Obligation to Live or Right to Life?

The distinction between collecting taxes and compelling military service inheres in the difference between types of obligations and rights. As previously contended, one does have an obligation to society which justifies the payment and the collection, if necessary, of an equitable tax. The societal agency, in collecting the tax, is merely performing its proper role of defending its members against those who would unload their own obligations onto the shoulders of others. Bear in mind that the collection is in livelihood, not life.

However, no person has an obligation, other than to himself, to live. He may, and sometimes does, choose not to live—all suicides being examples. A person is not obligated to society in this respect. To live or not to live is an affair of individual choice. It is a matter between man and his God, not between man and society.

A person does not have an obligation to society to live. He has only the right to live if he so chooses. No societal organization would be justified among a people who had no desire to live. An organized arm of society is founded on and is justified exclusively by the will to live which exists in a people—precisely the same law of nature which attends to potential human energy’s becoming kinetic human energy—that is, which attends to communication and exchange among men.

Source: Leonard E. Read

Topics: Life; Right to Life; Rights

Liberty and Christianity

Liberty, like Christianity, has been tried but never wholly adopted. It isn’t that these ways of life have been found wanting. It is that they have been found difficult and rejected by many. ... To the extent that government takes sides among the citizens-plundering some for the “benefit” of others, granting special privileges-to that extent has government become incapable of performing its legitimate function of protecting the life and livelihood of all citizens equally. It is a self-evident fact that no person or agency can protect the honest fruits of one’s labor while at the same time forcibly taking the fruits of one’s labor. In short, the more government acts aggressively, the less it can act protectively or defensively.

The history of government’s acting aggressively coincides with the history of government. Is there a single instance where government has been limited to the defense of creative energy and its uninhibited exchange? Even in America in 1789—the nearest known approach to strict limitation—slavery and tariffs were acknowledged as appropriate aggressive acts of government. The principle of aggression, once admitted, had either to be denied and destroyed or approved and expanded. While Negro slavery was later denied and destroyed, the principle of government aggression was not stamped out. Some of the aggressive seed remained in embryonic stage; and by 1900, governmental actions were taken which led to the development of the embryo. By 1913 this perverse principle was so thoroughly established that we inscribed on our American banner—proclaimed and adopted as national policy—the Marxian ideal. This Marxian ideal, the Sixteenth Amendment—the progressive income tax—legalized a new slavery in lieu of the Negro slavery earlier disposed of.”

Source: Leonard E. Read
Government—An Ideal Concept, p76-77

Topics: Christianity; Income Tax; Liberty

Economics

Reporting on business activity in our argued-for free society would have only one purpose, namely, to aid in economic calculation on the part of participants. Whether the aggregate activity were high or low would be of little more than academic concern. It would only reflect the extent to which citizens wanted or did not want to produce and exchange. Business activity, unlike today, would not be a gauge of how ineffectively economic rigging is working. Nor would it, as today, be the source for exultation or fear. Relatively low business activity would not classify as “bust,” any more than an individual’s taking the day off would classify as personal failure.

Source: Leonard E. Read

Topics: Economics

Enemy Or Servant?

Government as an agency of society—if well-conceived, properly limited, and soundly organized—is a cooperative arm of society. It is but another item in the division of labor. Its true interest lies in protecting the society that created it.

Government is composed of persons, as is society. Organize the persons in government in such a manner that they can readily realize that they will fare ill if the society which hires them disintegrates or that they will fare well if the society prospers, and society will have a good and faithful servant. But organize the persons in government in such a manner that they get the idea that society is only a host to be exploited, and society will have a bad and parasitical servant.

One of the requirements for promoting cooperation between two or more persons—or between society and government—is that their interests in the project in question be recognized as in accord; that the self-interests of all parties be understood by the parties themselves to be in harmony. But let the idea prevail that the self-interest of one is served at the expense of the other, and the two will not cooperate; instead, each will work against the true interest of the other.

Source: Leonard E. Read

Topics: Cooperation; Government

How long will it be before the words of the prophet Joseph will be fulfilled? He said if the Constitution of the United States were saved at all it must be done by this people.

Source: Brigham Young
Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 360

Topics: US Constitution

When the Constitution of the United States hangs, at it were, upon a single thread, they will have to call for the “Mormon” Elders to save it from utter destruction; and they will step forth and do it.

Source: Brigham Young
Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 361

Topics: US Constitution

I expect to see the day when the Elders of Israel will protect and sustain civil and religious liberty and every Constitutional right bequeathed to us by our fathers, and spread these rights abroad in connetion with the Gospel for the salvation of all nations. I shall see this whether I live or die.

Source: Brigham Young
Discourses of Brigham Young p. 361

Topics: Responsibility

Taxing Our Children

The voters of one period should not tax those of a later period. Those of the later period are not represented in the instant taxing body, and hence today’s taxation of the citizens of tomorrow distinctly violates the principle of taxation by representation of those who pay the taxes. This means that to increase its expenditures government should not incur debt, because the burden of its redemption is thereby imposed on future taxpayers.

Source: Bradford B. Smith

Topics: Taxes

Joseph Smith on Politics

Relative to politics the epistle urged that inasmuch as none of the candidates who were before the public for the high office of president of the United States had “manifested any disposition or intention to redress wrong and restore liberty, and law,” the saints were advised to stand aloof from corrupt men and measures, “and wait at least till a man is found, who, if elected, will carry out the enlarged principles, universal freedom and equal rights and protection, expressed in the views of our beloved Prophet and martyr.” “We do not, however,” said the epistle, “offer this political advice as binding on the consciences of others; we are perfectly willing that every member of this church should use his own freedom in all political matters; but we give it as our own rule of action, and for the benefit of those who may choose to profit by it.” (Joseph Smith’s full letter was printed in Times and Seasons, vol. v, p. 620. The presidential election year was 1844.)

Source: B.H. Roberts
A Comprehensive History of the Church
Volume Two, p. 448

Topics: Citizenship; Responsibility; Statesmanship

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