Near miss threatens big government: Voters almost dump income tax

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Written By George F. Smith

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What happens when certain species are threatened with extinction? They’re placed under government protection schemes. A species known as the income tax is headed that way.

A pillar of Western statism, the income tax played a major role in switching us from a constitutional republic to a pressure group free-for-all. It has allowed demagogues to substitute the rule of men for the rule of law. Only a handful of politicians today would be willing to kill the income tax without replacing it with something equally or more repressive.

And this begs the question: What has happened lately to threaten its reign of terror? The answer: A ballot question in Massachusetts. On November 5th, voters in that state came dangerously close to unshackling themselves from their state government. On November 5th, voters in Massachusetts very nearly sparked a second American Revolution. A alarmingly high 881,738 voters – 45.4% – voted “Yes” on ballot question 1, which asked if they wanted to end the state income tax effective July, 2003.

Prior to the election three independent polling organizations – the Boston Globe, Boston Harold, and WHDH-TV News/Suffolk University – projected the “Yes” vote in the 25% – 34% range, with a 5% error margin. [1] Seasoned statists were breathing easy, until the actual results started rolling in. Then their knees started quaking. In 30% of the precincts, the “Yes” vote won.

Big media upchucked familiar lies, half-truths, and irrelevancies in the aftermath of the near miss. The strong support for ending the income tax, the Boston Globe asserted, “underscored a potent antitax sentiment in the state.” In attempting to explain away the egg on its face. the Globe claimed that opponents of the measure “mounted no organized campaign against it,” since they expected it to be soundly defeated. Why did they believe this? “No elected officials would back the measure, viewing an abandonment of state income tax as disastrous to the economy and state government.” [2]

This is the part that is so unsettling to Massachusetts statists – a.k.a. “elected officials”: slaves were demanding their freedom when they weren’t supposed to know they were slaves. How did they find out? Could it be they can actually think, in spite of a stew of propaganda to the contrary? No major mouth supported ending the income tax. It took a third party candidate, Libertarian Carla Howell, to put the question on the ballot. In her bid for governor, Howell herself gathered only 1% of the vote. So why didn’t the income tax question suffer a similar rejection?

Maybe people finally figured out they’re being conned.

I worked the polls on election day – in Georgia. We had a heavy turnout in our precinct, in spite of monsoon-like weather. I saw a man in his mid-90s standing in line unassisted, waiting his turn like everyone else. I saw women come in with kids hanging all over them. Several people showed up only to discover they were at the wrong precinct. They left and went to the right one. All of these people were concerned for their future or they wouldn’t be voting. Most probably didn’t have looting in mind when they voted; they’re hard workers who just want the best for themselves and their families.

Yet by voting as they did, almost all of them did us harm. Not by voting per se, as some libertarian writers claim, but by voting for big government candidates. Fortunately, when it came to ballot questions, they didn’t always fall for big government lies.

But how could this happen on such a large scale in Massachusetts? Selling statist ideas is one of the few things government schools do right. The bulk of those 881,738 people who voted “Yes” have state diplomas proving their immunization against critical thinking. If government schools can’t be counted on to deliver gullible citizens, the oppressive state will crumble.

The income tax is not just another program; it’s the source of all programs. Without it there would be no War on Intelligence, War on Wealth, War on Privacy, or any other kind of state assault against the individual. Nothing, but nothing, must stop the seizing of taxpayer wealth. To a statist working within a democracy such as we’ve become, the income tax is the most sacred of sacred cows. The income tax not only enables politicians to buy votes, it keeps us crawling like groveling subjects instead of walking like free people.

Government schools and an obeisant media carry the burden of instilling this propaganda. True, they rarely tell us government has a right to our money. That’s too risky; someone might have the gonads to deny it. Instead, they simply leave the issue as an article of faith, as if we all agreed long ago big government is a good thing. The problems confronting “society” are how to spend the loot, not whether to continue looting.

But a 45.4% showing to oust the income tax in Massachusetts was not merely a breakdown in state indoctrination – it was a heart attack. The omnipotent state took a hit. Shrewd politicos know the November 5th income tax vote represented early detection of a potentially fatal disease. If left unchallenged, the income tax movement would kill big government.

Carla Howell’s assault on the income tax proved one thing: the state’s influence on our thought is weakening. As we’re seeing, the results are being publicly spun as a “potent antitax sentiment,” with its radical implications ignored. Privately, statists are still shuddering. This “antitax sentiment” is threatening the roots of their existence.

Cutting off the state’s access to taxpayers’ money, therefore, must never again become an issue – at least not an issue people can vote on. The slaves must never again realize they’re slaves. The state must act to protect its endangered ideology from libertarian assault. Exactly how, though, remains to be seen.

The most significant result of Election 2002 is not the blank check the electorate handed the Republicans to goose-step over the Constitution. It was the fear that the shot Carla Howell fired might be heard ’round the world.
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References
1. Small Government News newsletter, November 7, 2002.
2. Voters’ antitax sentiments seen altering agendas, By Corey Dade, Globe Staff, 11/7/2002, The Boston Globe

Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”

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