- Since the only legitimate authority that the government can have is delegated to it by the individuals governed, and no one can delegate an authority he does not have; and since no individual has moral right to force his neighbor to disclose his income, property, or sales information, furthermore, since no individual has a right to forcibly extract wealth from his neighbor,-- he cannot delegate such authority to his government.
Therefore, all forms of public taxation of private property, including but not limited to income, property, and sales taxes, are unjust, and therefore are expressly forbidden, and are hereby and henceforth abolished.
To preserve liberty and prosperity of the people, The only sources of revenue allowed to government are these: public property user fees, and voluntary contributions.
Public property is defined as property to which all citizens have equal claim of ownership.
Public property user fees must be:
- a) agreed upon by the majority of the people,
b) administered equally among the users, and
c) administered without violation of property and natural, unalienable rights of any individual.
- a) agreed upon by the majority of the people,
Explanation:
ALL of the society's problems are made possible or made worse by taxation.
Why? Because it is a wholesale violation of Private Property. Violation of Private Property is the definition of evil. And when you build a state on evil, you infuse evil into everything the state touches, amplifying all the evils of human condition.
What is taxation? Forceful (coercive) extraction of wealth. It is, by definition, based on aggressive violence, when one taxes the property he does not own.
Aggressive violence is the definition of evil. It is the definition of INJUSTICE. It is ALWAYS wrong. It is rooted in violation of private property.
Now, Private Property is the foundation of Liberty and Justice. Liberty and Justice DO NOT EXIST without Private Property.
What is Justice if not the right to use equal force to offset the aggression of another against your property? Thus, Justice is nothing more than Non-violation of Private Property. (Private Property here, of course, is taken in the broadest sense possible. It includes all the things you own, that you do not have to ask anyone permission to use, as long as you do not violate the property of another; and everyone must obtain your permission to use it. Defined this way, your private property includes you, your body, your mind, your ability to think, to speak, to act, to move, the fruits of your labor, etc..) Non-violation is another name for Non-Aggression (see NAP). It is the same thing.
And what is Liberty if not the right to do with your own property what you desire, as long as you do not violate the property of another?
Thus both Justice and Liberty are completely meaningless without the concept of private property. Anything that violates Private Property violates both JUSTICE and LIBERTY, and is therefore EVIL, by definition, no matter who practices it.
So public taxation of private property is EVIL because it is violation of Private Property via Aggressive violence.
It is THEFT by the strictest definition of the term. It is institutionalized INJUSTICE, institutionalized robbery, and institutionalized aggressive violence, which is institutionalized evil, by definition of the term. (EVIL is defined as aggressive violence.)
The loony idea that the rules of morality and justice do not apply to government is the core of our problems.
You can only rightfully tax the things you own (in the form of rent, user fee, or such), and nothing else. Otherwise you would be committing plunder, albeit legalized plunder, which is still IMMORAL.
The key point here is that government does NOT own you, nor your property, nor the fruits of your labor, therefore it cannot rightly tax you at all, because again, you can only rightly tax (forcefully extract wealth from) the things you own, and nothing else.
As slavery was a flaw in the original Constitution, so is taxation, which is simply a different face of slavery and plunder. It is a violation of the Law of Justice, and thus is immoral. No wonder that this cancer that was embedded in the Constitution has now developed to the point of destruction of the society itself. This gross INJUSTICE must not be permitted to continue if Liberty, and consequently the society itself, is to survive and prosper. Later in this article I will give another strict proof of immorality of taxation in terms of delegation of authority.
Some people argue that there is a "social contract" under the terms of which you are supposed to pay taxes to the public. That is false, because, by definition, for a contract to exist, there must be an individual, voluntary, and explicit consent to the terms of the contract. No such INDIVIDUAL, VOLUNTARY, and EXPLICIT consent exists for taxation.
In fact, by definition, taxation, like robbery, is INVOLUNTARY.
Some say, but you vote, therefore you consent. Not at all. Voting has nothing to do with consenting to taxation. It is not a part of voting procedure.
Some say, but you live here, therefore by mere act of being here you are consenting. Not true. I granted no such consent, neither anyone I know granted such consent. To ascribe EXPLICIT consent where none is given, and then to proceed to use aggressive violence to collect the tax is an act of usurpation, plunder and injustice, by strict definitions of those terms.
And here is a technical, logical proof that government has no moral right to tax in terms of proper authority:
Since government gets all of its legitimate authority by delegation from the governed, the government has no authority to force anyone to do anything accept what you and I have moral right to force him to do. If you, as individual, have no moral right to force your neighbor to disclose his income, you cannot delegate this authority to your government to force him for you. The same goes for disclosures of sales, or property inspections. If you have no moral right to force your neighbor to disclose his sales information, or force him to reveal his property, or forcibly extract wealth from him, neither does the government; because the only legitimate authority the government has is what you delegated to it, and you cannot delegate an authority you do not have!
According to this fundamental principle of liberty (and I call it the Benson Principle, please see it here), all taxes, including income, sales, and property taxes are immoral, for they require an authority the government cannot properly have, because no one could have delegated such authority to it, because no one has such authority.
So the only legitimate avenues of revenue for the government that remain are public property user fees, and voluntary contributions.
The idea here is, if you use it, you pay for it.
How do you pay for police? First of all, private sector can do justice enforcement and arbitration between parties infinitely better than a government forced monopoly. However if the people choose a public option, they can give the police non-exclusive justice enforcement functions. However, the people have no right to commit theft to pay for it via taxation of private property, (taxation of private property of another is theft). Therefore, if people choose to have public police, it can be paid from public property user fees. But they have no moral right to give the public police justice enforcement monopoly, because no individual has a right to force such a monopoly on his neighbor, and therefore neither does the government, because no one could delegate such authority to it, because no individual has such authority.
911 calls? If you want 911 operator respond to your calls, you better pay the fee to run it, etc. However, if the people prefer a public version of it as well, since they cannot rightly tax private property (only public property), they can finance 911 operators from public road and public sewer user fees, or the like. As long as it is public property, it can be decided by popular vote provided everyone is treated equally, and property of no individual is violated in the process.
What about courts? A government court is a public property. If you use it, you pay for it. And offending party should carry most of the expense. However, public courts have no right to presume monopoly on justice enforcement or arbitration. Privately funded courts in a Free Market are capable of justice enforcement infinitely better than unjust by definition government forced monopoly.
So public option for courts may exist if people choose, but it has no right to a monopoly on justice enforcement whatsoever, because no one has a right to delegate such monopoly to the government, because no one, individually has such right, and therefore such monopoly would violate Private Property and be blatantly unjust.
What about defense? Free Market can handle defense infinitely better than government forced monopoly as well, and it is the only way to provide it justly.
In addition, you can have your volunteer citizen militias at State and local levels. If people choose, federal defense can also be paid for by the States from public property user fees and from voluntary contributions. Bottom line, if people do not choose to pay for their defense they deserve to be conquered, and as with any valuable product, Free Market will deliver defense, i.e. justice enforcement most efficiently, and above all without violating the law of Justice, i.e. the law of Private Property.
At the border, the cost of operating customs can be born by customs user fees, as long as everyone is treated equally and the rights of no one is violated, etc.
As we mentioned before, all of the society's problems are made possible, or made worse by the evil of taxation:
For example, the greatest legalized plunder of all, i.e. fiat, unbacked currency is actually made possible via taxation and could not exist without it. Let me explain: the government forced monopoly that is the indispensable essence of a fiat, unbacked currency is achieved via taxation. The government TAXES transactions in gold and silver, thus discouraging their use as money. Government demands capital gain and sales taxes on gold used as the medium of exchange in every transaction done with it. It's like going to the bank to change $5 bill into quarters and paying a sales tax on the transaction. Thus, TAXATION is used to destroy Free Competition in Currencies, which Free Competition if it were present would have ended unbacked fiat, which cannot exist without a government forced monopoly. (Government forced monopoly is the opposite of Free Competition and they cannot exist simultaneously. One must unavoidably destroy the other.) This was the proof that unbacked fiat is impossible without taxation.
The immorality of taxation can also be shown from the point of view of privacy:
Privacy = Liberty.
Government hates people's privacy because it prevents them from destroying people's liberty.
1% income tax destroys 100% of the principle of self ownership and 100% of the principle of Private Property (which is Liberty itself), because one can justly tax ONLY the things he owns. By taxing you the government asserts, albeit falsely, that it OWNS you and ALL of your property. Which is a complete perversion of the truth!
Also, 1% income tax destroys 100% of your privacy, because to calculate that 1% you have to disclose to the government the ENTIRETY of your financial life; this is a complete annihilation of privacy! A sales tax gives the government the "right" to monitor all transactions between people. Property tax gives the government the "right" to inspect your property every year. And since you as individual have no moral right to force your neighbor to disclose any such information, neither has the government, for you cannot delegate an authority you do not have!
This amendment is way better than what the Founders offered. For they allowed for import and excise taxes, which means that the government can monitor EVERYTHING you do, everything you produce, everything you sell, everything you buy, to see if a certain excise tax condition was met. Besides, if they don't like a behavior or a product or a service they can just uniformly tax it with an excise tax and thus control the people. Since no private individual under jurisdiction of this government has the moral right to do any such thing, the government has no authority to do it either, because again, no one can delegate an authority he does not have.
My amendment fixes all these problems in the original Constitution.
Above all, this amendment, brings the Constitution into greater compliance with the eternal Laws of Justice, thus promoting Liberty, and ultimately the survival of the Nation, because no people can long endure without Justice.
This brief amendment would replace the entire federal tax code, and you would have your freedom!
"Right to Rob You"
Also check out this essay:
The Correct Principles of Liberty and The Errors of the US Constitution.
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This amendment is a part of 7 amendments that were designed to bring the Constitution into harmony with the Fundamental Principles of Liberty, without which Liberty cannot exist:
- Justice Constitutional Amendment (JCA)
- The Fundamental Law Constitutional Amendment
- Honest Money Constitutional Amendment
- Constitutional Amendment Abolishing Taxation
- No Forced Judicial Monopoly Constitutional Amendment (NJM)
- Nullification - Constitutional Amendment
- Constitutional Amendment: Abolishing Copyrights and Patents
