Supporters of Social Security pat themselves on the back for the “compassion” they supposedly demonstrate through their support of this socialist program. They claim that anyone who supports the repeal of this program (such as me!) lacks compassion for the elderly.
But the truth is that there is no genuine compassion whatsoever behind this socialist program or, for that matter, any other socialist program. That’s because of two reasons: (1) Like with all other socialist programs, Social Security is based on the initiation of force through taxation. Force and compassion are opposites. Compassion comes only through the willing heart of the individual; (2) Social Security is based on being “compassionate” not with someone’s own money but rather with the money that has been forcibly taken from other people through taxation.
And make no mistake about it: Taxation is based on force. If you refuse to pay your taxes, the government will punish you harshly with arrest, prosecution, conviction, incarceration, and fine. That’s what force is all about.
Irwin Schiff
Consider, for example, Irwin Schiff, the famed tax protestor who died in 2015. Schiff refused to pay income taxes to the federal government because he believed that the income tax was illegal and unconstitutional. He wrote many books along these lines, including The Federal Mafia, which advised people of the reasons that Schiff claimed enabled them to stop paying income taxes.
Federal officials were so enraged over Schiff’s “fraudulent” claims that they actually persuaded the federal judiciary to issue an injunction that required Schiff to stop selling his book. Schiff responded by simply posting the book for free on his website.
However, Schiff did not fare as well when the feds came after him with a federal criminal indictment for refusing to pay his income taxes. They came after him with a vengeance — that is, without any compassion whatsoever.
Their vengeance shouldn’t surprise anyone. After all, don’t forget that the only way that the feds can send out those Social Security payments, which are supposedly based on compassion, is by first collecting the money through taxation. If people don’t pay their taxes, the feds cannot send out those compassionate Social Security payments. The more people that Schiff convinced to stop paying their taxes, the greater the risk that the feds would lack the money with which to continue sending out those compassionate Social Security payments. According to Wikipedia, “In 2003, the Internal Revenue Service had identified about 5,000 tax returns filed by about 3,100 of Schiff’s customers in a three-year period, reportedly representing about $56 million in attempted tax evasion.”
The feds also knew that given Schiff’s tremendous popularity as well as the popularity of his books (250,000 combined sales), they had to make an example out of him. Otherwise, there was the distinct possibility that there would be copycats popping up making the same claims and selling lots of tax-resistance books.
On October 24, 2005, Schiff was convicted of the criminal offense of refusing to pay income taxes in a U.S. District Court in Las Vegas. He was 78 years old. To teach him and everyone else a lesson, the judge slapped him with a jail sentence of 12 years and 7 months. That would mean that he’d be 90 years old when he completed his sentence for refusing to pay his taxes. But to add a bit more punishment to Schiff, the judge imposed an additional 12 months in jail for “contempt of court.” Schiff was also ordered to pay over $4.2 million in “restitution” to the federal government, which maybe would be used compassionately to send to Social Security recipients or maybe just to fund the U.S. wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq, where compassion shown to the people of those two countries was always in short supply.
Schiff wasn’t the only one they made an example of. They also secured a conviction of his girlfriend Cynthia Neun, who received a jail sentence of more than 5 years and ordered to pay “restitution” to the federal government of over $1.1 million. They then secured convictions of at least 11 people who followed Schiff’s recommendations.
In 2015, Schiff was ill with terminal lung cancer. His release date from prison wasn’t until July 26, 2017. His family requested an early release from prison for compassionate reasons — you know, the same type of “compassion” that supposedly undergirds support for Social Security. Others supported this application for early release. See, for example, this article from Forbes entitled “Let Irwin Schiff Die With His Family Not In Prison.”
Unfortunately, however, not enough vengeance had yet been inflicted on a man who threatened the funding for the “compassionate” socialist program known as Social Security. The feds said no. They forced Schiff to die in prison, which he did on October 16, 2015, at the age of 87.
The feds got their vengeance against Irwin Schiff. Every “compassionate” supporter of Social Security should never forget that.