LETTER: Democrats column wrongly assigns all blame to Republican Party

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by C.S. Miller

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To the editor:

I am writing in response to Shefa Gordon's column "Immature Republican freshmen undermine government progress" ( Thresher , Jan. 26) regarding the budget impasse and government shutdown.

I will not spend my time answering the Young Democrats point for point, for your readership is probably well aware, for example, that the Republicans did, in fact, pass a budget before the deadline, and that Clinton's refusal to sign it gives him a share of the blame for the present deadlock as well as the power to shut down the government again.

Mr. Gordon is correct in that Bill Clinton is principled, but this is no less true than for his opposition in Congress.

I will not fail to call a man I disagree with "principled" just because he stands his ground.

However, I will argue at length why I disagree with his principles.

My real disagreement with Mr. Gordon and the president is with their principles .

I found it interesting that Gordon calls the lack of (immediate) pay for work endured by some government workers "slavery," since that is, in essence, what our government is guilty of each time it confiscates our wealth.

In simpler terms, a 20 percent tax rate means that someone is spending one fifth of the time he works as a slave to the federal government (whether he thinks his money is being well-spent or not) instead of earning money for his own benefit.

And if the government can take 20 percent, why not more?

"Why not, indeed!" is the answer we could expect from Democrats, as their actions over a half-century of rule would indicate.

"Why not?" For the same reason that slavery is evil. Man is a being who must survive by the free exercise of his mind, by working and planning without fear that his possessions and ideas will be stolen by someone else.

Governments exist to prevent this from happening by stopping men from using force against one another.

When a government uses its power to confiscate property, it is not only failing to protect its citizens, it is enslaving them.

Mr. Gordon, although he acts indignant about "slavery," is thus an advocate of slavery.

He considers the proper role of government that of redistributing wealth; that is, that of stealing money from the individuals that government was meant to protect.

Government exists to protect individual rights, such as the rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness, not to grant "human rights," like free housing, food or medicine.

These ideas are antithetical.

Whenever the government attempts to meet the material needs of one citizen, it must necessarily take something from another, violating his rights.

The government must protect these rights consistently, not just for those who make less than $30,000 a year, or who are sick, or who attend school, but for everyone, or those rights will erode like property rights have for the past 45 years.

Once the precedent has been set for taking part of someone's wealth, there is no good reason for not taking more of it.

You may get your student loans now, Mr. Gordon, but what kind of income tax would you like to pay later, after a couple more decades of "government progress?"

Ninety percent? Some governments tax average citizens that much!

And don't say it can't happen here. The rates we pay now would have been considered outlandish when the income tax (a "temporary" means of raising revenue) was first introduced. Clearly, then, there is a problem.

Our government consumes over a third of our gross national product, just one indication of the extent to which it now violates our individual rights.

The Republican freshmen are offering a way to begin solving the problem.

Whether we adopt their method or some other, it will be a painful process, for our whole economy has been invaded to varying degrees by the government -- but it will be far more painful to do nothing or continue the current trend set by the Democrats.

Over two centuries ago, a group of extremely "immature" men started "crying" about such silly things as taxation and the precedence of their property rights over their civic duty to house British soldiers in their own homes.

Fortunately, they failed to "act their age" and gave us a heritage of freedom and self-reliance.

If the Republican freshmen are "crying," they have ample reason to do so.

C. S. Miller

Graduate Student

Dept. of Biochemistry and

Cell Biology

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the February 2, 1996 issue.

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