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Yesterday at the Capitol and across the nation, tea party protests are being held, named after the Boston Tea Party of 1773. These protests represent widespread outrage at our government’s ever-increasing power and usurpations of our liberties. They highlight the fact America is rapidly moving away from its founding principles and ideals that make it great.
But was the Boston Tea Party really about taxes, or was it about something more fundamental? Are these protestors fighting for the same thing as our revolutionary brethren, or are they fighting a symptom without understanding its cause? More often than not, it’s the latter.
Today’s advancing statist control is a result of deeply engrained ideas regarding the role of government and the nature of morality. It goes virtually uncontested, even among those who want lower taxes, that capitalism needs to be controlled, self-interest means “dog eat dog” and government exists to serve the “public good.”
Yet the actual basis of the American system is an individual’s moral right to live for his own sake. It’s the idea that living for yourself and pursuing your happiness is good for every individual and therefore good for society as a whole. This is reflected in the fact our Constitution is a limitation on government power, not individual freedom.
Many tea party protesters will undoubtedly argue for the responsible use of taxpayer money or the elimination of government “pork.” But having accepted government has a right to expropriate an individual’s wealth for the benefit of “society” (sometimes) they have conceded the entire argument. Once one concedes an individual’s interests and judgments can be sacrificed to some indefinable “common good,” on what grounds will one argue their interest in lower taxes should be respected? In short, one has forfeited any moral basis for keeping one’s money.
Although the tea party protests are a healthy expression of the American sense of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, Americans need to understand what those words mean both morally and politically.
What is needed is an intellectual revolution. Americans need to understand what freedom is, why it is morally justified and what it requires. They need to look beyond political protests and slogans about government “excesses” and mount a principled crusade for individual rights. Such a crusade would champion the moral right of each individual to live for him or herself, not as a servant of society.
A tax revolt will not slow the growth of government. Rather, the justification for taxes is what needs to be challenged. It is a moral condemnation of self-interest and exaltation of sacrifice, duty and service to society that underlies and justifies every new encroachment on liberty. Nothing less than a moral counter argument — one that upholds an individual’s right to live for his own sake — will be able to reverse the trend.
Jim Allard ([email protected]) is a graduate student majoring in biological sciences.
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Someday someone will stumble upon this gem and mistake it for Swiftian parody.
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“These protests represent widespread outrage at our government�s ever-increasing power and usurpations of our liberties. They highlight the fact America is rapidly moving away from its founding principles and ideals that make it great.”
Maybe they were supposed to stand for these things at one point in time. Since then they’ve been hijacked by Fox News and a bunch of hypocritical neo-con Bush supporters. They might be supporters of slightly more economic freedom than Obama wants to give us, but they are mostly supporters of the taking away of all of the rest of our liberties.
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Good point, Jim. While taxes may be needed to run the government, the government has abused its power of taxation, both in how taxes are raised and collected and how taxes are spent. Passage of the 16th Amendment turned out to be a very bad idea in the long run. “Soak the rich” they proclaimed to garner support for the amendment. But to this day, it’s the lowly working guy who pays all the taxes in the end-his own plus the rich guy’s, to the tune of .25 cents of every dollar he spends. That’s the real story!
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This had nothing to do with taxes otherwise where were these geniuses for the last eight years of the decider’s stupidity. This was anger. Their party has been humiliated looking at the drubbings they have taken in the last two elections.
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Very well written, Jim!
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Every time Allard shrugs, a John Galt gets his wings.
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Didn’t this same article run last week? And the week before? And the week before?
One. Trick. Pony.
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If conservatives are so appalled by taxes, they really ought to show their outrage by giving up all the things taxes pay for: roads, education, clean water, food safety, the military, police and fire protection, Social Security, the electrical grid, air traffic controllers, the Border Patrol, etc., etc., etc.
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No representation without taxation!
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We have a representative republic that forms laws to represent the majority’s will. The administration upholds the laws, and the judiciary interprets the laws. We voted for Liberals, because the Conservatives nearly collapsed our country.
Tea-baggers: the anger you feel toward Obama is what the Left felt against Bush. How does it feel to wear someone else’s shoes? How does the power-grab of the Bush adminstration suit you now that there’s a democrat in the Oval Office?
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ok Jim, we get that ur a libertarian, but do u have anything real to say?
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Note to readers: Conservative and Liberal political ideologies are not the only options. These parties AGREE on the basics. They agree that sacrifice and serving the so-called “common good” is proper and that the role of government is to enforce this. They merely disagree on who should be sacrificed and for what cause.
Instead of bickering over Bush vs. Obama why not discuss something worthy of discussion: What is the proper role of government? Is sacrifice good or is it evil? Do you have a right to live for your own sake or are you a serf?
To 12:24: We have a CONSTITUTIONAL republic that LIMITS majority will in order to protect individual rights. We are not a democracy.
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Jim, instead of bickering over Bush v. Obama? Is this kind of like the Clinton v. Bush bickering of the past 8 years? Did I ever say we were a democracy?
Do you think you can subvert the elections of 2006 and 2008 with a few ridiculous protests? Does the CONSTITUTION say the United States is capitalist or socialist or communist? No, we’re a government of the people, for the people; that could mean socialist… at least last time I interpreted empty jargon.
Did I hear you or these drooling t-baggers complain about NSA wiretapping and data mining on AMERICAN citizens, or torture, or signing statements during the oh-so-constitutional Bush years? Don’t give me a lecture on the Constitution, please.
No more taxes, tea baggers? Read the damn Constitution.
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Serfdom? Really, could your language be any more rhetorical or inflammatory? Comparing the obligations of serfdom—and even calling them obligations is terribly anachronistic—to the obligation to pay taxes on earned income is not only a terrible analogy, but terribly ignorant as well.
So what do you propose we do instead of pay our taxes? Band together into small clans once our infrastructure crumbles? Shall we then roam about the country taking by force what we need and want from weaker assemblies until we in turn are prayed upon by a stronger foe? Humans have arranged themselves in similar groups many times in the past, and it usually doesn’t end well for most parties involved.
Shall we dispense with medicine as well? Or allow only those with obscene amounts of wealth access to it once they are the only ones who can afford to both fund research and pay for treatments?
And why concern yourself with the education of others, simply worry about yourself and your family, that seems pretty sensible? I mean it’s not as though you and your family have to live side by side with others and that their level of education directly affects your quality of life, right?
Or do you fancy yourself a superman? Do you truly believe that in every conceivable scenario where government no longer exists to serve the public, where man is left to fend for himself, that you will come out on top? In contests of strength and aggression? Cunning and guile? Disease control, famine survival, and drought survival? I doubt you believe such an egotistically naive thing.
Or is it really, that you believe that the government should adequately cover the failings of your person, that the government should meet your specific needs—and you do have specific needs—but ignore the fact that others have different needs than your own? This must be it.
Once again, Jim espouses unrealistic and ideological philosophies about self-governance. It would be great if everything just worked out perfectly and we didn’t need a government or to make personal sacrifices. But, when you have millions of people living together compromise is absolutely necessary, and sacrifice is the heart of compromise. Government allows us channels towards that compromise. Sometimes, the goals of the few have to bend to the will of the many.
Stephen Christensen
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What’s up with all you long comment posters? If you losers want to get published, write something worthy of publication. Otherwise, keep your comments to one paragraph and call it a day. The Herald likes your long posts, though, because it requires people to scroll. This increases time on site. This gives them an undeserved sense of importance. See. One paragraph. Follow the example.
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I like people’s tendency (both Conservatives AND Liberals) to lump the others together as one great big boogeyman. As if everyone on the opposite side was a staunch supporter of every little action the other President took. Get real people.
And yes, I realize my first statement was a generalization too but it was supported by the evidence presented thus far in the comments.
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Can’t we all just get a sandwich?
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“the Border Patrol”
Yer killin me samlls!
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** Barack Obama already signed the largest spending bill in the history of the planet.
** Obama’s budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, and adds more to the debt than all previous presidents — from George Washington to George W. Bush — combined.
** Barack Obama managed to spend more than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
** Obama and democrats have already saddled America’s children and grand children with massive debt. Not that this bothers them.
** Barack Obama is on track to spend more money than any person in the history of Earth.
** The US debt is so large that America couldn’t qualify to join the EU if it wanted to.
** President Obama expects the deficit level to be 12% of GDP this year larger than Great Britain’s record 10% deficit to GDP.
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Reminding us of the spendthrift ways of President Bush and the Republican Congresses of the early 2000s, Democratic officials and liberal bloggers attempt to deny the sincerity of Tea Party protesters and conservative Republicans decrying the excessive government spending proposed by President Obama and passed by a Democratic Congress. Their line of attack shows the would rather dwell on our alleged hypocrisy than defend their excessive spending.
It is shocking that some of the very people who attacked then-President Bush for increasing the debt burden we are passing onto the younger generation support his successor�s plan to increase that debt far quickly than W ever dreamed possible.
http://www.gaypatriot.net/2009/04/19/it-takes-time-to-awaken-a-sleeping-giant/
Yeah, it�s kinda weird to say that if you didn�t raise a stink about a $300 billion deficit, you can�t complaint about a $2 trillion deficit. But in fact, some of us were complaining � and, as I recall, being criticized then because we weren�t talking about whatever the lefty critics wanted us to blog about instead at the time. But you know Al Gore�s story about the slowly-boiling frog? Obama�s turned the stove up to 11, and the frog has started to kick.
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I strongly second 4:09
Second, At the end of the day I question how relevant all of the “debt” that we have accrued built on a belief system will be.
Finally, “There can be no equality until the randomness of birth has been eliminated.” All of your arguments are only relevant because you were lucky enough to be born into a situation where you could have such grand thoughts. People should not discuss “equality” if they have no idea what it means.
Sorry 4:09 guess my ego got away from me…
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Every Allard column:
“Waah why doesn’t anyone see how awesome Ayn Rand is?”
Hint: There is no such thing as a self-made person, every person is a composite of the circumstances in which they grew up, your current life as a grad student studying biology and writing badly is not the product of Jim Allard. You are not self-sufficient. People across the political spectrum realize this. Randroids who let two terrible books dictate their thinking cannot do so, because they do not engage in independent thought. Ironic, given what objectivism is supposed to be all about.
Guess what, Jim? Its a shell game!
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Wow, the best you can do is insult Jim’s writing? You say that success in life is given to you because of the situation you are born into? Was Barack Obama born into what you would call a great situation? Absolutely not, yet he somehow managed to go to Harvard law, be a successful attorney, and eventually be elected to the presidency. He certainly looks like a self-made man to me.