ANOTHER FAUX LIBERTARIAN SAYS, "IF YOU CAN'T BEAT 'EM, BECOME A PROGRESSIVE"

Today, Mish from Global Economic Trend Analysis answers a reader who asked as a libertarian, should he take welfare food stamps (SNAP) provided by the Department of Health and Human Services, an agency of the U.S. Congress. The reader describes himself as a trust-fund baby who has the income to pay, but because of law loopholes, he qualifies for both food stamps and Medicaid.



To answer the dilemma-ridden libertarian, Mish turned to his often-mentioned friend, Pater Tenebrarum. Tenebrarum said that if the government has taken your taxes, you have every right to receive some restitution and that if you believe you have been robbed, then signing up and taking welfare is clawing back some of what has been looted from you. Tenebrarum claims this to be the "correct libertarian viewpoint."

Pater Tenebrarum doesn't seem to understand jurisprudence and thus libertarianism.

Taxes are an unearned share of profits levied by politicians. Where there is no profit, there can be no taxes. Unlike investors who gain return because they have traded property in cash and credit in the past for cash and credit now, politicians have not invested in anyone or in any firm. Through law, politicians have dispensed with the need to invest in hopes of a gain.

Long ago, the founders of the current USA, through the second constitution gave themselves the right and imposed the duty on anyone to pay taxes. In theory, Americans of that time agreed to the second constitution through their contitutional convention representatives.

The constitution has given politicians the right of action to collect sums from anyone who  trades property in pursuit of profit. Everyone who trades property in pursuit of profit has liability for taxation. The constitution has given politicians the right to decree the manner of reckoning levy and has imposed the duty of anyone to accept that reckoning.


Always, in jurisprudence, property means right of ownership and not what is owned. This must be kept in your mind.

Politicians gain property in the cash and bank credits acquired from taxation. It is from this property that politicians now have funds.

Through law, give property in their funds to some based upon rules politicians set. Likewise, politicians impose duty upon to give up their property in their funds. Such property, which is the right of ownership, includes all kinds of welfare programs like Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Section 8, Pell, TANF, SNAP, and countless others like subsidized loans to veterans and so on.

Libertarianism boils down to liberty over duty and right. In short, libertarianism means living by fewer laws and thus fewer rights and duties. Adding ever more rights and duties is how you lessen freedom and expand political control over everyone through legal means.

If Mish's reader accepts welfare, he agrees to the system of less liberty, of more rights and duties. Thus, Mish's reader goes against libertarianism.

Mish's reader agrees to have Congress tax all at their reckoning. Mish's reader agrees to men of Congress running perpetual fiscal year deficits that accumulate into massive debt. Mish's reader agrees that Fed Res bankers should buy that debt, putting into circulation more cash and bank credits, which reduces the buying power and thus the living standard of workers.

In short, Mish's reader agrees to liberal progressivism.