Amerika

It’s hard to talk about the evils of overgovernance without factual evidence. In theory, we all want freedom. In practice, we all want security. The two frequently exist in tension. This is particularly true of people who will not avail themselves of their freedom to produce their own financial security.

Fans of significantly engaged and empowered government will then loudly offer government mandated security while diligently burying the costs amidst a flotsam of minutiae. “If you like your doctor, you can keep him.” They tell you.

To counteract this snow-job sales pitch, actual evidence of the cost has to be made readily available. This I call Consequential Formalism. The consequences (costs) of goverment largesse need to be formalized (made obvious and logically undeniable). The Burning Platform Blog shows us how this is properly done.

The merchant itemizes the Philadelphia Beverage Tax and clearly demonstrates that this tax constitutes about 30% of the entire transaction. The *Void Transaction* line at the bottom is the clearly demonstrated consequence. The revenue of a 30% tax on a cancelled transaction equals $0.00.

More like this please. Find the liberalism. Document the failure of the liberalism. Attack the liberalism by exposing its exorbitant costs. When these costs can’t just be buried in the dirt of bushwa and mumbo-jumbo, they will be come apparent. It will also become apparent why the person who trades liberty for security winds up with what that person deserves: neither.

Tags: big-government, parasitism, taxes