Declaration Alliance, Feb 23, 2005

Declaration Alliance recognizes that of all the documents which contribute to the basic foundations of United States government, the Declaration of Independence is by far the first and most significant. Not least among its many virtues, is its explicit reference to God as the author of liberty, the creator of human dignity, and the source from which all justice flows. Without God there can be no freedom, for as history amply demonstrates, the inevitable destiny of the damned is the enslavement of man by man. It is only the acknowlegment of a higher power that restrains our craven desires, it is only the fear of God that begins the road to wisdom. Therefore it is treason of the highest order to expunge God and His demands from our civil government. Not only because it leads to tyranny and moral decay, but because it provokes the rebuke of the awesome God whose pleasure was to make us citizens of this great country. We have a responsibility to our forefathers who died for this ideal, to our fellow citizens sharing the burden of government, to our children who will inherit this land, and to God Himself, to wave this standard high and call the weary scattered soldiers of liberty to unite and stand firm against all attacks. The battle is not yet lost, we may still hope for glorious victory, but whether we win or lose, let it not be said we failed to heed the call.

The Declaration Alliance was formed by citizens who are committed to radical redirection of our civic government, back to the principles that guided Jefferson, Washington and Adams when they began this great experiment called the United States. Is this mere reactionary conservatism, a desire to perpetuate the principles of dead white males? Absolutely not. We are not fighting the same battles as they. Yet in another sense, all battles have the same purpose, to defend life and liberty against the forces that would murder and enslave us. After President Bush's 2nd inaugural address, our mission has become clearer. The United States is no longer defending the walls of democracy against the waves of tyranny, such as those that engulfed the world in 1941, but we are now engaged in a great sortie, to rout those who lay seige to liberty, to deny safe haven to all tyrants and slavers wherever they might hide. And while the army is abroad, our mission must be to watch the gates, lest by neglect of attention, we permit the very vices we vanquish in foreign lands to enter and prosper within our democratic walls.

The dangers of vice are well-known: they sap our strength to fight, they subvert noble actions to serve mean ends, they can even deny the authority that comes with victory. Therefore it is essential for the Bush Doctrine, not only that the battle secure liberty for the oppressed, but that the means by which it is secured be pure. There are many voices opposed to the establishment of an Iraqi democracy, but few of them focus on the dangers of elected government, rather the vast majority focus on the real or imagined motives of the occupying forces. Chief among the complaints is the immorality of a culture that claims to defend a God-given liberty. This is no irrelevant peculiarity of radical Islam, but a valid criticism of the whole endeavor. If we are to hold up the shining crown of freedom to the world, we must not have feet of clay.

The First Vice

First and foremost among the vices that afflict our society is abortion. If we who hold our liberty so dear, can prejudge who is and who is not entitled to the basic freedom of life, then we have sold our birthright for a mess of pottage. How can we answer a Saddam who says Shiites have no right to liberty, or a Stalin or a Hitler who deny it to Jews? If it is God who gives to men their dignity, their status, their importance, who are we to subvert His sovreignty? Can we indeed allow such discrimination without losing our own liberty? And to our shame, foreigners have been quick to point out such inconsistencies. No, these are more than inconsistencies, they are fault lines through the fortress, undermining the ability and authority of good government. Therefore, to ensure the success of Iraqi democracy, to validate the dignity of all people everywhere, to provide an heritage for our children, we must defend the rights of the unborn, we must attack the causes of this most pernicious vice, we must root out the un-American doctrines that have enslaved our generation.

There are many reasons given to rationalize this vice, even pitting the liberty of the mother against the liberty of the child. But all such attempts to justify slavery must be seen in the piercing light of God's sovreignty over men. For if it were only up to us to define liberty, it would indeed come at the cost of another's enslavement, but this great gift is not ours to grant, it can only be God's. Only He can give breath to dust, only He can give the spirit of life, though all of us are capable of taking it away. Therefore we do not rely on closely argued interpretations of the Constitution, or on a litany of imagined rights, or on perceived economic consequences to oppose abortion, but on this rock hard foundation seen in the words of the Declaration itself,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Accordingly, Declaration Alliance supports the efforts of legislatures in all 50 states that seek to pass legislation to curb this most dangerous vice, through education, persuasion or interdiction. We recognize that Roe v Wade will not be reversed without a challenge that precipitates a renewed look at this flawed decision. Some have called this a Constitutional crisis, we call it a Declaration revival.

	Color Code \| ProLife \| ProAbort \| Anti-Roe
State	Current (or prefiled) 2005 Legislation	Commentary
Federal	HJRes4-Right to Life Amendment HR216-Ultrasound Funding	A Survey of State Laws after Roe v Wade
Alabama	No Bills Found
Alaska	HB58 Laci & Connor Peterson Act SB20 Laci & Connor Peterson Act
Arizona	HB2541 Health Care Conscience Clause SB1052 Protection of Unborn Children
Arkansas	HB1033 Parental Notification SB74 Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act	Laws still on the books
California	AJR3 Roe v Wade Remembered	LA Daily News 12/31/04
Colorado	HB1106 Child Pain Awareness Act HB1072 Abortuary Licensing HB1155 Pregnancy Begins at Conception
Connecticut	HB5484 Parental Notification for Minors HB5819 Parental Notification for Abortion
Delaware	Existing Ban
District of Columbia	No Bills (by DC Council)
Florida	No Bills
Georgia	HB93 Prohibit Abortion
Hawaii	HB1240 Require Emergency Contraception HB1241 Abortion A Right HB1242 Abortion Anywhere Anytime HB1288 Parental Notification SB1111 Parental Notification HB1289 Partial Birth Abortion Ban SB1110 Partial Birth Abortion Ban HB1003 Sex Ed without Abortion
Idaho	No Bills
Illinois	HB258 Amend: Reduce State Funding of Abortion HB119 Amend: Insurance Need Not Cover Abortion HB298 Amend: Athletic Trainers aren't Aborters SB50 Amend: Disciplining Illegal Aborters HB252 Am1end: Disciplining Illegal Aborters
Indiana	SB048 Conscience Clause Exemption SB076 Require Ultrasound before Abortion SB235 Licensing of Abortuaries SB393 Licensing of Abortuaries HB1607 Licensing of Abortuaries
Iowa	No Bills Found
Kansas	No Bills Found
Kentucky	HCR 15 Urge Fed to Ban Abortion
Louisiana	No Bills Prefiled (2005 Session not begun)
Maine	LD25 Informed Consent, 24hr Wait LD262 Crimes against Unborn (viable) Child
Maryland	No Bills Found
Massachusetts	No Bills Found
Michigan	SB009 Fetal Experimentation Ban SB099 Amend: Coroner Report for Double-Fatal Abortions
Minnesota	HB245 Support "Roe" HB235 Unborn Child Pain Prevention Act HB227 Restrict Family Planning Funds HB226 Abortion Reporting
Mississippi	HB884 Licensing Aborticians HB087 Licensing Abortuaries HC39 Abortion not a right HB908 Parental Consent	Lynn Vincent, WM 1/22/04
Missouri	HB100 Abortion Ban HB143 Parental Notification Act HB144 Amend: Informed Consent HB330 Limit Abortion Funding SB002 Abortion Restrictions SB164 Limit Abortion Funding SB198 Aborticians Banned from SexEd
Montana	HB238 Informed Consent LC1191 Fetal Death Certificates SB146 Amend: No Notification of Parents
Nebraska	LB752 Unborn Child Pain Prevention LB759 Amend: Limit Abortion Funding LB301 Amend: Limit Abortion Referral LB421 Amend: Exclude Abortion Funding LB425 Amend: Defund Fetal Experiments LB218 Amend: Informed Consent
Nevada	No Bills Found
New Hampshire	HB399 Informed Consent for Abortion Act HB209 Unborn Victims of Violence Act
New Jersey	A1405 Women's Right to Know Act S169 Women's Right to Know Act A1406 Prohibits Medicaid for abortifacients A1618 Abortion Statistical Data Law ACR102 Prohibit State funds for abortions S998 Family planning separate from abortions S1149 Parental Notification S1205 Post-Viability Protection Act SR41 Limit partial-birth abortion
New Mexico	SB126 Parental Notification Act HB251 Parental Notification Act SB411 Amend: Criminal Abortion SB341 Amend: Criminal Abortion
New York	A01409 Photographing Clients Banned
North Carolina	No Bills,2005 Session not yet convened (1/31)
North Dakota	HB1487 Licensing Abortuaries HB1227 Abortion Prohibited	Judie Brown, ALL 1/14/05 James Warden, AP 1/7/05
Ohio	No Bills Found
Oklahoma	SB1011 Parental Notification SB637 Informed Consent SB619 Fetal Pain Prevention Act HB1569 Informed Consent HB1543 Informed Consent HB1805 Informed Consent HB1258 Abortifacients Banned SB872 Paternal Consent HB2038 Amend: Abortion Defined HB1257 Unborn Victims of Violence Act HB1694 Unborn Victim HB054 Amend: Conscience Clause SB667 Unborn Victim
Oregon	HB2379 Unborn Victim of Crime
Pennsylvania	No Bills Found
Rhode Island	H5056 Informed Consent H5082 Unborn Victim of Crime H5083 Informed Consent H5084 Informed Consent H5056 Conscience Clause H5144 Woman's Right to Know Act H5153 Fetal Protection Act H5195 Amend: No Abortion Right S0149 Restrict Abortion Funding S0153 Informed Consent S0154 Amend: Rape/Incest Exemption S0154 Amend: Rape/Incest Exemption
South Carolina	No Substantial Bills
South Dakota	Status Quo	2004 Legislation 5/25/04
Tennessee	HJR 14 Amend: No Abortion Right HJR15 Amend: No Abortion Right
Texas	HB16 Conscience Clause HB17 Monitor Judicial Overides of Parental Notification HB145 Informed Consent HB146 Rape/Incest Exemption HB357 Repealing Abortuary Restriction HB358 Repealing Abortion Referral Ban SR26 Commending NARAL work
Utah	Prohibition of Abortion Funding (Abandonned)
Vermont	HR7 "Roe" Commemorated
Virginia	SB839 Abortuary Regulation HB2784 Abortuary Regulation SB456 Contraception isnt Abortion HB2855 Contraception isnt Abortion HB2352 Abortician Regulations HB2350 Abortuary Regulations HB2347 Abortuary Licences HB1939 Criminal Abortions Unprofessional HB1810 Illegal to Sell Fetal Tissue HB1809 Illegal to Sell Body Parts HB1677 Unreported Fetal Death HB1662 Parental Notification HB1524 Fetal Anesthesia Required
Washington	HB1433 Parental Notification HB1562 Partial Birth Abortion Ban
West Virginia	No Bills Found (Session not yet convened)
Wisconsin	No Bills Found
Wyoming	No Bills Found

The Second Vice

Freedom, like life itself, is the most fragile of possessions. We must eat every day, breathe every minute, even our heart must beat every second to stay alive. Anyone and anything can take away life or liberty, and only by constant attention, continual diligence, and unwavering devotion can it be preserved. If we do not value our freedom, there are numerous opportunities to throw it away; debt, drugs, violence, greed, shame, anger, ignorance, are just a few of the modern forms of the slaver's shackles. Second only to birth, the basis of liberty, the greatest virtue of freedom is the preservation of liberty. But unlike breathing, it does not come naturally to men, but must be taught, modelled, and trained. If our children are to remain free, we must teach them the meaning of persons, the dignity due all men, the responsibility of bearing God's image. We must teach them to control their passions, to value their promises, and to number their days. Only in this way can we guarantee a future they can choose, a future where choosing is still possible, a future with children.

Therefore it is a vice with far-reaching consequences to fail to teach our children these lessons. Neither the magnitude of the task, nor the length of the assignment, nor the inabilities of the teacher should prevent us from the attempt, for God does not give us the gift of life without also providing the means of sustaining it. The very act of teaching these lessons to our children is perhaps the greatest lesson of all, for it explains the importance, the continuity, the purpose of life itself. This is so important it is even reprehensible to abrogate to others the task. And it is morally repugnant to forbid the instruction of one's own child. If we, who value liberty, deny others the freedom to teach the meaning of liberty, what definition have we modelled? If something freely given us by God is now dictated by the state, have we not exchanged a shining gift for iron chains?

How then should the state guard this important liberty? For if it prescribes some fixed curricula, it has set a precedent that others can twist toward propaganda and indoctrination, as indeed has happened and is happening both in our country and abroad. Like democracy itself, we find the remedy for abuse in the will of the people. It is absolutely essential for parents to have the right to choose which school they wish to enroll their children, whether public, private or homeschool. The only choice not offered is to avoid educating their children altogether. Further, when the state is engaged in education, it must not be the public at large, who have the final say, but the parents themselves. It is the parents who have the ultimate authority over their child's education, not the neighbors, not the state, and God-forbid, not the professional educators. And like the Miranda clause that every state trooper has to recite while making an arrest, every schoolchild taught by the state should also know their right to choose an education, and should have the Declaration of Independence recited to them.

Therefore Declaration Alliance supports the use of school vouchers as a necessary remedy for the vice of indoctrination, for the desire to control others through abuse of education. States which have passed or are passing legislation in this important area are listed below.

Disclaimer The amount of legislation in the area of education is simply staggering. Whereas "abortion" legislation varies from 0 - 13 bills in a single state session, "education" bills number in excess of 100 for some states. We do not hope to filter all of these bills through this site, and therefore select bills we think are helpful or egregiously harmful. But the lesson we draw from this exercise is that less, not more, state interference in education is desirable, for if bills and money alone could solve the problems of the American educational system, we would have the best schools in the world bar none.

	Color Code \| ProVoucher \| ProNEA \|
State	Current (or prefiled) 2005 Legislation	Commentary
Federal
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana	No Bills Prefiled (2005 Session not begun)
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey	A469 Choice of Kindergarten A540 Permits home-schoolers participation A1686 Require "Founding Fathers" in Core Curricula A2279 Get-out-the-12th-grade Vote A376 Torture Teachers Banned A2139 $40k Minimum Wage for Teachers A787 Eliminate Abstinence Priority from Sex-Ed A1214 Fund School District (NEA?) Lobbyists
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

The Third Vice

The first two vices have really been a restatement of the first two unalienable rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, now we come to the third right, that curious phrase that like the Interstate Commerce Act, has been an omnibus of conflicting claims: The right to "the pursuit of happiness".

What a quaint turn of phrase! How, you may ask, can hedonism be even considered on equal footing with our unalienable rights? Consider the Declaration sentence again,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

the first two items are inseparable, twins joined at the heart, but the third is a verbal phrase, an ongoing action, one of many aspects of living, which seem almost optional to life. Why would the framers of the Declaration include this particular behavior in their list of unalienable rights? Perhaps because it was meant to epitomize what it meant to have life and liberty. Just as breathing defines breath, and drinking defines thirst, so pursuing defines the pursued.

Then is pleasure the purpose of liberty? By no means! Happiness is something completely different, regardless of how our culture presently mutilates the phrase. Rather, happiness is an intentionally human, personal, subjective thing no one can force upon us. Happiness is a self-determined, self-contained purpose, that cannot be defined for us, but must be rediscovered individually. If any government or committee were to tell us what would make us happy, we would view them with the same suspicion as the parent who says "this hurts me more than it hurts you." It is condescending, it is demeaning. And it is also untrue. Just as we cannot judge another's feelings, so we cannot guarantee their satisfaction.

Therefore the use of this phrase is positively brilliant. For no matter what noun might have been a better summary of liberty, it could be and would have been revised and twisted into some Orwellian parody of language. But by grounding the meaning of life and liberty in this intentionally subjective phrase, the framers made it clear where the responsibility for meaning lay, within ourselves. And so we come to the great paradox of life and liberty. It is a right given by a power that must be greater than us, yet holds a meaning that is only definable by ourselves. Its authority comes from above, but its care and feeding must be ours alone. It is the counterpart to believing in the dignity of all men, that we require all men to act dignantly, in accord with their conscience. The framers could have followed 1000 years of tradition and used the noun "faith" to describe this self-dignity, but perhaps the previous two centuries' wars of religion showed the futility of capturing attitudes with abstractions.

So the Declaration uses in the place of "faith", a word that carries with it all rich connotations of the best of Enlightenment philosophy, all the traditions of heroes and saints whose highest happiness was the Good of all. Hedonism and Materialism were furthest from their thoughts, Behaviorism and Darwinism had not yet appeared, so that "happiness" carried the meanings of "altruism" and "charitableness", with all the virtues of classical thought refined by 15 centuries of faith. They wrote it this way to insure generality, to avoid the hijack of "faith" by unscrupulous leaders, to put the responsibility squarely in our hands. And they were mostly successful, until now.

For we have passed through a century of fire, a century of world conflicts both cold and hot, a century of modernism that clinically dissected humanity without finding happiness. Instead of faith we were given pleasure, being told that this was all that could be found under the knife. Instead of pursuit we were promised possession, possession of all the euphoria wealth, sex or drugs could induce. But happiness eluded us. So in our bitterness we have wished to deny all other joy, even censoring those who appear too happy. In our misery we have stifled all expressions of hope. The tale of Ebenezer Scrooge is the tale of the 20th century, promising satisfaction of wealth but delivering poverty of soul.

Therefore Declaration Alliance supports the free expression of religion in all aspects of work and life. To deny another his expressions of hope, his freedom to rejoice is the most miserly religion of all. For in truth, we are all religious, we all live by principles whether they be Diversity or Divine. But let us be generous in permitting the expression of alternate views. Those who are easily offended where no offense is given only reveal the size of their soul, not the spirit of the Declaration. For it is petty vice indeed that denies to others the victory in a race for which they themselves have failed to qualify.

States which are considering legislation to protect this basic right, this respect of human aspirations are listed in the table below. We stereotype those who would miserly oppose such legislation as "ACLU".

	Color Code \| ProReligion \| ProACLU \|
State	Current (or prefiled) 2005 Legislation	Commentary
Federal
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana	No Bills Prefiled (2005 Session not begun)
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

The Fourth Vice

We come at last to those things closest to a man's soul: the storehouse of his treasures, wealth and possessions. Whereas ninety percent of state and federal legislation concerns money, it makes up less than ten percent of the Declaration of Independence. It pales in comparison to life and liberty, and indeed, many an immigrant to America has chosen to be poor and free than wealthy and enslaved. In times of war and oppression, wealth has proven to be weak security, not deserving the attention we lavish on it in times of peace. I am reminded of an immigrant from China who related the pre-war advice, "Put your money into land, that's something the Communists can never take from you." But we are no longer at war, and in our luxury, in the success of the American Revolution, we no longer live in such dangerous times. Therefore much of the Declaration seems foreign to us, whose greatest usurpation appears to be April 15. How then do we apply Declaration principles to wealth, taxation, and property?

It takes great skill and no small amount of persuasion to convince the critical reader that there is a connection between the Declaration of Indepence and various forms of economics. Nevertheless, it should be obvious at the close of the 20th century, that economics is highly dependent on political ideology. No one should attempt to separate central planning from Communist politics, even when, as we see in China today, that central planning is capitalistic. Just as Communism comes with Marxian economics, so also Socialism and Democracy carry with them clear principles of market forces. Therefore our task in this essay is to tease out the Declaration principles applied to wealth and wealth creation.

In defending democratic capitalism, the temptation is to make pragmatic arguments, demonstrating by the economic conquest in the past century the superiority of the Declaration over the Manifesto. But as neither of the 20th century challenges to capitalism have relied on practical arguments neither shall we. Rather we will attempt to contrast the roots, the presuppositions, the worldviews that lead to either Greenpeace or G8. Is it really more just that wealth be distributed equally? Is wealth truly the root of all evil? These are the sorts of arguments arrayed against the West, and their assumptions are addressed by the Declaration.

Our first point is that we must resist, if at all possible, the redefinition of words. It is mere rhetorical flourish to assert that economic deprivation denies men their liberty, or that an impoverished life is no life at all. No it is worse than that. It is materialist despair that measures a man's life by what he owns. Just as happiness is a completely subjective purpose whose meaning is self-determined, so also "life" and "liberty" are to a great extent defined by what a man pursues. If suicide is a sickness of the rich, but not of the poor, what justification do we have in equating poverty and death? It should be clear that economic redefinitions of life and liberty are nearly always the condescending ideology of the elite, and not the practical choices of the poor themselves.

Our second point concerns the ethics of wealth. Communists view it as unmitigated evil. Socialists view disproportionate wealth as obvious sin. Both groups equate sin with stuff, morality with materialism, ethics with economics. In contrast, the Declaration assigns the essential dignity of man to something ethereal, something incalculable, something beyond both us and our environment. To be consistent, morality and ethics must also be derived from that same outside source. Consider the materialist contradiction concerning murder. If killing were only reprehensible because of the cultural or quantitative consequences to survivors, then genocide would be honorable, leaving no consequences to face. But genocide is indeed abhorrent because it violates God's law, not man's. Likewise morality does not hinge upon some utilitarian calculus, the possession of forbidden mammon, or the burning purity of intent, but morality must depend upon a higher law external to us.

Finally we come to the main point. If morality depends on God, what does God command concerning wealth? This is not such a difficult question, considering the vast amount in the Judaeo-Christian tradition on the subject. But we are not writing theology here, we are explicating the Declaration. So we must use rules of inference rather than deduction in understanding what our Founding Fathers intended.

Now it would be irresponsible to give a gift that could not be kept, for God to give us life but not the means of sustaining it, liberty but not the means of protecting it. What then are the means of life? Clearly a body, well described by materialists, with bones and flesh, nerves and sinews. And just as water and food are needed to sustain life, so also are clothes and shelter. What then are the means of liberty? We have spoken of the importance of education, of discipline, of thought. For liberty begins first in the soul, in the mind, not in the external confines of the body, for "stone walls do not a prison make". Nevertheless, the second most important liberty is the freedom to maintain our life, the liberty to breathe, and eat, to clothe and shelter. This is the material aspect of happiness, and though not primary, still remains important.

Just as it is reprehensible to confer upon the state the responsibility of instructing our children in liberty, so it is also wrong to give the state the responsiblity for feeding and clothing its inhabitants. Why? Because by controlling the means of life, the state would be responsible for maintaining life. In this contradictory situation, the right to life would be given by God to an individual, but the responsibility of living is taken away. A collision between the state and the individual is inevitable.

A story about traffic laws in France illustrates this point. In France, the driver on the right always has the "right-of-way", and cars also travel on the right lane of the highway. This produces a singular problem at traffic circles, or as they say in Boston, roundabouts. For cars entering the circle always have the right-of-way over traffic in the circle, leading to the heavy traffic equivalent of a black hole. Likewise when the state finds it has too many dependents to support, it may not respect the law that God alone gives life, and search for ways that it can be responsible for life as well. As a consequence, either God alone gives the gift of life and the means for living, or these paired responsibilities are given away.

Since the Declaration supports this unalienable right to life, it must also defend an unalienable right to the means of life. Therefore the Declaration supports the right to property, to wealth, to the control over food and drink, clothing and shelter. It would be completely wrong to view possessions as wicked, or acquiring wealth as criminal. Communism in all its many disguises is totally contradictory to the principles of the Declaration. But what about Socialism?

Should the state be concerned with the distribution of wealth? This is admittedly a gray area, which provokes a practical answer. But again, we resist the temptation to defend democratic capitalism with results, since the 20th century arguments used by Europeans in their fading Socialist countries were generally moralistic, not pragmatic. At issue is not whether one can have too much of a good thing such as too much life or too much liberty, but whether "things" have any connection to good at all? If morality is determined by God, not by man or his environment, then what material thing can possibly carry any moral authority, what object can make us any more righteous or wicked than we already are? Is it not our choices, our manipulation of things, our actions that determine our morality? Therefore disproportionate wealth has no direct ethical meaning, it is just disproportionate like height or hair color. What we do with it, however, has great ethical consequences. I am no better or worse for having inherited my father's estate than I was before, but like the prodigal son, what I spend it on has great importance.

There may be many practical reasons for a progressive tax that economists can fruitfully argue, but it should be clear there is no ethical reason for a progressive tax. Likewise using the tax code to engage in social engineering may have many practical justifications, but we should never confuse such intrusive legislation with moral authority. In fact, just the opposite is destined to occur. The more responsibility we give the state over the means of life and liberty, the more certain is the clash between our unalienable rights and the desires of the state. The law of unintended consequences is still highly predictable, no matter how misguided the proponents. If we abrogate responsibility to the state, we give permission to infringe on our liberty.

The income tax could in principle be a just and equitable method of running a government, and proponents of a "flat tax" have made suggestions on how this might be accomplished. But the convoluted tax code, with its many "gotchas" and "rewards" is neither just nor equitable. Why should using ethanol in your SUV net a tax break, or using a home office computer for reading mail be of concern to the IRS? These intrusions into the minutiae of life become more than annoyances when suddenly the IRS conducts an audit, garnishes salaries, and seizes assets. Surely there must be a better way to fund the government.

And indeed there is, it is called a sales tax. Many countries in the world support their government this way. Many states and local communities in America have no other source of income. What is truly inconsistent, the worst of all possible worlds, is to have both. To have double taxation on income and spending, to triple that to include taxation on savings and inheritances, defies logic. Surely it would be most effective to have one sort of taxation and do it well, than to have myriad taxes and collect them badly. It is not even our major concern that the method is inefficient, but that such poor laws insure the violation of some obscure provision. A law that no man can keep is worse than no law at all, for it encourages lawlessness and destroys the rule of law. It reproduces the totalitarian spirit of Communism, finding crimes for every citizen. Therefore out of respect for our laws, out of respect for our people, out of respect for our government, we must find a better solution to fund our rulers. Not surprisingly, a majority of economists argue that a sales tax is just such a solution.

In the table below, we list legislation in the federal government related to reforming the tax code.

	Color Code \| Tax Reform \| More Tax \|
State	Current (or prefiled) 2005 Legislation	Commentary
Federal

Respond to Webmaster@DeclarationAlliance.Org