print“The Founders were Lockean liberals who believed that we had natural rights and could combine to delegate certain powers to the government such as self-protection. But in natural law, no man can steal from another so you can’t delegate that power to the government and create a welfare state. Similarly, the people don’t have the right to counterfeit, so they can’t delegate that power to the Federal Reserve. And the people do not have the right to rule the world, so they can’t delegate to the government the right to create a global military empire.”
The Founders were not anarchists but they still had a dim view of taxes. To tax people for purposes other than core government functions is theft and tyranny. Jefferson said that in his own words in his First Inaugural.”
The excerpt is from my WND interview with James Ostrowski, tea party organizer and author of the manifesto, “How We Can Win the Second American Revolution Without Firing a Shot.”
Update I (April 18): if you missed the column on WND, you can catch it each and every week on Taki’s Magazine, where the reading, overall, is really really good. Read “The Real Tea Parties,” NOW on Taki’s Magazine.
Update II : The absolute imperative of denouncing the GOP was the theme of my interview with Jim Ostrowski. Is my wish coming true? I hope so. Rep. Gresham Barrett of South Carolina was booed off the stage he tried to occupy.
“Barrett faced the ire of the tea party protesters because of his vote last year for the $700 billion,” reports the Huffington Post.
Here’s the clip. “GO HOME” the crowd cries. The Republican knave tries to galvanize the crowd with the “our men and women in the military” mantra. But all he gets is: “GO HOME, GO HOME, GO HOME, too late, too late, boo, boo.” Love the fury.
Update III: In her syndicated column, Michelle Malkin, the only real fiscal conservative among Republican pundits, documents the extent of the revulsion GOPiers (including those who appeared with Sean Hannity) have inspired among tea party goers:
“If only the condescending cable TV anchors at CNN and MSNBC had paused from wallowing in gutter puns about tea bags, they might have reported an even more significant phenomenon: Tea Party protesters were as vocal in their criticism of Republicans as they were of Democrats. In Salt Lake City, Utah, a crowd of 2,000 repeatedly booed GOP Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, who both supported the $700 billion TARP bailout, and protested GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman’s decision to accept $1.6 billion in porky stimulus funds.”…
Oh, I’m all for those Tea parties. Hey, maybe we Canadians could have some kind of ‘Molson’ party. The problem is that these will run against the NIMB movement, as in Not In My Backyard when it comes time to cut services provided by that despised Big Government. Moreover, the people who benefit the most from the ‘no new taxes’ cries are those very rich Americans who don’t pay their fair share in view of current government expenditures. So the US debt is exploding while the difference between rich and poor is reaching Third World level.
Dear Ms. Mercer:
I wish we could return to Mr. Jefferson’s view that the only purpose for government is to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In spite of Mr. Ostrowski’s optimism I believe the diversity and multicultural mix of the present day country would never allow such a simple solution. There are just too many here that are looking for what they perceive socialism will provide. Our government appears bent on destroying any resistence to their goals of a one world government…with the clowns in charge.
Ostrowski gets it, you get it, hell – maybe even I “get it”. It will take time, patience, persistence, education, and good ideas. It will take mass persuasion. Sadly, for every Ron Paul who wins political office, there are many phonies – the Newt Gingriches – who, once in power, will do ANYTHING to cling to power – e.g. they become the problem. Ilana is right that it is the Republicans who are the biggest obstacle to change in that the Democrats are honest statists. There are several major obstacles to overcome: (1) Even with the recession, America is vastly more comfortable than it was 100 or 200 years ago – we live in a Gilded Cage and most Americans are afraid to give up on their Socialistic Security Leviathan even if the system will eventually collapse. (2) Most Americans are easily duped by the dumbed-down corporate media (FOX or CNN) and will go for one-issue appeals – like “My statist is against homosexual marriage so I forgive all his/her other flaws….” (3) A few violent hotheads (McVeighs) are going to be used by the coporate state and its media allies as a means of embarrassing classical liberals.
As far as I have seen, left-liberal criticisms of the tea parties have been immature (teabagging, et al.) or politically naive (e.g. Obama hasn’t been in office long enough, and is therefore immune from criticism).
I agree with almost all that Ostrowski said in your interview, however, the Republic that was Rome, before the Empire, was a conquering and expansionist Republic, controlled by the wealthy elite, just like our elitest Republic today, although financed not entirely by taxes paid by Roman citizens and slaves, but at least partially by that age old commodity, the wealth captured and stolen from the conquered nations, just as our Republic steals the wealth of other nations by economic conquest, if not only by military conquest, while we ourselves are economic slaves of our Republic of Tyranny. Of course, some people falsely think that the age of Rome was a golden age of peace and prosperity.
Excellent interview! We need focus the energy and frustration of the people on getting rid of the ruling elite on both the Democrat and Republican side. Move to elect men and women of exceptional character to political offices from the local to federal level and hold there feet to the fire when there in office when they sway away from the principals of, free will to live your life as you see fit. Free markets and sound money policy, so you can succeed or fail on your own individual talent and ability.
Ilana, it took courage to publish this interview. Thanks for your invaluable assistance in getting the word about about the real tea party movement that the MSM has been ignoring and which will, in the end, prevail.
I am tempted to say, enough with the tea parties. Let the Revolution begin!
From Mr. Ostrowski’s How We Can Win The Second American Revolution Without Firing a Shot.
• War means high taxes.
• Taxes mean invasion of privacy.
• To steal your money and violate your privacy, the government must disarm you first.
• You have the natural right to resist tyranny.
• Gun control was the proximate cause of the American Revolution.
• America was born in an act of resistance to gun control!
More specifically, America was born in a violent act of resistance to gun control. British authorities came to seize guns and the colonists paid them in lead. I’ve just read Mr. Ostrowski’s essay twice, and I have to say that exactly how he thinks we can win this revolution peacefully (and enact his laundry-list of government-killing measures) escapes me. He shows us that the American nation was born in an instant of violence and then dismisses out of hand the notion of using violence to win it back. His solution is a peaceful “direct citizen action,” which seems to amount to not voting, buying goods from businesses which fly the appropriate flag, serving on juries and speaking your mind about politics.
Meanwhile, the pro-amnesty demonstrations of 2006 attracted millions of people nationwide. Obama is poised to legalize some 20 million Mestizos, every one of which thinks that the state exists to provide for him. And thanks to universal suffrage, every one will have a vote equal to yours. Each day more alien people of alien cultures arrive at our doorstep, and you will never persuade them to your cause in significant numbers, no matter what “education” you provide them. They simply don’t think the way we do. If they did, there would be robust republics abroad, and they wouldn’t need to come here.
If I’m somehow misreading this whole thing, I hope someone will set me straight. Otherwise, though I sympathize with the overall aim, I view the tea parties as quaint and more than a little naive. If you think you can win back the country using purely economic arguments while disregarding things like common culture and race, you’ve already lost.
The Liberal establishment (like a dog having his delicious bone taken away from him by his owner) are just now realizing that the American populace isn’t a constantly regenerating grab bag of money for them to recklessly spend the proceeds upon their utopian pet projects. You can only pick a mans pocket for so long before he decide to put a lock on his wallet.
@Van Wijk–Your primary concern is immigration and I admit my plan is not aimed at that issue. I wish I had answers for you on that.
To answer your other points. We are outnumbered so, leaving any other issues aside, active resistance is not a good strategy. Those who do so will be labeled terrorists and squashed like bugs.
Violence is a last resort as it was with the Patriots. We need to try out the direct action steps I spelled out while also converting more people to our cause. When we have more folks on our side, more strategic options become available.
Don’t overlook the power of juries. No one can be tossed into a federal prison unless a jury says okay.
And remember the Patriot pledge–“by peaceful means if at all possible.”
Relevant to the Tea Parties being about taxes and government spending, I think some excellent sources for reading would be some works by Frank Chodorov. His “Rise and Fall of Society” details the way governments obtain power.
He has some excellent essays on individualism in both “Fugitive Essays” and “One Is A Crowd”.
And very relevant for today is his “Income Tax: The Root of All Evil” where he details how the State maintains its power via confiscation of people’s labor.
I would like to see the Tea Parties become more about abolishing taxes altogether and less about simply how much government is spending. The latter battle will never be won without abolishing the 16th Amendment.
[So true; and thanks for the great titles; I know our readers are always hungry for those.–IM]