This era’s field of glory will be tax reform

© 2007 by Michael Swickard, Ph.D.

As a young man, Lincoln worried that the “field of glory” had been harvested by the founding fathers, that nothing had been left for his generation but modest ambitions. – Doris Kearns Goodwin

Abraham Lincoln was wrong. Slavery and the resultant Civil War was his field of glory. In the years leading up to Lincoln’s time, no politician had been able to unite this county in the notion that slavery was fundamentally incompatible with the ideals of the United States of America. The slavery issue festered throughout most of our county’s first century.

Lincoln had to deal with slavery because our founding fathers were unable to reach an agreement on ending it, so they left it unresolved. Ultimately, Lincoln’s actions were as important to the preservation of our country as those of the founding fathers.

What “field of glory” is available today? Some feel nothing of lasting importance is left. I disagree. There is more to do now than in 1776. Further, the political turmoil in 1776 is similar to 2007. We were then and are now a nation divided about liberty.

The founding fathers established both the theoretical and practical concept of liberty. They were born without liberty and could only dream of it. Some ancient societies had no word for the concept of liberty. In 2007, we cannot imagine a world without liberty even though at least half of our world still lives in bondage. And we are losing our liberty without much notice.

Liberty is not what we can do, but what others cannot compel us to do. The colonists formed a new nation to stop the king from taking so much of their property. In 2007, the tax load on some people is more than 50 percent. The government takes half of every dollar earned.

Then and now, to have liberty, we first must have private property rights, which includes our work, words, likeness and ideas. When someone or some government lays claim to any of these properties, then our liberty is eroded.

Yes, we must have taxes to run government. The devil is in the details. As we are taxed we lose liberty since taxes represent a government claim to our private property. As taxes increase we own less and less of ourselves. A functional definition of slavery is working the entire year when someone else gets the fruit of our labor.

Today’s tax and spend policies use the property of one citizen to buy the vote of another. Charles Ponzi created the Ponzi Scheme, by which you take the money of some people and give it to others to keep them happy. Eventually the pyramid collapses with most people losing their money.

Politicians convince us to vote for them because they are going to give us more from government than we pay into it. It just does not work that way.

The government has no money of its own. To give one dollar to a citizen it must confiscate a dollar from another citizen. Actually, it requires more than a dollar since there are large handling charges. Each dollar confiscated reduces the liberty of the person who was forced to give the money. It works because people think this is a way to get something for nothing. And they do not notice that all of us lose our liberty while government gains.

2008 needs to be about a return to liberty

It is no surprise that we have lost so much liberty. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”

Over the last 231 years, since the first 4th of July celebration, there have been many small steps away from liberty. Mostly it has been about taxes, but there are many other reasons to reduce citizen liberty in favor of government gain.

The 2008 election needs to be about returning liberty to the people. Our tax policy is muddled for the same reason the slavery issue in 1776 was not resolved. Today’s politicians are equally unable to reach an agreement on taxes, or, for that matter, health care, immigration and the war in Iraq. They have left all important issues in our country unresolved.

So who will step up and really provide leadership? The time is ripe for someone to lead us back to our liberty if we can embrace that leadership.

The field of glory is waiting for a politician who proposes a tax plan that at the core does not take money from one citizen and give it to other citizens to whom it does not belong. Slavery was very hard to change in Lincoln’s day. Tackling the effect of tax policy on liberty will likewise not be easy today.

Is there someone who can do so for the ultimate good of our nation? That person will get my vote.

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.