The Art of Living Together
On the radio I heard a Frenchman defend the wealth tax in France. It is unpopular among some French citizens, but he said simply that it was the art of living together. We share, just that simple. To whom much is given much is required. Share, and get over it. Have a glass of wine.
In Europe the wealth tax once was policy in twelve nations, and now only five. Some well-off performers, singers and actors, have switched national provenance and passports so as to defend their mercurial gains. Others search for secret bank accounts in Lichtenstein or off-shore tax havens in the Cayman Islands. Anywhere to stash a well-earned kruger or franc.
In my opinion taxes --- wealth, income, payroll, sales, and excise taxes --- should be voluntary. Pay according to your whim. Taxation is a form of theft. If this means that we have to pay someone for the privilege of walking on his sidewalk, then so be it. If we have to pay before turning on the water, so be it. If we have to strap on a gun to our waists and be careful of bands of sequestering traffickers in human slaves, so be it. If we have to defend our homes with small bazookas, and hire air forces, and buy memberships in private nuclear-arms-arsenals clubs, so be it. The eighteenth century enlightenment and its universal human rights were fantasies of an agrarian age of low fire-power. Gun control obviously means a steady arm, and nothing else.
Government has had its day. It has run its course and now should be abolished. Some day in the near future we will not have national currencies but each of us will carry a credit card backed by an account of so many ounces or fractions of a kilo of gold. Purchases and payments will be organized by a private company with vast holdings of gold whose storehouse will be located in the Australian desert. The fallacy of national currencies will be history. No longer will we have to put up with the mischief of national central banks, their currencies, and the havoc they play with the supply of money. Finished will be the plethora of rupees, rubles, riads, and other mythological currencies. A chemical mole of gold will be the absolute minimum registered amount to keep a gold account viable, and those who fall below this atomic weight will be auctioned to the highest bidder or euthanized. Euthanization squads, maintained by the central gold company, will be the new collection agencies.
If oddly you have an impulse to pay taxes, you can convert this impulse into a charitable gift to some cause. You may donate a few ounces of your hard-earned gold to build a non-profit community firing range, target practice, that is. Or you may donate to a para-military camp for poor Christian children. That’s your own private business, and no one will stop you. But, more than likely, you’ll be anxious to maintain your account in good-standing in the local militia. It’s monthly fee may be high, but delinquency penalties are far higher. The militia has preserved the only surviving right from the original Bill of Rights from the defunct U.S. Constitution, the right to bear arms. The federation of local militias is sponsoring a population stabilization project in over-populated Africa and China. If you miss a payment you might be sent to the front lines. Or worse, since the Mad Maxes of the world have proliferated, Max may enter through your back door one night and foreclose your militia account and your patriot status. No longer a patriot in the true sense, that is paid-up, you’ll be guilt of treason. In this dangerous era of terrorism the act of treason is even more heinous than ever, and it’s penalty more certain. Treason’s penalty is summary execution. Blindfolds are not offered to traitors, shirkers or scalawags. The penalty is strictly observed, as everyone will be deadly aware of.
This new enlightened age will demonstrate the real art of living together, and the Frenchman’s statement about the “art of living together” will be seen as antique, very “old Europe.” “Have a glass of wine” -- hah! Taxes will be replaced by sales charges, and payment delinquency will be punishable by death. It’s a simple system. Community and elections were well and good at one point in human history before civilization evolved the AK-47 rifle and the gold card payment system. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. The old enlightenment was the stuff for weaklings. A wealth tax, and taxes of any kind, are treasonable ideas. “Treason” and “treasure,” the two words are truly in harmony.
Now, to balance that horrible essay, maybe by a very little, I offer this quotation from the Discourses of Meher Baba, from the one titled Love:
Love is a reflection of God’s unity in the world of duality. It
constitutes the entire significance of creation. If love were excluded
from life, all the souls in the world would assume complete externality
to each other; and the only possible relations and contacts in such a
loveless world would be superficial and mechanical. It is because of
love that the contacts and relations between individual souls become
significant. It is love that gives meaning and value to all the world
of duality. But while love gives meaning to the world of duality, it is
at the same time a standing challenge to duality. As love gathers
strength, it generates creative restlessness and becomes the main
driving power of that spiritual dynamic which ultimately succeeds
in restoring to consciousness the original unity of Being.
(page 116, Discourses of Meher Baba)
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