Here's a novel concept. We let prospective employers and employees meet in the marketplace and hammer out mutually acceptable pay and benefits packages. No minimum wage laws, no federally-mandated health insurance benefits! That would allow women not willing to be "abused" by the Catholic Church to seek employment elsewhere. (As I understand it, they retain that right even in this heavily regulated marketplace!) That would likewise allow the Catholic Church to craft its benefits packages in such a way as not to violate its corrupt, benighted and medieval moral precepts. Sound like a win-win?
We let those hate-filled Amish raise barns and till the soil for each other, even as they educate each other's young in segregated Amish-only schools, don't we? We don't sic the EEOC or IRS on them, do we? Why not cut the Whore of Babylon the same slack? Can it be any worse than the muscular mystics who who bar their womenfolk the use of buttons on their clothing?
We can take this one step further. Rather than subject the Catholics and Amish to income and real estate taxes, how about we exempt everybody from all taxes? Let's make the individual steward of his land, resources, income, capital and property--not the State. Yes, I understand that would spell the demise of State-provided defense, security and dispute resolution services (such as they are). But if people demand those services, the market will surely provide. Indeed, it will provide those services more humanely, efficiently and cost effectively.
Apart from that, there's the "intrinsic contradiction," as UNLV economist emeritus Hans-Hermann Hoppe (author of Democracy: the God that Failed--much recommended!) once put it, "in a property-protecting protection racket." Think of it. The State promises to protect you from the bad guys. But you have to pay the State to protect you from the bad guys. You have to pay or else! Or else what? Or else you forgo those essential State services? If only!
Don't pay the State and the State becomes one of the bad guys: it shakes you down. It threatens you with great bodily injury up to and including death. You think I'm couching the arrangement in overly dramatic terms? Try not paying the taxman. Try resisting him every step of the way. Try thumbing your nose at the written notices, the tax liens, the knocks on the door. Things will escalate. Make no mistake: ultimately, the taxman will kill you.
Yes, it's the price we pay for civilization. But it all comes off as rather uncivilized to me.
We let those hate-filled Amish raise barns and till the soil for each other, even as they educate each other's young in segregated Amish-only schools, don't we? We don't sic the EEOC or IRS on them, do we? Why not cut the Whore of Babylon the same slack? Can it be any worse than the muscular mystics who who bar their womenfolk the use of buttons on their clothing?
We can take this one step further. Rather than subject the Catholics and Amish to income and real estate taxes, how about we exempt everybody from all taxes? Let's make the individual steward of his land, resources, income, capital and property--not the State. Yes, I understand that would spell the demise of State-provided defense, security and dispute resolution services (such as they are). But if people demand those services, the market will surely provide. Indeed, it will provide those services more humanely, efficiently and cost effectively.
Apart from that, there's the "intrinsic contradiction," as UNLV economist emeritus Hans-Hermann Hoppe (author of Democracy: the God that Failed--much recommended!) once put it, "in a property-protecting protection racket." Think of it. The State promises to protect you from the bad guys. But you have to pay the State to protect you from the bad guys. You have to pay or else! Or else what? Or else you forgo those essential State services? If only!
Don't pay the State and the State becomes one of the bad guys: it shakes you down. It threatens you with great bodily injury up to and including death. You think I'm couching the arrangement in overly dramatic terms? Try not paying the taxman. Try resisting him every step of the way. Try thumbing your nose at the written notices, the tax liens, the knocks on the door. Things will escalate. Make no mistake: ultimately, the taxman will kill you.
Yes, it's the price we pay for civilization. But it all comes off as rather uncivilized to me.
posted by Tony at 10:43 AM
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