Thought and Freedom

One of the greatest American icons was a man by the name of Martin Luther King Jr. He was a Republican politically. He had a tremendous gift in his speaking abilities, and he understood the nature of freedom.

MLK, is by all accounts, one of the most heroic individuals to be part of American history. His integrity in thought meant that he did not fear speaking out against an establishment that thought differently than he did. And for that, he changed our nation permanently for the better.

A little known fact is that Martin Luther King was opposed to the war at the time. In one of his speeches, he said the following:

War is the greatest plague that can affect humanity; it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it.

I admire King’s ability to stand his ground on a whole host of issues. Things that were right in his eyes, deserved defending, even if he was not immediately hurt by them.

I was at a BPOU meeting the other day and realized a lot of people are unfamiliar with the process to create a motion and make something happen at the local political unit level.

So, to ease the process, I put together a template that can be used in your organization to make a motion in an organized and well thought out fashion. You can find the template here:

Motion Form Template

Motions can be used for more than just organizational logistics (Motion to approve $100 for postage, motion to endorse candidate, etc.). Motions can also be made at the local level to reaffirm an organizations commitment to a particular belief or direction.

If you see something wrong with the local city council, or maybe feel like the organization is just not committed to getting a particular issue addressed, or maybe you just want to re-affirm the importance of a subject relating to your organization, it may be a good idea to make a motion. It does not always have to change the platform or bylaws, sometimes it is good enough just to make a public statement. So at times, these can be used to energize, rather than make policy.

I just saw what is perhaps the best produced political commercial I have ever seen. Ron Paul’s campaign just came out with a “movie preview” style commercial that is really cool looking.

Ron Paul hits on what people really want. They want conviction, not compromise.

Around April 15th, most are aware of their tax burden. But by the middle of summer, we are usually worried about other things.

Even though we are crippled by taxes throughout the year, we don’t see the true amount until the numbers are crunched in April. After the taxes are processed, we receive a refund. Ironically, some people think this is a gift from the government. In reality, it’s more like a thief returning your possessions after being caught with your stuff.

I was looking at the issues page at BobBarr2008.com and I saw that he said the following:

It is not enough to eliminate the income tax. We also must repeal the 16th amendment, which authorizes Congress to levy an income tax. Without doing so, there would be an ever-present danger that a future Congress would attempt to bring back the income tax on top of the Fair Tax or any other alternative to the income tax.

I tend to agree with him, but on one exception. I do not feel that it is the U.S. congresses role to tax us at all.

Ideally, no individual citizen, or business entity, should ever be put under the burden of the United States government except in cases where the individual is directly working with, or working against, the Federal Government. Then, they should only be regulated to the extent of their relationship with the federal government.

Right now you are probably asking how the federal government could raise funds if it could not tax the citizens. The answer is simple. The federal government should levy funds directly from the states.

Think about it. The United States is part of numerous alliances that are paid tribute to support their bureaucracies, yet we don’t pay a NATO tax or U.N. tax. This is because the U.S. government shields its citizens from these entities. In the same way, a person’s state should shield its citizens from the federal government. When the people of a state pay direct taxes to the federal government, they give up their state’s sovereignty.

Right now, tremendous portions of our nation’s regulatory needs are duplicated at the state and federal level. One of the largest instances of this is the department of the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS audits and monitors over 130 million individual tax payers. That statistic does not even include businesses. Each state also monitors those tax payers.

So with just individual tax payers (no businesses), and with services duplicated, there are in over 260 million people that are contacted and monitored by various government entities. This means that a lot of money is wasted on the duplication of services.

A better solution would be to have the states collect whatever taxes are needed, then pay the Federal government. Then the states will receive a bill from the Federal government, and it is up to them to find a way to pay it. If they wish to charge income taxes, that is OK. If they prefer consumption taxes, that is OK too.

This “market” of tax collections will allow citizens to find a place where they feel most comfortable with the tax system, and will reduce the regulatory (read “harassing”) power of the federal government. It will restore the concept of federalism to our republic.