The other day I was talking to a friend about this website. About why people do 1st Amendment Audits and do stuff like that. We ended up talking about schools and police officers on campus.
The conversation then went into “problem kids.” And my friend pointed out that one of the kids we were talking about is one of those kids that is “going to do something bad someday” like shoot up a school or something like that.
Keep in mind these are grade-school kids. So obviously we all hope nothing like that happens. But I asked why the opinion? And my friend explained that the kid is always “trouble” and the staff that is supposed to assess and assist this type of kids haven’t done a really good job.
Apparently, someone that is supposed to evaluate the kid and possibly determine that the kid should be moved to another school or program that might benefit him more, didn’t really or hasn’t really done their job.
My friend said to me that the staff spent a few minutes with the kids and determined there is no problem. But this goes against the teachers and other school staff that interact with the kid on a daily basis.
My friend pretty much said their hands are tied and they just have to keep insisting that the kid be re-evaluated, but the person in charge of that will rarely take in actual input and feedback from the teachers.
Sounds crazy already does it not? You would think that someone trying to evaluate a kids’ capacity to cope with other kids, and propensity for violence would include input from those closest to the kid, no?
Then we went on to talk about why this is as it is. And my perspective was one that probably resonates with you if you’re interested in the type of videos and content you’ll find on this site.
I explained what I had learned about the idea that “taxation is theft.” I’m fairly new to the concept, to be honest. I first learned about that perspective 5 or 6 years ago.
The question whether taxation is illegal is a highly debated topic in certain circles. But upon doing a lot of research, I think taxes are legal, but immoral and essentially, legalized theft.
Apparently everytime that this issue has been taken to court, it has been shut down, to the point where in 2007, the arguments have been deemed fraudulent. Here’s a good primer on the whole thing: Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments.
I’m not sure if that means that the arguments cannot be introduced into new cases or what, but I do understand that case law plays a huge role in future instances where similar circumstances may take place.
On one hand, there is the law. The part that is written and established an actual law. And on the other hand is the result of challenging or enforcing that law, I believe this is what is called case law.
In my meager understanding of the law, I feel that sometimes case law has even more weight than the actual law. –And forgive the lack of proper terminology. I am not a lawyer, but I hope I get my point across.
The whole point I was trying to make is that taxation is illegal, but I think I was wrong. However, I think it is still immoral and clearly, paying taxes it is an act of forced compliance.
If you don’t pay taxes, you risk going to jail. And if you are facing arrest, you are under the threat of violence.
This lead to my point. Taxation may be legal, but it is still theft and in my opinion even worse than theft. In practical terms is one of the worse things to plague our bureaucracy.
You see, the problem is that the people and resources that receive those tax dollars have absolutely zero incentive to perform.
Sure there are some good people, whose resolve and drive to “do the right thing” shines brightly. But after seeing thousands of videos from auditors, and cops, I believe the culture in government is ingrained to discourage transparency and high-performance.
If you were to take any of the government “jobs” and privatize them, there would be no room for this kind of abuse and complacency.
I’m not saying everything about government should be privatized, but I believe the government has too much power and it has broken away from the chains that were supposed to keep things in check. I feel like the government has become too big.
You see, if the government kept proper KPI (key performance indicators), and proper reports and the people in charge of carrying out their job were actually held accountable, we would get much better service.
In the private sector, you don’t get away with being an asshole to the public. We see tons of cops, city administrators, and other government employees or officials who have a blatant disregard for the law and their duty.
We’ve seen staff lock doors on people because they asked questions, we have seen cops beat innocent people just because they had a camera and questioned their authority, we’ve seen city officials blatantly disregard their duties to the public, simply because they felt like it.
In the private sector, you don’t get away with stuff like that. We vote with our wallets, and if a company has a “bad apple” in their midst it’s in their best interest to remove that person from those duties because the whole company’s reputation and finances are in jeopardy.
But the government has no incentive. Why?
Because they take our money without our consent or a contract. They will get paid no matter what. Public sector employees are usually on a tiered wage schedule, which means they will earn at least a certain amount, but also they will not be able to make more money than they have been designated to earn.
As long as they don’t screw up completely –and even that is debatable when it comes to cops– they will keep their job, and every 12-24 months they will get a scheduled raise.
As a government employee, you can bust your ass, outwork and outperform your peers and you are still going to find it incredibly tough to get a raise. You have to wait your “time,” or you have to change titles so you can get paid more. That in and of itself can be a lifetime challenge. So the majority of people in government, do the basic or the minimum required job and call it a day.
In the private sector, you could join a company and move through the ranks as fast as you could if you were outperforming your peers, and benefiting the overall direction of the company. It generally doesn’t matter if you’re 10 years younger than your peer, or that you’ve been in the business for only 1 or 2 years. You are judged on your performance.
But not in government.
This is why that kid I talked about earlier is not getting the proper attention, this is why the kid could end up becoming a criminal, and unfortunately there’s very little you or I can do about it.
So this is why I say that taxation is worse than theft. See, if someone steals $100 from you under the threat of violence, you can easily hand over the $100.00 and walk away. It’s relatively easy to make $100 back and you can move on with your life. Of course, you’ll be shaken up, you might want to file a police report, etc. But it’s done and you can move on.
But when the government steals your money and then pays people that are supposed to serve you but fail to do so, the damage is 1000x greater than if someone just stole your money.
The reason is that the negligence, complacency, and lack of performance by the individuals getting paid with YOUR money will actually affect your community at a much deeper level. The ripple effects of this inefficient bureaucracy are immeasurable.
