What We Owe - EPautos - Libertarian Car Talk (2024)

We are regularly told that we “owe” money to the government; it literally says this on the forms we’re obliged by law to fill out each year that oblige us to provide information that could be used against us by the same government that says we “owe” it money – and so much for the Fifth Amendment that says we have a right to not be forced to self-incriminate.

Kind of like the way the First Amendment doesn’t apply anymore when the government uses proxies such as “social media” to censor free speech; which is pretty clever, one must admit.

And the way the Fourth Amendment is suspended at airports and on the “public” – that is, government-controlled – roads, when the government’s courts say it’s “reasonable” to subject people to random searches, without probable cause to suspect a crime has been committed or is about to be committed – provided there is a “compelling” interest in randomly searching people just-because.

And so it goes.

But what – if anything – do we owe our fellow man?

It cannot be money or any other material thing – absent having incurred a debt of some kind – because if not, to say money or material things are “owed” is to say what a mugger says in a dark alley. Just without the mugger’s straightforwardness. Which is why, of course those who mug us legally do not use straightforward language. They use inverted language.

More finely, they use language against us. In order to make us think we do, in fact” “owe” the mugger money – as much as he says, whenever he says.

A good example of this being what I wrote about the other day when the government sent a mugger to “assess” the value of what I (like many homeowners) quaintly like to think of as my house, since it was me who paid for it with my money that no one else worked to earn. This is a silly, of course since if I did own it, it would a crime for some random person to “assess” its value and then demand money from me based on this “assessment.”

But you see how it goes. By calling it an “assessment” it sounds better than what it is. Just as them telling you what you “owe” sounds like something it isn’t; i.e., a morally legitimate obligation to pay for something you agreed to pay for.

They will say, of course, that by agreeing to buy a home, you have agreed to pay what they say you “owe” in order to be allowed to occupy the home. It doesn’t say that anywhere on the contract/paperwork, of course. It is just accepted with strange insouciance as part of the deal. Just as it is accepted – by most people – that when you go to work, you somehow “owe” other people a portion of what you earned.

This is called your “fair share,” which is another interesting inversion. It is not far-removed from the idea – asserted in some cultures – that a woman “owes” a “fair share” of herself to any man in need of sexual release. The underlying principle is essentially the same. Because you have something they need – something they want – you have an obligation to give it up.

So what do we owe – if anything?

Three things, if we wish to live in peace with one another. They are – in no particular order of priority – Civility, Forbearance and (when agreeable to both parties) Cooperation.

Civility is often regarded as politeness – and that is certainly an element of it. A civilized society is not possible, by definition, when people are uncivil toward one another. That is to say, when they are casually impolite toward others. But civility is more than just good manners. The pretended civility of obedience to authority – out of fear of authority – is not a hallmark of civilization. It is a measure of its opposite. It is the coerced bonhomie of “comradeship,” as in the old Soviet Union. Or the “neighborliness” of Minnesota under Tim Walz, where armed troops are sicced on people who dared to walk outside their homes contrary to orders.

True civility is – fundamentally – respect for what isn’t yours. Like your neighbor’s house or any “assessed” portion thereof. If it’s his, it isn’t yours. Just as yours isn’t his. Such an agreement makes for the kind of real civility Americans enjoyed at one time – when most Americans respected the sanctity of other people’s property. Which, in turn, had the marvelous benefit of inducing others to respect the sanctity of theirs. It was very civilized. As opposed to the faux civility of pretending to smile when the “assessor” appears – and when you hand over what you “owe” to the lady behind the desk at the county tax office. Probably, you’d like to smash her face in. But you have to be polite – just like a comrade in the old Soviet Union – because if you’re not, it is understood what will happen to you.

Forbearance is another way of saying live – and let live. That is to say, you have the asbolute right disagree with and even seriously dislike what others say and even do. But so long as what they do does not directly cause tangible harm to you, exercising forbearance is the right thing to do. A fine example is accepting that a person who prefers not to wear a seatbelt or a helmet has the right to take that risk – with the proviso that he assumes the responsibility that goes along with it. When a society disconnects responsibility from risk-taking, one ends up with a society in which every putative risk – no matter how trivial – becomes a justification for exercising tyrannical control over people whose actions have not actually caused any harm and who therefore bear no responsibility for what they haven’t done.

We saw how that went during the “pandemic,” as it was called.

Imagine how much more civil – how much more peaceful – it would have been if people had exercised forbearance toward one another. If people had accepted that other people who wished to wear a mask ought to be free to wear one but that no one should be forced to wear one. That those who wished to stay home had a right to stay home but that no one had any right to force anyone else to remain “locked down” at home.

That it is acceptable for a private business to open its doors to anyone who wishes to enter because no one is forced to enter. As opposed to forcing private businesses to close their doors to customers who wished to enter because both were willing to accept responsibility for the risk, if any.

Forbearance is really just a fancier word for saying minding one’s own business. As opposed to minding the business of others, which is anathema to both true civility and to civilization.

Finally, cooperation – mutually and freely agreed upon. The latter italicized to emphasize the difference between true cooperation and the coerced “cooperation” of authoritarianism. The kind entailed by the comradeship that existed in the old Soviet Union and neighborliness of Walz’ Minnesota.

When people are free to get along – and free to disagree, when they don’t – you end up with real cooperation, the kind that builds rather than destroys civilizations. Your neighbor comes over to ask whether you’d be willing to help him put up a fence. You agree – and neither of you resents the other. As opposed to your neighbor “asking” – in the authoritarian sense that he’s telling you – that you “owe” him a sum of money because he needs a fence built and you’d damned well better hand it over.

Or else.

Civilization and “or else” cannot coexist for long. Eventually, “or else” comes to replace civilization – and then you have what we’ve already almost got.

With more on the way.

. . .

If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.