The Oppression of Public Debt

For your edification I present this quote from Thomas Jefferson warning us of the danger of government debt.

"I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty
or profusion and servitude.

If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.

Our land-holders, too, like theirs, retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs but held really in trust for the treasury, must wander, like theirs, in foreign countries,
and be contented with penury, obscurity, exile, and the glory of the nation.

This example reads to us the salutary lesson, that private fortunes are destroyed by public
as well as by private extravagances.

And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance
becomes a precedent for the second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering.

Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia, which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man.

And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."

We are so there. Everything is taxed. Even the property and homes we own are so heavily taxed one can easily claim we no longer own it but rent from our masters in the form of taxes. They never consider doing with less but only look for more ways to gather more. Even law enforcement is utilized not to make us safe but to extract more of our wealth through fines and fees. We vote for individuals to be our representatives yet they no sooner enter office than they become the agents of government and our adversaries. It is all the more vexing that we are forced to provide the means of our own oppression through the taxes they heap upon us from all directions.

On April 15, 2009 there will be Tea Parties held throughout the nation. Join one and take the first step toward returning our freedom.
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