Benjamin Franklin On Taxes -
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s12.html
Dear H,
Thanks for your email.
One of my "late life" epiphanies is that facts
can be marshaled to make a convincing case in support of any position on any
political spectrum.
The key to "fairness and balance," however, is to secure a
relatively-objective perspective predicated on proportionality.
For example, every political movement – right and left --
has a huge number of supporters who are ill-informed, stupid or ignorant.
Currently, America's right wing is more aggressively ignorant than
any political movement in living memory. These neo-Know Nothings routinely
attack the preponderant findings of science, preferring articles of faith to
the rubrics of Rationality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_nothing
I aspire for perspective and proportionality by doing my best to
find notable Republicans who validate my own position.
The following views by notable Republicans (and one Founding
Father who predated contemporary political nomenclature) are quite remarkable.
Who would have thought that Benjamin Franklin, the most successful businessman
of all The Founding Fathers, was parsecs to the Left of most American leftists:
Benjamin Franklin to Robert Morris
25 December, 1783
"The Remissness
of our People in Paying Taxes is highly blameable; the Unwillingness to pay
them is still more so. I see, in some Resolutions of Town Meetings, a
Remonstrance against giving Congress a Power to take, as they call it, the
People's Money out of their Pockets, tho' only to pay the Interest and
Principal of Debts duly contracted. They seem to mistake the Point. Money,
justly due from the People, is their Creditors' Money, and no longer the Money
of the People, who, if they withold it, should be compell'd to pay by some Law.
All Property, indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his
Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his
Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the
Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of
Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it. All the
Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and
the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly
deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property
of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by
other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such
Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire
and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who
will not pay his Club towards the Support of it." http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s12.html
Reagan Budget Director, David Stockman, who oversaw the
biggest tax cut in the history of humankind: “In 1985, the top five percent of
the households – the wealthiest five percent – had net worth of $8 trillion –
which is a lot. Today, after serial bubble after serial bubble, the top five per
cent have net worth of $40 trillion. The top five percent have gained more
wealth than the whole human race had created prior to 1980.” Elsewhere in this
same CBS “60 Minutes” interview, Mr. Stockman describes America's obsession
with tax cuts as "religion, something embedded in the catechism,"
"rank demagoguery, we should call it what it is," and "We've
demonized taxes. We've created... the idea that they're a metaphysical
evil." And finally, this encompassing observation: "The Republican
Party, as much as it pains me to say this, should be ashamed of
themselves." - http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7009217n&tag=contentMain;contentAux /// http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/obama-gop-agree-to-tax-breaks-but-%22we-need-major-tax-increases%22-david-stockman-says-535688.html?tickers=^DJI,^GSPC,GLD,DIA,TBT,TLT,UUP /// http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/david-stockman-lack-of-middle-class-jobs-low-growth-alleged-recovery-yftt_535691.html /// http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7009246n&tag=contentBody;housing (There
is a self-resolving glitch near the beginning of this final
clip.)
Teddy Roosevelt: “Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who sacrifice
everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble
character than the mere money-getting American, insensible to every duty,
regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune, and putting his
fortune only to the basest uses —whether these uses be to speculate in stocks
and wreck railroads himself, or to allow his son to lead a life of foolish and
expensive idleness and gross debauchery, or to purchase some scoundrel of high
social position, foreign or native, for his daughter. Such a man is only the
more dangerous if he occasionally does some deed like founding a college or
endowing a church, which makes those good people who are also foolish forget
his real iniquity. These men are equally careless of the working men, whom they
oppress, and of the State, whose existence they imperil. There are not very
many of them, but there is a very great number of men who approach more or less
closely to the type, and, just in so far as they do so approach, they are
curses to the country." Theodore Roosevelt - February, 1895 - http://books.google.com/books?id=2wIoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9&dq=%E2%80%9CToo+much+cannot+be+said+against+the+men+of+wealth+who+sacrifice+everything+to+getting+wealth.+%22&source=bl&ots=tlzVCZMAuz&sig=DZ9KUKiPiBTUlThoSVs6KzQTvF4&hl=en&ei=OxibTcHrCIGdgQev_o2eBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CToo%20much%20cannot%20be%20said%20against%20the%20men%20of%20wealth%20who%20sacrifice%20everything%20to%20getting%20wealth.%20%22&f=false
Abraham Lincoln: "In my present
position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit raising a warning voice
against this approach of returning despotism. It is not needed nor fitting here
that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions, but
there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to
which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal
footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed
that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors
unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to
labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital
shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy
them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is
naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call
slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed
in that condition for life. Now there is no such relation between capital and
labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for
life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and
all inferences from them are groundless. Labor is prior to and independent of
capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if
labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves
much the higher consideration." Read more: State of the Union
Address: Abraham Lincoln (December 3, 1861) — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/t/hist/state-of-the-union/73.html#ixzz17XlRsbev
--
Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler,
USMC -
In
his lifetime, Major General Butler was the most decorated Marine ever.
In
retirement, General Butler, a life-long Republican, ran for a Pennsylvania
Senate seat.
War
is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is
not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows
what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the
expense of the masses.
I
believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation
comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that
when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes
overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers
follow the flag.
I
wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the
bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of
our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is
simply a racket.
There
isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It
has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men"
to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a
"Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.
It
may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness
compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military
service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine
Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to
Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high
class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In
short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I
suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like
all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own
until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation
while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the
military service.
I
helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in
1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank
boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central
American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering
is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown
Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light
to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I
helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
During
those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking
back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he
could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three
continents.
Whatever you think about these references, they
represent a very Republican world
view that completely contradicts every fundament of contemporary American
“conservatism.”
To turn one's back on these views is not
"conservative" but radically deviant.
***
It may be that somewhere beyond 98% confidence
limits, contemporary American conservatives have “got it right.”
But "reasonably" they've got it wrong.
My working hypothesis is that contemporary
conservatives are mostly aggressively ignorant people, who delight in rumor,
misrepresentation, whole cloth falsehood and anti-scientific irrationality.
If Know Nothing, pro-Armageddon
"Christian" fundamentalists were summarily excised from the GOP Base,
the Republican Party would lose every presidential election for the
foreseeable future and would not control either house of Congress til
kingdom come. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_nothing
It is one thing for people not to know much. For
example, I can excuse people not knowing that TARP was signed into law by
President George W. Bush in October, 2008, but who went along with TARP.
Despite his free market inclination, Bush's deeply conservative advisers
persuaded him "Hell would break loose" if he didn't.
Similarly, I can excuse people not knowing that
TARP, under Obama’s administration, has been an extraordinarily successful
program: “Originally expected to cost the U.S. taxpayers as much as $300
billion,[1] by December 16, 2010, the Congressional
Budget Office (CBO) estimated
the total cost would be $19 billion,[2] although Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner argued that the final cost would be still lower.[3] This is significantly less than the taxpayers'
cost of the savings
and loan crisis of the late
1980s. The cost of that crisis amounted to 3.2 percent of GDP during the
Reagan/Bush era, while the GDP percentage of the current crisis' cost is
estimated at less than 1 percent.[4]While it was once feared the government would be
holding companies like GM, AIG and Citigroup for several years, those companies
are preparing to buy back the Treasury's stake and emerge from TARP within a
year.[4] Of the $245 billion invested in U.S. banks, over
$169 billion has been paid back, including $13.7 billion in dividends, interest
and other income, along with $4 billion in warrant proceeds as of April 2010.
AIG is considered "on track" to pay back $51 billion from divestitures
of two units and another $32 billion in securities.[4] In March 2010, GM repaid more than $2 billion to
the U.S. and Canadian governments and on April 21, GM announced the entire loan
portion of the U.S. and Canadian governments' investments had been paid back in
full, with interest, for a total of $8.1 billion.[5]” Please read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program
Having said all this in defense of
"tolerating a modicum of ignorance," we cross a crucial threshold
when a critical mass of American conservatives – comprised of people who are
aggressively, boisterously and boastingly ignorant -- are the sole reason why the
GOP and The Tea Party still have decisive power in federal politics.
We are all entitled to our own opinions. We are
not entitled to our own facts.
With the accurate description of TARP (given
above), and with the wise insight of those Republican luminaries I’ve
mentioned, the salvation of the Republic depends on pragmatic political
compromise coupled with strict limitation of “religious” conviction and
"principled" intransigence.
"Not only are pure principles inadequate to
America’s “salvation,” it is, I believe, manifestly true that "The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with
which theories can be put into practice. The more perfect, the more
idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization. We are
at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient
times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound
up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only
unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal. Where what is
theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer
any room even to be good. The best, imposed as a norm, becomes
evil.” Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Merton
Our patriotic duty is to resist the feel good temptation of
condemning “the shadow side” in order to focus the proportionality of Truth,
weighing “the good” and “the bad,” then choosing “The Golden Mean.”
Finding fault in an individual or an institution is always do-able.
Either we shun this kind of lunacy, or America is
going down.
All the way down.
“Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know
what you’ve got 'til it’s gone.”
Pax on
both houses
Alan
PS As I write, I’m listening to Diane Rehm. Her
show today concerns Occupy
Wall Street (OWS), a topic
prompted by a recent poll showing that OWS is twice as popular as The Tea
Party. One analyst observes that the chief difference between The Tea Party and Occupy
Wall Street is that The Tea Party focuses exclusively on "politics
and politicians" while never addressing the underlying economic structures
that have rendered politicians impotent. Occupy
Wall Street, on the other hand, emphasizes the core non-viability of
top-heavy, essentially irresponsible economic structures that have driven
America’s breakdown. In comparison to this broad stroke audacity, The Tea Party
gelds itself by refusing to “follow the money” to the top of the pyramid. Like
most American conservatives, The Tea Party has unmitigated admiration for
American captains of industry – even though these plutocrats have become
self-centered marauders, gaming the system for personal advantage – America be
damned. As a result, Tea Bags are incapable of advocating structural
intervention in economic process. Why? 1.) American conservatives adhere to a
bedrock belief in the “invisible hand of the market” - a mechanism that, in
their view, must be completely unregulated and untaxed if it is to operate at
all. Needless to say, there has never been, nor will there ever be, an
absolutely free “invisible hand.” It is precisely this sort of "Impossibly
Pure Principle" that convinces contemporary conservatives that they need
not do anything, that their "Purity" is enough for "God" to
bless them with abundance. 2.) The
Tea Party will not tolerate
any structural intervention in “The Free Market” because the very fundaments of
intervention smack of Class
Warfare - and mere mention of Class
Warfare is strictly verboten. Nevertheless,
we are enveloped by the inconvenient truth that class warfare has been waged
for decades and middle class Americans are the last ingenues to realize they’re
under attack. As Warren Buffett pointed out: “There’s class warfare, but it’s
my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning. http://www.rebelcapitalist.com/index.php/site/permalink/change-the-rules-of-engagement/ Pshaw! What does Warren Buffett know about economics?
Meanwhile, America’s "real" cognoscenti bare
their forearms for the IV drip of Limbaugh,
Beck, Colter and Savage. It is often said that Occupy
Wall Street is naïve and ill-informed. By my lights, the most
naively ill-informed political movement in American history is comprised of
those conservatives who believe that taxes must NEVER be raised. Even
Thatcherite conservative Niall Ferguson understands this refusal as "a
plan to wreck the country.” Wreckage Herb. Wreckage! http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/07/24/gop-antitax-dogma-endangers-the-country.html It is high time to bridle Cowboy
Capitalism, while incorporating the wisdom that has made Germany an
irrepressible economic engine, a socialized capitalist state, and a country,
which almost single-handedly, is “bailing out” the rest of Europe because
failure to “bail out” spells Economic Catastrophe. Here in the United States,
we cut off our nose to spite our face, refusing to bail out even ourselves. If the ideals of contemporary American
"conservatism" prevail, the United States will fall off the edge of
the economic world. Keep in mind that current conservative ideals were NOT the
ideals of Ronald Reagan. "Dutch" raised taxes on several occasions
and routinely participated in standard operating procedure. It surpasses irony that if the
"real Reagan" suddenly reincarnated, he would be hounded from pillory
to post as a "Republican
In Name Only." http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/07/09/what-would-reagan-really-do.html
***
On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 11:03 AM, HC wrote:
Hey Alan
Speaking of interviews about Occupy Wall Street. One
reporter on the BBC news the other night, interviewed more than 20 of the
“leaders” and those making the most noise before he found one who even knew
what TARP was. Then he watched these clueless “leaders” organize a
march up the street to J.P. Morgan. It was sort of humorous because
J.P. Morgan took no TARP money and did not participate in the toxic mortgage
business and I understand tried to educate those financial companies like
Countrywide who were leading the charge down the road to bubble bursting
time. Reminds me of what we watched in the 60’s and early 70’s,
idealism of youth who are easily led and who have no real understanding of the
situation, no solutions, and too much time on their hands. The day
the reporter was there he counted almost twice the number of tourists watching
and taking photos (to show the folks back home, most of them from foreign
countries) of the spectacle than the occupiers. The latter appeared
to be doing a good job of loitering, laying and milling around and perpetually
fingering their iphones. Meanwhile, the news media were highly
visible and in their usual feeding frenzy and with good precise angles of their
cameras, excluding most of the above from their
“documentary” Reminded me of the 9 or so people at Silent Sam who
tried to represent the entire student body with their social
agenda. The camera man must have been lying on the ground since the
photo was taken with their feet in the foreground looking up at their faces and
everything else cropped out to make it look like a bigger crowd. The
caption read something like large crowd gathers to support the removal of the
statue. Am I the only one who sees the hypocrisy that the news media
uses to feed the zealots. They seem to think the money for
corporate compensation needs to be distributed to the workers who are mostly
non federal taxpayers. I think it should go to the stockholders who
were willing to risk their savings to support a company to give people jobs and
to help them provide for their retirement and not look to the federal and state
government, through some community organizer like our president to provide for
their “entitled” retirement. The latest figures of the fact that
almost 50% of people have not saved a dime for their retirement. It
the majority of these people don’t save anything for their kids schooling or
their own retirement but who all have their cell phones, 64 inch HDTV, blue ray
DVD player, Pandora, Ipads and on and on. These items are probably
bought on a credit card they have no business using.
Greed is everywhere, including in the
Unions. The salaries that those top dogs pull down is also
outrageous. That would be another good occupation for next month but
I see that probably won’t happen because the Unions with their failed organization
are already infiltrating and trying to capitalize on the publicity generated by
the youth to get more dues to increase their salaries.
Oh well we will somehow work our way out of this morass but not
by these techniques but by strong, courageous leadership which we are sadly
lacking on all sides.
H
Hooverville
