Starve the beast

As someone who writes about the meaning of personal freedom, I’ve so far stayed clear of political issues, preferring to focus on the power of conscious living. Despite living in Thailand most of the year and enjoying progressive Seattle in the summers, because I remain a U.S. citizen, I am still in servitude to a federal government that is in the pocket of huge corporations and can’t be trusted to act in the average citizen’s interest. I believe in the fundamental good that the U.S. is capable of, but because our influence is so powerful in geopolitics and finance, its corrupt and hypocritical policies shape the world that I’m determined to make better for my daughter.

The following things are all linked, because I fundamentally disagree with funding aggression and the deliberate erosion of civil liberties. I don’t consider these ideas as pegged to any particular point on the political spectrum, just a sensible way forward, in line with the ideals of our Constitution.

1. Abolish all income tax, including corporate tax
Excise and property taxes will cover more than is needed to fund federal and state government’s essential functions. Prices would come down as the cost of manufacturing decreased, purchasing power would rise, one parent could provide enough income for the other to stay home with children, and the poor could get by with less government assistance. In the meantime, corporations could invest more in R&D, hire more people and pay better dividends to shareholders. There would be less crime as a result of increased affluence, more intact families and people would be able to save more for retirement, as well as give more to charity. But mostly, we could stop subsidizing bloated, dysfunctional government bureaucracies and war.

To talk about taxing some people more or less misses the point. Income tax is oppressive no matter how progressive, in that it disincentivizes hard work, punishes financial success, encourages cheating and investment/savings offshore. When half of one’s income is taken by the state, it amounts to involuntary servitude. In Thailand where I live most of the year, there is a 200% tax on the sale of luxury goods. Fine, the rich can still afford them. I’m all for steep luxury taxes, especially as a means to lower things like health care costs. Double the U.S. gas tax? No problem, since I’m not giving away a big chunk  of my income, I’m willing and able to pay more for a commodity that currently doesn’t reflect it’s real cost to the environment anyway. Double car license renewal fees each year to pay for better roads? Without income tax, paying $70 a year instead of $35 won’t break anyone and the state will be able to afford better public transportation. By exempting essential goods like non-prepared foods, clothing and medicine, it would ease the burden on the poor.

For those of you saying this smacks of something out of an Ayn Rand novel and accusing me of turning my back on the 99%, I say to you that since 1975, the income share of the 1% has steadily increased, through Republican and Democratic administrations, despite varying tax regimes. It’s not working, people. Raising taxes on millionaires might make us feel better, but will raise only an estimated $50 billion a year. Pocket change in trying to reduce our $16 trillion dollar deficit.

2. Repeal the Patriot Act, dismantle Homeland security and the TSA
These assaults on civil liberties are directly related to the hoax of 9/11 as a justification for the massive expansion of domestic security. That giant sucking sound you hear coming from Utah is the NSA’s listening facility that is pulling in all domestic data and voice traffic for analysis.  We got along fine without Homeland Security until 9/11 was perpetrated on us. Even if you choose to ignore the statements of hundreds of eyewitnesses (firemen, police, local citizens) and widespread scientific analysis that directly contradict official accounts of the events of 9/11, and you are OK with the systematic disappearance of physical evidence, the number of incredible ‘coincidences’ involved in the tragedy, and instead you choose to believe the conclusions of the 9/11 commission, then you deserve a government that treats you like a potential terrorist.

While I completely reject the official story of 9/11 and the subsequent rationale for the War on Terror, I am also proud of my friends who have served honorably in making the best of a bad situation. I also realize how much harder it makes things for families who lost loved ones in this cruel charade. There’s no valid threat that justifies continued spying on Americans and robbing us of our privacy.

3. Let people own whatever kind of guns they want; require comprehensive background checks, licensing, mandatory education and testing for owners, with severe penalties for non-compliance

Dear gun enthusiasts: if you want to own an AK-47 for the purpose of going out and vaporizing a deer, then you need to register the weapon, submit to a background check, and prove you know how to safely operate it. You already do this for the privilege of driving a car, which is not enshrined in the Constitution, and the act of which is more likely to kill you than owning a gun. I understand that the whole rationale for the right to bear arms is to counter the power of the government should it decide to try and revoke our rights via illegal search and seizure, warrantless surveillance and lack of due process (see the Patriot Act). If we follow this logic, citizens supposedly need automatic weapons because the police and armed forces have them, and we need to create a deterrent to any potentially oppressive regime. Just because the Constitution says I have the right to bear arms, it doesn’t mean I can have an MQ-9 Reaper Drone, as much fun as that would be.

And as much as I don’t like guns, I also know that the previous assault weapons ban made only a nominal difference in mass shooting incidents in the country, and that after the ban expired, gun violence has continued to decline, punctuated by mass shootings that could have been prevented with better gun ownership laws. I don’t believe a word the NRA says, and I know that improving responsible gun ownership, on par with car ownership or home ownership will make America safer.

4. Reduce military spending to 2002 levels ($300 billion)
How did I come up with this number, you ask? We spend as much as the next 10 biggest military spending nations combined. Our nearest ‘adversaries’ that are not NATO countries are Russia and China. Together, they spend $200 billion. We’re already decades ahead of them in terms of technology, air and sea power, that even if we maintained a 30% spending margin above both of these countries combined, we’d still stay far ahead. These countries have not proven to be major threats to U.S. interests and in any case, our allies, to whom we supply high-tech weapons and training, are formidable in their own right. For example, in an armed confrontation over disputed islands, the better trained Japanese Naval Self-Defence Force would inflict horrific damage on Chinese forces, with or without U.S. support.

When did this massive U.S. military buildup begin? Let’s go back to the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz  Project for a New American Century. Their report, Strategies, Forces, and Resources For a New Century was based on four core missions for the U.S. military, which were to:

• fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars
• perform the “constabulary” duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions
• defend the American homeland
• transform U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs” (ie, leverage latest technology)

One year after this report, 9/11 facilitated all of this to transpire under the justification of the ‘War on Terror’. In their September 2000 report on Rebuilding America’s Defences, the group conceded that there was no immediate necessity for the massive buildup in military spending that they were proposing. In an ominous line from Section V of the report, Creating Tomorrow’s Dominant Force: “Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor” (my emphasis).

Two months after 9/11,the group sent a letter to President George W. Bush, advocating “A determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq” despite a complete lack of evidence for his involvement. And this is exactly what happened.

As a registered independent who rejects the ideologies that have hijacked rational political discourse, I write this to simply state my current thinking on issues that I see as having undermined America’s ability to live up to its ideals. And I hope that someday my daughter will read this, in the way we look back on McCarthyism, the Gulf of Tonkin (non) Incident and other national hysterics and mis-steps that led us away from our potential to be of service to ourselves and  do good in the world.  I hope this will help her know her father as the guy who told her, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything”.

“It is the duty of every patriot to protect his country from its government” – Thomas Paine