Is Taxation Slavery? Reflections On Passover And Tax Time

By Alexander R. Cohen

Taxation is not slavery. But in a mixed economy, such as we have now, taxation has something important in common with slavery.

In a mixed economy, we are forced to pay taxes not only for the good we all need—the enforcement of our rights—but to serve the good of others at the expense of our own. Some of those others are the poor; some are the connected. But whenever the government taxes you for the sake of others, it violates the principle that you have a right to live for yourself, and to devote your efforts to your own life. It redirects the fruit of your efforts to sustain others instead of you, and to build their projects instead of yours. This is part of the essence of slavery: the slave is treated as existing to serve his master’s needs and plans, not his own. Read more >

Congratulations! You launched another best-seller!

Thanks to you our readers, our new book The Republican Party's Civil War: Will Freedom Win? has rocketed up over 358,000 notches in Amazon's rankings to land in the Top 10 best-seller list in the category of "Political Parties." So far it's been fluctuating between the #3 and the #5 position. Great job! If you missed this "book revolt" campaign, don't fret. We're extending the campaign by marking the book down to .99 cents temporarily. Downloading it now can help push it higher in the best-selling ranks where it will compete even more aggressively with other national best-sellers pushing deeply flawed ideas and ideologies. Read more >

How Not to Secure the Internet after Heartbleed: Regulation

By Alexander R. Cohen

Does the Internet security disaster known as “Heartbleed” mean we need regulation of Internet security software, so that our passwords won’t be leaked and our personal information compromised? . . . James Lyne, security research chief for the security software firm Sophos suggests that governments can help protect us from future Internet security disasters. “This should be stuff that’s taken seriously—regulated even—given the serious role that it plays in the internet,” he said. And there is an argument that the open-source movement as we know it, which produces a lot of key Internet software, has a fundamental weakness that contributed to Heartbleed. Still, anyone who wants to run to government to solve the problem should remember what the last great Internet security disaster was. It’s known as “the United States Government.”
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