I finally found someone with more than two brain cells to rub together to respond to my position that police is a socialist program. I posted this meme in a Tea Party group, and this conservative responded. I like this guy, even though he’s mistaken, but at least he put up a good effort.
I’ll break up his response and italicize his words.
Ok, here we go. Nothing I write here should be taken as a personal criticism of you. My observations will be about the core principle at the foundation of the meme.
The meme is a straw man argument I have seen advanced by liberals for many years. At its core is the false premise that any belief in government, and any belief in a tax, and any belief in any kind of government program is a belief in and an advocacy for socialism.
Liberals are correct when they make that point. American socialist programs don’t work, because government gets paid whether they do a good job or not. Socialism is immoral, because it is based on stealing money from people, i.e. forcing people to pay for something whether they want it or not. Scripture gives the civil penalties for all crimes, and there is no penalty for not paying taxes. It was a sin in the Old Testament to not pay your taxes, but not a crime. Scripture nowhere gives government the right to force anyone to pay for anything, much less all the programs we have today, including police.
The reason we know that to be a false premise is because we live in the real world and we are, or most of us, are students of history. The meme requires the belief that there is no distance, no daylight, between the absence of government–call it what you will–anarchy, chaos, the law of the jungle, might equals right–and socialism.
He’s right that my position is that even a tiny bit of force in government taxation is wrong, and is socialism. That’s not to say that a country with a 1% tax rate is just as bad as a country with a 90% tax rate. It’s just that the 1% is theft and is immoral. I’d also say that when some people are forcing other people to pay for something, because they are stronger and run in packs, that is the law of the jungle. That is more akin to the anarchy by his definition than the anarchy I espouse.
One can believe in government and in taxes, and not be a socialist. In fact, capitalism, including free market capitalism, believes in government and in the proper use of taxes to operate that government. The distinction is the perceptions on the role, purpose and function of government, and the extent and degree of government. Classical liberalism (modern conservativsm) and modern progressivism view government very differently.
Conservatives believe government is the answer to very little, whereas liberals believe government is the answer to almost everything.
How do we know what the proper roles of government are? Liberals would probably say whatever voters decide. Conservatives might say (though they don’t follow through on this belief) that the Constitution determines the proper role of government. There is some truth in that. The states made a voluntary agreement, and if the states as their corporate entities want to stick with that agreement, they’re free to do so, as long as they don’t violate our God-given rights.
God-given rights is something the founders spoke of, and Scripture is the only way we can really know what our rights are and what the proper role of government is. People are free to associate and contract together to do certain things. What they’re not free to do is force me into their contract or infringe on my rights. Our God-given rights are the corollary to God’s law. I have the right to life because God prohibited murder. I have the right to private property, because God prohibited theft. I have the right to not be cheated on by my wife because God prohibited adultery. I HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO WHATEVER ISN’T A SIN, and even additionally, government has no jurisdiction over the sins that aren’t criminal under God’s law. Anywhere government tries to stop me from doing something that isn’t a sin it is violating my rights. If they take life or property by force (unless I’ve come under their jurisdiction by committing a crime), they are violating my rights.
Conservatives are not anti-government or anti-tax. They believe government is a necessary evil because there are things that only government can do, or do well. Our Founding Fathers were such men. That is why they created a constitutional republic, rooted in federalism to curb a large centralized federal government, and a constitution which limited the federal government to limited and enumerated powers.
When he says there are things that only government can do, he’s wrong. I think what he means is that there are things only people working together can do. The only job of magistrates in Scripture is to punish evildoers (Romans 13:4). There may be many things that people ought to work together to do, such as the infrastructure projects he lists below. If the only way those things can happen is by forcing people to do them, then that’s barbarism.
The role of a federal government in a capitalist society is narrow and constrained and properly limited to such matters as the defining and defense of borders, the creation and maintenance of a military, the management of finance and economics through the creation of and supervision of sound money, the building of large infrastructure projects like roads, bridges, railways, tunnels and canals, law and order including the creation and maintenance of a judicial system to resolve civil and criminal disputes and the establishment of police and fire departments to maintain civil order including protecting private property and personal protection against violence and criminal activity, to include jails and penitentiaries.
I’d definitely disagree with several items on the list. Prison isn’t a just punishment for anything. It isn’t the proper punishment given by God for any crime, but it also punishes society by forcing them to pay for food and shelter for the criminal. Even the victim gets punished by having to pay their share for the criminal’s upkeep.
And he is just making this list up. There is no real basis for saying only government can do these things or that these are the proper roles for government, and the founding fathers would have disagreed with much of the list. There were no police until the 1840s. He’s begging the question.
All civil and orderly societies past and present recognize the legitimate powers of government in such narrow circumstances.
All civil societies? Not Old Testament Israel, and early America didn’t recognize even his short list, though their short list was much longer than Israel’s short list. In fact, any society where people are forced to pay for something isn’t a civil and orderly society at all. And I don’t care how many people are doing it wrong. We have to strive to do it right.
Over time, the United States has drifted from these principles, such as the creation of a postal service. Most believe, mistakenly, that it began with FDR, but it actually began in ernest with Woodrow Wilson. It was under Wilson that a national income tax was created. From the nation’s founding until 1913 the USA had no income tax, yet in that 150 year period we went from a small agrarian society to a world economic power. After 1913, the USA instituted social programs beyond its charter to include the FDA, Social Security, the Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, Energy and Education, to name a few.
Agreed.
Not all government programs are socialist. The difference between capitalism and socialism is not the presence or absence of government, but the degree to which government controls the society and its economy through government programs, government regulations and laws and enforcement actions.
If the government program forces you to pay for it, that is the problem, and that is what makes it socialist. That means that whatever the program is, they are claiming that you don’t own your money. Your money is collectively owned. It’s not really yours, even if it’s temporarily in your bank account. They will transfer their money out of your bank account and claim it’s not stealing, because you owe it to them. The day it comes due, you will pay them, or they will come to collect, with guns if necessary.
Socialism, as you know, is where the means of production and distribution of goods and services are collectively owned by a central government that plans and controls the economy.
Importantly, capitaism and socialism are not mutually exclusive; they can exist in a blended society on certain issues.
American programs such as police or roads or whatever program conservatives like are socialist for the reasons outlined above. You owe the tax, because that money in your possession now, isn’t really yours.
And how do conservatives know what a valid government program is? The only possible source for such information is Scripture. No one references Scripture. They just make up the list.
A modern day example of confusion on socialism are the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Norway and Finland. They are often cited as successful examples of socialism. They are not socialist countries. They are free market capitalist countries with socialist policies on two key issues: health care and education. And they have very high taxes to pay for them, except that Finland recently abandoned its public health system because it was bankrupting the country.
He’s right on this, though I hadn’t heard the part about Finland. Some countries are more socialist than others, and some of those countries he listed rival the U.S. for economic freedom. That’s not to say their socialist programs aren’t pure evil, because they are. They just aren’t the bastions of blonde-hair, blue-eyed socialism that liberals like to think. They don’t want you to look at that icky off-white socialism in Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, etc. Of course, they don’t reference the skin color; it’s funny how that works out.
In conclusion, an American who expects his or her taxes to be used to create and fund a government sponsored municipal police force to protect them, their family and their home is not a socialist. I am not a socialist but I expect to get the Social Security benefits promised me. Why? Because the government took my money without my consent and against my will for 47 years of my working life. I want my money back.
Again, the issue is being forced to pay for a program you don’t want. If people aren’t happy with their police service, they should be able to unsubscribe and use a different service, or even switch to a DIY solution such as carrying a gun. The free market will cause firms to innovate new solutions to more efficiently serve people. You will get way better service from the free market for less than the money you pay in taxes, because socialism doesn’t work.
I see his argument about Social Security. The problem is that the only way he’ll get his money is for it to be stolen from someone else. His money was stolen and given away to his socialist grandma. The only possible way for Social Security to come to an end is for someone to have paid into it and receive nothing in return. Who will that be? Well baby boomers will make damn sure it’s not them.
Someone who believes the government can and should provide cradle to grave services and is willing to sacrifice their freedoms and most of their earnings for those services is a socialist. Socialism and communism are a hand and glove. Socialism is an economic system, and communism is a political system that runs a socialist economy.
Some socialists want cradle to grave services. Some socialists just want to sacrifice a little bit of freedom to get government police services. Just a 7% sales tax for police isn’t too much to give up, right? Well, maybe we can bump it up to 8% for the next 20 years if they need bullet-proof vests and new cruisers. Surely sacrificing that little bit of freedom and making my neighbors pay, even if they disagree, isn’t too much freedom to surrender? Well, I for one, refuse to surrender any of my God-given rights to an evil government or my greedy, covetous neighbors.
Communism, as a political form of governance, cannot exist without an underlying socialist economy. Capitalists can and do believe in government and taxes but want them narrowly defined, controlled and exercised.
True capitalists believe that no one can force you to pay for something you don’t want. That isn’t just my opinion. That is what the Bible teaches.