E'08: Indoctrination

In the era that we have grown up and especially the era in which our kids are growing up, we hear things over and over that we begin to believe are true. Some of these things we just accept; it's just the way it is. Some of these we've spoken of at length before, but I'll list a few here:

• Evolution as fact
• Homosexuality as just an alternative family
• TV news as a source for learning the truth about events
• Professors are objective

Here's the one I want to key in on tonight:

• We have to pay taxes

Well, yes, if we are going to have any form of government, taxation will have to pay for it. The really cool thing about our government is that it was established by the people who said, "We will pay for our government." Problem is, the things for which our Founding fathers believed the people would pay has grown at malignant proportions so now, we pay for things which are utterly absurd.

Two article give great clarity to this issue in this election season. The first is by John Stossel, investigative reporter, who exposes the bizarre nature of entitlements in our nation's budget. The second is by PhD economist Walter Williams who addresses the redistribution of wealth in our nation, taking money from one person and giving it to someone else who has done nothing to earn it. Here are his opening paragraphs (the second paragraph is a sobering doozy):

Let's do a thought experiment asking whether Americans are for or against slavery. You might say, "What are you talking about, Williams? We fought a war that cost over 600,000 lives to end slavery!" To get started, we might find a description that captures the essence of slavery. A good working description is: slavery is a set of circumstances whereby one person is forcibly used to serve the purposes of another person and has no legal claim to the fruits of his labor.

The average American worker toils from January 1st to the end of April, and has no legal claim to the fruits of his labor for that period. Federal, state and local governments, through the tax code, take what he produces. A small portion of the fruits of his labor is used to provide for the constitutional functions of government. Most of what's taken, up to two-thirds, is given to some other American in the forms of farm and business subsidies, Social Security, Medicare, welfare and hundreds of other government handout programs. As in slavery, one person is being forcibly used to serve the purposes of another person.

Track to the link above to give you a better understanding of what's happening and what ought to be happening with our tax dollars.