Freedom is incompatible with big government. Government can be small in scope (limited), yet still be big enough to restrict freedom when resources are taken from tax payers and spent by bureaucrats. Very small government is also incompatible with freedom. Government must be large enough to protect the innocent without being so large it encumbers the freedom of its citizens.
In the following graph, freedom is assigned a value between 0 (No freedom) and 12 (Maximum freedom). Taxes are assigned a value between 0 (No taxes at all) and 100 (Every citizen turns their entire paycheck over to the government).
As long as tax revenue is collected and spent by the government in a way that prevents one citizen from preying on another citizen, the tax revenue collected will be used to ensure and increase freedom. Citizens are allowed to do whatever they want, suffer the consequences and enjoy the benefits of their freedom, just as long as they don’t impede on the freedom of others.
However, once tax revenue is used for any purpose other than the protection of freedom, citizens begin to have less freedom, regardless of the intentions or morality of the stated purpose. Every last penny taken by government and spent by government has reduced the amount of money available for the taxed citizen to freely spend and has most likely also created a restriction against a certain free choice by the tax payer.
Of course citizens of most modern countries do have a right to restrict the freedom of their fellow citizens, but let’s be clear what is happening when we allow government to borrow, tax, and spend; the majority is practicing tyranny over the minority.
5 comments:
David,
Nice chart, however, I don't see freedom as being directly linked to taxes as you have indicated. I think that there are other ways that government can deprive citizens of freedom than through taxes.
The post-Soviet government in Russia changed the laws so that the citizens were more free than they were under the hard-line government, but they still took the same amount of money in taxes ... they just pocketed the rest. So, to some degree it depends on how you spend the tax money you do take.
I guess what it amounts to is that there are two ways that a government can take away the freedom of the citizenry, (a) passively by taking and increasing amount of money and reducing their options on what they can do, and (b) actively by enacting edicts which reduce their options.
If the govt. takes 60% of all the peoples' monies, then some people will not have enough money left over at the end of the month to afford a cell phone ... but some will. If the govt. outlaws cell phones then only criminals will have cell phones.
Buz
Hi Buz,
The reason I posted this piece is because most people believe that restrictions on freedom are a result of laws and regulation. I didn’t try to describe the whole process. I just wanted to show how money taken out of your pocket by government, regardless of the goodness of the purpose, was a restriction of your freedom.
I am against big government because freedom is one of my highest values. I have to believe freedom was also high on the list of values for our founding fathers. However, I don’t think freedom is that important to most voters nowadays. People nowadays seem to want to use government to control behavior they don’t like and force behavior they do like.
I heard something the other day, it sounds too unbelievable to be true ...
I heard that the State govt. of California wanted all the thermostats changed so that they could control the temperature in your house. My wife told me about this, but I told her that was too outrageous, even for California.
Buz
Hi Buz,
It’s true. I doubt it will happen, but I doubted Schwarzenegger would double cross Republicans too, and look what happened.
Does God give extra credit for Christians living in California?
You know, Arizona and New Mexico are practically empty ... if all the sane people from California would move to one of them, then California could do all the crazy things they want, and everyone to the east of CA and west of NY could just sit back and learn the lesson of what really happens when politicians get their way.
Buz
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