Actually, though most people can’t put their finger on it, seigniorage and inflation has been a substantial tax done at the behest of the central banking authority. If we take inflation as it is classically understood, as the excessive creation of money and debt, to the advantage of debtors at the expense of creditors (not merely an increase in a statistically tortured CPI). We can see that this is taxation without representation. Our current monetary policy is dominated by the legal positivism of legal tender laws, and fiat paper money. Money, in our system, has been ontologically reduced from elemental forms (copper, silver, gold) to mere paper, backed by debt at the command of the state.

Inflation and debased money has not only economic effects, but substantial moral effects as well. For this argument I commend the thoughts of the Catholic economist Jorg Guido Hulsmann of the University of Angers:

“The spiritual dimension of these inflation-induced habits seems to be obvious. Money and financial questions come to play an exaggerated role in the life of man. Inflation makes society materialistic. More and more people strive for money income at the expense of personal happiness. Inflation-induced geographical mobility artificially weakens family bonds and patriotic loyalty. Many of those who tend to be greedy, envious, and niggardly anyway fall prey to sin. Even those who are not so inclined by their natures will be exposed to temptations they would not otherwise have felt. And because the vagaries of the financial markets also provide a ready excuse for an excessively parsimonious use of one’s money, donations for charitable institutions will decline.” -Hulsmann, The Ethics of Money Production

The commoners can’t quite put their finger on it, but this is the outrage of taxation without representation that is destroying their lives.

Many in the “movement” of tax protesters have stated that their complaint is not against taxation without representation as was the first Tea Party in Boston Harbor. That may be the case with those individuals. It is not my situation. I am unrepresented in Congress. Millions of others who wish to protect the Constitution of this country are also feeling disenfranchised.

I am certainly not represented by those who claim to represent me. This is the way of democracy, one might say. But the fact is that the”reps” do what they believe is right (or politically expedient) without regard to the beliefs and desires of those they allegedly represent.

In Congress I have one Representative, a liberal Democrat. I also have two allegedly-Republican Senators. All three voted in favor of the “Stimulus Bill.” I sent emails to all three asking that they please vote against this bill. Two responded. Each defended her (yes, all three are female) reasons for voting this monstrosity of a liability onto the backs of my grandchildren. Here is the closing paragraph from the response I got from my friendly Representative.

I am confident that this package is a necessary first step towards jump-starting our struggling economy and putting people back to work in Maine and around the country – in jobs that will rebuild our infrastructure and expand information technology to rural areas, modernize our archaic health care system, strengthen our children’s education and move America towards a sustainable energy future that breaks our dependence on foreign oil. I appreciate your thoughts on the recovery package, and I hope that this letter helps explain my decision to support it.

Please note that this is merely a first step. Both legislators and governors around the nation have promised to tax anything and everything. Combine this power of taxation with the general hatred of Christianity evident among the “elite” classes and we can expect churches to be taxed to the limit – and beyond in the near future.

We’ll get socialized medicine, soon. I probably won’t be able to afford the gas to get to any appointment my government deigns to assign me, though.

In 1776, the year of the birth of this nation, Adam Smith published his great tome, The Wealth of Nations. He had a lot to say about taxes. He listed four basic rules for taxation:

1. “The subject of every State ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the State.” (Perhaps Mr. Timothy Franz Geithner should be reminded of this maxim).

2. “The tax each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, and the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor, and to ever other person.” (How many pages are there in the IRS code?).

3. “Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner in which it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it.” (Convenient for me? Not likely).

4. “Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the State.” (They don’t take much out of the pockets of many of our government officials).

As I stated, I’m not against legitimate taxes. I’m against foolish, wasteful, non-productive, and confiscatory taxation.

Both sides of the political spectrum are simply echo-chambers for a political establishment that is no longer a Representative Government for their States. We are an empire now and while some of this empire-urge may be of good intention, much of the result of our imperial projection is roundhouse clocking us in a variety of ways, unsustainable debt and international alienation being the most significant.

Brokaw’s salute to “efficiency” is entirely predictable. He is part of the Media Establishment that is fed by the status quo. After all, our great campaign of globalist efficiency is speeding us to a more efficient suicide and disasters always garner high Nelson ratings. However, to be fair his sentiment and support of the Establishment are neither malevolent nor unethical, they simply reflect his august station within that Establishment. What he fails to perceive is that the Establishment that has been created by the American imperium is cheering an efficient gutting of everything the Greatest Generation stood for: The principles of Liberty and Self government left us by the Framers , thus producing a population of self-starting citizens that actually regard their fellow citizen with sympathy and support. The Branding of Media and Imperial Politics is creating political antipathy where none rightly exist. It is simply a Bait and Switch….a distraction that is virtually insuring that a damaging political collision will come sooner or later.

During the reign of Charles I , political and religious conflict were intertwined and resulted in an excess of unwanted graduate priests who were termed “Alienated Intellectuals”. One can see a growing number of both alienated intellectuals and disgruntled hoi polloi today and while they may or may not be graduate priests, the cumulative effect of widespread disquiet is destructive. Needless to say, Charles’ tone-deafness in the face of events precipitated the English Civil War and his own death. While we watch as Investment houses that shorted and profited from the debt instruments that got us into trouble then have their losses covered by the inflationary government fiscal policy of massive bail-out…one wonders how much longer the populace will continue to swallow it. It would be nice if some of our leadership stood up and went to work for the welfare of the people and their lapsed-republic. Unfortunately, it would appear that the Establishment is hellbent on the “Let Them Eat Asphalt” indifference that may reprise past civil strife and a little quote from the Luddite rebellions mentioned in Peter Laslett’s book “The World We Have Lost, England Before the Industrial Age” is in order. He cites a particularly colorful quote he found in Edward Thompson’s 1963 book “The Making of the English working class”

To Wit:
“We Hear InFormed that you got shear in mee sheens (shearing machines) and if you Dont Pull them Down in a Forght Nights Time Wee will pull them Down for you Wee will you Damd infernold dog”.

By all accounts, the “damed infernold dogs” seem to beg the lash and ironically, they are more properly termed the Luddites in the way of a more prudent way forward.