In our most basic state of existence, mankind is chaotic and persists in a state of "survival of the fittest," just as our ancestors in many forms have for billions of years. More recently, if Bob lives adjacent to Mark, and there is no higher structure looking over the both of them, Bob could do whatever he wants to Mark and vice versa. Bob might take over Mark's plantation, or Mark might kidnap Bob's oldest daughter. There is no one to stop either of them from doing so. Bob and Mark can do whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want. The only thing stopping them is the other's resistance to go along with whatever is done. This is a state of pure, unbridled freedom.
Then man settled upon this idea of government. In its most basic, and most perfect, form, government exists to secure the basic inalienable rights we as humans enjoy. For instance, to stop Mark from taking Bob's daughter, Paris-and-Helen-style, because while it is Mark's right to do what he wants, that right only extends to the point where it does not impinge the right of Bob's daughter to live according to her own wants and desires.
Government, therefore, stops Bob and Mark from ravaging and pillaging one another. The government makes sure that Bob can walk around his town or city without being harassed or hurt by fellow citizens. In turn for some of these services, the government, in theory, needs a way to finance its own existence. So it decides to tax Bob and Mark to make sure that Bob and Mark don't beat the crap out of one another.
And that is all fair and good. If a system of taxation and governance had never been put in place, this author doubts if mankind would have ever wandered out of the caves in whatever literal or Platonically allegorical sense you'd like. But I am not here to tout the virtues of taxation to serve the common good -- there are any number of people on this campus who can eloquently defend that, many of them undoubtedly writers for this publication in the same capacity I am. So let me instead sing of the ills of this system. I fully understand that we have problems in this society that are perhaps unsolvable if not for massive taxation to fund some sort of solution. This is one of those things for someone else to talk about -- that giving up your money for the common good raises the living standards of others; but I want to focus on the fact that contrary to what most people might believe or assert, personal property rights are regularly abridged in this country on a quite nauseating scale that goes more or less unquestioned by the highly educated and otherwise quite perceptive population here in this north country paradise. Note here that I am not clutching my assault rifle while wearing fatigues and saying the government has no right to tax me. I am pursuing this for the sake of intellectual debate.
A quick recall from memory tells me that the average worker in this country has, all in all, somewhere in the ballpark of one third of his or her paycheck going to taxes. The exact figure is unnecessary -- a tenth, a third, a half, it's all the same. Now, I want you to imagine sitting in your home. Now, I want you to imagine sitting down for breakfast and the FBI busts in the door and ropes off one third of your house and uses it for its own machinations, ostensibly the public good. Maybe they give your little brother's bed to a homeless man so he doesn't freeze to death. Maybe they store whatever they need to store there. Maybe they use a big room as a nursery for orphaned infants, ensuring that they aren't left prey to the indifferent universe that left them parentless. Maybe they'll even quarter some soldiers there.
Oops.
Looks like we've run into a problem. The other things, depending on your viewpoint, sound good enough. But we have a constitutional amendment preventing the last one. Thankfully, something as egregious as this never happens in America, due to said amendment. But more important than the amendment is the spirit it embodies, the same spirit embodied throughout the Bill of Rights, the whole Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and countless other precedents. If the government took a tenth of your house, you'd be up in arms. And yet we gladly, unquestioningly surrender a third of our paycheck to the government to do as it will.
My roommate was kind enough last night to inform me of a letter sent to President Bush by some officials on Capitol Hill chastising him for the Iraq War and saying we need an investigation into it. Fair enough. We probably do need an investigation. But where's the investigation as to why it's necessary for the government to rope off a third of our most basic property -- our wages?