Other people's money | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    "There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's needs and desires can be satisfied. One is the production and exchange of wealth; this is the economic means. The other is the uncompensated appropriation of wealth produced by others; this is the political means." Albert Jay Nock (1870-1945)

    Despite the traditional praise of "melting pots," "big tents" and "rainbow coalitions" the strategy behind our country's election process is to activate the ethnic, racial and social differences that exist among its people. America's politicians have set the English Protestants against the Irish Catholics and the Jews, the Irish against subsequent immigrants, and, of course, everyone found a way to blame Latinos and Blacks for whatever happened to be the problem of the day. America does not welcome newcomers. Think back to "Irish Need Not Apply" or simply ask any Hispanic. The Statue of Liberty might well be France's ultimate gesture of tongue-in-cheek sarcasm.

    The last fifty years of ethnic politics can be fairly characterized as a campaign to motivate non-whites to overcome the perceived advantages that whites have had in creating the political landscape. Whether or not the European immigrants to America have ever been a united group, the election results of 2012 can arguably be interpreted as demonstrating that this is no longer valid even as a weak hypothesis. White Americans are not, and rarely ever were, enough of a homogenous or single focused ethnic bloc to be seen as in agreement on anything. From here on out there will be a truly shared responsibility for how our problems resolve themselves. Another, and even older, truth about American politics is that it is a fight for the spoils. If we, as a people, have a transcending and unifying reality, it is to put our nose in the trough. The nation's motto should be "What's in it for me."

    Politicians have regularly used the passage of laws to lend their imprimatur to a long list of obvious wrongs. For two hundred and twenty five years American lawmakers have found excuses to enslave and tax almost at will. We will steal each other's freedom, property and money under the guise of public morals, eminent domain and the national good. Our latest euphemism for distributing the political spoils is entitlements. Prior to 1865 politicians imagined themselves justified in harnessing blacks to the interests of cotton and while they have always felt comfortable taxing every one in sight and then handing the money collected over to their friends, lately, politicians have offered large blocs of voters constitutional entitlements to absolutely everything.

    Entitlements are the last straw. They are an affront to common sense and an unsustainable foolishness.

    Each of us has a shared humanity and common human needs for many goods and services. However, each of us has a unique and individual set of priorities among these needs. If you are required to fund retirement, student loans and unemployment benefits for others, then you will soon demand that they fund your particular special interest. Maybe your request will be for health care or a cellphone. Gradually this process has expanded into a web of coercive interdependency. Each of us ends up being forced to pay additional taxes for the relief of our neighbor's hardships, while at the same time forcing him to pay for benefits accruing to us. Requests for help with serious needs have gradually devolved into pleadings for conveniences and trivialities as we all ask: "Where's mine?"

    Governments, everywhere and always, are funded only by violence and deceit. The reality is that politicians can only pay for entitlements by collecting taxes, issuing bonds, which must be paid off with future taxes, or by printing money, i.e., by a legally sanctioned counterfeiting of the currency. Since nobody is happy to pay taxes, taxes are gathered with the threat or use of force. Simply printing more money is nothing less than fraud and results in a hidden tax that is represented by inflation. Thus the more we ask politicians to do for us, the more heavy-handed and dishonest the process of paying for their help becomes.

    No one spends his neighbor's dollar as carefully as he spends his own and since bureaucrats pay themselves for converting tax receipts into subsidies, the waste associated with tax-funded entitlements is staggering. Unfortunately, they are the chosen tools of both political parties.

    By winning elections on the basis of expanding entitlements and correspondingly enlarging the government's grip on the lives of Americans, politicians have drawn out the worst in us and they have literally encouraged us to victimize, not only our neighbors, but future generations; after all, the added spending for entitlements goes straight to the future deficit. So let's not kid ourselves about being one big happy family. When we receive a service that is provided by some form of subsidy from Uncle Sam we are actually in receipt of stolen goods. Arguing that only a small amount has been extracted from each taxpayer to fund our personal bite at our cherished benefit is of little relevance. It is just as if we had wandered into another's living room and rifled the small change from beneath the sofa cushions.

    If this sounds shocking, then attribute your surprise to our national hypocrisy about handouts and the pervasive entrenchment of our attitude of acceptance toward entitlements.