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April 18, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
29:37
1893 Adam Versus the Man Episode Six with Stefan Molyneux

Stefan Molyneux shows up as a complete ham at 8:50.

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Happy Tax Day!
Merry Tax Day?
Time to take stock, America.
We made it until 1913 without the modern income tax.
Could we do without it? Tom Woods joins us to compare what the founders envisioned for funding the government to the monstrosity we have today.
We'll cover how the income tax, well, pretty much makes you a slave.
If you get up early, work hard all day, and pay your taxes, you'll make it big in this country.
Right after you win the lottery, which, by the way, is just another tax for people who are bad at math.
You're watching Adam vs.
The man.
Today is April 18th, 2011.
The official day income tax returns are due this year.
According to the Tax Foundation, Tax Freedom Day was just less than a week ago.
April 12th.
That means that this year the average American had to work almost three and a half months to pay their share of federal, state, and local taxes.
But Adam, I thought you said we spend about half the year working for the government?
I hear you cry.
Well, this figure only accounts for taxes collected directly this year.
It doesn't take into account the deficit, that is, the extra debt our government will be taking on on our behalf for the year.
If it did, tax day would fall on May 23rd.
And that's not even counting projected interest.
See, when the government borrows money, just like anybody else, it kinda needs to put up collateral.
In the case of the government, its collateral is your future.
It promises to pay its lenders back with money that will be extracted from you and your children In the future, from future earnings.
Despite the extension of the Bush tax cuts, most Americans will pay more in taxes in 2011 than they will spend on groceries, clothing, and shelter combined.
And none of this accounts for all the personal hidden costs of government that we all pay in the form of fines, fees, parking tickets, registration costs, import taxes.
I could go on with that list for the rest of the episode.
But instead, let's turn to Tom Woods of the Ludwig von Mises Institute to help understand how we got into this mess.
Tom, thank you so much for joining us this evening.
Adam, the pleasure is mine. Thank you.
So, let's just start from the basics.
Tom, where do taxes come from?
Well, they come from the sweat of the brows of all the working stiffs who are told that these are contributions they make to civil society, that the proceeds of their labor will be put the common good and so on and so forth.
But basically it comes from our labor from the average guy.
Well, unfortunately, because we have propaganda factories that train the kids, unfortunately they do believe it.
But I think it's much better and more accurate to believe what Robert Nozick said.
He was a philosopher who said in his great book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, that when you tax somebody's labor, and as you said, you know, you got Tax Freedom Day about a week ago, And you're taxing the equivalent of three, four, five, six months of somebody's labor?
That's the equivalent of taking away four, five, six months of a person's life.
He said that is forced labor.
Let's call it that. Let's call it what it is.
Well, let's go back in time for a minute.
How does today's system of taxation compare to what the founders envisioned and what they laid out in the Constitution?
Well, you know, there's difference of opinion among them, but by and large, the idea that people's incomes would be directly taxed wouldn't have occurred to anyone.
Everyone would have been horrified by that.
In fact, in the 1790s, we had the Whiskey Rebellion when people were upset that Alexander Hamilton had pushed through a tax on whiskey, which they viewed, this is the typical elitist Hamilton taxing the thing that would most hurt the average person.
And the Whiskey Rebellion was, contrary to popular belief, successful in the sense that once that tax expired by 1801, basically how was the federal government financed after that?
They never again attempted a direct tax on the public until after the Civil War.
Through the Civil War, during peacetime, the federal government was financed through only two munisms, a tariff and the sale of public lands.
And somehow, the earth did not break free of its axis and go tumbling into the sun.
But things aren't doing so well economically here, and of course the current taxation systems bearing some of the blame for that, right?
Oh, sure. We're constantly told that we're undertaxed in this country, which means we're underenslaved.
I don't credit that very much.
But of course, remember, even though a lot of people don't necessarily pay, like perhaps 46 to 50 percent of people pay regular income taxes, They do pay the payroll taxes.
They do pay the sales taxes.
They pay all the extraordinary taxes on hotels and parking and transportation that are imposed because you don't happen to be a citizen of a particular state.
They know they can get away with taxing you more heavily while you're in town visiting their hotel because you don't vote.
All sorts of things add up after a while.
And, you know, people are led to believe that it's only the rich who pay and the average person doesn't.
Ask the average person that.
And there aren't enough rich people to keep soaking at this point.
Ultimately, we have so overextended ourselves that we're either going to have to tax all of ourselves to death or we're simply going to have to remove this albatross, namely the federal government, from around our necks.
Thank you very much, Tom.
Some of us are working very hard to do just that.
that was the one words of the ludwig von mises institute and you can find more of his work and mises dot org
two thousand years ago a roman senator suggested that they require all of the slaves to wear white armbands in order to better identify them.
But a wiser senator stopped and said, no.
If they see how many of them there are, they may revolt.
Let's step back and ask a deceptively simple question.
Do you own yourself?
Seriously. Your mind, your body, your soul.
Who owns it?
I believe that as human beings we all own ourselves.
To give up some sense of ownership of yourself is to allow someone else, or maybe some group of people, possibly as large as the majority of the country, to make you a slave.
What is the difference between a typical American slave of 200 years ago and a typical American wage slave today?
We certainly enjoy more creature comforts and the illusion of freedom, but just as any slave, we don't really own the product of our labor.
The government's able to come in and claim any part of it and graciously just let us keep the rest.
Remember, even under the traditional system of full slavery that we know from our history textbooks, they fed the slaves enough to keep them happy and productive.
Today, those who use government to exploit us have simply created a more effective system of managing we the slaves.
Or rather, the rest of us that they see as undeserving of real freedom.
We live in a matrix of illusions of freedom and false promises and empty rhetoric, and we know it!
The only question is, when will you refuse to be enslaved?
So all this talk about debt and deficits in Washington and the political back and forth we're seeing is really just silly when you put it in perspective and start asking the important questions.
Speaking of debt, you know, we had Stephon Molyneux on the show last week, and I forgot to remind him about that 1,400 bucks he owes me.
Hey, Shannon, can we get Molyneux on the line right now?
Yeah? No, he still hasn't paid me back.
Yeah, I'll hold.
Anyways, Porkfest last year.
He just had to have that first edition of Atlas Shrugged.
By the way, saw the movie this weekend, blew my mind.
Great. If anything, it was too short.
Yeah, go see Atlas Shrugged.
Shannon, we got him?
All right, well, let's get him on screen.
Hey, there you are, Stefan.
Thank you so much for joining us tonight.
Hey, how are you doing, Adam?
Well, hey, I just wanted to ask you about the debt.
Oh, listen, that's a great topic.
I think this whole, quote, debate about the debt is completely ridiculous.
I mean, look at the amount that's proposed being cut relative even to the...
No, no. Not that that's the fun.
Not that that. The 1,400 bucks you owe me from Porkfest last year?
Oh, yeah, listen.
Don't worry about that.
I'll pay you back.
When, man, you're supposed to be all about ethics and integrity?
Come on. When?
Aren't you doing your show? Do you really want to do this now?
Darn straight, I want to do it now.
You got the money?
okay okay okay it's a show that the and i would know you don't know that the flackered that is on adam versus the man come on stuff on it okay okay so my bank balance and a uh...
listen i can maybe send you like like like ten bucks uh...
on on fourteen hundred year killer look i know it doesn't sound like a lot but i'm about ten canadian dollars so uh...
that's what Oh, you know, hang on, hang on, hang on.
Sorry, hold the phone. Oh, man, you know, I'm so sorry.
I've got another bill coming in.
I can free up $3.80, and I can get that...
Oh, no, no, hang on.
Oh, my. Look, I got one more payment.
Look, I tell you, I can almost virtually guarantee you I can send you $1.40.
Almost. How's that? $1.40 on $1.400.
Don't waste my time.
Well, no, no, no. Look, I mean, obviously I don't mean $1.40 right now because I'm like halfway through my financial year, so I can work to free up a down payment on that $1.40 of about three and a half cents, I hope.
You know, where I come from, we have a word for people like you.
Republicans? Deadbeats. Oh.
Oh, you know what?
This is really bad timing.
Adam, Adam, I'm so sorry. Listen, I just got hit for some war bill.
Listen, I'm really, really gonna need to hit you up for some money.
Hey, Shannon, can we get him out of here?
This is just a waste of time.
No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, look.
Look, look, I thought Americans were happy to get three and a half cents on like a $1,400 debt.
I mean, the U.S. media says that the same ratio of government cuts is going to decimate the entire system.
I'm just treating you the same way the U.S. government is treating everyone.
I mean, isn't that okay?
Should I be trying to overthrow you instead?
No, no, no, no. Okay, let me explain.
All right. U.S. debt, $14 trillion.
The deficit this year projected at $1.6 trillion.
First cut proposed by the Republicans, $100 billion.
Well, that's $10 on $1,400.
There's nothing wrong with that. Found that they couldn't quite do it.
We got $38 billion, which is $3.80, then $14 billion.
And what they're able to actually achieve this year in cuts to the deficit, not even the debt, $352 million, which works out relative to $1,400, $3.50.
So I'm not trying to avoid paying you, man.
I'm just doing what the government does.
They are our moral leaders.
Okay, so what's the point about this debate we're hearing about in Washington, then?
Oh, the debate is just a bunch of noise.
What it's designed to do is it's designed to rouse everyone who's dependent on the government to panic, to call the media, to cry that the sky is falling, the end of the world is coming, and that's a way of frightening us back into not cutting the Leviathan.
So, you're saying that all this talk in Washington, all this back and forth, all this partisan bickering political posture, and it's basically, at least at some level, designed to just scare us into thinking that we need government, more fear-mongering.
More fear-mongering. Until they start talking about the military-industrial complex, it's all noise.
It's all nonsense. Okay, well, Stefan, appreciate the explanation.
You got that $1,400 for me now?
Seriously? Oh, sorry, Adam.
You got the $1,400?
Cutting out a little bit here. I think I'm losing my connection.
Will, we'll talk next week, okay?
Uh-huh. Ladies and gentlemen, Stefan Molyneux of freedomainradio.com.
When we come back, I'll tell you how to get started as a tax resistor, if you're not already.
At the Tax Day Tea Party in Boston this weekend, the producers were in revolt, but the mooters were there with the guns.
You'll get the full story after the break.
You're watching Adam vs.
The Man. Stay tuned. Let me tell you, let me tell you.
How it will be, is one for you, n-n-n-nineteen for me.
I am the tax man.
Tax man.
Tax man. Tax man.
I think Barack Obama is beatable in 2012.
Whenever government says they're going to keep you safe, get ready because you're going to lose your freedoms.
Look at where we are today.
We're a war in three different countries, and yet we can't solve our own problems here at home.
What drives the world?
The fear-mongering used by politicians.
Who makes decisions?
Continuable breakthrough has already been made.
Who can you trust?
No one. Who is imbued with a global missionary zeal.
Where are we heading? State controlled capitalism is called fascism.
When nobody dares to ask, we do.
RT question more New York City is our next caller on the independent line good Good morning. Yes, the misinformation, rhetoric and propaganda from spokesmen like Faye Shakir never ceases to amaze me.
What we have in the federal and state governments in America is nothing less than a criminal mafia enterprise that seeks to steal all the wealth from the entire population.
And President Obama has appointed banksters like Timothy Geithner And he got most of his campaign contributions from Wall Street and investment bankers.
I am not filing any income tax returns.
I didn't last year.
I am not reporting for jury duty.
I am ignoring all notices from the government.
I am shunning the government completely, the state and federal government.
I'm not cooperating with any of their criminality.
They're trying to take away our liberty, our rights.
They've totally disregarded the Constitution and our human rights, and I want nothing to do with the government, and they can go jump in the lake.
Thank you. New York on the independent line.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
to celebrate tax day this year there were a variety of gatherings throughout the country yeah star yeah racist sexist Anti-gay?
Tea Party Patriots Go Away?
Believe it or not, that was at a Tea Party rally in Boston, which was disrupted by public sector union members who decided to stand in front of the podium, block the speakers, and chant offensive slogans for the entire two-hour rally.
As a Tea Party member myself, I'm sometimes disturbed by fellow Tea Partiers' worship of police forces who are enforcers of the policies that we protest.
But perhaps what happened in Boston this weekend might be a bit revealing of the true nature of our law enforcement system and what thugs, the cops themselves, can be.
In this case, it was the Boston police, also public sector union members, who stood in front of their fellow union members to protect them while violating the rights of the organizers of a legal permitted rally.
This relatively inconsequential event paints a pretty good picture of where we are as a country.
Just stop and consider for a second who pays the salaries of the union members, both the cops and the disruptors in this case.
Hmm. Probably people more like the ones supporting the Tea Party.
The producers in America today are in revolt.
And the people we let push us around with guns are on the side of the moochers.
This is extortion.
My fellow Tea Partiers, if this doesn't get you to advocate paying as little in taxes as you can safely get away with, I don't know what will.
Meanwhile, in New York City, a somewhat more liberal crowd gathered as well.
In New York, they were led by Kevin Zeese, the only candidate for Senate in U.S. history to be endorsed by both the Green and Libertarian parties.
Pay your taxes!
Pay your taxes!
Bank of America, shame on you!
Bank of America, shame on you!
I think it would be more productive at this point to speak to the American people and say, don't pay your taxes.
I'm certainly offended by the fact that we tolerate a system in which it's much more difficult for an individual to avoid paying taxes than a major bank, but why call for more extortion?
Let's just scrap the income tax altogether.
There are numerous ways to resist paying taxes, although when doing business with companies that pay their taxes, it's impossible to really avoid paying completely.
And that's not even touching on the inflation tax.
That is, just by being forced to use U.S. dollars, you are paying a tax when the dollars in your bank account and your back pocket lose value because they keep printing, or more accurately digitally creating, more dollars in Washington.
The easiest and most common way to resist taxation is as simple as hiring an accountant to make sure you're not paying any more than you have to.
Pretty tame, right? Well, in that process, it's actually quite commonplace to simply leave out income for which there's no record or overstate charitable donations that qualifies as deductions.
When done legally, that's called tax avoidance.
Then, they're simply refusing to pay or refusing to pay specific taxes on moral grounds.
There's working for cash only and not reporting it or getting paid under the table, Also a very common practice known as tax evasion.
There are also lots of legal ways to avoid paying taxes by altering your lifestyle.
For example, a common practice throughout American history has been to avoid paying taxes on alcohol by making moonshine or brewing your own beer.
Some people even bike to work to minimize their contributions and gas taxes.
But when you do pay your taxes, don't forget who you're working for.
and now a message from the president of the united states of america by and tax tax and you're all working working working working working working working working for nobody while it's the tea partiers who are revolting against high taxes and conservatives who call for less government it seems mainstream conservative advocates of tax resistance are much harder to come by.
However, there has been a long-standing American tradition of tax resistance in general from all political persuasions, but especially when it comes to paying tax for war.
From my experience, it seems those most courageous and their resistance of taxation are war tax resistors who tend to come from a small government but left-leaning orientation.
Joining me now to tell us about his personal stand against his money going to support wars he doesn't believe in is Greg Regal.
Greg, thank you so much for joining us tonight.
My pleasure. So, you have not filed since 1997.
I do file. You do file.
But you call yourself a conscientious objector to paying war taxes.
Before we get into how, let's talk about the why.
What got you to the point where you said, you know what?
I'll put my foot down. Well, I was in college and I was becoming vegetarian and becoming vegan because I decided I did not want my money to pay for the killing of animals.
I thought that was Not necessary for my diet.
I'd just rather not pay for it.
And I was just looking around on the world wide web and I found some information on more tax resistance and it occurred to me that I'm paying money for killing people, which is a lot worse than killing money to pay for animals.
Well, at least in that case, you're getting something that's productive and contributing to quality of life.
Even if you don't make that decision, it's certainly not nearly as offensive as giving money to the government to go and kill people.
But you came to that, and what was the point we said?
You know what? That's it. I'll put my foot down.
It took me a few months.
I guess I had already had a strong inclination to be a pacifist and to not want to support violence through my action or through my money.
But I considered the consequences.
I talked to some people who had done it before, and I just decided to do it.
So how did you get started? You say you're filing, but you're not paying the federal income tax.
There's a lot of people who would love to know how to do that.
It's not that hard.
I fill out the tax form.
I file. I report all my income.
I do everything legitimately except I do not include the check.
I include a letter that says I'm a conscientious objector to military taxation and I'm not paying.
And the IRS, since 1997, their response has been...
Well, their response is typical.
It's to try to collect. They send me notices.
I've had levy on my salary.
I've had liens filed against me.
But I try to resist collection, and I've been fairly successful in resisting collection of the money.
That's a pretty tough road.
A lot of people who want to get into being tax resistors of one kind or other will choose something much simpler, either not reporting or avoiding filing altogether, which actually is easier to avoid detection or the liens and the other kind of consequences of that.
Do you have any advice for people that are looking to get into this but maybe avoid some of the difficulties of the path that you've chosen?
Well, there are a lot of different ways to do war tax resistance.
The way I do it is just one, and it has its share of difficulties.
I have a friend who lives below the taxable income level.
Deliberately keeps their income below.
We didn't even mention that earlier.
That's right. It's another great method.
If you can keep your reportable income below the reporting threshold or paying threshold, then you're not paying.
And he takes advantage of all the credits that he can.
Deductions. Yeah. Giving to an IRA and getting credits for that.
Every time you donate to Goodwill.
I mean, I make a point of never throwing anything away that I can donate to Goodwill.
You get a receipt. You got to keep all of those and make sure everything is deducted at the full cost, right?
Right. So that's another way of doing it and there are other ways that are involved just not filing at all and trying to get all of your money under the table through cash and so on and so forth.
They all have their trade-offs.
My advice for someone would be to just consider the different ramifications and Think about it and choose one that fits your best philosophy also.
I mean, philosophically, I don't have an objection to just taxes just in general, just taxes, period, but to paying for war.
At least things that are going clearly against the consent of the people like that.
Okay, well, we've seen the rise of the Tea Party in recent years, and now it seems the Tea Party is coming around to a more non-interventionist libertarian foreign policy that would be in line with your foreign policy position, at least.
And even before that they were objecting to higher taxes.
Do you have any hope that some of those conservatives on the Tea Party side would come along and join you in war tax resistance now that they're realizing that they are being taxed to support the big government welfare program known as the military industrial complex?
I always have hope.
You know, it would be hard to go on without hope.
I'm not sure how likely it is.
You didn't get any from Obama, did you?
Not much. Not much.
Yeah, I'm not sure how likely it is.
I welcome anyone who has a conscientious objection to military taxation to become a war tax resistor.
And join our group.
Outstanding. Appreciate it.
Any online resources you'd point to?
Yeah, wartaxboycott.org.
Wartaxboycott.org.
Thank you very much, Greg. That was Wartax resistor Greg Riegel.
In a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy in 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote, In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.
While we may not be able to cheat death, you can cheat on your taxes.
And don't think that claiming that which is rightfully yours is any kind of cheating.
You are a free human being and no one owns you but you.
And no one can rightfully claim to own the product of your labor.
When you visit the Declaration of Independence here at the National Archives behind a barrier and under a thick piece of glass, You can still see the signature of one John Hancock jumping right out at you.
Why? Hancock was a renowned tax evader who, as a successful importer to the colonies, had lots of British taxes to avoid.
His signature was a bold declaration of resistance.
The Tea Party takes its very identity from an act of courageous tax resistance that was so essential to the founding of our country.
It is that heritage We have to live up to today.
Good luck, America. That's our show.
Thank you so much for tuning in to Adam vs.
The Man tonight. Check out our awesome new website at adamvsttheman.com to vote on guests and topics and find me on Facebook and Twitter.
You can also catch the broadcast live as it airs at rt.com slash USA and on YouTube.
Time to polish up the bong.
We're taking the day off tomorrow to get ready for our 420 special on Wednesday.
Until then, you are the resistance.
This is Adam Kokesh from Washington.
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