It's Your Money - NOT

Take a deep breath, make sure you're sitting down, and prepare yourself to try to be entirely unaffected by this experience I'm going to narrate...

I recently engaged in a business transaction that required me to keep track of a few thousand dollars. Because the bookkeeping was for a short time period, and it didn't make sense to create a new bank account specific for this purpose, I decided to use a personal savings account that was joint with my primary checking account.

My has a nice online system that makes it very easy to transfer money from one account to the other. So I transferred all of my current savings (unfortunately a very small dollar amount) into my checking account, and then deposited into savings the money I needed to keep track of. When money needed to be spent, I'd use a check or debit card tied to my checking account, and then reimburse the funds by transfering the same amount (with an identification note) from the savings account. It was clean, simple, and easy to track.

Then I got a notice in the mail from the bank. It was a verbose explanation that I had exceeded the transfers permitted by law (Reg D). Huh? So I held off making two more transfers and called the bank to get an assessment of the damage. In the current statement cycle, I had done eight transfers and the law only allows for six. The penalty is $10 per violation, and so I was being charged $20.

I kept my cool, and calmly asked the customer service rep if there was any way to not be penalized for not knowing this illogical rule. He asked if I had read all the account information paperwork I had signed when I set up the account. I thought a lie "yeah, I went straight home, read for an hour and a half, and I don't remember reading the part about six max transactions," but instead I said evenly, "that's not very realistic." He read me the most relevant parts of the law and then said that unfortunately there wasn't any way to wave the penalties.

Out of curiosity, I asked where the $20 would go. He responded, "That's a good question, let me find out." After four minutes on hold, he returned and said, "It all goes to the federal government." As I processed this information, my grasp of reality began to rapidly deteriorate. Hanging on to anything I could grab, I asked if I could go into the branch and withdraw any money without being penalized. He replied, "No problem. So long as you're in a branch office, you can transfer funds, withdraw money, whatever you want, and it doesn't count towards your limit of six. Just remember though, if you do keep violating Reg D, you'll receive another notice and your savings account will be shut down."

I didn't want any more clarification. I didn't want any more information. All I wanted to do was to hang up, to resolve in my mind that twice a month I'll make a trip to the bank to do all of my transfers at once, and most importantly to just move on with my life. The bars of enslavement Congress had placed around me, were incomprehensible, but they weren't going to hold me captive indefinitely.

I jumped over the bars. Hopefully in the future the bars won't get so high I can't jump over.

The Best Part About a Sporting Event

Most sporting events in America begin with the athletes lining up on the field or court of play, the fans standing and looking in a particular direction, hats coming off, hands placed on top of hearts (or not), and our national anthem played or sung; it's a moment of personal, quiet reflection.

For some reason that I've never been able to understand, many of the athletes, and some fans, keep their hands to their sides. A logical reason might be that the individual is not a citizen of this country, while some illogical reasons might be that even though they are a citizen they hate this country, or maybe the act of putting their hand over their heart isn't "cool" and they are "cool," or maybe it makes their arm tired and they need to save their strength for the sporting event. But whatever the reason, I wonder during those few moments, what is being reflected in the mind of the "hands-to-the-side-person" versus the individual whose palm is placed against their chest such that they can feel their own heart beat?

I don't know the answer to this question, and I probably never will, and personally, it probably doesn't matter. What really matters is that everytime I go to a sporting event (on time) and get the opportunity to put my palm against my chest, I DO feel the beat of my heart. This beat reminds me that I am blessed to be alive, and that so long as my heart continues to beat, I have the opportunity to study, understand, experience, and live for freedom. It also reminds me that I need to be wise and to take the best care that I can for my heart, so that the health decisions I make will not cause it to stop beating prematurely.

And as I thus reflect, the reality is once again reinforced, that while the clash of opposing athletes may hold captivating entertainment value, the real value of the event was only realized in those few short minutes with my hand on my heart.

The Bondage of Inefficiency

Tax collection is a necessary and critical function of any good society, and while most of us may wish everything could be free, it's not. Fortunately, few people argue in favor of no taxation. What we do frequently argue, as a whole, is how much should be collected and from whom. Commonly missing from our dialogue, however, is the recognition and correction of what may be the greatest abuse of our tax system: inefficiency.

This bondage of inefficiency originates with thousands of pages of rules and regulations designed openly and specifically to manipulate and control our decision making, which is an entirely separate topic of its own. The inefficiency becomes readily apparent when acknowledging the mammoth and constantly expanding army of regulators who try to interpret and enforce the rules, the many professionals hired to try to understand the same rules and protect their clients against retribution, and the excessive non-productive hours spent by citizens tracking and accounting for decisions made and actions taken.

By removing the objective of decision making control, employing common sense, and deploying technology, the collection of taxes can be seamless and non-intrusive, or in other words, efficient. Efficiency removes the chains that inefficiency fetters.

Toll Slavery

A few months ago I moved to Houston, TX and immediately became aware of the many toll roads that link the metropolis together. Fortunately, my most frequented destinations allowed relatively convenient travel on free roads and so I resisted the "need" to get the magnetic tracking device required for toll road travel. But one day after making a trip across town through 17 stop lights, I took a deep breath, and visited the nearest EZ Tag Store.

My wife complimented me for not complaining during the 45 minute ordeal. I even engaged in small talk with one of the eleven service reps and credited myself with helping replace her glum "I don't want to be here" attitude with a few smiles. My good attitude faded, however, immediately upon exiting the "store" and walking to the car; I felt compromised, like my freedom had been forcibly violated. After expressing the sentiment, my wife peaceably suggested, "Just try not to think about it; it's easier that way."

I had to think about it. While we took the same trip across town using toll roads and avoiding 12 of the 17 stop lights (35% red), I tried to calculate at each "zap zone" what the total cost was going to be. When we got home, I just couldn't be sure so I went online, spent ten minutes setting up my account, only to be greeted with: "Transactions may take several business days to post to your EZ TAG Account." What? An entirely automated, electronic system costing tens of millions of dollars has an unpredictable data delivery speed of days, not seconds? Do they purposely not want me to easily be able to keep track of my expenditures? I unrealistically vowed that I would avoid all toll roads unless it was a matter of life and death.

I was a fool. A few weeks later I was mapping a different trip across town, and after ten minutes of finding and then trying to understand the toll road map, I determined that I was either going to drive an extra 22 miles on the freeway or pay $7.90 in toll fees. Suddenly I remembered that I hadn't returned to my account to see what the last trip had cost me. After looking up the URL and being grateful that I had used my most common username and password when I had set up the account, I was incredulous to realize that I had spent $10.40 to avoid 8 red lights, not to mention the $15 spent to purchase the EZ Tag. Now it’s sounding like I’m a cheapskate.

I’m not. It’s about the difference between freedom and tolldom. The roads need to be paid for to be built and maintained, but what’s the most efficient way to collect these infrastructure dollars? The overhead costs already exist to operate the systems necessary to collect taxes, a portion of which funds are used to build and maintain roads. Creating an entirely separate overhead of hardware, software, signs, marketing material, operators, application takers, buildings, janitors, managers, executives, attorneys, accountants, fixed assets, IT personnel etc…is an unproductive and complete waste of time and money. Granted, if it costs less to collect tolls than it does to collect taxes, then maybe it would be logical to make EVERY road a toll road. However, by mixing the two collection systems, you pay for it once whether you use it or not, but if you want the “freedom” to use it (as the marketing material suggests), you pay for it again in order to cover the extra and unnecessary overhead.

Excess taxation (tolling) and wasted tax (toll) dollars is an insidious form of economic enslavement; it’s theft.

Individual Economic Freedom

If you depend on someone else to provide your needs and wants, you are economically dependent and enslaved; this is the state of a child. If through your own initiative you provide for yourself, you are economically independent and free; this is the state of an adult. Most governments believe that its citizens should be children.

For many decades since its inception, the United States of America has been a bastion of individual economic freedom by both promoting the value of independence, while at the same time protecting ingenuity, which unique combination ignites the human spirit to take risk for the possibility of reward. The risk is the sacrifice of time and sometimes money, and the reward is realizing various levels of economic freedom.

See.... THE 7 LEVELS OF ECONOMIC REALITY

The common misconception regarding these levels is the belief that an individual should hope and try to skip levels. Two examples expose this fallacy. Consider the lottery winner who is financially dependent: The sudden introduction of wealth without the refining process of learning the principles that lead to economic independence, results in the “lucky” winner seeing the money go up in smoke before they return to financial dependence. The second example is subtlety deceiving: The spoiled heir of a fortune, who has never earned any of the wealth, remains entirely dependent on others to provide the “freedom” because they are not capable of maintaining or growing it themselves.

An individual cannot be economically independent and free unless they have provided for themselves; otherwise, they are still dependent.

The Rights of Man

Every day we wrestle with rights: free speech rights, property rights, civil rights, women’s rights, employee rights, cultural rights, parental rights, teenager rights, unborn infant rights, minority rights, human rights, electoral rights, sexual preference rights, consumer rights, animal rights, social rights, labor rights, citizen rights, immigrant rights, healthcare rights, environmental rights, welfare rights, to list just a few. What is a right?

A right is defined by authority. For example, if someone begins speaking and they are in no way prevented from speaking, then they have the authority, or the right to speak. But if someone else does prevent them from speaking, then their authority to speak has been taken away, or in other words, they no longer have the right to speak. A less obvious example would be breathing. We normally don’t question our right to breath, but if the authority which allows us to breath was taken away, we would stop breathing and become dead. Murder usurps the victim’s authority to breath, or in other words, murder abolishes the right to life. In summary, a right is the authority to think, to speak, and to act.

Where does authority come from? One possible answer is from man;* man creates authority. For example, one man is physically or mentally stronger than another man, and uses this strength to assert authority over the weaker man. In society, men collaborate and agree upon the creation of laws, and then from the authority of the law delegate some degree of authority to other men to administer or enforce the law.

Aside from manmade authority, the only other source authority could come from is the creator of man. Man calls this concept of a Creator, God. If, however, we conclude that there is no God, or in other words that man was not created and comes from no identifiable origin, then all rights and all authority only come from man and are relative. If we conclude that the origin of man is indeed God, then specific absolute rights and authority are given to man from God. We commonly refer to these rights as inalienable, meaning that certain defined authority is inherently given to every man as part of his creation or formation.

Manmade rights, the authorities that come from man, are notoriously inequitable and are in constant conflict. Man is by nature an egocentric creature, who unless challenged by someone more powerful, considers his rights and his authority as superior to those around him. Take for example a typical politician, who professes one standard for his constituents, but personally lives by a completely different standard. This selfishness is manifest in all types of social organizations, in education, in business, in religion, in a family; and the resulting conflict leads to the rights of one man being subjugated to the elevated rights of another. And even when inequities are brought before a court of law, the judge and/or jury’s administration of equity and prudence is at times suspect. In summary, man continually proves his inability to create equitable rights and authorities.

On the other hand, God-given rights and authorities are perfectly equal. Man may be born with inequitable physical, mental, and socio-economic opportunities, but the inalienable rights are always the same. The right to think, to speak, to act, to own property, to defend property ownership or to pursue happiness, are some of the inalienable rights given by God, and are equal to all men. God sees all men as equal. Man sees other men as unequal, and to prove his point, he uses the ignorant rationalization that because men are not born physically, mentally, and socio-economically equal, God really does not see men as equal. Such a paradigm naively dismisses the reality that if we were all perfectly created the same, then what would be the point or the purpose of this existence on earth? Through imperfection, we can learn and develop. Through failure, we can succeed. Through pain, we can appreciate joy. Through need, we can lift and support each other. In other words, without the opposition that imperfections provide, what seems like a perfect utopia would actually be an existence entirely void of understanding or feeling; being placed on top of a mountain would be meaningless compared to the exhilaration experienced after conquering a difficult and dangerous climb from below. Clearly, our Creator understands this reality, or we wouldn’t have been created with different imperfections and the opportunity to climb mountains.

Probably the greatest confusion and distortion of authority is the claim that one man has the right to receive a tangible good or service from another man. If God gave all men the inalienable right to own property, and one man needs or wants the property that another man owns, then inalienable rights are rendered unequal to forcibly take from one man in order to give it to another. It is self-evident that God expects man to voluntarily give of himself to help other men in need, but in providing the assistance, not to take away the receiving man’s opportunity to climb mountains. But if there is no God, then inalienable rights do not exist, and men act as pseudo gods by forcing one man to give of his property to another man based on relative assessments of excess, needs, and wants. In summary, the authority to take by force from one man in order to give to another man does not come from God; it comes inequitably from men with elevated rights and unjust authority.

The rights of man define freedom. Freedom is man’s opportunity to exercise all of his inalienable rights so long as he does not violate any other man’s inalienable rights in the process. God gives absolutely equitable inalienable rights. Man selfishly creates under the guise of equality, relative rights that are inequitable. Government’s sole responsibility is to protect and preserve freedom by using its authority to equitably protect all of the inalienable rights of it's citizens.

* Simply for communication efficiency, “man” refers to every human being, inclusive of all races, cultures, sexes, ages, with exceptional abilities or handicaps, who has lived, is currently living, or will live on this planet we call earth. Specifically it is one individual of the human species, unique to all others as evidenced by a complex genetic code, and yet equally part of a genus which is remarkably superior to animals while being remotely inferior to a god.

The Zoo

In the wild, animals roam free. In the zoo, animals live in captivity. In the wild, only the laws of nature govern as many animals fall prey to predators or starvation. In the zoo, caretakers provide all of the animals’ food, shelter, and medical attention. In the wild, risk is common. In the zoo, risk is virtually eliminated.

Should humans live in the wild or in the zoo?

While biologically humans are strikingly similar to some animals, intellectual comparisons become dishonest; the capability of the human intelligence is so vastly superior to any primate in the animal kingdom, it seems an ironic misuse of human intelligence to dwell on the diminutive percentage of similarities. And yet, when human intelligence is misused or unemployed, a human can think, decide, and act like an animal. Such humans, commonly referred to as criminals, are routinely placed in the zoo, in order to protect other humans who are roaming free in the wild. This reality alone proves the superior intelligence of humans; the capability to tame the wild through the creation and enforcement of laws of man that temper the laws of nature by providing a degree of protection for the innocent from the predator.

Unfortunately, in the wild, only a degree of protection can be provided, and risk is still common. But the only way to fully protect and eliminate all risk is to place all humans, both innocent and predator, in the zoo. But if all the humans are in the zoo, then who will be the caretakers, and where will the resources to take care of the humans come from? In such a scenario, the caretakers, or the privileged humans who believe they are more intelligent than the others, force the humans in the zoo to work instead of play in order to provide the resources to keep the zoo operational. Curiously, in the human zoo, history has shown that the caretakers eventually become the worst predators.

Freedom is only found in the tamed wild, where risk and the opportunity to roam is only tempered by the intelligence needed to properly identify and restrain the most dangerous predators.

In the wild, animals roam free. In the zoo, animals live in captivity.