From the Easy Chair

Taxes

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 159-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161DE199

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161DE199, Taxes, from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[ Rushdoony ] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 309, March the second, 1994.

This evening Douglas Murray, Otto Scott, Mark Rushdoony and I will begin with a discussion of a subject near and dear to the hearts of all of us, taxes.

Now men have been complaining about taxes throughout all history. The simple fact is that as countries collapse and new ones begin the process of taxation and the increase of taxes starts all over again. Then taxation reaches a point of confiscation and sooner or later it leads to the collapse of a society.

No country has ever had a civil government that has been able to restrain itself indefinitely from over taxing the people. This is why the history of countries is a history of the rise and fall of various forms of government, of various regimes, of bloody riots and mass disturbances for the simple reason that taxes have become so confiscatory that the people finally rebel.

Well, it is a good question to ask: What is happening in the world today that points in the same direction? Taxes have reached a very high point. Depending on whom you read or listen to, taxes are at least 46 percent and can be as high as 51 percent. These figures may not be accurate because everything is done to conceal the fact of taxation of public expenditures. We have on budget and off budget items so that if you read the deficit in terms of on budget items, you have one figure, but if you include the off budget items our deficit is, perhaps, three and four times greater.

So everything is done to confuse the picture. Meanwhile the attempts of people to make politicians responsive become less successful as the politicians more and more respond to the power of the state. It is so great that it can reward legislators who will play the taxing game and they can be assured of security even if they are voted out of office. The result is a situation in which the politician is not responsive to the tax payer who voted him in because the politician’s superiors have the money in hand and can bribe him with some kind of office.

Well, with that general introduction, Douglas, would you like to continue?

[ Murray ] Well, I just ... I think we have already reached confiscatory levels of taxation. I don't think there is anything today in goods and services that isn’t taxed. Taxes, as you have pointed out, have a long history. In fact, it seems... they seem to have been around the same length of time as prostitution historically. There have been attempts to eliminate both that have never been successful.

The California state we are living in is ... makes the situation considerably more difficult because of the size of its economy and the size of the bureaucracy that it has to maintain in order to run the state. And there have been people trying to look into the future to see what will happen before a total breakdown and they see this country breaking up into economic units such as California splitting between north and south and probably northern California, Oregon, Washington, perhaps becoming a unit that eventually will annex itself into Canada. And there is other areas of the country that will break into economic units because they have economies large enough that they can be self sustaining at least for a while.

I read something that at the current rate of taxation, that a person born in 1992 will have 83 percent of their income taxed away from them in their ... during their lifetime.

[ Rushdoony ] Otto?

[ Scott ] Well, it is the oldest subject, as you indicated and a very interesting one. In the very ancient world going back three and four thousand years taxation was limited at 10 percent. And a 10 percent level of taxation produced the longest lived governments in the record of humanity. And when the taxes began to exceed that they began... the government began to have increasingly problems.

Now in the ancient world, taxes were collected by force. The scribes of Egypt were everywhere. They spied and they kept records and so forth. The temples were immune. The priests were immune. And there was a balance then between the priesthood and the pharaoh and the people. There were efforts when efforts were made to tax the priests that led to considerable discontent, because they began to operate then against the pharaoh and his bureaucracy. And as the taxes increased, going through now several dynasties, a number of dynasties, the situation began to get chaotic and one historian that I read, Charles Adams, said that the ability of the tax collector to violate the law which governed all the rest of society eventually led to first tax evasion and from tax evasion a wide spread evasion of the law until finally the government of Egypt, the oldest government known to history still collapsed in a wave of crime.

Now if we ever learn anything from history—and of course somebody said we only learn that we don’t learn—but if we were to ever pay any attention to history, if governments would pay attention to this, it would be very salutary. But one of the problems is that the men in government as a majority of the population are never taught history. I don’t recall when I was a boy learning in schooling and, of course, I didn’t go very far so therefore others who went farther may have been taught more, obviously were taught more than I was. But I never recall running into the subject in school when I was a boy, nor if you go into the average library will you find any particular documents or books on the subject. It is a subject that most people strangely enough, even economists don't talk about very much.

[ M Rushdoony ] Well, I think it is obvious that the purpose of taxation is government power and the increase in taxation corresponds with an increase in government power. Government, obviously, has legitimate functions and ... but the nature of that function has to be easily defined and justifiable and what taxes are used for now is social engineering. It is to recreate society so that it is more in the control of government, more in the direction government wants it to take. So an obvious example is if the government thinks it is popular to discourage smoking they will tax cigarettes.

Now rather than pass a law which says, “You cannot smoke,” they will say, “We are not only going to let you die of cancer because you are going to smoke anyway, we will just tax you so we increase our revenue and we will criticize the tobacco companies while we subsidize them.” And we went al the way around.

The tobacco farmers are happy because of the subsidies continue. We get extra tax revenue. We can tell people we are fighting smoking. And that is pretty much the way it is. Government wants to have their hand in everything and say they are doing everything while they are really only increasing their power and prestige amongst voters who believe these lies.

[ Murray ] I am just wondering if historically if taxes grew out of the idea from the early conquerors of paying tribute. I mean, essentially before there were very many organized governments such as Egypt.

[ Rushdoony ] I suspect that the first civil societies began taxing and that is what created outlaws who then exerted their pressure to gain their own taxes from people, which brings me to a point that I think is very, very important.

Let’s, for convenience, take 50 percent as the amount of taxation and I don’t think we are putting it high or low. That, perhaps, is a medium estimate. Fifty percent of your income goes for taxes. But that is not the only tax you have. That 50 percent is local, county, state and federal. But the criminal underworld does tax almost every area of activity today. And the result is that you are paying another percentage of your gross income as a tax. Now that tax may be very high in some countries and in other countries not as high. We don’t have any adequate data there, at least not as far as this country is concerned. But it is a real factor. At some point or another before goods reach you, the criminal world has had a tax on them.

Now I have been told—I don’t know how true it is—that one reason why anything you buy in an airport costs so much is because the underworld controls or operates almost every concession in an airport. Nobody else can get in. And if anyone else does, they pay to the criminal underworld. Therefore, it costs you an unbelievable amount to buy an ice cream cone or a candy bar at an airport if you are so minded.

[ Scott ] Well, the criminals send up the price of insurance.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] ...which is how the tax reaches us outside, of course, of the loss of the goods that the individual suffers and so forth.

During the middle ages there was a limit on taxes which is something that behaviors of Christianity never mention.

[ Rushdoony ] That was on biblical grounds.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] We will come to that later.

[ Scott ] It was a limit to government and therefore there was a limit to taxes. Taxes had to have the permit of the taxed and they used to negotiate certain rights in exchange for the payment of certain taxes.

The Magna Charta, Magna Charta, I guess it is pronounced.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] ...was mainly a tax agreement between the king and the nobility. The Rosetta stone referred to taxes. Almost all of the ancient records are involved with taxes from the ancient world.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] It was the number one government activity.

[ Murray ] Yeah...

[ Rushdoony ] I think we can see what has happened, tax wise, if we go back and look at a few ordinary facts when we were young. For example, when I was younger and the children began to come the cost of child birth ranged from 100 to 150 dollars. That included a stay of a few days in a hospital, not in and out as it is today.

Now today I am told that the cost of child birth is 5000 dollars. Now it may vary from one part of the country to the other, but I was startled when someone recently gave me that figure, 5000 dollars. Perhaps it can be had for less in some areas.

Now let’s consider a few things. When it was 100 to 150 for a woman to go to a hospital, give birth to a child, stay there a few days because then you did not come home right away, at that time I was making 150 to 200 dollars so that the cost of a child was less than a month’s salary. Now the lowest figure I have heard cited in any part of the country by midwife, in such instances, is 2500. In some centers where the insurance cost is elevated it is 5000 so that it is more than a month’s income for most people.

[ Murray ] Well, they are charging what the traffic will bear. A lot of... a large number of people do not pay and a percentage of the 5000 that is either billed to an insurance company or the individual can pay goes to amortize some of the costs of the people that do... don’t pay at all. And they can’t turn away ... I mean the courts get on them if they turn people away at the emergency intake. They get sued and they get a lot of bad press. But the other thing to remember is at, you know, a large number of hospitals were run by various religious groups.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Murray ] They were charitable institutions. Now they are mega corporations that are syndicated all over the United States and reach outside the boundaries of the United States in some cases. So they are just looking at the bottom line and they are allowed to charge what the traffic will bear without regard to the capability of the individual to pay.

[ Rushdoony ] That is very true. Mark’s birth was free because it was at a sister’s hospital, Catholic hospital on a Marian year and if it was more than the fourth child it was on the house.

[ Murray ] They were running a special.

[ Scott ] I never knew that volume entitled you to such {?}.

[ Rushdoony ] Now I think they are in... be mass demonstration if there was a bonus, so to speak, of having more than four children. But then that was the case.

[ M Rushdoony ] Now they discourage you from having women who have had a second and third child are often harassed to...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ M Rushdoony ] ...agreeing to a ... trying to get them to agree to... to be sterilized.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. I have been told that it is very painful to go to the hospital for your second child because of the pressure that is put on the young woman to be sterilized.

[ Scott ] Well, that comes close to criminal...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] ...behavior.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ M Rushdoony ] It is interesting talking about taxes where... and a contempt of having children and yet our tax... our tax structure is based upon our whole economy, it is based upon going into debt and letting our children pay for it. At the same time we are saying we have got to stop having children, which shows how rational we are.

[ Murray ] Yeah, it is kind of self defeating in a way. They are trying to cut off the supply of customers. It doesn't seem to be very good business approach. The same thing the AARP is... contributes money to Planned Parenthood which reduces the number of people paying into social security which jeopardizes the social security income of the people in AARP.

[ Scott ] Well, yes...

[ Murray ] I guess they haven’t figured that out yet.

[ Scott ] If we had the 31 million citizens that have been aborted, there wouldn’t be any maladjustment of social security tables.

[ Rushdoony ] The AARP, American Association of Retired Persons is federally subsidized.

[ Scott ] But going back to the tax situation the Swiss came up with a solution and the English also came up with a solution although in later centuries the English threw all limits to the skies. The solution of the Swiss and the original solution of the English was to separate the power to tax from the power to spend so that that same group could not both tax and spend.

Now our Congress can both tax and spend. And therefore our Congress dominates our government. It is not a tripart government. It is a congressional dominated government. In that sense we are operating like the Roman Senate and the runaway parliaments before the French Revolution.

Our Congress can set its own salary, its own retirement, its own conditions. It can set aside laws that it doesn't feel like its members want to obey. And it can tax us without limit and it can spend without limit. And as a result it created the Internal Revenue Service as a branch, a titular branch of the treasury.

Now it does report to the treasury and the treasury draws up the regulations within which the IRS functions. So if you wan to blame the IRS, you have to go to the treasury and if you want to blame the treasury you have to look at the courts which have permitted the regulations to be applied. The regulations are applied without reference to the Constitution. They are outside the Constitution. That means that the IRS is not bound or limited by the rules upon which this government is founded.

Now the people have not objected to this. I mean, there are tax protestors, of course. They are not protesting on principle. They are protesting on the fact that they don’t want to pay as a general rule because they don’t understand the principles, at least the ones I have talked to.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, one of the problems today, unlike bygone centuries is that every modern state claims sovereignty. Sovereignty was the subject rigorously avoided by the framing fathers in the constitutional process in the framing of the Constitution. But legally—and Congress knows this every time it talks about passing—as it has several times in the post war period—a measure setting limits on Congress, requiring a balanced budget and so on.

[ Murray ] Which they just voted against.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. But they did it years ago they had such measures. And a few years ago they had the bill sponsored by—I forget now—Graham Rudman Act. Well, they know full well that no law can bind a sovereign power. And if Washington and the federal government constitute a sovereign power, no law they pass can bind themselves. This is why they are not under the Civil Rights Act. They are not under any act which they pass to control us. They are not required to treat a witness with respect to the Constitution, namely, that he cannot be compelled to testify against himself. They can compel it, because no law can bind a sovereign power.

[ Scott ] Well, this is a divine right of Congress as opposed to the divine right of kings.

[ Rushdoony ] Exactly.

[ Scott ] So woe are back some 300, 400 years.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Now the Congress knows this. Congress... this is a de facto situation more than a legal situation, really.

The great mistake, I say, a real mistake of the American people was to allow the IRS to be created I defiance of the Constitution and to violate the Constitution in its treatment of the citizens, guilty until... you have to prove your innocence. You can be ... your... your property can be confiscated. Arbitrary assessments can be made. Your home can be invaded. Your records can be seized. The list goes on and on.

Now having established that as a precedent over a period of a full generation or more, two generations, really, laid the ground work for the present forfeiture laws in which fully 200 different regulations can make you subject to having all your property forfeited, all your property no matter where it is. Now these regulations include violations of the fish and game laws, gambling in an area where gambling is not permitted. I mean a friendly poker game you could lose your home. A variety of drug offenses and so forth.

I read where in the 60s before the ... this menace became as evident as it is today that a young man was sent to prison in the state of California, our state, because by a vacuum cleaner vacuuming his clothes they found one gram of marijuana, one flake of marijuana. And now, of course, they could have seized all his property if he had any property. So over 200 regulations subject you to this. The IRS has always been able to seize your property. And you would have to go to court to get it back and to prove that it was un... unjustly seized, which is not always easy to do.

The contents of a safe deposit box are assumed to have been illegally obtained. What an assumption. How dare anybody say this without a shred of proof as though every citizen in the country is a thief? This situation has developed almost like smog, step by step. I can recall when many of our politicians used to praise the American people for the fact that our tax system was voluntary. And as long as the income tax remained fairly modest most people regarded it in that sense and we paid it because it didn’t crush us. We paid it fairly willingly in order to maintain the government and so forth.

Today it is an onerous burden and yet I hear the fifth branch of government, which we could call the media, telling us that we are under taxed very seriously. And they bring up, as a comparison, the heavy gasoline taxes on motorists in Europe. Now gasoline is our energy fuel. Energy is what enables us to move, to move goods, to move people, to move factories and machinery and so forth. Anything that impedes the ability of the government to move, the ability of the nation to move is like bleeding a patient to cure its illness.

Fuels shouldn’t be taxed at all if we want to have a properly functioning economy. There shouldn’t be any tax at all on anything that is so essential. And yet it is now regarded as a privilege. In fact, more than that, a waste. We are stealing money from the government by withholding it. We should tax gasoline to at least three, four dollars a gallon. And we have car pools and so forth, buses, urban transit. But I am digressing.

What I really wanted to say was that when you add to the innumerable regulations of the IRS, the 200 regulations which constitute forfeiture, we are involved in a regular cobweb of regulations which makes us not only heavily taxed, but more vulnerable than the citizens of any country in the western world.

[ Murray ] You know, because you are not left with the resources to even fight for your rights, which is de facto your rights no longer exist if you can’t defend them.

[ Rushdoony ] You mentioned European automobiles and the higher cost of gasoline. Some few years ago, I think in the 70s, one of the ads for a particular make boasted of the fact that in this particular European country these cars lasted 10, 15 years.

[ Scott ] Volvos.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Well, what they did not say was that in Sweden you don’t do much driving. It is a small country and as a result the amount of miles you put on a car in a year is very limited. Whereas in the United States the mileage you put on a car because of the size of this country is very great. The necessity for using your car daily for going to and from work and for personal reasons is considerably greater so that in three, four years you may use a car as much here as many people in foreign countries—that is European, for example—will in a considerable amount of time because here the automobile is more necessary for business and for every aspect of life.

[ Scott ] Well, we have a mobile country. I read where the miners in some areas of Britain refused to move, they refused, they protested because the mines were shut down. They were offered jobs in other mines in other villages, one 16 miles away and I saw an interview. And this fellow said, “I am not about to leave and go to work 16 miles away. My grandfather lived here. I am living here.” They wouldn’t move.

Well, that attitude is true all throughout Europe, because anyone who has a home which is distinct from a house and piece of land, hands it down from generation to generation. They never move. We move practically with the seasons.

[ Murray ] Every three to four years on an average. I was going to... in light of your earlier comments regarding fuel, it is interesting when you look at the inflation index the two commodity groups that are most often cited as contributing the most to inflation when prices are going up is fuel and food. Now food that you consume is not taxed, why tax fuel which is also consumed?

[ Scott ] Well, we have a ... a long history of hostility toward the petroleum business because it made some men rich. And that aroused the envy of the press and of the people, much as they were envious of the railroads which opened up the country. They were envious of the fact that some men got rich operating railroads.

You know, we have encouraged envy in the United States. It is not listed among the attributes which you shouldn’t harbor. Nobody that I know of is made to feel guilty because they are envious. What we have instead is the encouragement of envy and we are told that some people have advantages they shouldn’t have.

Now there is a radio broadcaster that Anne listens to named Jim Easton who is very good, I understand. And she also sometimes turns in on sports broadcasters. And this morning she was resting almost all day today and just doing nothing but listening to the radio. There were many calls that came in early in the day against Nancy Kerrigan. They were people who had great hostility for her. I mean her beauty, her grace, her decency apparently aroused a great anger among a great many people.

[ Murray ] A product of punishing achievement.

[ Scott ] And there is a jealousy of merit, a jealousy of achievement, a jealousy of natural attributes which are not fair. God is not a free opportunity employer. He distributes his talents as he chooses and this doesn't fit the socialist pattern. And most of our increased taxes through the years have been explained and rationalized by appealing to the envious. Hit the rich. But Mr. Clinton’s calls the fair share.

Now during the 80s Mr. Clinton and Mrs. Clinton made 10 million dollars. But nobody points that out. He apparently did rather well in that decade.

[ Murray ] It is ok if you do it dishonestly.

[ Scott ] Well, that may be proven later on.

[ Murray ] That is... that is... that is becoming the politically correct way to make money.

[ Scott ] But it is an odd ... it is an odd development and, therefore, the encouragement of envy goes hand in hand with the ability to tax. You don’t have a right to that money and therefore you owe it to the government and if you talk to some governmental people they literally feel that you owe this no matter what it is.

[ M Rushdoony ] Can’t you extend this on... on fuel? Can’t you extend that to all business? Why tax business?

[ Scott ] Well...

[ M Rushdoony ] The consumer ends up paying anyway when he purchases the product.

[ Scott ] Well, this is...

[ M Rushdoony ] So ultimately they absorb it. Why don't.... why... why not make all taxes personal?

[ Scott ] Well, it is a double tax. You ... everyone in business pays personal taxes. Then you pay taxes on the dividends that you receive from a business which has already paid taxes.

But the ... our government feels that business is a privilege. I pay a ... between 15 and 17 percent self employment tax, which is very heavy because to employ myself I can only do it with the permission of the government.

[ Murray ] You mentioned earlier, Otto, that the press claims that we are under taxed. Yet the press ... the press’ primary means of income is from advertising which is not taxed.

[ Scott ] That is true.

[ Murray ] Why is that? Why is that?

[ Scott ] The press also has a mail subsidy.

[ Murray ] So the... in essence the people are subsidizing the press.

[ Scott ] Oh, yes.

[ Rushdoony ] I think at this point it might be wise to look at the biblical perspective on this. According to God’s law God is the owner and landlord of all the earth, hence the tithe. Nothing is a gift to God unless it is above and over a tithe. Church and state, according to the Bible, are to get less than the 10 percent God takes, which means most is left to the family.

Now the state tax was to be half a shekel for every male 18 and over so that it included only men, not women and children. The church or religious institution in the Old Testament received one percent of one’s income. The tithe was paid to the Levites who used it for education and other purposes and then tithed the tithe to the temple or the synagogue.

This meant that most of a man’s income remained in his hands to be used under God as he saw fit. We see an interesting insight into what was current around then when Joseph was in Egypt. Many people have said that Joseph was an Socialist because he took over and taxed the people 20 percent.

Well, the land belonged to the priests and to the temples. And the peasants paid more than twice the amount Joseph charged them to the priest and the temples so that when Joseph, during the famine years, was able to take over from the temples of the pharaoh, control of taxation, we are told in the Bible that the people hailed him as their savior because their taxes were cut about in half and were now only 20 percent so that it was a revolution that Joseph conducted which gave Egypt a renewed lease on life for some generations before they again upped the taxes and created a destructive situation.

But within the limits of a situation where Joseph could do only so much, he did give Egypt a renewed lease on life. But God’s law prescribes half a shekel, a very limited amount only for males 18 and over and most of the money that is to be spent in the tithe is at the discretion of the thither. He tithes to God, not to an institution. The Levites can handle it for him, but under his instructions.

Now I believe when we go back to that, we can take away from the state one area of life after another. As Christians have put themselves under a double tax by providing for their children’s schooling in Christian schools and by home schooling, they have taken away a great deal of power from the state. And this will have a powerful effect in that education is one of the two major recipients of tax money, the other being welfare.

Now as Christians are beginning to expand their charity again, this will have an impact. In other words, we can cut the state’s power back by taking over education and charity.

At one time we had a very limited government because these areas represented things that Christians did. Health, education, welfare. Even to your youth and mine, Otto, a high percentage of hospitals were Christian hospitals controlled by the various churches. And the amount of charity work they did was far, far better than what is done now.

[ Scott ] Also their prices.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] About equal that of a first class hotel. You could get a room in the Waldorf for 25 dollars in the 30s. And that was about the price of a hotel room. And in those days they had actually private rooms with only one person.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. The hospital rate and the Waldorf rate in New York were equivalent. Here I California the cost in most of the country the cost was dramatically lower.

[ Scott ] Yeah. Well, that was an expensive area.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Murray ] The price for a private room own is well over a thousand dollars a day.

[ Scott ] Well, that is... that is... that out does the Waldorf.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Well, the ... the power that taxes provide enabled parliament to control the king in England. And conversely when Augustus took over the government of Rome he transferred the collection of taxes from the Senate to himself and that was what made the principle of the Caesar possible. In our country Congress controls the taxes which means it controls the pay of the President and the pay of the Supreme Court and the pay of all the agencies and the pay of the army and the navy.

[ Rushdoony ] You can see the consequences in what happened with the bad check scandal in Congress.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] Who got punished?

[ Scott ] Nobody. And nobody is going to be punished.

[ Rushdoony ] No. And ...

[ Scott ] They have already decided that it was no violation of law.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Because they pay the salary of the department of justice and all the G men and all the IRS and everybody in the country.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] That is why I say Congress rules the country. And it is very interesting... amusing to me to listen to the complaints or, rather, the retroactive charges of the present administration which tells us that Reagan and Bush did this and that and apparently they did it without a Congress, because there is no mention of Congress during those periods.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, at present the news is that Rostenkowski, despite the financial scandals associated with his record in Congress, is going to have President Clinton campaigning for him.

[ Scott ] Well, President Clinton’s comment was that there is a presumption of innocence. Now this is a great fallacy. The Wall Street Journal called it a presumption of rascality would be closer to the facts and that presumption of innocence is a myth. You are brought into court under the presumption of rascality and the court has to prove it or turn you loose. But presumption of innocence when you see ... when you see a man shot on television, for instance, is mind boggling. Nobody in his right mind presumes innocence when they see a murder committed before their eyes as when Oswald was shot. I mean... and there was actually after he died news articles to the effect that he shouldn’t be called a presidential assassin because he hadn't been tried and convicted.

Now there is a certain separation here between common sense and reality. Our language is not only being eroded in terms of accuracy. But it is being eroded in terms of reality.

[ Murray ] Well, all this mind bending is being done by the legal profession. They are the ones that tare...

[ Scott ] Don't forget the professors. Don’t forget the literati.

[ Murray ] The law professors.

[ Scott ] And ...

[ Murray ] {?}

[ Scott ] ... the fact that Mr. Clinton calls taxes contributions. Well, we go to the Middle Ages. I mean, the ages of faith where we are governed by the Bible. There was a limit on what the rulers could tax the people. And when the faith began to fade I the Renaissance that limit was lifted. Christianity is about the only system which enables people to be free of tyranny... tyrants. And that is... what would you call our government? A tyranny?

[ Rushdoony ] I believe the root meaning of tyrant in Greek is one who rules without God.

[ Scott ] Well, that would fit, but ...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. And that is what we have today, tyranny, because the government in Washington, DC is without God, in fact, is in contempt of God.

[ Scott ] It doesn't even believe in religion when there are wars being fought over the.... all over the world for religious reasons. What is the Middle East but a religious conflict?

[ Rushdoony ] And we have our secretary of state saying in recent days that we are on the side of the Moslems in the Balkans.

[ Scott ] It is interesting It is interesting that the Moslems are fighting Serbians, but not Christians.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] The Serbians aren’t dignified with a religion.

Well, the tax thing interests me. I wonder, you know, that the French Revolution the people who rebelled were being taxed roughly 50 percent. Now not all of them were taxed, because many were privileged and {?}. The Church I don't believe paid taxes and I am not... excepting to Rome. The nobility was spared a great many taxes, but the common people were paying 50 percent taxes which was considered an incredibly heavy burden. But our taxes in this country went up to 90 percent on certain incomes at one point, 70 percent a few years ago. Reagan reduced them to 28 percent tops and forgave taxes for people below a certain level, income taxes, altogether. And yet he is now charged with having not been fair and helped the rich more than the poor. And now the taxes have gone up again to the surtaxes included on the income tax to about 49 percent.

[ Murray ] Well, I wanted to explore the point of at what point do people revolt? And... and why? You know, if we have to make a distinction in the area that you are talking about there were far greater number of poor people and 50 percent of what little they made put them in dire straits. It was almost life threatening. Perhaps the reason that taxation has grown to the levels that it has in this country and will probably go higher is that we have more people who are reasonably affluent, who, you know, who live a ... by comparison to people in the Middle Ages, live a ... a fairly comfortable life.

[ Scott ] Well, the revolt begins in the form of evasion. When people begin to cheat and when people stop reporting their income that is revolt. And when that spreads that is a very bad sign for the government.

[ Rushdoony ] When people feel that the state is defrauding them they feel justified in defrauding the state. And the result is a corruption of society.

[ Murray ] That ... that is... that has always interested me, because that is the only time when the state begins to invoke morality...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Yes. Morality doesn’t count except at that point.

Well, our time is just about over. Does everyone feel they have said everything they have to say or is there a last word you have concerning taxation?

[ Murray ] Well, we have April 15th is not too far away which is the yearly anniversary of the Internal Revenue Act which, I believe, was passed in 1913. I will have to have a black cake with black candles to celebrate.

[ M Rushdoony ] I wish our elections were closer to April 15th.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. That is a good thought.

[ multiple voices ]

[ Scott ] That is a good one.

[ Murray ] Yeah they should...

[ Scott ] We should have elections on April the 16th.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. That would produce better results. The average tax payer, according to Bill Richardson, does not have a memory that outruns 90 days.

[ Murray ] You know, that is interesting when you think about it. They have intentionally moved the dates so they are as far apart as they can get them. You know, the election and the time when the new guy takes office from April 15th.

[ Scott ] I disagree with Bill. I have known people who could bear a grudge and remember their cause of it for a lot longer than 90 days.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes, but that ... they are not the tax payers. When it comes to voting, what a politician did more than three months back rarely has an impact.

[ Scott ] We will see about that.

[ Rushdoony ] I hope so. Well, our time is over. Thank you all for listening and God bless you.

[ Voice ] Authorized by the Chalcedon Foundation. Archived by the Mount Olive Tape Library. Digitized by ChristRules.com.