Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 4, 2012

America is a nation born in a revolt against taxation ?which is a proprietary claim made by a ruler on those who inhabit what he claims as his domain.

In antiquity, the tem ?tax? referred to a physical challenge to travelers in the form of a tap on the shield performed by the ruler?s revenue-gatherers: This was essentially an ultimatum to pay the demanded toll, or to engage in combat.

A scholarly essay entitled ?Tenting, Toll, and Taxing? published by the Western Political Quarterly in 1966 pointed out that this practice was eventually applied to anybody who was born and lived within the ruler?s claimed jurisdiction, on the assumption that such people were intruders and trespassers by virtue of their very existence.

The word tax in its many contexts ?always retains the basic idea of a charge brought against an intruder; to be taxed always implies an element of trespass, and the paying of a tax always has the flavor of appeasement,? the essay pointed out.

We?re often told that only death and taxes are inevitable. But they?re better described as interchangeable, since taxes represent the incremental theft of one?s life.

This is worth pondering today, as we celebrate the heroic tax resisters who founded the country we love.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.