75

When taxes are too high,
people go hungry.
When the government is too intrusive,
people lose their spirit.

Act for the people’s benefit.
Trust them;
leave them alone.

Tao Te Ching, by Lao-tsu, trans. by Stephen Mitchell

Scholars Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall observed that much of the Tao Te Ching amounts to the observation that much suffering incurred by ordinary citizens is the immediate consequence of poor government.

These few lines in verse 75 certainly speak to that theme. The relationship between high taxes and hunger is deceptively simple. Value is measured by GDP, total goods and services produced over a period of time, the result of energy expenditure, of work. When an inordinate segment of the pie is retained by those charged with dividing the pie (government) – hunger is intensified, and becomes widespread. This concept is simple, straight forward. We ought not be deceived by the simplicity of the matter however.

A government that decides who gives (the taxed) and who gets (the beneficiaries), has yet another effective lever, to massage public opinion. Propaganda is an insidious intrusion, a relentless reinterpretation of experience, to convince me that up is down, and down is up. A tariff, on its face is a tax upon the American customer; other interpretations are bald speculation.

Propaganda at the most egregious is the drumbeat of “patriotism” – that if you are not willing to kill a stranger in a foreign land, when so ordered, then you do not love your country. Such messaging is an intrusive lie.

The intrusion takes many forms. To insist that the undocumented individuals who mow our lawns, clean our homes, and wash our soiled cutlery, working unseen at the back-of-the-house ought to be rounded up like cattle, and exiled to somewhere else, – is a most monstrous lie.  Another intolerable form of government intrusion.

I could go on. Analysis is abundant concerning government oppression. Extended meditation upon the dissolution of social well-being, the damage, which in our ignorance, we are doing to ourselves, is dispiriting.  Furthermore “beating a dead horse” does not make clear what one ought to do to materially resist authoritarian coercion. I have had my fill of intelligent, granular writing, and podcasting about our dilemma. At this juncture nobody has stood to lead any opposition. Where do we go from here? I wish that I knew.

Ideally though the old Master provides sound advice:

1. Cultivate good will, a desire to benefit the person next to me.
2. Remind myself, never to discount the other’s ability or the other’s reason.
3. Be responsible for my own well-being, by blaming no one, by exploiting no one.