The Protection Racket

reprinted from 5/31/03 in honor of this year's Tax Day

If you're a fan of old gangster movies, that phrase should evoke clear images of mobsters making their weekly rounds of stores in their "territory", extorting cash payments in return for not being beat up, blown up, or burned out.

To be fair, the "protectors" did actually provide some protection... not just from themselves, but from other thieves. The "protectors" were a sort of local police force. They wanted a monopoly on crime in their territory, and the mobsters wanted to protect their sources of protection money. Freelance crooks were not allowed... they either worked for the resident gangster group or they were "eliminated.

Many mobsters were often beneficient with their illicit gains... providing such things as soup kitchens, clubs for kids, and contributing to churches... actually endearing themselves to residents of their turf. If you disregard the source of his money, Al Capone's claim to being philanthropic was valid.

Mobsters also organized and controlled many services the community evidently wanted, such as prostitution, gambling, and illicit substances. They didn't force people to partake, they just profited from providing the services. They provided services people wanted, but that government wouldn't legally allow the people to have.

But... the mobsters were crude and in-your-face. They didn't spend a lot of time trying to convince people that protection was for their own good. They had terrible PR. They struted around publicly in expensive clothes and automobiles. They dealt with problems in person, without discussion, and with finality.

Are we better off we are now, with the mobsters more or less gone?

We don't get personal collection visits from thugs... many of our payments are now hidden in everything we buy. The rest of our payments are just taken out of our paychecks.

We don't have to suck up to some godfather with complaints... we can spend lots more money in court with very little chance of winning.

We don't get beat up for not paying (usually)... we just get all our property taken and go to prison.

With the mob, we only had to deal with the local group. Now we pay protection money to many different organizations... city, county, state, and federal, plus all sorts of other taxing commissions.

We get to hear great speeches and writings about how much good our protection money is doing. That's PR the way the mobsters never even imagined! Our current protectors take responsibility for everything they can spin as a positive, and blame everything bad on someone else, and they're professional at it. At least the mob didn't spend much time trying to convince their victims that they should be happy about it.

Best of all, we get to choose our current crop of protectors every few years. They promise us even more protection from even more dangers, or promise that they'll take less protection money (odd how THAT part never seems to work out). Because we can choose our protectors (even though there aren't many choices and they all seem alike), we can now manage to delude ourselves into believing that we're no longer victims of extortion.

Libertarians view taxes as simple FORCE... as extortion quite literally at the point of a gun. That's not exaggerated... if you fail to pay taxes, you WILL eventually see a gun at your door, and you'll see a lot more later. Taxes are not a choice, not voluntary, not payment for services rendered...they’re simple theft... taking money by force.

Do you like what your money is being used for? I have yet to meet any person who would willingly support all the actions of our governments.

At the moment, hundreds of thousands of Americans are being forced to support a war they believe is disgustingly immoral... but that's just one example. No matter what your likes and dislikes, no matter what your morality or beliefs, your earnings are supporting many actions you would never voluntarily support.

Are we free? Free of the mob? Free of extortion? Free to do WHAT? Just what choices do we have? Can you choose which government programs you want to support? Can you exclude those you think are destructive, immoral, or offensive?

Long ago, when our government was small and still limited, Thomas Jefferson said...

“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

Libertarians couldn't agree more. It's wrong, and each one of us is being violated. Worse... we've been bamboozled into thinking we couldn't survive without our current "mob". Fact is, we didn't need the mob in the Roaring 20's, and we don't need them now.

Ideology, not politics

reprinted from July 9, 2003

Words have impact. Writing doesn't come close to one-on-one verbal communication, in which we have a convenient way to correct misinterpretations. Occasionally though, writers do get feedback that can reveal that they've been misunderstood, or that their position isn't clear enough. Such is the case today, as revealed in the cover blog for July 8th, from TCB. This is not intended as criticism; to review and introduce the many Babelogue blogs every day is a serious challenge and a job I don't envy. TCB posted, by way of introducing my blog...

"The problem with minor third parties is that occasionally, they're right. Maybe a better way of putting that would be to say that the major parties are sometimes wrong — really wrong. Bob Smith has a sobering post on casualties in Iraq."

There are 2 evident misunderstandings here:

1. That I write from the viewpoint of the Libertarian Party.
2. That the Libertarian Party is "a minor third party".

Let me deal quickly with the 2nd one first. The Libertarian Party is, by any measure, the 3rd largest political party in the U.S. Currently, over 300 Libertarians hold elective office, more than twice as many as all other third parties combined.

The reason all "third parties" are "minor" has absolutely nothing to do with being right or wrong... it has to do with being FORCED to compete under extreme handicaps. The two major parties have the power of government, and they use it complicitly to keep all other opposition "minor". If the anti-trust laws implemented by those parties were applied to political competition, those two parties would be found guilty of blatant anti-competitive acts, and of coercive monopoly. Perhaps a later blog just on that subject.
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I write from a libertarian ideological position, not as a member of the Libertarian Party. I am a member, a past state chair, and am active in the state party, but my writing is not to promote the party. Personally, I detest politics, as do many libertarians. As I explained in my "About Smith and his blog", my attitude toward politics is that of Gandhi:

"If I seem to take part in politics, it is only because politics encircles us today like the coil of a snake from which one cannot get out, no matter how much one tries. I wish therefore to wrestle with the snake."

The libertarian ideology demands a very limited government... limited power, because political power is always misused. It always corrupts. Libertarians do not WANT to dominate the political scene... they don't WANT political power... they don't want such domination to be POSSIBLE. Libertarians do not want to force their ideas on you.

Understand that libertarians opposed war long before the War in Iraq.

Understand that libertarians opposed the War on Drugs from the beginning.

Understand that libertarians opposed corporate welfare long before the current spate of radicals.

Understand that libertarians addressed environmental issues before there was a green movement... and emphatically add that our government is the biggest polluter of all.

Occasionally right? IN A GNAT'S EYE!

The key piece of knowledge that seems to escape those who hold to all of the other political ideologies is that no government program ever works out the way it was intended... it never stops where you wanted it to stop, and it always has unintended consequences that eclipse any good it might accomplish.

Liberals in particular need to understand, at this point in time, that they are equally responsible for our nation's rise to "Empire"... to power-mongering, warring, bullying dominance in the world... to FORCE gone berserk. Even more than conservatives, liberals have constantly sought to increase the power of government, naively believing that such power would be used for good. Our current batch of power-drunk neo-conservatives are using the powers put there by liberals who were insisting that government can solve our problems.

Increasing government power has never had good results, because the use of FORCE never has good results. History is replete with examples of dominant empires that collapsed, strangled by their own massive power, and the U.S. is rapidly approaching that point. The cost of insane wars in the name of promoting democracy and eliminating enemies can kill even our powerful and resilient economy. When that happens, it will trigger a worldwide depression that could result in another Dark Age for planet Earth.

The solution is not more government programs... not better government programs... not reform of government programs... not different government policies. The solution is to radically reduce the power of government and return this nation to THE PEOPLE. Government does nothing well. It is force by bureaucracy.

How many destructive or inept government programs do we have to witness in order to reach the obvious conclusion that there will NEVER be a government program that does good? Will we have to reach the level of government planning and control that destroyed the Soviet Union before Americans recognize the real problem?

I emphasize again, and again... every time you ask government to do something... no matter how good your intentions... you are asking to increase the government's power over us, and it WILL come back to haunt all of us.

Our nation was founded on the principle of severely limited government, because those founders knew, from history, and from first-hand experience, that government power will always become corrupted.

Tomorrow, I'll introduce you to the WORLD of libertarianism, as a way of demonstrating that this powerful ideology has found a home among people of all nations.

In closing... from those who say it with more eloquence:

The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. -- Gandhi

The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people. -- Justice William O. Douglas

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence – it is force. Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
-- George Washington

The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.
-- Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winner, Economics

"Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." -- Thomas Paine

"That government is best which governs least."
-- Thomas Jefferson