It's great that Shaneen Allen is free and was able to share her story with us at a Citizens for Liberty meeting. I just couldn't post this video without commenting on her call for national reciprocity for state issued carry permits. She's in favor of them, I'm not. Here's why. National reciprocity is just more federal domination of the states. We have too much of that already.
The problem is states implementing gun control not a lack of federal laws on the subject. National reciprocity entrenches and legitimizes this state level tyranny while at the same time expanding federal power. Despite appearances it's step backwards for liberty. The answer is to repeal state laws about licensing and regulating guns. At the same time we need to end federal involvement with guns by abolishing agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It's by this kind of limiting of government power that we protect our freedom.
Knowledge that war depends on
taxation is nothing new. During World War II Disney helped with
propaganda to encourage submission to the legal plunder that is often
referred to as taxation:
Thomas Paine covered the
subject of war and taxes well in “The
Rights of Man”:
…the portion
of liberty enjoyed in England is just enough to enslave a country
more productively than by despotism, and that as the real object of
all despotism is revenue, a government so formed obtains more than it
could do either by direct despotism, or in a full state of freedom,
and is, therefore on the ground of interest, opposed to both. They
account also for the readiness which always appears in such
governments for engaging in wars by remarking on the different
motives which produced them. In despotic governments wars are the
effect of pride; but in those governments in which they become the
means of taxation, they acquire thereby a more permanent promptitude.
War
is the common harvest of all those who participate in the division
and expenditure of public money, in all countries. It is the art of
conquering at home; the object of it is an increase of revenue; and
as revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretense must be made
for expenditure. In reviewing the history of the English Government,
its wars and its taxes, a bystander, not blinded by prejudice nor
warped by interest, would declare that taxes were not raised to carry
on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes
Every
war terminates with an addition of taxes, and consequently with an
addition of revenue; and in any event of war, in the manner they are
now commenced and concluded, the power and interest of Governments
are increased. War, therefore, from its productiveness, as it easily
furnishes the pretense of necessity for taxes and appointments to
places and offices, becomes a principal part of the system of old
Governments
When the left
decries the government’s diversion of its resources from human
needs to the military it is on to something. War does impoverish us.
What the left needs to understand is that a government with the
resources to build schools also has the resources to build drones, a
government with the resources to build roads also has the resources
to build jet fighters, and a government with the power to tax and
create money has the resources to pay for the weapons mentioned above
and to wage war.
And wage war
it will, for as Randolph
Bourne wrote "War
Is the Health of the State". Giving the state resources only
feeds the war machine. Welfare at home and warfare abroad are also
just flip sides of the same coin. If the left really wants to see Dr.
King’s dream of peace come true they must face the reality that
they can not give the government the tools it needs to wage war and
expect it not to do so. It’s not enough to advocate that they not
buy weapons. We must take away the tools they use to acquire them.
This means that we must end the Federal Reserve System, the income
tax, the federal government’s social spending, its regulatory role,
and its police powers. Peace will only come when the government is
powerless to commit evil acts both at home and abroad.
It
comes as no surprise to libertarians that when governments use
aggression at home to finance their operations they use much of that
loot to aggress abroad. To really advocate peace pacifists need to
apply their principles consistently. The use of force is either
consonant with pacifist principles or it isn't. There is no magic of
the collective that excuses the government using force in a way that
is immoral for individuals to do so. I have no doubt that none of the
members of the Brandywine Peace Community would themselves ever use
force, or the threat thereof, to separate anyone from their money.
Why then do they advocate that the government do so? Taxation isn't
consonant with pacifist principles. It can't be enforced without
using force, a violation of everything pacifists claim to stand for.
Until they resolve this conflict pacifists may say they want peace
but are really the enablers of war and other aggressions. We won't
get rid of the scourge of war until we rid ourselves of the scourge
of taxation.
Highlights of the Brandywine Peace Community's Good Friday Protest and Civil Disobedience at Lockheed Martin in King of Prussia, PA http://www.brandywinepeace.com/
King of Prussia, PA – Focus on Peace held its first action the "Sign Wave for Peace on the Anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq" on Saturday, March 19, 2011. It was a success with five peace lovers coming out to mark the 8th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. We stood on a very busy street corner in King of Prussia, PA. Our message seemed well received there compared to other places I've done this kind of peace advocacy at. There were many "honks for peace" and few insults.
Focus on Peace is a politically neutral peace movement. The website states:
Our purpose is to have a peace movement that welcomes people of all ideologies, creeds, and beliefs. One that makes everyone feel not only comfortable but a part of the movement. No one should feel that they are endorsing someone else's political agenda when standing up for peace. To this end we have only one focus: ending the wars abroad.
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