In 1862, Abraham Lincoln doubted his authority to free slaves held in the Confederate states by executive order (the Emancipation Proclamation), and, according to then-congressman George W. Julian of Indiana, “used to liken the case to that of the boy who, when asked how many legs his calf would have if he called its tail a leg, replied, ‘Five, ‘to which the prompt response was made that calling the tail a leg would not make it a leg.”
That line, usually quoted using a dog rather than a calf, comes to mind for me every April as millions of Americans arrive at line 37 of the standard US federal income tax return form, the 1040:
“This is the amount you owe.”
Calling a demand for payment a debt doesn’t make it one.
Under threat of violence, you might well decide to pay “protection” money to an extortionist, but you don’t “owe” that money.
Even if the extortionist belongs to a gang which happens to have marked out some turf other people own and live on as its territory, we’re not talking about a real debt. You neither borrowed money from, nor entered into any kind of honest and voluntary exchange with, that gang.
When the gang calls itself a “government,” the situation differs not at all in kind, whatever pageantry and trappings the extortionists may drum up to justify their demands.
The claim that you “owe” a government your respect or money per a “social contract” you’ve never seen, let alone signed, is just a prettified version of “nice place you got here — be a shame if anything happened to it.”
If anything, governments are worse than the run-of-the-mill criminal organizations they otherwise resemble.
Sure, the guy who doesn’t want his bodega to burn down some dark night hands over an envelope full of cash every week to wise guys in cheap suits … but he probably doesn’t spend 13 hours a year filling out paperwork for them, like the average American does with La Cosa IRStra.
And should the envelope come up light some week, his robbers probably don’t engage in a bunch of moral posturing and self-praise. They just deliver a beat-down and a warning. The whole thing may be just as brutal, but it’s at least a little less dishonest.
You’ll probably fill out tax forms this year as always, but don’t let the government convince you that you “owe” it anything.
Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.
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