Further "Winnies"

Imperialism -- in the last writing we have already scourged imperialism, at least in the mode of claiming to be the world's police.  But the democracy scam is only a cover.  What is being covered is far more of a concern.  There are a number of disturbing ideas behind the facade.

Ideas such as:
 -- The earth's natural resources belong to those who can take them, by hook or by crook.  Whoever happens to be there, whether or not using the resources, can easily be replaced with a friendlier set of thugs.  Spend a little time with some true history of the overthrow of the Hawai'ian sovereign, or the duplicitous creation of Panama.
 -- Native populations have no business wanting or seeking self-determination.  By posing the straw man that self-determination is only the province of distinguished groups such as worthy classes (industrial barons, aristocrats, bureaucrats, politicians, warriors, supreme races), it becomes easy to deny all of the unworthy classes by denigrating them in comparison to the elites.
 -- What's good for Monsanto, for instance, is good for its beneficiaries, supposed or otherwise. And all who shut up and stand in awe of those benefits are creatively described as beneficiaries.  Other industrial giants have used this dodge -- railroads, the federal government, the auto industry, the Pentagon, higher education, public education.
 -- A superior state's way of doing things is superior to all possible alternatives.
 -- An inferior (fictional) collective must either adopt the methods of a superior collective or be colonized.
 -- Native colonials must be productive within the context of the colonizer or be eradicated.
 -- War is not an economic activity, but a means for achieving justice.
 -- Peace can coexist with the state.
 -- Individual peace is only found within the jurisdiction of the state.
 -- Exporting culture is an act of peace.
 -- Importing culture is an act of aggression.
 -- Intervention is a cooperative behavior.

I would be most happy to discuss any of these assertions at any time.  I know that assertions without support are just argumentative, so one supposes that we would begin by identifying what support may be available.  For example, what support can we deduce for "a superior state's way of doing things is superior to all possible alternatives."

On the other hand, we could take this approach; do any of the above assertions satisfy the NAP (non-agression principle)?  Although the NAP does not totally describe voluntaryism, there are no description of voluntaryism which can exclude the NAP.

Income Tax -- I have covered income tax previously in this column, but only on the grounds of whether it was right or wrong.  This time I will contend that the decision to impose income taxes upon a collective of people is an example of a wrong path for a social order.  In 1913, the USA decided that its programs were too meager and could not be continued without taxing the very means of life for its citizens, their incomes.

There was a seemingly good reason -- to pay for a war to save the world (If you want more fairy tales, I must humbly refer you elsewhere).

It was going to be relatively painless for two reasons -- only the smallest percentage of the very rich would pay, and as soon as the war was over the tax would be retired.

I have a single answer for all three of those canards, and it is the same answer as that to the question, "what comes out of male bovines in piles?"

Nowadays taxes have produced perpetual wars which in turn produce perpetual taxes.  And everybody pays in one way or the other.  We will not even get into the management and the application of taxes for the common good, a non-existent thing.  Just as the tax-war-tax vicious cycle smacked us in the face, we are now beginning to see that there is a tax-makework-tax cycle of which the endless war is only a part -- certainly a nasty part.

Every peccadillo of the state is related to the tax cycle and to all of the little wheels grinding within.  For instance, why do we need government-run schools?

Well, that's the wrong question.  The begged question is why do government-run schools arise?

State schooling is necessary to advanced militaristic planning, to indoctrination, to conditioned response, to the gaming of logical and self-ordering systems.

Similar answers for roads.  Similar answer for anything that the government has succesfully removed from private market mechanisms.