What To Do?

by Paul Hein

A reader was unhappy with a recent column of mine, and thoughtfully shared his displeasure with me via e-mail. “Talk, talk, talk,” he grumbled. “What do you expect me to DO?  Words don’t mean anything!”

I sympathize. In fact, I believe I have bemoaned in print the fact that many authors will paint a vivid picture of some appalling aspect of our society, and then leave us with the lame exhortation to “do something about it.” Do what?

If the evil or injustice being described is the result of government action, however--as is often the case--“what to do” is fairly obvious. For starters, you can write your Congressman. I think that those with sufficient political savvy to read this website appreciate the value of that! Or you can register your displeasure at the ballot box—assuming you think that you’re given a choice, and that your vote is anything more than a measure of the extent to which you’ve been bamboozled by the politicians.

The problem is that when facing a monstrous evil such a government, the actions of a single human being are likely to be ineffective. Sure, you could bring some sort of legal action against Uncle Sam seeking justice from, let us say, unlawful taxation; how likely is that to succeed? The system is corrupt; it can easily and efficiently deal with a squeaking wheel. It cannot, however, deal so effectively with thousands of squeaking wheels—especially when each squeak poses a problem for government that it would rather ignore. So a justification for writing an article pointing out some problem, without making concrete suggestions for a solution, is  education. If frogs don’t realize that being placed in that pot of nice, warm, water (although it gets hotter and hotter!) is going to kill them, they’re not likely to jump out. They need to be educated. Warned of the danger, they don’t need to be told what to do.

So educate.  A letter to a Congressman may be a waste of time, but how about a thousand letters, or ten thousand? Organize your neighbors and friends! Recently, a group of citizens, after years of research which clearly showed that there are grave legal problems with the income tax (such as the fact that no law imposed it upon most of us, the Sixteenth Amendment was never ratified, the Internal Revenue Code fails for vagueness, denial of due process, etc.) forced the IRS and Justice Department to agree to a public meeting, at which these questions would be presented, for the government to answer. At virtually the last minute, the government backed out. Why in the world would they do that if they could answer the questions, and put an end to the legal challenges once and for all? Group action can succeed where individual efforts are useless.

Imaginative minds—and I regret that mine is not one of them—can think of additional forms of protest that present little danger to the protestor. For example: Buy a gun. Don’t you think it would send a message if every householder in America armed himself? Buy gold and silver. We are controlled by the issuance of the fiat currency. Sooner or later, it will collapse, and its issuers will lose their power over us. That day will come sooner if more and more people start trading with tangible wealth; i.e. “money,” instead of bank credit, or phony “notes.” And, above all, educate! Let your neighbors know what you’re doing, and why. Again, it won’t do much good if you’re the only person on the block with a gun and gold!

I suspect that my critic had a clear idea of what could be done; he was, of course, much too prudent to mention it. And I am too prudent to suggest it, because it is as obvious as the prior suggestions, but, of course, illegal. The government will happily allow protest; it may even welcome it, as an indication of its concern for the public’s rights. Of course, if the protest gets nowhere, and letters go unanswered, or answered with puerile drivel, and election after election produces no change, except for the worse, the nature of the needed protest becomes clearer and clearer. It’s an old story. The Founders exhausted all their remedies, didn’t they? And then what? When the government cancelled the meeting I mentioned above, it could only have been because it knew it could not legally justify its actions regarding income taxation. So what is going to happen? The situation can only simmer and fester until it reaches a climax; at that time, nobody will need to be told what to do. But will you—and your neighbors—be ready to do it?

And, of course, pray. Our enemies are ungodly; if we are no better, we are simply complainers without principle.

March 7, 2002