Bastiat Still Right After 155 Years

SPUD NOTES: Mike Oliver's Aug. 7, 2005 letter-to-the-Coeur d'Alene Press-editor is a peach. Please take note. If Mike happens to read Liberty Spuds, I'll send him a free copy of "The Proper Role of Government." (It sounds like he's already read it because the Bastiat quote is in it, too.)

Visit: www.properroleofgovt.org

Bastiat Still Right After 155 Years

A thought now plagues my mind after meeting with more than 400 fellow citizens in Coeur d'Alene at the recent public forum on property tax reform.

I heard people give reasoned pleas as to why they deserve a tax cut based on age, financial standing, lack of receiving benefits of current programs (the public schools taking the largest hit) and owning property both in Washington and Idaho.

Every claim was a valid claim! I fear, though, in today's era, that each one would be content if they received their desired cut, while others did not.

There is a word that describes the reason for this -- should I dare mention it? I must. It is socialism. We must first learn its definition, learn how to identify it and learn why it is wrong.

Socialism, in its very nature, creates classes from amongst peaceful people who would otherwise not be at odds, and drives a wedge between them. It creates an atmosphere that breeds, in the lives of people, the desire for specialized exemptions (relief) at the sacrifice of other's freedom.

What happened to freedom and justice for ALL? Socialism must be stopped in our hearts before the effects of this heinous idea are removed from our societies. It must die a thousand, a million deaths for the survival of our nation, state, counties and towns.

But how are we to define it? The most brief definition I have found is, "The transfer (taking) of privately held property or liberty from the individual and giving it to another individual or group by force." This so happens to be a good definition of theft as well.

Try this test as suggested in an 1847-48 writing from Frederic Bastiat (The Law): "See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong."

Will you, the good people of Idaho, continue in this theft of property at the sacrifice of your fellow neighbors?
No more discussion about "HOW MUCH property tax," push for "NO MORE property tax."

MIKE OLIVER
Post Falls