{"id":26934,"date":"2015-05-16T01:00:59","date_gmt":"2015-05-16T05:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=26934"},"modified":"2015-05-09T22:58:25","modified_gmt":"2015-05-10T02:58:25","slug":"qotd-the-true-nature-of-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/05\/16\/qotd-the-true-nature-of-government\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: The true nature of government"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>The governments of these United States, from the federal to the local level, have managed to insinuate themselves between citizens and their property at every point of significance. In that, our governments are very much like most other governments, liberal and illiberal, democratic and undemocratic. We have allowed ourselves to be in effect converted from a nation of owners to a nation of renters. But while medieval serfs had only the one landlord, we have a rogue\u2019s gallery of them: the local school board, the criminals at the IRS, the vehicle-registry office, etc. Never-ending property taxes ensure that as a matter of economic function, you never really own your house \u2014 you rent it from the government. Vehicle registration fees and, in some jurisdiction, outright taxes on automobile ownership ensure in precisely the same way that you never really own your car: You rent it from the government. Stock portfolio? Held at the sufferance of politicians. A profitable business? You\u2019ll keep what income they decide you can keep. Your own body? Not yours \u2014 not if you use it for profitable labor.<\/p>\n<p>A Who down in Whoville? You should be so lucky: Welcome to Whomville, peon.<\/p>\n<p>Kevin D. Williamson, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/article\/383154\/property-and-peace-kevin-d-williamson\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Property and Peace&#8221;, <em>National Review<\/em><\/a>, 2014-07-20.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The governments of these United States, from the federal to the local level, have managed to insinuate themselves between citizens and their property at every point of significance. In that, our governments are very much like most other governments, liberal and illiberal, democratic and undemocratic. We have allowed ourselves to be in effect converted from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,41,13],"tags":[661,118],"class_list":["post-26934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-quotations","category-usa","tag-regulation","tag-taxes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-70q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26934"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26935,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26934\/revisions\/26935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}