An Honest Reflection

I’ve just gone to war with my county tax assessor for the second time in three years. Yes, Texas, where the property taxes are assessed by some idiot in a mental facility drawing valuations in crayon, when he’s not eating them.

Texas has the highest property taxes of any western state other than Nebraska at 1.31%, but that’s not the most egregious aspect of it. The real assault comes from the valuations. In the past six years, I’ve had my property valuation increase 40%. This was done primarily in two years, in 2023 and 2026, where it jumped 20% each time. I’m sorry, but I live in a rural, sparsely populated, sparsely industrialized area filled with mostly cattle ranches, oil well pumpjacks and tank batteries.

Most houses for sale have been for sale for at least a year, some longer. The listing price typically is reduced, sometimes by huge amounts for the overall price of the house. There is effectively, no housing market to speak of, much less one that would cause such drastic jumps.

That’s all my personal perspective, the part that involves everyone is the aspect that should one fail to pay their property taxes, the county can foreclose on it and sell it off. I raised this issue with a county commissioner over a cup of coffee. In trying to explain my point I pointed to the empty cup in my hand and said, “Do you know how I know that I own this cup?” He shook his head. “Because no one will ever ask me for another dime, no matter how long I have it. Everything else is rent. If the government rents us our property, it is not owned and we don’t owe a dime for something we don’t own.”

It is, in effect, government property, which means, we are not a republic, but a communist state. If one thinks of taxes as rent, we don’t have private property in the US. All we own is our trash.

The other egregious fact of this predicament is that we’re taxed on unrealized income. It’s no wonder governments are starting to look at our 401Ks and stock purchases as a source of funds, they’ve been doing that at the county level for decades in taxing real estate.

And, getting further into proof that we have been communized in our sleep is the Sixteenth Amendment that taxes “income” from whatever source derived. But labor is not “income” it’s a trade. I trade my time for a specific amount of money that I deem an even trade. If my productivity exceeds that of the rate I charge, that’s profit to the corporation. “Income,” in this sense is meant to be that money one makes from something other than labor, like investments. When the investment works out and I sell for higher than I bought, that’s income and what the Sixteenth Amendment addresses is that sort of “income” from whatever source derived, either buying and selling, investing, collecting, whatever.

I don’t know, or care, what the the regulatory law says, whether they decided to include wages as “income” or not, it’s not in the Sixteenth Amendment. It was the original “wealth tax.” That’s why, whenever I hear the mantra about only taxing the rich, all I have to do is think back to 1913 and recognize that what was once a wealth tax has grown to include us all.

The crucial point here is that the facts bear out that we don’t own private property, that there is no such thing. We don’t own our own bodies, either and have no right to trade our labor for cash or other items of value without government taking a piece of the pie. The government effectively rents us to our employers and is at the head of the line when it comes to dispensing our wages.

Governments have been riding the backs of the working men and women of this nation for so long that it doesn’t even feel wrong, but it should and if there is any answer to our situation with a government calling itself simultaneously a republic and a democracy while acting in all instances as a communist state, it’s in taking these definitions seriously.

The question then becomes, when was the last time you did something to support and defend the republic? Have you ever been asked to steadfastly support those ideals or is it just a matter that it seems to be owed to you because you were born here, in this land? Even combat veterans who have sacrificed so much for this nation, was it truly to prevent the fall of the republic, or out of strident patriotism to the idea of the United States? Or, because one’s family had always served? I served, not because my father did, but because, even at 17, I had run out of options for a future in my home town. What I learned there changed me, but I never stood guard over the demise of the United States, the conquering of my people by a foreign force on the horizon. That’s where we are now, though.

Because now, those questions are being asked, questions like: “Are we communists, really? Haven’t we accepted all of the basic precepts of communism and dressed it up in red, white and blue? Isn’t it alive in every form, but we still say republic until that word loses all meaning?

Are we, in fact, Muslim and just waiting for the final call to prayer to acknowledge it? I want to say no to all of this, but the facts point out that what you accept you become. Yes, this is out of frustration, because each day I watch all of this advance and so few people who stand in the way and are willing to truly be Christian, to truly understand the difference between a republic and communism. They aren’t shades of the same thing, they are diametrically opposed. Opposites.

The communists and the Muslims have no problem killing you over these issues and it’s time to start taking a hard look and at just what is happening, how it’s happening and devising a means to stop it. I’m onboard.

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