Happy Tax Day!

Paying Twice for Everything: A Love Letter to American Freedom

“Tariffs are taxes.” Well let’s just hold on one dang second: what are taxes?

In our last essay we defined tariffs as a bribe for people outside the tribe to imbibe inside your nation. So taxes are what people inside the nation pay to the bosses of their nation to maintain said nation. The penalties for delinquency vary on a scale of inconvenience to ostracism to death. But this nation was founded on that principle: “Give me taxes or give me death!” they said, smearing the earth with the blood of working class Scotch-Irish, history’s inconvenient but useful idiots.

So what’s a nation? “Nation” derives from “natio” which is Latin for “pertaining to the place of one's birth.” Ok, so let’s unpack this: nation is a place where people who are generally born near the same place agree to a certain set of rules, norms, taboos, and penalties. In our modern free market Disneyland economy, the price we pay for our luxury lives are “taxes.” Taxes are sold as a voluntary exchange between “the governed” and ‘the ruling class” under “the social contract.”

I remember well the day when I signed the social contract. I was two minutes old, covered in womb gristle. I wrote a giant John Hancock all over the social contract. It guaranteed me free schooling, healthcare, retirement, and a picket fence in a minority-free suburb for perpetuity so long as I agreed. Seemed like a good deal at the time. I may have been naive, but I wasn’t born yesterday.

“I’m doing my part!”

So fast-forward 14 years and imagine my surprise when I paid my first restaurant bill. I was faced with an additional unspoken, social contract coercing me into paying 10%-20% for (social contract tax included) services already rendered. I froze. What’s a burgeoning tax-embryo to do? I deployed all of my resources allocated to cognitive dissonance but still, for years, I could not wrap my feeble mind around why, in a free society, where everyone gets to vote and therefore has the perfect amount of information about our inherent social contract, that we would allow unscrupulous business to give their patrons the option to pay more than what was stated on the menu contract.

“No taxes on tips” - Kamala Harris said it first and then it was plagiarized by Tronald Dump. But hang on, if we’re talking about a separate, voluntary transaction, outside of the transaction, enforced arbitrarily, what does that sound like?

A tax! Eureka! Tips are taxes!

You are underwriting your waitress’ Mercedes and the restaurant owner’s mansion on Mars. Like a sucker.

And by the same logic, taxes are tips. You see, "tip” is an acronym: “to improve promptness.” Because it is metaphysically impossible for anyone other than the government to build a road. And boy do they build ‘em. We offer gratuities to the sovereign so that we can commute in a timely manner on well-maintained slabs of concrete and asphalt. Payment is prompt, construction is prompt, and there’s not a single road work site that features 5 unionized smokers standing around one guy with a shovel.

So let’s review: tariffs are taxes, taxes are tips, tips are bribes, and bribes are the grease that keeps the gears of freedom turning. It’s optional, of course. Just like tipping. Just like voting. Just like taxes. Totally optional.

And if you ever forget that, don’t worry. The IRS, the parking authority, and a thousand middle managers of state will be there to prompt you. Tazers are taxes too! After all, you signed the social contract.