Rodent Regatta

Klepto-nation
By Craig J. Cantoni
(For Internet publication)

There is a good reason for the Ten Commandments being verboten in the public square: One of the commandments, ”Thou shalt not steal,” is at odds with the klepto-nation that the United States has become.

Astonishingly, transfer payments account for over 40 percent of government spending. One hundred years ago, they accounted for only two percent of government spending.

Of course, the words ”transfer payments” are a euphemism, a fancy way of saying that the government is taking money from some people and giving it to other people. Transfer payments are theft, but not the kind of theft that you can defend yourself against.

If an armed robber breaks into your home in the middle of the night, you can bash him in the head with a baseball bat, you can shoot him between the eyes, or, if time permits, you can call 9-1-1 and have the police bash, shoot or arrest him. It is your God-given right and moral duty to protect your family and property.

But what recourse do you have if a thief has hired a government agent to rob your family? What do you do, for example, if a wealthy, blue-haired elderly neighbor asks the government to take money from your kid for her medicine, as the AARP crowd does through Medicare, a program that depends on intergenerational theft? If you use force to stop the neighbor, the government will throw you in jail. Similarly, the government will throw you in jail if you use force against the government agent.

In both cases, the local media will portray you as the criminal instead of the true miscreants. And if you speak out against such theft, as I am doing now, the media will portray you as an extremist and portray the thieves as moderates or progressives. Morality has been turned on its head. So has the founding principle of this nation.

The nation was founded on the principle of limited government—on the noble idea that the primary purpose of government is to protect people’s lives, property and liberty. Today, 40 percent of government power is directed at stealing people’s property on behalf of other people. Then, if the victims resist, the government takes their liberty and even their lives.

Government-sponsored theft is not any less immoral because it is done through majority vote. Voting to take your neighbor’s property is exactly the same, morally speaking, as putting a gun to his head and taking his property. Both actions are based on force—indirect force when done in a voting booth and direct force when done at the point of a gun.

Why do so few Americans see it this way? Probably because 90 percent of them have been brainwashed in government schools about the general welfare. They believe that the general welfare means government handouts, programs and entitlements that benefit them personally instead of benefiting all citizens equally, as is the case with national defense. They have not been told by schools, the media and politicians that stealing is stealing, regardless of how it is accomplished.

What about the Biblical injunction to help the poor and care for the sick? Well, I happen to believe that people have a moral responsibility to help other people who cannot help themselves, but I do not believe that people have a right to help themselves to other people’s money, no matter what their personal situation may be. And I certainly do not believe that politicians and government bureaucrats know from afar who is deserving of other people’s money.

In any event, it is in the self-interest of politicians and bureaucrats to keep expanding the number of ”deserving” people. And contrary to what George Bush believes, true compassion is voluntary, not coerced by ”compassionate conservatives.”

Since 40 percent of government spending is transfer payments, at least 40 percent of politics is over transfer payments—over who gets other people’s money. This more than anything has fueled special-interest politics, which in turn has injected billions into political campaigns, which in turn has triggered campaign finance legislation, which in turn has restricted the free speech that is necessary to throw the thieves out of office and stop the thievery.

The do-gooders who want to take money out of politics are the same people who make money the raison d’tre of politics through their advocacy of transfer payments. Do-gooders are not good at connecting dots.

Since both Democrats and Republicans now believe in legal theft, the motto of our klepto-nation should be changed from ”In God we trust” to ”In thievery we depend.”

• * *
  Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and founder of Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT). He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.