officials are the ones who are subservient -- was shared by his fellow colonists. All of them had read and studied the works of the English philosopher John Locke and, specifically, Locke's Two Treatises of Government , which had been published almost a hundred years before. Jefferson was simply restating Locke's central point: Life, liberty, and property are natural, God-given rights that no government can legitimately regulate or destroy. People set up government in order to protect these rights from the violence of others. Thus, government officials are the servants, and the citizens remain the masters.

What happens if the government becomes destructive, rather than protective, of these preexisting rights? Locke provides the same answer that Jefferson would later enunciate in the Declaration: the right of revolution. The masters (citizens) have the right to privatize the servants (government officials) by altering or abolishing the government.

It is impossible to overstate the enormity of what happened in 1776. For centuries before, citizens had been beholden and thankful to their government officials for letting them have a certain amount of "freedom." The message of 1776 was this: Since rights preexist government, men do not have to be beholden or thankful to government officials for anything; in fact, government officials are only servants, whose role in life is to do our bidding -- which means protecting us from the violence of others. When government servants try to regulate or destroy the preexisting rights of their masters, they cross the line and subject themselves to rebellion.

Here is how Ayn Rand described the importance of the American Revolution:

"The most profoundly revolutionary achievement of the United States of America was the subordination of society to moral law .

"The principle of man's individual rights represented the extension of morality into the social system -- as a limitation on the power of the state, as man's protection against the brute force of the collective, as the subordination of might to right . The United States of America was the first moral society in history.

"All previous systems had regarded man as a sacrificial means to the ends of others, and society as an end in itself. The United States regarded man as an end in himself, and society as a means to the peaceful, orderly, voluntary coexistence of individuals. All previous systems had held that man's life belongs to society, that society can dispose of him in any way it pleases, and that any freedom he enjoys is his only by favor, by the permission of society, which may be revoked at any time. The United States held that man's life is his by right (which means: by moral principle and by his nature), that a right is the property of an individual, that society as such has no rights, and that the only moral purpose of a government is the protection of individual rights.

How was this idea institutionalized? The second stage in the Revolution occurred in 1787, when the Constitution was enacted. Recognizing that government was necessary as a servant to protect their natural, God-given rights of life, liberty, and property, the American people used the Constitution to call a national government into existence. What type of government? A government of limited, enumerated powers . In essence, by permitting the government to come into existence, the American people said this: "The national government is being set up at our behest and under our authority. Officials in this government will be our servants. We will remain their masters. Unlike all other governments in history, you will not have omnipotent power over our lives and fortunes. In fact, the only powers you will have are enumerated in the Constitution. You are not permitted to exceed those powers."

Even then, many Americans opposed the setting up of a national government. (See the arguments set forth in The Anti-Federalist Papers. ) They did not believe that it would be possible to restrain the government. They believed that ultimately the government would become as tyrannical as the government against which they had rebelled. Most of the resistance was overcome, however, with the promise that the Bill of Rights would be enacted soon after the government came into existence. Thus, the first ten amendments both make it clear that government cannot deprive the citizens of preexisting rights and protect the citizens against governmental abuse in the area of civil liberties. The lack of trust that the American people had in their government officials is reflected in the number of times that the words no and not are used in the Constitution -- 46!

An important point to make here: today, most Americans (including the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court) believe that people's rights come from the Constitution -- "Look and see if a right is listed in the Constitution; if not, then the people don't have it." Our ancestors, on the other hand, clearly understood that people's rights are inherent and that they preexist the Constitution; they understood that the Constitution simply called government into existence to protect these fundamental rights. Unlike present-day Americans, they understood that the Constitution granted powers, not rights.

Coincidentally (or perhaps not), there was another enormous revolution that took place in 1776 -- this one in Great Britain. The revolution occurred, again, in the form of an idea, this time expressed in a book. For it was in that year that the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith wrote his famous treatise, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations .

For centuries, government officials had waged wars against poverty. Throughout the ages, there had been price controls imposed on producers and sellers of goods and services to ensure that the poor would be able to afford food, clothing, transportation, and other essentials. There had been antispeculation laws that prevented speculators from buying low and selling high. There had been welfare laws, such as the English Poor Laws, that guaranteed free or inexpensive food for the poor. The way to end poverty, it had been widely assumed, was to have the government wage increasingly fierce wars against it. (See "Speculation, Law, and the Market Process" by Jacob G. Hornberger, Freedom Daily, February 1993.)

Along came Adam Smith and startled the world and angered politicians and bureaucrats, not only in England but all over the world. Smith announced that there was a very simple reason why mankind throughout the ages had remained mired in poverty. The reason: because governments throughout the ages had waged war against poverty! If government was prevented from waging war against poverty, Smith argued, the prosperity of people would skyrocket.

In other words, what was needed, Smith argued, was a repeal of all the laws that were designed to help the poor. Repeal price controls. Repeal antispeculation laws. Repeal excessive taxes. Repeal the Poor Laws. Leave people free to engage in economic activity, trade with one another, and accumulate the fruits of their earnings. This is the only way, Smith argued, to achieve economic prosperity -- and especially for the poor!

But Smith's critics asked: What would happen if the government did not dictate the production of shoes? Isn't it possible that everyone might forget to make shoes one year, resulting in everyone's going shoeless? What if everyone forgets to make bread? People could starve to death. What if no one assisted the poor? Wouldn't they starve to death? A governmental war on poverty was needed, the critics said, to ensure a "safety net" for those at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Not so, responded Smith. If you leave people free to live their lives the way they choose, they will be led by an "invisible hand" to produce the goods and services that people need and are willing to pay for. It is not through the benevolence of the baker that we get bread, Smith said. If people want bread, the baker will produce bread out of his own self-interest -- to make money, which enables him to purchase the things that he considers important to himself. Moreover, when people are free to accumulate wealth, they will be more willing to assist those less fortunate in society.

Thus, Smith's idea of an unhampered market economy -- unhampered by government rules and regulations -- unhampered by a governmental war on poverty -- was as revolutionary as Jefferson's idea of inherent, God-given rights of man. Together, these two revolutionary ideas would result in the most amazing society in the history of mankind.

http://www.fff.org/freedom/0296a.asp


Part 2

Our 19th-century American ancestors created the most unusual society in history. No income taxation. No Social Security. No Medicare. No Medicaid. No welfare. No public housing. No Meals on Wheels. No occupational licensure. No economic regulations. No immigration controls. Except for slavery and many relatively minor subsidies and regulations, our ancestors were the freest people in history.

Why did our ancestors refuse to have a welfare-state, regulated-economy way of life similar to that which 20th-century Americans have chosen? There were moral reasons. They believed that it was wrong to steal, even when the stealing was done through the political process. They knew that an evil and immoral act could not be converted into a moral one by making it legal. If it was individually wrong to take someone else's money against his will -- even with good intentions -- it was equally wrong to do so collectively through taxation and welfare.

Moreover, they believed that individuals had the God-given right to live their lives the way they chose, as long as their conduct was peaceful. That is, since God had entrusted man with the gift of free will, no man or group of men, even those in a government, had the rightful authority to take that gift away. Our ancestors knew that the concept of free will entailed the right to choose wrongly. If a person was free to choose only the "right" or approved course of action, then he could not truly be considered free.

What was the result of this strange way of life? Well, there are two different interpretations: that of modern-day American statists and that of American libertarians. Let us take the former first and then the latter.

From the first grade in government-approved schools in America -- and then continuously thereafter -- schoolchildren are taught that the Industrial Revolution was a horrible experience for the American people. Government-approved schoolteachers, using government-approved textbooks, are required to teach the official, government-approved line: Life in 19th-century America was a terrible ordeal for the poor, the children, and the average person in general; people lived in squalid conditions, had to work long hours in the factories, and forced their children to work in dangerous working conditions.

In a sense, the government-approved schoolteachers are right. For if we compare the standard of living of the American people in the 19th century with that of 20th-century Americans, there is no doubt that the latter have it much better than the former.

But herein lies the fatal fallacy. For the correct analysis lies not in comparing the 19th century with the 20th century. Rather, it lies in comparing the standard of living in the 19th century with what came before it. For if the 19th century, as bad as it was, was significantly better than that which preceded it -- that is, if the Industrial Revolution significantly improved and saved people's lives -- then the criticisms of our modern-day public schoolteachers ring hollow.

In her book The New Left (1971), Ayn Rand put the matter succinctly:

"In Western Europe, in the preindustrial Middle Ages, man's life expectancy was 30 years. In the nineteenth century, Europe's population grew by 300 percent -- which is the best proof of the fact that for the first time in human history, industry gave the great masses of people a chance to survive."

Here is how Ludwig von Mises explained it in a series of lectures he delivered in Argentina in 1959 (printed in Economic Policy [1979]):

"Of course -- from our viewpoint, the workers' standard of living was extremely low; conditions under early capitalism were absolutely shocking, but not because the newly developed capitalistic industries had harmed the workers. The people hired to work in factories had already been existing at a virtually subhuman level. . . .

"The mothers who worked in the factories had nothing to cook with; they did not leave their homes and their kitchens to go into the factories, they went into factories because they had no kitchens, and if they had a kitchen they had no food to cook in those kitchens. And the children did not come from comfortable nurseries. They were starving and dying. And all the talk about the so-called unspeakable horror of early capitalism can be refuted by a single statistic: precisely in the age called the Industrial Revolution in England, in the years from 1760 to 1830, precisely in those years the population of England doubled, which means that hundreds or thousands of children -- who would have died in preceding times -- survived and grew to become men and women."

In his book The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (1982), Michael Novak described the consequences of the Industrial Revolution:

"The invention of the market economy in Great Britain and the United States more profoundly revolutionized the world between 1800 and the present than any other single force. After five millennia of blundering, human beings finally figured out how wealth may be produced in a sustained, systematic way. In Great Britain, real wages doubled between 1800 and 1850, and doubled again between 1850 and 1900. Since the population of Great Britain quadrupled in size, this represented a 1600 percent increase within one century. The gains in personal choice -- in a more varied diet, new beverages, new skills, new vocations -- increased accordingly."

Before the Industrial Revolution, the average person lived a miserably short life. Death came often from famine, disease, illness, malnutrition, and starvation. And there was no way out. In The Wealth of Nations , Adam Smith observed that a mother would have to bear twenty children in the hopes that one or two would survive into adulthood. In an essay entitled "The Environment Since the Industrial Revolution" by Harry Lee Smith, published by the Cato Institute in 1991 (reprinted in the September 1993 issue of Freedom Daily ), Mr. Smith wrote:

"Life expectancy in the United States has effectively doubled during the past 200 years. In the 19th century it increased by 15 years, and it has increased by another 25 years since 1900. . . . Birth rates did not increase during the Industrial Revolution, but improved diet, housing, clothing, and sanitation reduced the death rate and population soared."

Also, see Capitalism and the Historians (1954), edited by F.A. Hayek.

When people were free to accumulate wealth, they saved large portions of it. And they learned that the key to ever-growing standards of living lay in the accumulation of capital, not in taxation and consumption. As F.A. Harper pointed out in his brilliant book Why Wages Rise (1957), the only way that wages can rise generally in a society is through the accumulation of capital. In Economic Policy , Mises put it this way:

"We must realize, however, that this higher standard of living depends on the supply of capital. This explains the difference between conditions in the United States and conditions in India; modern methods of fighting diseases have been introduced in India -- at least, to some extent -- and the effect has been an unprecedented increase in population but, since this increase in population has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in the amount of capital invested, the result has been an increase in poverty. A country becomes more prosperous in proportion to the rise in the invested capital per unit of its population."

Our ancestors' standard of living soared because man was free -- for the first time in history -- to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth. But the reason is even more profound. When man was free to engage in enterprise without regulation and restriction, the result was ingenious inventions as well as the phenomenon of mass production of goods and services for the average person. See, for example, The Mainspring of Human Progress by Henry Grady Weaver (1947) and Entrepreneurs vs. the State by Burt Folsom (1987).

Contrary to everything students are taught in public schools and other government-approved schools, never had the poor benefited more than they did during the Industrial Revolution. Did this mean that everyone hoarded and saved all his wealth? No. When men were free to accumulate wealth, they used that wealth to build the libraries, the universities, the museums, the opera houses, the soup kitchens -- and all on a voluntary basis -- and not for an income-tax deduction, for there was no income taxation. They did it because they wanted to do it. In his book The American Tradition (1964) Clarence Carson wrote:

"European visitors to America in the nineteenth century usually remarked the great number and variety of associations and organizations. For example, Captain Frederick Marryat, an Englishman who visited America in the 1830's, declared that "the Americans are society mad." He listed 22 of the most prominent benevolent societies in 1834 . . . but found it necessary to add that there "are many others. . . ."

See also The Tragedy of American Compassion (1992) by Marvin Olasky.

How did the American people achieve such a remarkable society? They put the Declaration of Independence into action. Since man has been endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights, then no government, not even an American government, should be permitted to interfere with such rights. These rights include living your life the way you choose; engaging in business without governmental restriction; accumulating unlimited amounts of wealth; and deciding what to do with that wealth.

Our ancestors expressly rejected the way of life that modern-day Americans have chosen. Government was not given the power to implement a welfare-state, regulated-economy way of life. And government was not permitted to wage the types of wars that have been waged against the American people in the 20th century -- the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on illiteracy through public schooling; and the war on guns. Our ancestors' deep sense of morality and profound devotion to liberty and limited government prevented them from supporting the type of political and economic system now favored by most Americans.

American statists today continue to condemn and castigate our American ancestors. The indoctrination is subtle: Employers were evil because they exploited factory workers. Parents were malevolent because they sent their children into the factories. Big business was bad because it created monopolies. Government officials were good and caring because they saved people from the misery of capitalism.

The indoctrination is necessary because it is the most effective way to prevent modern-day Americans from questioning and challenging the statist revolutions that have taken place in 20th-century America ­ the revolution in 1913 and the revolution in the 1930s.

http://www.fff.org/freedom/0396a.asp


Part 3

The year 1913 was one of the most revolutionary years in American history. Two things dramatically changed the nature of American society and the philosophy of freedom under which Americans had previously lived: the 16th Amendment to the Constitution and the passage of the Federal Reserve Act.

Since the time of the founding of the United States in 1787 until 1913, Americans were free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth, for there was no taxation on income, and even indirect taxation (i.e., tariffs) was extremely limited. Americans believed that individuals had the natural, God-given right to live their lives the way they chose (liberty), engage in economic enterprises with others without governmental restriction (free enterprise), accumulate the fruits of their earnings (property), and decide what to do with their wealth (free choice). Unlike their European counterparts, our American ancestors refused to permit their governmental officials to have omnipotent power over their earnings.

Moreover, Americans knew from history the dangers that direct taxation posed to individual liberty. If public officials -- whether democratically elected or not -- had the power to directly confiscate the wealth of the people through direct taxation, there would never be a stopping point. Americans knew that taxation would never cease to rise because the needs and crises of government are always never-ending.

Thus, from the start in 1787, the national government's operations were funded by indirect taxation -- the tariff -- and even then, the total tax probably never exceeded about one percent of people's income.

Why didn't the national politicians and bureaucrats simply impose income taxation on the American people? Because everyone understood that the government's powers emanated from the Constitution -- the document that the American people had used to bring the national government into existence. If a power was not listed in the Constitution, the national government was not permitted to exercise it. And the power to levy an income tax was simply not listed.

There was one attempt to violate the constitutional restriction on income taxation. During the Civil War, President Lincoln knowingly and deliberately violated the law -- the higher, constitutional law that applied to him as president -- by imposing an income tax to help fund the war. But when the case reached the United States Supreme Court, the tax was held to be unconstitutional. The Court examined the Constitution, found that the power to levy a tax on income was not listed among the powers granted to the national government, and declared the tax null and void.

It is impossible to understate the significance of the American way of life before 1913. Americans were free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth. And there was nothing public officials could do about it. Imagine: no income tax, no Internal Revenue Service, no income-tax returns.

This is what it once meant to be free -- to live your life the way you chose (so long as it was peaceful), to engage in economic enterprise without licenses or other governmental permissions, to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth, and to decide what to do with that wealth.

All of that changed in 1913. The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution permitted the national government to impose income taxation on the American people. It almost boggles the mind -- Americans went through all of the time and effort required to amend their Constitution in order to permit their politicians and bureaucrats to have control over the fruits of their earnings!

Life has not been the same since. Taxation at all governmental levels, including income taxation, now takes close to fifty percent of people's income. In other words, modern-day Americans are required by their government officials to work half their lives for the sake of their rulers.

But the real significance of the 1913 income-tax revolution does not lie in the percentage of people's income taken by public officials. No, the real significance lies in the revolutionary transformation in the nature of the relationship between the American people and their governmental officials.

Before 1913, the individual was sovereign and supreme. He was the boss. He worked for himself and for his family, and public officials could not force him to work for the government. In other words, he was a free man. Government officials were the servants.

With 1913, the American people's relationship to their government was dramatically changed. The relationship became the same as that which had existed in Europe and all over the world throughout history. Government officials, not the individual, were now in charge. If public officials ordered people to work only three percent of their lives for the government, they were considered more benevolent. If they ordered the people to work fifty percent of their lives for the government, they were considered less benevolent.

But what mattered was not the percentage but rather that the relationship of master and servant had reversed. Government officials were now in control. They were now the masters. The people were now the serfs.

In other words, freedom does not depend on whether a person is being forced to pay three percent of his income to government or forty percent of his income to government. Freedom is an absolute. One is either free or not free. It is only slavery that comes in degrees. In the Old South, some plantations were more pleasant to work on than others. But that certainly did not change the nature of the slave's relationship to his master.

If I have the power to order you to work for me, you may be happy that I require you to serve me only one day a week. You may be less happy if I make you serve me six days a week. But regardless of the length of time I order you to wait on me, neither of us can dispute the essential nature of our relationship: You are my servant, and I am your master. You will obey when I order you to obey.

And that is the crux of 1913. Americans today are the servants and public officials, albeit democratically elected, are the masters. Sometimes, they order us to work just a few months each year to sustain the political bureaucracy; other times, we have to work longer and harder. But make no mistake about the revolutionary nature of what happened in 1913: Public officials are the masters; we are the servants. They set the orders as to what percentage of our lives must be devoted to them. And we obey, because that is what servants do.

And political elections have become one gigantic quest in which some of the serfs devote their monies and their energies not to become free, but rather in a desperate attempt to become one of the periodic rulers.

Why in the world did 20th-century Americans do this? For over 125 years, Americans had lived a life of freedom -- a life without income taxation. Why did they amend their Constitution in order to live a life of serfdom -- a life of constant terror and fear of agents of the Internal Revenue Service?

I don't know the answer to that question. It has befuddled me ever since I learned what the American people did in 1913. Envy and covetousness had to have played major roles. Every human being suffers from these sins. No one is immune from resenting those who have more when he has less. No one is immune from coveting the things that belong to others.

But the bad consequences of envy and covetousness are minimized when they are limited to private dealings between people. We may wish we had our wealthy neighbor's money, home, car, and boat, but we recognize that it is morally and legally wrong to transform our envy and covetousness into theft and robbery.

That changed in 1913. The ideal, of course, would have been never to have passed the Sixteenth Amendment in the first place. But notice that there were various options that could have been used once it was decided to permit the national government to impose income taxation. One option would have been the addition of the following clause: "Everyone will be taxed at the same rate." Another clause could have been: "Under no circumstances will the rate of taxation ever exceed 5 percent."

Instead, the Sixteenth Amendment permitted government officials to tax people at different rates -- what was called progressive or graduated income taxation. And there was no ceiling to the rate.

This was the crucial method by which politicians and bureaucrats were able to sell the American people on income taxation -- by appealing to the envy and covetousness that existed within the American people. Americans were promised and told that the tax would never exceed two or three percent and that it would be imposed only on the wealthiest people in society.

What a bonanza for those who resented the tremendous wealth that had been accumulated during the Industrial Revolution! Never mind that the standard of living of the American people -- and especially those at the bottom of the economic ladder - had soared. Never mind that middle-class Americans were living better than some of the wealthiest kings in European history. Never mind that the wealthy were creating the jobs and building the universities, museums, opera halls, libraries, and hospitals. All of that was irrelevant. All that mattered was that for the first time in history, "regular" people were extremely wealthy, and other, less wealthy "regular" people hated it.

The graduated income tax permitted the less wealthy to satisfy their envy and covetousness under the guise of European "respectability." After all, this was simply taxation -- what the enlightened governments of Europe had done throughout the ages. Even more important, it was being done democratically.

The idea was that what was admittedly an immoral act -- envy, covetousness, and stealing -- could be converted into a moral act through the simple sanction of the voting process. How could all of this violate God's Ten Commandments, the reasoning went, when it was simply a part of America's political system? Surely, God would understand and agree, especially when He read the Federal Register.

The irony is that a nation of people who pride themselves on being God-fearing Christians tithe a maximum of ten percent of their incomes to God and almost fifty percent to Caesar. And what is amusing is how these God-fearing Christians never tire of telling us how the Lord is the most important thing in their lives!

The progressive income tax did not come from Jefferson, Washington, Madison, or any of America's Founding Fathers. Of course, the omnipotent governmental power to take people's property and income has existed throughout the ages. But the progressive income tax -- the power to take from those who have more -- was a primary feature of the 19th-century European socialists. In fact, it always shocks Americans who have been educated in public schools to discover that one of the ten planks of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto was the graduated income tax.

And it is this truth that makes present-day Americans so uncomfortable. They have a difficult time confronting that their parents and grandparents abandoned the central ideas of life, liberty, and property in the Declaration of Independence for the sake of the old, bankrupt European ideas against which our ancestors revolted in 1776.

What makes present-day Americans even more uncomfortable is the knowledge that they themselves share the convictions of their parents and grandparents rather than the convictions of America's Founding Fathers. The evidence for this continued abandonment -- and the primary reason for it -- is also listed in Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto: a central bank as well as public schooling.

http://www.fff.org/freedom/0496a.asp


Part 4

It would be difficult to find a better example of socialist central planning than the Federal Reserve Board -- the central bank of the United States. Since 1913, when the Federal Reserve Act was enacted, a small group of government bureaucrats have planned the monetary affairs of hundreds of millions of people. As with all other instances of socialist central planning, the results have not been surprising: continual debasement of the currency, surreptitious confiscation of wealth by the political authorities, and a continual series of monetary booms and busts.

But the major significance of the monetary revolution in 1913 was the omnipotent power that the U.S. government assumed over the lives and fortunes of the American people. For no people can ever be free as long as their government officials have unlimited power to confiscate their wealth, either directly or indirectly.

When the Constitution was enacted in 1787, it brought into existence the national government. But there was one stipulation: the national government's powers were limited to those enumerated in the Constitution. If a power was not specifically listed, government officials were not permitted to exercise it. If public officials did attempt to exercise illegal powers, it would be the duty of the Supreme Court to declare their actions unconstitutional.

The 10th Amendment to the Constitution emphasized that those powers not granted to the national government belonged to the states and to the people. But state powers themselves were restricted by express language in the Constitution. For example, states were prohibited from making anything but gold and silver coin legal tender. The states were also expressly prohibited from emitting bills of credit, or "paper money."

The national government was given the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof. Why didn't the Founders include the same types of express restrictions on the national government as they did on the states? Because the understanding was that there was no need for express restrictions on the national government -- if a power was not enumerated, then it simply could not be exercised. (Of course, not trusting their public officials on this point, the American people secured the enactment of the Bill of Rights, which expressly restricted certain powers of the national government.)

For over 100 years, the American people used gold and silver coins as their money. People would carry around gold and silver coins the way Americans today carry around Federal Reserve notes. Was this cumbersome? Not in the least. For example, today, a person who has a one-ounce gold coin in his pocket has the equivalent of almost $500.

Didn't the government issue paper money? No. The government borrowed money -- that is, it borrowed gold and silver coins -- and the debt was evidenced by government-issued promissory notes. The notes would read as any other notes would read: the government promised to pay the bearer of the note on demand or at some date in the future a certain quantity of gold. While the notes themselves would often be negotiated, they did not trade as paper money.

Gold itself was the money. The government-issued note was the promise to pay money, not the money itself. If the government issued too many notes and people began to suspect that the notes would not be honored, the notes would begin trading at a discount.

For example, suppose the government borrowed ten gold Eagles and issued a note promising to pay the bearer on demand ten gold Eagles. Someone could take the note to a merchant and ask the merchant if it would be okay to pay for merchandise by giving the note to the merchant. If the merchant had confidence in the government's ability to fully repay the note, he would permit the customer to buy merchandise equal in price to ten gold Eagles; in other words, the note would be negotiated at full value. But if the merchant had doubts about the government's ability to repay, he would say to the customer: "I will take the note in exchange for merchandise equal to nine gold Eagles." In this case, the note would be trading at a discount.

So, the government's ability to issue debt was limited by the marketplace. If government "inflated" its notes, the marketplace -- people buying and selling -- would place a lower value on the government notes. What is significant is that people were free to stick with gold and silver regardless of what their government was doing with its debts. And government officials were constrained by the marketplace when it came to borrowing from the people.

The result was the soundest currency in the history of man. Throughout the ages, governments had used their powers over money to steal from the citizenry -- confiscating their wealth by debasing their currency. One of the earliest methods of doing this was what was called "clipping the coin." When people in the Middle Ages would send gold coins to their king in payment of taxes, the king would shave the edges off the coin before reusing the coins in the marketplace. Thus, what was officially a one-ounce gold coin would end up containing a little less than an ounce. The king would then gather up his shavings and melt them down into another gold coin. What would happen if someone refused to accept the clipped coins at face value? The king's legal-tender laws imposed fines, imprisonment, and sometimes even death for anyone violating his legal-tender laws.

The 19th century was the most prosperous period in the history of man (see Part II of this series). The reasons: no income taxation; few regulations; no Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, meals on wheels, or other socialistic political schemes; and virtually no trade and immigration controls. And one additional important reason: the American people had the strongest currency in the world -- a currency that, for the first time in history, government had no power to debase.

One of the first assaults on monetary freedom came from Abraham Lincoln. Realizing that the people of the North were resisting the imposition of higher taxes to finance the war against the South, Lincoln did what all rulers in history had done under similar circumstances. He began issuing ever-increasing amounts of government debt to finance the war. What happened when the notes began trading at a discount in the marketplace? Lincoln ensured the passage of the first legal-tender law in American history. Americans were required to accept the notes at face value even though the marketplace was severely discounting them.

What about the Constitution? What about limited powers? Was there an enumerated power permitting the national government to enact legal-tender laws? Was there an enumerated power permitting the national government to make its notes legal tender? When the case reached the Supreme Court, Lincoln's legal-tender laws were held to be unconstitutional. However, due to a court-packing scheme shortly thereafter, that decision was overruled and the legal-tender laws were sustained.

Were there problems with the gold standard? Of course. One major problem was that the government made gold and silver legal tender, rather than simply letting the marketplace determine what medium of exchange people desired to use. Government officials would fix the price of gold and silver. For example, assume that in the marketplace ten ounces of silver were trading for one ounce of gold. The government would then decree that a one-ounce gold coin would be equal to ten one-ounce silver coins. The problem would arise when market conditions would change. If a one-ounce gold coin would later be valued at nine silver coins in the marketplace, people would use their gold coins in the marketplace and hoard their silver coins. This was Gresham's Law -- that bad money would drive out good money, or, more appropriately, that overvalued money would drive out undervalued money.

There were also inflationary periods. For example, a new gold discovery would devalue gold relative to silver and other things.

There were also bank failures. People would deposit their gold in banks. Banks would lend the money. But bankers realized that everyone would not attempt to withdraw their funds at the same time. Thus, bankers would lend money -- that is, issue bank notes -- in excess of what was on deposit -- fractional reserve banking. Gradually, people began suspecting that the bank was not in a position to redeem its notes and, thus, the notes would begin trading at a discount. In the worst case, worried depositors would "make a run on the bank" by demanding the return of their deposits. The bank would fail, and the depositors would lose their money.

Government officials promised the American people that monetary problems would be solved with the creation of the central bank in 1913. But, of course, the opposite happened. First came the "Roaring 20s," when the Fed inflated the paper supply. Then, the Fed overtightened the money supply in 1929, giving America the stock-market crash and the Great Depression. Then came decade after decade of continual monetary debasement -- a constantly depreciating medium of exchange. On top of all this was an endless series of booms and busts.

And, of course, there was the political regime of Franklin D. Roosevelt. To finance government expenditures to pay for his beloved New Deal welfare programs, Roosevelt and his cohorts began printing massive amounts of government notes. To ensure that gold would not expose what they were doing, legal-tender laws were enacted. But that wasn't the worst of it. The Roosevelt people next canceled -- nullified -- extinguished -- every single gold clause in every single contract, public and private.

And even that wasn't the worst of it. Roosevelt and his cronies nationalized -- confiscated -- the gold coins of the American people and then made it illegal for Americans to own gold. Imagine -- after 150 years of the strongest monetary system in history -- a system free from government assault -- a system that was a bulwark for American liberty -- the American people became subject to serving time in a U.S. federal penitentiary for owning a gold coin!

What about the Constitution? What about enumerated powers? Unfortunately, Roosevelt had sufficient cronies on the Court to sustain his policies, especially after his infamous and shameful court-packing scheme.

Today, most Americans don't even realize what their own government has done to them. They carry around their beloved government-issued, irredeemable Federal Reserve notes and never even think to ask what the notes are promising to pay. They see "legal tender" on their Federal Reserve notes and don't even wonder why. Widows and orphans have lost fortunes in debased pension payments over the years and simply assume that this is due to some complex natural force in the universe. Americans throw away their ever-depreciating pennies and just convince themselves that devaluation is a natural way of life.

Americans refuse to face the fact that the government, through the insidious, indirect tax of monetary debasement-inflation, has stolen billions of money from them over the years.

Unfortunately, all too many Americans have come to meekly accept the role of government in their monetary affairs. And the primary reason for this is another big revolution that took place at the turn of the 20th century. While it was more in the nature of state-by-state revolution, rather than a national one, it was nonetheless one of the most powerful and destructive events in American history -- the advent of public schooling.

http://www.fff.org/freedom/0596a.asp


Part 5

It would be difficult to find a better example of socialist central planning than public schooling. The system is run by a board of government officials, whether at the local, state, or national level. Funding is through taxation -- everyone, even those who don't have children, are forced, on pain of fine and imprisonment, to finance the system.

Attendance is mandatory (even home-schoolers must secure government approval of their study program). If a parent fails to send his child to a government-approved institution (i.e., public schools), state officials will arrest him, imprison him, and take his child from him. If he resists punishment, the state officials will kill him, as the late John Singer discovered many years ago in Utah.

The school curriculum and the textbooks are set forth by government officials. Schoolteachers must be government approved, as well. While a teacher might deviate slightly from the approved texts and curricula, he does so at his own risk. For if he regularly teaches his students a nonapproved doctrine, he is subject to being summoned to the principal's office to justify his behavior. For example, without doing an extensive study on the issue, we can rest assured that there is not one single public school in America teaching a course on libertarianism.

For the greater part of the 20th century, public schooling has been the hallmark of societies in the former Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, communist China . . . and, of course, the United States. It always shocks Americans who attended public schools to learn that public schooling was one of the ten planks of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto.

It is virtually impossible to find anyone -- even the most ardent supporters of public schooling -- who argue that the system has been a success. The best evidence of failure -- at least insofar as education is concerned -- is reflected by the increasing number of government officials, including public-school teachers, who send their children to private schools.

But has public schooling truly been a failure? Actually, no. In fact, it has been one of the most successful socialistic experiments in history. Why? Because since the inception, the primary purpose of public schooling has never been to instill a love of education in the student. Instead, as Sheldon Richman documents so well in his book Separating School & State , the main goal of public schooling has been to mold the minds of people, especially in their most formative years, so that they become "good little citizens" of the state.

It is not a coincidence that the overwhelming number of Americans support America's welfare state and regulated economy. And it also not a coincidence that they view this way of life as "freedom." From the first grade and continuously thereafter, students are taught that life in America is "free enterprise" and that such programs and interventions as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and economic regulations (all of which originated with the German socialists and Italian fascists) saved America's free-enterprise system.

The fact that most Americans honestly believe that public schooling has always existed in the U.S. is itself a testament to the success of public schooling. Americans have no idea that our American ancestors rejected public schooling for over 125 years. In fact, even though American public schooling originated in Massachusetts in the 1850s, it did not become firmly entrenched as a system in the U.S. until the early 1900s. Education was left to the free market, because our ancestors, unlike present-day Americans, truly believed in the free market. And they didn't trust the state -- not even when state officials were democratically elected. Throughout the 19th century, families assumed responsibility for the education of their children, and the market provided the educational vehicles that the parents, as consumers, demanded.

The result was the most educated and literate people in history. While it is difficult to compare and measure the education of different people (since education is so subjective), there is no doubt that the average American of the 19th century was much more educated and literate than the average present-day American. As an example, recall the series on the Civil War that was presented on PBS a few years ago. Do you remember the remarkable prose in the letters sent home by the average soldier? Try finding that degree of literacy in the average American today.

The advent of public schooling was one of the most revolutionary events in American history. It is impossible to understate its significance. This nation was founded on the idea that the individual in society was sovereign and supreme. Children belonged to their families, who assumed responsibility for their upbringing and education.

With public schooling, the relationship was dramatically changed. State officials assumed the power to order parents to deliver their children to a state-approved institution to have their minds molded by government-approved teachers using government-approved textbooks.

In the ultimate analysis, children no longer belong to the family; they belong to the state, which permits the children to spend evenings and summers with their parents. Final power and control lie with government officials, not with parents or families.

The success of this revolutionary aspect of 20th-century American life helps to explain the reasons for the failure of the Republican "revolution." Republicans and conservatives are the very model of the public-school success story. For one can look long and hard, but he will never find a better example of the good little citizen than in Republicans and conservatives.

In a free society, conservatives perform a valuable function -- they help to conserve liberty. But when the society is unfree, conservatives become an integral part of the problem. Evidencing a terrifying fear of change, even toward freedom, they fight to conserve the status quo. And they do so as good little citizens who believe in "America's free-enterprise system."

Attend any Republican gathering. The first thing they do is stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, just like they joyfully did every day for twelve long years in their public schools. Never mind that the Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist in the 20th century. Never mind that our ancestors rejected loyalty oaths to the state. This is what good little citizens of the state are supposed to do -- pledge allegiance. And Republicans do it with happiness, pride, and glee.

You will then hear all kinds of libertarian platitudes. "We believe in individual freedom -- free enterprise -- private property - free markets -- limited government," the Republicans proudly proclaim. "We believe in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution."

Yes, the general rhetoric always sounds great. But then come the specifics. And that's why many conservatives and Republicans dislike libertarians. We expose their life of the lie by turning to the specifics.

The libertarian : "If you believe that an individual should be free to live his life the way he wants as long as he doesn't inflict violence on another, then do you now favor drug legalization?"

The conservative : "Oh, no! We have to have drug laws to keep people from doing bad things to themselves."

The libertarian : "Do you favor the end of socialism in education -- a return of education to families and the free market?"

The conservative : "Oh, no! Parents cannot be trusted with the educational decisions of their children. And, anyway, where would the poor get their education?"

The libertarian : "Do you favor the end of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid?"

The conservative : "Oh, no! People would starve to death and die of disease if the state did not force people to participate in these systems."

The libertarian : "Do you favor the end of all welfare programs, including those to the rich and the middle class?"

The conservative : "Oh, no! Americans would never help out their neighbor on a voluntary basis. We need the IRS, HUD, HHS, and other state agencies to ensure that needy people are assisted."

If you want to see a Republican or conservative gnash his teeth and angrily glare at you, ask him this: "You suggest that if drugs were legalized, Americans would immediately go out and get on drugs. If public schooling were repealed, Americans wouldn't educate their children. If welfare-state programs were abolished, Americans wouldn't help their neighbor. But why? After all, didn't all these irresponsible, selfish, uncaring Americans attend public schools? And if that's the type of people public schools produce, why do we want to do it again with another generation?"

Conservatives and Republicans hate libertarians because they know that libertarians are fighting to restore freedom, while the former are fighting to protect the status quo under the guise of freedom. The difference between a conservative gathering and a libertarian gathering can be summed up quite easily as follows: Conservatives proclaim, "We need to keep America free"; libertarians proclaim, "We need to make America free."

Another evidence of the good little citizen that marks conservatives and Republicans is their abhorrence to the idea of civil disobedience. The conservative has the mind-set of obedience. "The law is the law. If you don't like it, work within the system to get it changed. But to knowingly disobey the law is bad. Rules are rules." Thus, the good little citizen, in the eyes of the conservative, is the one who willingly obeys the orders, even if he might grumble about them. The bad citizen is the one who disobeys the law, even out of conscience.

Recall the Vietnam War. There were those who opposed the draft or the war and, yet, still obeyed conscription orders. To this day, those individuals are viewed by conservatives as heroes -- good little citizens who obeyed the law, even though they believed it to be wrong. And what about those who burned their draft cards because they believed, as Daniel Webster and our American ancestors, that conscription was evil and immoral and violated the most fundamental principles of liberty? In the eyes of conservatives, they were bad citizens -- traitors -- for not going along with the orders.

It is this allegiance to existing rules and regulations -- to the preservation of the status quo -- that has made conservatives throughout history one of the major allies of tyrannical governments. In Russia today, it is the conservatives who are pledged to maintaining the socialist welfare-state edifice, even though, like American conservatives, they now call for "reform." In Nazi Germany, it was the conservatives who said: "You may disagree with the laws regulating the conduct of the Jews. But the law is the law. And it must be obeyed until it's changed."

It is this ardent devotion to "order," to the preservation of the status quo, to the love of control under the name of freedom, to the life of the lie -- all of which public schooling helped to produce -- that underlies the failure of the Republican "revolution."

Public schooling was a monumental event in American history. It set the groundwork and formulated the mind-set that explains the acceptance of the enormous revolution that took place in the 1930s -- the advent of the American welfare state -- the Roosevelt revolution that brought the final break with America's heritage of economic liberty.

http://www.fff.org/freedom/0696a.asp


Part 6

The Roosevelt Revolution in the 1930s was not a revolution of arms. It was not a revolution of armies. Nevertheless, it counts as one of the most dramatic and monumental events in American history. It not only altered America's way of life, it also shattered the moral, ethical, political, and economic foundations on which American society had been based since its inception. It is impossible to overstate the significance of what happened in the 1930s.

For over 150 years, the American people had said no to the notion that government should take money from those to whom it belonged in order to give it to others.

Perfection being impossible -- and human nature being what it is -- there were, of course, exceptions that crept into the system. But the guiding moral and ethical principle of our ancestors was simple and fundamental: "You don't take what doesn't belong to you, not even when you want to do good things with it. It is wrong to steal."

And they believed that a private act of immorality -- stealing -- taking what doesn't belong to you to help another -- could not be converted into a moral act by running it through the legislature.

Americans' antipathy to stealing, private or public, throughout the 19th century, was the reason our ancestors said no to such things as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schooling, Meals on Wheels, and the like. Government programs that took money from one person in order to give the money to another person were denounced as evil and immoral.

Thus, throughout the 19th century, Americans were free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth, for there was no taxation on income. They were not forced to assist the elderly, the poor, or anyone else. Everyone was free to decide for himself what to do with his own money. And the massive accumulation of capital and the enormous extent of voluntary charity did more for those at the bottom of the economic ladder than any government program in history. (See Part II of this series.)

In the 1930s, without even the semblance of a constitutional amendment, American society moved in an opposite direction. Franklin Roosevelt decreed that from that day forward, it would be the guiding principle of government in America to take money from those to whom it belonged in order to give it to others who Roosevelt said deserved it more. (See "FDR and the End of Economic Liberty," Freedom Daily , August 1991.)

To ameliorate people's conscience, Roosevelt told them not to worry: America's system of freedom was not being changed, but rather being saved. It was the beginning of what would become a dark and sinister life of the lie that the American people and their descendants would live for the rest of the century.

At first, Republicans opposed Roosevelt's New Deal, primarily on moral grounds, but also on economic ones. They said it was wrong to steal, even when it's done to help the poor and needy. And they continually warned of the disastrous economic consequences that would result from the abandonment of moral principles.

But gradually, Republicans threw in the towel. They recognized that the American people liked this new way of life -- a life of plunder, immorality, debauchery, stealing, and welfare dependency. They realized that opposition all too often meant electoral defeat. Faced with the choice of prevailing at the polls or sticking to their moral principles, Republicans chose the former.

So, Republicans began seeking office with proposals on how to make the welfare state more efficient. Their campaign slogan became: "We believe in free enterprise, welfare reform, and regulatory reform. We'll reduce the waste, fraud, and abuse of government programs, but we promise you that we will never dismantle them."

Thus, election after election, no matter who was in office -- Democrat or Republican -- the cancer of the welfare and regulatory state grew exponentially. And the only ones left to sound the warning of what lay ahead were the libertarians.

In 1944, Friedrich A. Hayek published his famous book, The Road to Serfdom . Hayek was a libertarian. (One of his most famous essays is "Why I Am Not a Conservative.") He would go on to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science. His book outraged both Democrats and Republicans.

Hayek warned: If you continue traveling this road -- the road to the New Deal -- the road to the welfare state -- the road to the regulatory society -- the road to the bureaucratic government -- the road to serfdom -- you will be pursuing the same philosophy -- the same programs -- as the totalitarian countries that you profess to oppose.

Democrats and Republicans recoiled in anger. "How can you suggest that we favor socialist and fascist economic beliefs and policies? they asked. Why, look at all the governmental controls that we have implemented in order to save free enterprise."

The expansion of the welfare state continued throughout the 1950s. Then, there was a great leap forward with Democrat Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs. Richard Nixon, a Republican, showed how an expansionary tax and regulatory system could be used to go after political enemies. In the '70s and '80s, Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republicans Ronald Reagan and George Bush did what Democrats and Republicans had been doing since FDR: promising , during electoral campaigns, "smaller" government and tax, regulatory, and welfare reform and then expanding the welfare-state programs after the election.

And the results? They were predictable, at least by the libertarians. Everywhere in the world you look today -- Cuba, Russia, China, North Korea, Sweden, England, and the U.S. -- the welfare state is in crisis.

Social Security? Busted. Oh yes, every election year, both the Democrats and the Republicans go out of their way to say: "There's a trust fund. You put your money into it. It earns interest. You have a right to get it back." At least the young people -- the "Generation Xers" -- are realizing what libertarians have recognized for decades. It's been a lie since the very beginning. There is no trust fund, and there never has been. Social Security (which was copied from the German socialists and became a hallmark of the Nazi system) is simply a stealing-and-transfer program. In the name of goodness, money is taken from those to whom it belongs (the young and the productive), and the loot is distributed to those to whom it does not belong (the elderly and the nonproductive).

Medicare and Medicaid? Busted. Health-care costs are soaring. Doctors everywhere are disgusted with their profession. The quality of health care continues to diminish. National health care (which was copied from the German socialists and became a hallmark of the Nazi system) is another gigantic welfare-state failure.

Public schooling. Busted. Even the most ardent proponents of public schooling (which was copied from the German socialists and became a hallmark of the Nazi system) will tell you that after a hundred years of experimentation with the minds of young people, the system "needs reform." Being themselves products of the public-school system, they cannot fathom the possibility that central planning, especially in education, is inherently incapable of ever working.

And look at the beloved wars that Democrats and Republicans have waged against the American people for so many decades.

The war on poverty. Busted. Even its biggest supporters never tire of telling us how many poor and homeless people there are after thirty years of warfare.

The war on drugs. Busted. Every election year, Democrats and Republican candidates for office stand with DEA officials to announce a new record drug bust, as if that is supposed to show progress after eighty years of warfare.

The war on bigotry. Busted. Racial bigotry, especially at BATF barbecues, pervades America.

And who can deny that Americans have become weak, dependent wards of the state, terrified that their welfare opium -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schooling, and the like -- might be taken away from them? We have the strongest government in history; but the result is that Americans are among the weakest people in history. They lack the intestinal fortitude to kick their governmental habit and overthrow the tyranny of the welfare state; and their courage is exercised vicariously through their government's foreign wars. ("We" kicked butt in the Persian Gulf.")

What is sad is how both Democrats and Republicans refuse to take individual responsibility for the evil, immorality, and destructiveness that they and their parties have wrought on the American people.

Ask a Democrat: "Do you take responsibility for the families you have destroyed with the welfare narcotic? For the mind-set of welfare-state dependency that afflicts most Americans?"

He will respond: "Of course not, because my party and I meant well."

Ask a Republican: "Do you take responsibility for the evil and destructiveness of your beloved war on drugs? The murders, gang wars, unsafe streets, muggings, burglaries, robberies, and thefts because addicts are having to pay exorbitant black-market prices to sustain their habits? The governmental stealing from innocent people that DEA agents and sheriffs are calling 'asset forfeiture'?"

He will respond: "Of course not, because my party and I meant well."

What is even more pathetic is how Democrats and Republicans look for scapegoats. The most popular one today is, of course, immigrants. "If it weren't for all those illegal aliens, we wouldn't have problems with our welfare system," the Democrats and Republicans often tell us.

And their joint approach toward immigrants exemplifies what Hayek said would happen if this road to serfdom were traveled.

Did you ever think you would see the day when Cuban people fleeing communist tyranny would spend a year and a half of their lives in an American penitentiary? Did you ever think you would see the day when Cuban citizens were freer under Fidel Castro than under an American president?

Thirty years ago, in one of their beloved foreign wars, both the Democrats and the Republicans sent 60,000 of my generation, including some of my schoolmates at Virginia Military Institute, to their deaths in Southeast Asia. Their rationale: to save the South Vietnamese people from communism.

Did you ever think you'd see the day when U.S. military personnel would be working mano-a-mano -- hand-in-hand -- with Cuban communist military personnel in the forcible repatriation of Cuban citizens back to communist tyranny? The day when an American bayonet and M16 would be put into the gut of Cuban women and children to force them onto a Cuban communist vessel for involuntary transport back to communism?

And remember ­ this comes from a Democratic president and a Democratic party who "love the poor, the needy, and the disadvantaged" through their support of the welfare state. And remember ­ this comes from a Republican contender and a Republican party who talk about the Bible and how Jesus said to love thy neighbor as thyself.

This is the end of the road that Hayek was talking about ­ the mind-set that sees nothing wrong with any of this. The mind-set that sees nothing wrong with government officials gassing innocent women and children at Waco, Texas. The mind-set that sees nothing wrong with government agents shooting a 14-year-old in the back and his mother in the head as she held her baby in her arms at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. The mind-set that sees nothing wrong with government agents, under color of "law," robbing innocent Americans on highways and in airports all across the land.

In the 1994 congressional campaign, the three Republican "revolutionaries" -- Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, and Dick Armey -- promised a new American revolution. Having examined previous revolutions in American history, let us now examine the Republican "revolution."

http://www.fff.org/freedom/0796a.asp


Part 7

With the Republican takeover of both houses of Congress in 1994, the Republicans announced that a new "revolution" had swept America, led by Senator Robert Dole and Representatives Newt Gingrich and Richard Armey. Of course, there was the famous "Contract with America," but the provisions of that document involved minor tinkering with the system, at best. The Republican "revolutionaries" and their conservative supporters went much further.

After decades of failure, the Republicans proclaimed, it was now time to dismantle the New Deal, Great Society welfare-state programs that had caused so much misery and destructiveness to the American people. Conservative editorials appeared in newspapers all across the land explaining the immorality of government's using its power to take money from one person to give it to another. Speeches filled the airways about the necessity to reign in the bureaucrats who were endlessly harassing the American people and eating out their substance. Now that Republicans were finally in charge of Congress, hundreds of departments and agencies were going to be dismantled. At the very least, we would finally see the end of the Departments of Education, Energy, and Commerce. It was time to return to the Constitution, as our Founders envisioned it, the Republicans announced.

Yes, it was the rhetoric of old. Republicans were harkening back to their libertarian roots. The New Deal programs and the Great Society programs that had been built and expanded ever since the 1930s were finally going to come to an end.

The Republicans were right about one thing: If the welfare state and the regulated economy had been repealed, it would have been one of the most monumental revolutions in American history.

Unfortunately, however, the Republican "revolution" lasted about three weeks.

One of the "revolutionary" leaders, Bob Dole, helped the "revolution" to fizzle out early on. Soon after the election, a big "test" arrived. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, announced that it was necessary to send $50 billion of American taxpayer money to Mexican politicians and bureaucrats, who had issued mountains of debt and overinflated their currency. The Democratic President, Bill Clinton, quickly signed on to the Greenspan proposal.

Here was the grand opportunity for the "revolutionaries." "It is wrong for government to use its power to take from some to give to others," the "revolutionaries" could have proclaimed. "Welfare is morally and economically wrong, even for Mexican politicians and bureaucrats," they could have said.

Alas, it was not to be. Bob Dole caved in before the "revolution" even got a good start. He agreed to cooperate with Clinton and Greenspan in what amounted to a joint political rape of the American people.

How many Republicans voted for the proposal? Voted? There was no vote. Imagine -- $50 billion sent to Mexican politicians and bureaucrats by three political hacks without even the semblance of congressional approval. (We should note that the German chancellor in the 1930s begged the Reichstad for that kind of power -- the power to rule by decree -- the power to make decisions affecting the lives and fortunes of the German people without asking for permission of their elected representatives.)

And what about the rest of the Republicans -- those stalwart defenders of the Constitution -- defenders of the constitutional provision regarding separation of powers -- of the constitutional powers of Congress to tax the American people and to appropriate tax money? Well, the followers of the "revolution" were relieved that Clinton, Greenspan, and Dole were acting unilaterally, so that they would not have to go on record on the matter.

That was when the Republican "revolution" ended. What could be more evil -- more immoral -- than to take money from the American people (who perhaps could have used it to help with their children's education or perhaps to take a little nicer vacation), without even the consent of their congressmen -- and give it to Mexican politicians and bureaucrats, who, we all know, do not live on bribes, do not put the mordida (the "bite") on people, do not have Swiss bank accounts, and, of course, do not engage in the drug trade?

And today, two years later, Dole and Clinton, the joint conspirators and perpetrators of this political evil, have the audacity to tell the American people: "If you don't want to waste your vote, you'll have to vote for one of us." It's like two rapists smiling at their victim and saying: "You'll have to hug one of us -- you don't really have a choice."

Then came the second test -- the shutdown of the nonessential parts of government.

What do the Republicans tell us today? The same tired things they have told us during every political campaign since the 1930s. They want to get government off our backs, repeal regulations, abolish departments, lower taxes, reform welfare . . . blah, blah, blah. For years, they said that the only reason they couldn't do all of this was because the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Today, they say, the reason they still can't accomplish the task is that there is a Democratic president.

What nonsense. The rhetoric is false. Deliberately false. It raises hopes and secures votes, just as it has done for decades. It disguises the true goal: access to the plunder and the loot that comes with controlling the welfare state and the regulated economy. The Republican goal is what it has been for decades -- control over the levers of political power, not freedom for the American people.

How do we know this? Because the Republicans deliberately passed up one of the grandest opportunities that could possibly have occurred to do what they were promising to do: shut down a large portion of the government. And they didn't need a Republican president to do it.

When the national debt hit its ceiling in 1995, all the Republicans had to do was to refuse to negotiate an increase of it. Nothing more needed to be done. And after all, what's the point of a "ceiling" if it's going to raised? When Clinton laid off the government parasites, the Republicans could have ensured that the layoffs were permanent. (The parasites themselves admitted that they were "nonessential" personnel. Of course, after the first shutdown, government officials ordered that they were no longer to be called "nonessentials." Instead, they were to be called "nonemergency workers." It seems that the parasites' self-esteem was being damaged by the term "nonessentials.")

By refusing to negotiate, the nonessentials would ultimately have had to leave government "service" and do what the rest of us do -- find productive work in the private sector. Imagine how many departments and agencies could have been closed down! Imagine how much money that could have saved the American people! No longer would the American taxpayer have to suffer the enormous tax load of carrying the parasites. No longer would the parasites be sucking the lifeblood out of the American people. And it all would have been proper and legal under the terms of the debt ceiling.

But Bob Dole said no. His allegiance was to his constituents -- the government bureaucrats. Bob Dole, the revolutionary, indicated to the American people that he was not there to shut down the nonessential parts of government. These nonessential government workers, he felt, had a right to be put back to work in the government.

In other words, what mattered to the "revolutionaries" was not the American people, but rather the government parasites who apparently have a perpetual "right" to continue sucking the blood from their hosts. The bureaucrats were sovereign and supreme. Nothing was more important than to restore them to their positions in government, where they could continue serving and sucking the American people.

At the same time, the other two "revolutionaries" -- Gingrich and Armey -- were crying to the press about how their positions were being distorted. These two "revolutionaries" were upset that the press was saying that the Republicans were "cutting" social welfare programs.

"Revolutionary" leaders Gingrich and Armey whined that they were not cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, or Meals on Wheels but rather cutting the size of the increase in these program. They pleaded with the press to please make their position clear.

Here was where the great Republican "revolution" of 1994 had arrived -- the leaders of the "revolution" pleading with the press to report that Republicans were, once again -- as always -- increasing the size of big government. The "revolutionaries" had come into office announcing the end of the New Deal and Great Society programs and now, just a few months later, were begging the press to report that they were actually expanding them.

What a grand "revolution"!

Imagine if Dole, Gingrich, and Armey had been in charge of the revolution in 1776:

The "revolutionaries" : "We won. We won." The colonists : "What do you mean?" The "revolutionaries" : "We won the revolution. We negotiated and cut a deal with King George. And he has agreed to increase his control, taxation, and regulations over us by only 5 percent a year." The colonists : "Whoopdeedoo."

A sad part of all this is that at least two of the Republican "revolutionaries" -- Gingrich and Armey -- know better. Gingrich teaches a course in the "American heritage." What does he teach in such a course? Does he teach that such welfare programs as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and public schooling are part of America's heritage? Surely not. Surely, he teaches what he has to know is the truth -- that all of these welfare programs originated with German socialists and that our American ancestors said no to them for over 125 years.

Dick Armey is a former economics professor who is well versed in Austrian economics. What did he teach his students back in Texas? That Austrian economics involves the support of the welfare state and the regulated economy? Surely not. Surely he taught students the truth -- that sound economics rejects, on grounds of efficiency and prosperity, the welfare-state, managed-economy model. Surely he knows that such regulations as the minimum wage, that Republicans are now supporting, hurt those at the bottom of the economic ladder.

A sad spectacle indeed.

And the third revolutionary -- Bob Dole? Everyone knows that he has never stood for any principle in his life. That's why every American, deep down, knows that there ain't a dime's worth of difference between Dole and Clinton. Flip sides of the same coin.

Compared with the revolutions of the past -- the monumental upheavals in American life that came with the Revolution in 1776, the Industrial Revolution, the tax and banking revolution in 1913, the public schooling revolution at the turn of the 20th century, and the Roosevelt revolution of the 1930s -- the Republican "revolution" of 1994 has been a flop. (See Parts I through VI of this series.) Nothing but decorative tinkering with a ship that is headed toward the rocks.

What would a real revolution look like? It would be a libertarian one -- a grand and exciting revolution! But before examining what such a revolution would entail, let us first examine why Republicans do what they do . . . and why the American people fall for it, election after election after election.

http://www.fff.org/freedom/0896a.asp


Part 8

During the first few weeks of the Republican "revolution," Republicans were talking like libertarians. "It's time to dismantle FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society," they proclaimed. "The welfare state has failed. And it is wrong for the state to take money from those to whom it belongs and give it to those to whom it does not belong." Some libertarians (myself included) thought that they had died and gone to libertarian heaven. We wondered whether the time had finally come for the restoration of American liberty.

Alas, it was the same old Republican claptrap that had gone on for decades. Talk like a libertarian and act like a Democrat. As time went on, it was easy to see that no part of the welfare state was going to be dismantled. Nothing had changed. The Republicans were still interested in control, not freedom. The Republican mantra -- "Put us in charge, and we'll promise not to abolish anything" -- was still solidly in place.

If there were any doubts about this, they were eliminated in the 1996 congressional campaign of Ron Paul, who ran for the Republican nomination to Congress in a district encompassing parts of Houston and Austin. Paul had previously served three terms in Congress as a Republican. After losing a bid for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate, Paul converted to the Libertarian Party. In 1988, he was the Libertarian Party candidate for president. Everyone agrees that Paul is dedicated to dismantling, not reforming, the thousands of welfare-state departments and agencies.

Thus, it would be natural to assume that the Republican "revolutionaries" would be ecstatic that Paul had returned to the Republican fold by once again seeking the Republican nomination for Congress.

Not so! In fact, the exact opposite happened. The Republican establishment was angered and terrified that there might be a Republican in Congress who was actually serious about ending, not reforming, America's welfare-state way of life.

The Republican "revolutionaries" went into action. First, they convinced the Democratic incumbent to convert to the Republican Party in order to run against Paul in the Republican primary. Here were the "revolutionaries," supporting a person who, as a Democrat, had helped to preserve and expand the welfare-state way of life. Then, the "revolutionaries" brought in the big guns to accuse Paul of being -- horror of horrors -- a libertarian! Former President George Bush, his son George (the current governor of Texas), and Phil Gramm and Kay Bailey Hutchinson (the two Republican U.S. senators from Texas) made campaign appearances in support of the ex-Democrat. "Revolutionary" money poured into the campaign of Paul's big-government opponent.

Much to the chagrin of the Republican "revolutionaries," a majority of the Republican rank-and-file preferred a libertarian to a "Depublican." Ron Paul won the Republican primary. The question left open is whether the Republican "revolutionaries" will support Paul or his Democratic opponent in the November election.

Why are Republicans so wedded to preserving, rather than dismantling, the welfare state in America? The problem is not economic ignorance, because in their minds, Republicans know that libertarians are economically right.

The problem with Republicans is actually a religious or spiritual one. On the one hand, they preach moral values, write books of virtues, and quote the Bible. On the other hand, they support Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schooling, and most other instances of political stealing. While quoting the Bible, they block out of their minds God's commandment: Thou shalt not steal.

How do Republicans or conservatives reconcile their pronouncements with their actions. They don't. For self-righteousness has created a moral blind spot that enables them to blithely participate and support the welfare state and, at the same time, condemn others for their sins. One of the main reasons that many conservatives wish that libertarians had never come into existence is that libertarians expose that self-righteousness and moral blind spot.

Let me give you another example from my home state of Texas. I grew up in South Texas in the 1950s. There were at least three counties in Texas that were almost totally controlled by political machines. I lived in one of them. When I was a young boy, my father told me that the political machine in my county (which my father was part of) could produce a Democratic bloc vote in an election of some at least 6,000 or 7,000 voters. At the center of the machine was the local school district, for it was commonly believed that the ballot of every school-district employee was examined by party officials. It was rumored that those who did not vote Democratic would quickly lose their jobs. (I learned early on one of the true values of public schooling, from the standpoint of politicians.) What was the reward? My father told me that just after the Kennedy assassination, President Lyndon Johnson telephoned the local party boss and said: "How much federal money do you want down there? I'll get it right to you."

It was even worse in two adjoining counties -- Jim Wells County and Duval County. In fact, Jim Wells was the county in which the notorious "Box 13" fraud had propelled Lyndon Johnson into the Senate in 1948. (County election officials "found" 200 additional votes for Johnson after all the other polls in Texas had closed, which barely put him over the top.)

Jim Wells and Duval counties were controlled by a ruthless political machine run by a man named George Parr. The story of Parr is told in a book published last year (1995) entitled The Fall of the Duke of Duval by John E. Clark. The book provides an excellent vehicle by which we can analyze the religious and spiritual malady that afflicts Republicans and conservatives.

Clark was an assistant U.S. attorney in the San Antonio division of the Southern District of Texas in the 1970s. His boss was William Sessions, who would go on to become a federal judge and, later, director of the FBI. It was Clark and Sessions who went after Parr and ultimately "got their man." (Parr committed suicide rather than go to jail for income-tax evasion.)

Clark's book details what Parr was doing with his iron political control of Duval and Jim Wells counties. For years, Parr and his friends had been siphoning off tax revenues and feathering their own nests with cash, ranch improvements, and so forth. The patronage was so large that opposition to Parr was defused. Clark points out that resistance to Parr meant loss of patronage, ostracism, economic boycotts of private businesses, and even worse. (Parr was suspected of murder in one case but never convicted.) Moreover, Clark points out that under the Texas constitution, the state authorities could not initiate an indictment without the permission of the local grand jury; and Parr's people controlled the offices of the district attorney, the district judge, the county commissioners, and the local school districts.

One day, Clark and Sessions discovered that Parr was taking kickbacks from an architect who was doing work for the school district. They knew that they had no jurisdiction, as federal officials, to go after Parr for crimes under Texas law. So, they used that old federal standby-income-tax evasion -- to pursue Parr. They initiated a grand jury investigation in San Antonio, a city about 150 miles away that had no connection to the alleged crimes in Jim Wells and Duval counties. (A local federal judge ultimately threw them out of court, making them refile in the correct district.) They began issuing "instanter" subpoenas, which meant that a person had to drop everything he was doing to immediately travel 150 miles to appear before the federal grand jury in San Antonio. When one bank was a little slow in producing bank records on the county, Clark and Sessions got a court order forcing the bank to bring the microfilm that contained records of other depositors, as well, where they were reviewed by federal agents.

Clark and Sessions secured an indictment against Parr for failure to disclose his ill-gotten, political benefits on his income-tax return. For example, Parr had used county funds to install irrigation equipment on a family ranch. He failed to report the equipment as income on his return. The feds were upset about that.

Clark's book is filled with righteous indignation at Parr's political control and actions. Unfortunately, however, Clark fails to express any remorse, regret, or repentance for his own actions. The mind-set is typical of Republicans and conservatives.

What Parr was doing in South Texas was no different, in principle, with what the federal government was doing at a national level. Parr's people were taxing the residents of the counties, and Parr was redistributing the money to himself and his buddies. But isn't this exactly what the federal government does? Doesn't the federal government tax people and then redistribute the money to the politically privileged in the form of farm subsidies, public housing, education grants, and the like? Why wasn't Parr's irrigation equipment simply a local farm subsidy?

Moreover, it could easily be argued that Parr's welfare operation was much more efficient than the federal one. For unlike the feds, Parr did not rely on a multitude of departments and agencies to do the stealing and the redistribution. He did much of it all by himself.

But wasn't Parr taking kickbacks from the school architect? And what about large campaign contributions and speaker's honoraria to congressmen? Who's naive enough to think that those aren't simply bribes paid in advance?

Clark can recognize the wrongful nature of Parr's conduct. But his moral blind spot prevents him from seeing the wrongfulness of his own participation, as a federal attorney, in the federal welfare state. Clark writes:

"When George [Parr] handed out the financial assistance for which he was so widely praised, he was actually returning to local taxpayers a few of the hard-earned tax dollars he had stolen from them in the first place."

Isn't this exactly what Clark's coworkers in the federal bureaucracy were doing? Moreover, Clark's conduct, in one respect, can be considered even more egregious than Parr's. For Clark is proud of the fact that he was working closely with the IRS in the prosecution of Parr. Where can you find an organization in the U.S. that more closely approximates the Gestapo and the KGB than the IRS? The IRS has terrorized and destroyed many more lives than Parr and his political machine ever did. Does Clark ever express any remorse or regret for working with this terroristic agency; with the use of IRS inquisitorial methods that would have been the envy of the most evil tyrants in history; for abusing judicial power with the filing of an action in the wrong judicial district; for harrassing people with "instanter" subpoenas? Of course not. He's a federal official ­ and a Republican, to boot. His conduct, from his perspective, is good "per se."

It is this self-righteousness and spiritual pride that afflicts Republicans and conservatives. For decades, they have been engaged in the plunder of the welfare state; and they have supported the existence of one of history's most despicable governmental agencies -- the IRS. This is the giant sin for which conservatives have never repented. It is not difficult to see why, when Republicans quote the Bible, they never talk about what Jesus said about hypocrites.

It is this spiritual, moral blind spot among Republicans and conservatives -- and this ardent, bullheaded refusal to repent their enormous political sin -- that helps to explain the failure of the Republican "revolution," a "revolution" that fizzled and flopped before it even got started.

What would a real political revolution look like? It would be a libertarian revolution. And it would change the face of the earth.

http://www.fff.org/freedom/0996a.asp


Part 9

The Republican "revolution" was doomed from the start. The reason is due to the fatal flaw in the moral, political, and economic philosophy of the Republican Party. Since the time of Franklin Roosevelt, post-FDR Republicans have preached the free-enterprise, private-property, limited-government line of their pre-FDR Republican predecessors. In real life, however, post-FDR Republicans have lived the life of the lie. For they have embraced and supported every single socialistic, welfare-state scheme that has been implemented in America in the 20th century.

Old-age assistance. Government-guaranteed health care. Public schooling. Economic regulations. Trade and immigration controls. Central banking. Monetary regulations. Welfare. Public roads. Progressive taxation. Yes -- all of the things that still exist in socialist Cuba, Vietnam, and North Korea are ardently and enthusiastically embraced in the U.S. by present-day Republicans.

The unexpected takeover of both houses of Congress was the Republican Party's worst nightmare. Before the election, Republicans could safely campaign for office by claiming that, if elected, they would: dismantle Roosevelt's New Deal programs and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs; abolish the Departments of Education, Commerce, and Energy as well as the Internal Revenue Service; end funding for the National Endowment for the Arts; and place a moratorium on economic regulations.

The congressional elections of 1994 flushed Republicans out into the open. Once the elections were over, the fatal flaw -- the life of the lie -- was exposed for all to see. Not only was nothing of substance abolished or dismantled, there was not even an attempt to do so.

Despite the free-enterprise rhetoric, the Republican "revolution" was never about freedom for the American people. Rather, it was what it has been since 1932 -- a way to win Republican control over the lives and fortunes of the American people. While it raised the hopes of many advocates of freedom, it is not surprising, in retrospect, to understand why the Republican "revolution" turned out to be a fizzler.

What would a real revolution look like? It would be a libertarian revolution. And it would be one of the most exciting events in history.

Specifically, it would involve the following ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution:

1. No law shall be passed by either the national or state governments respecting the regulation of peaceful activity, including commerce, or abridging the free exercise thereof.

2. No subsidy, grant, welfare, aid, loan, or other special privilege shall be provided to anyone, domestic or foreign, by either the national or state governments.

3. Neither the national government nor the states shall engage in any business or commercial enterprise, including the delivery of mail.

4. No law shall be passed by either the national or state governments respecting the establishment of education or abridging the free exercise thereof. Compulsory school-attendance laws and school taxes are prohibited.

5. No law shall be passed by either the national or state governments respecting the ownership of weapons or abridging the free exercise thereof.

6. No law shall be passed by either the national or state governments respecting the establishment or regulation of money or banking. Legal-tender laws and a central government bank are prohibited.

7. Trade and immigration controls, by both the national and state governments, are prohibited.

8. The imposition of taxes by the national and state governments is prohibited. All governments shall be funded voluntarily, or not at all. To fund the national government, the government of each state shall be required to remit ten percent of gross revenues to the national government.

9. Conscription is prohibited. Governmental involvement in foreign wars is prohibited.

10. Except for the White House, the Capitol, and the Supreme Court building, and the corresponding buildings in the respective states, governmental ownership of real property is prohibited.

Why constitutional amendments? While the repeal of laws would certainly be effective, people would still have to constantly worry about a new Congress coming into power and, once again, passing the old interventionist, welfare laws for the benefit of the politically privileged. With constitutional prohibitions, the citizenry could, by and large, sleep well when Congress was in session.

Let's examine each of these amendments to the Constitution.

Amendment One would guarantee the right of people to engage in any peaceful activity without governmental interference. This would include the right to exercise economic liberty; thus, people would be free to engage in any enterprise without governmental licenses, permits, or regulations.

Amendment Two would abolish all welfare for everyone, including foreigners (foreign aid). One of the problems with repealing individual welfare laws is the resentment that is created against those whose dole has not yet been eliminated. A constitutional amendment barring welfare for everyone would bring a sense of justice to the process because everyone's dole would be terminated at the same time. Moreover, since Congress would not have the power to override a constitutional amendment, protests and demonstrations by welfare recipients would be futile.

Amendment Three would prohibit governments from constructing and operating sports stadiums, airports, hotels, liquor companies, and the like; and it would finally put first-class mail delivery where it belongs -- in the hands of the free market.

Amendment Four, by separating school and state, would restore educational freedom to the American people. All educational decisions would be where they belong -- in the hands of the family. The free market would bring into existence the educational vehicles which people would demand. The result would be the diversity, tolerance, and educational superiority that freedom brings.

Amendment Five would clearly establish the right of the American people to own weapons as a principle of private property and to protect themselves from criminals, invaders, and an unbearable tyranny from their own government.

Amendment Six would separate money and the state. No longer would the government be able to plunder the American people through legal-tender laws and the debasement of their currency. The free market would bring into existence the media of exchange which people wished to use.

Amendment Seven would restore the right of the American people to trade, hire, associate with, and interact with people from all over the world. It would restore the Statue of Liberty to the hallowed place it once had in the hearts and minds of the American people.

Amendment Eight would prohibit the use of coercion -- taxation -- to fund the limited functions of governments. Mayors, governors, and the like would have to behave as true servants; they would have to come to us -- their masters -- with hat in hand, justifying to us that their governments deserve to be refunded. Imagine the beauty of seeing politicians holding telethons, bike rides, and other fund-raising devices to fund their limited activities. To ensure that the national government need not have an enormous fund-raising branch, each of the state governments would be required to send a predetermined percentage (i.e., 5%) of their (voluntarily) collected gross revenues to the national government.

Amendment Nine would end one of the most fundamental violations of human liberty -- the draft. It would also end U.S. government involvement in foreign wars (a protection found in Democratic and Republican Party platforms before World War II). Private individuals would still be free to travel overseas to help resist what they considered to be tyranny or international wrongdoing.

Amendment Ten would end one of the core tenets of socialism -- public ownership of the means of production. Airports, roads, parks, and so forth would be privatized. If government officials needed real estate (i.e., for a military installation), they could lease it from the owner. Private environmental groups would be free to own parks, forests, rivers, and the like.

These ten amendments encompass the fundamental principles of libertarianism. If they were adopted, the result would be the most phenomenal period that mankind has ever seen. Economic prosperity would skyrocket, since people would be free to engage in any enterprise and exchange without governmental regulation or restriction. Since people would be free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth, the massive accumulation of capital would cause living standards to soar. Those at the bottom of the economic ladder ­ especially those in the inner cities of America ­ would finally have the freedom to compete against those who have already accumulated wealth.

The wide ambit of choices that people would now face on a private basis -- between right and wrong, responsible or irresponsible, moral or immoral -- would begin to nurture and develop the values that each of us holds dear: compassion for one's fellow man, the reaching out to one in need, the honoring of one's mother and father, and philanthropy -- but always on a voluntary basis.

And a strong, self-reliant, independent, prosperous, and free people would be the best deterrence against invasion, for what enemy would want to tangle with such a people?

How do we achieve a libertarian revolution? Each of us must first decide within his heart and mind the following: Do I really want to see freedom in my lifetime? Many people complain about "big government" -- about excessive regulation, taxation, and so forth. But when push comes to shove, their response remains the same: "I think we should just reform the welfare-state system." The reality of freedom is simply too terrifying a thought for them.

A libertarian revolution requires courage and fortitude, an unwavering and uncompromising devotion to liberty, and a clear understanding of the positive results that a free society would bring.

So, what should people do to advance a libertarian revolution? Whatever they believe is the best way for they themselves to advance liberty. Some may choose the political route ­ by participating in the Democratic, Republican, or Libertarian parties. Others may write letters to the editor -- talk to their neighbors -- give speeches -- write essays or scholarly articles -- or publish books. Some may choose to financially support such endeavors. Each person must delve within himself and ask: What is the best thing I can do to see this accomplished before I pass from this life?

How will a libertarian revolution be finally achieved? It will not be the result of a master plan for freedom. Instead, when liberty is finally achieved (and it will be), the achievement will be the result of the millions of individual acts of tens of thousands of people, each advancing liberty in his own way.

In the final analysis, no one can change another person. To try to do so is a futile and often damaging act. All that we can do is to change ourselves. This means constantly improving ourselves -- our self-knowledge, our physical, mental, and spiritual health, and, of course, our understanding of the principles of liberty. If we continue to do this, our fellow Americans, faced with the continued wreckage of the socialistic welfare state that has been constructed in America by the Democrats and Republicans, will ultimately be attracted to our cause.

The twentieth century has been a century of darkness -- a century of the socialistic welfare state . . . a century of war, both foreign and domestic . . . a century of political plunder and control . . . a century of poverty, misery, and despair. But when this century is relegated to the dustbin of history -- where it belongs -- the historians will undoubtedly record that there was one small beacon of light -- a light of hope -- a hope that shone through libertarians. They will undoubtedly record that it was the libertarians who led mankind through the darkness -- out of the socialistic morass -- off of the road to serfdom -- and into one of history's most exciting revolutions -- a libertarian revolution -- a revolution that took mankind to the highest reaches of freedom in history!

http://www.fff.org/freedom/1096a.asp