Recent Podcast Episodes

Recorded 10/15/2004 at Radical Scholarship: The Guerrilla Movement for Liberty.  

Recorded 10/15/2004 at Radical Scholarship: The Guerrilla Movement for Liberty.  

Recorded 10/16/2004 at Radical Scholarship: The Guerrilla Movement for Liberty.

Recorded 10/15/2004 at Radical Scholarship: The Guerrilla Movement for Liberty.

Recorded 10/16/2004 at Radical Scholarship: The Guerrilla Movement for Liberty.

Recorded 10/16/2004 at Radical Scholarship: The Guerrilla Movement for Liberty.  

Recorded 10/15/2004 at Radical Scholarship: The Guerrilla Movement for Liberty.  

Presented on 29 September 2004 at the Library of the Metropolitan Club, New York, New York. Sponsored by Mr. Kenneth M. Garschina.

Presented on 29 September 2004 at the Library of the Metropolitan Club, New York, New York. Sponsored by Mr. Kenneth M. Garschina.

Lady Godiva’s naked ride on her horse was a protest over taxes.  Ship money for war ships was collected in Britain even though there was then no war.

Ideological factors, especially comparative religions, are considered. Until 1500, China was the most developed region on the globe. Confucianism has no promise of an afterlife. There are no miracles for them. They are realistic and rational. Confucius is not a god or prophet. He is revered as a great teacher. His teachings are compatible with capitalism.

The Laffer Curve from the 1920s reflects the truism that a 77 percent tax rate produces the same amount of revenue as a 7 percent tax rate. Once the tax rate exceeds twenty-five percent, less will be collected.

The institution of the State is not normal or natural. We will pay for making this error. There are not different and unequal laws applying to masters and individuals. Once you accept, incorrectly, unilateral taxation and ultimate jurisdiction in the hands of the state you are stuck.

Adams begins this session with facts about taxation being the basis of the Civil War, not slavery. If the British had not taxed the colonies, the colonies would have remained with Britain and slavery would have been ended when Britain ended it. The thousand year history of the Romans covered everything about taxes.

Does liberty sow the seeds of its own destruction? Yes, by consenting to excessive taxes. Government will not want to give up the power. Taxes were to be only for common defense, not offensive wars.

The transition from monarchy to democracy deals with how humans create more freedom than is currently had. The role of monarchs in the pre-state societies and their positions as heads of state since the feudal (1100-1500 AD) period and into the absolute monarchies were the more typical form of rulers. Democracies are rare events in history.

King Solomon, king of Israel from 970 to 931 BC, lusted after women as he grew older. He had a thousand wives and concubines. Solomon spent tax moneys for luxurious palaces and his harem. His treasury was soon empty, so he found new ways to drain money from his people.

Correlations between IQ and GDP of countries exist. Without the state, what natural order evolves? Details of the theory of private property are given as the means for society to survive. People own themselves and have never doubted that the instruments that they produce are theirs as well. This extended visibly to certain land territories.

Adams suggests nine reform items to tame the tax monster: 1) tear down the spy system, 2) establish a crime for tax extortion as well as a civil action for damages, 3) establish a civil action for damages for tortious tax administration including: malicious tax investigations, extortions, leaked information and grand jury abuse, 4) have all federal tax districts coincide with congressional districts and provide for the recall of district directors, 5) adjudicate tax disputes like any other debt, 6) decriminalize the tax law, 7) make congressional representatives and federal judges immune from the IRS, 8) make our federal tax system indirect as much as possible, and 9) another reform measure that may take the forefront in tax reform is a national consumption tax, like a sales tax.

Adams begins with a few tidbits: taxation problems caused the end of Egypt and the taxes that the Greeks put on the Jews were an excessive one-third. Sulla of Rome created special tax agents, essentially IRS agents, to collect taxes. Cicero felt that the era of chaos made a military dictatorship inevitable, saying that, “And so in Rome only the walls of her houses remain standing… our Republic we have lost forever.”