It Begins — Activists Launch Movement To Make Taxation Voluntary

A groundbreaking new organization proposes multiple compelling arguments in answer to one of the most pivotal questions of our time:

What if the Government had to earn your money?

If it did — if everything from education to healthcare, law enforcement to charitable giving, to even the sacred social safety nets and retirement programs — it would function in your best interests, the Tax Revolution Institute contends, since the inane bureaucratic nightmare that is the current government strangles all semblance of efficacy from the system.

What the Institute, in actuality, candidly asks, is for individuals to step back and assess,

Is the government you fund through coercive taxation worth the price you pay?

“What if you could redirect your tax dollars whenever you saw them wasted by a government department; spent in support of a policy that does more harm than good; paid out to cronies for supporting a particular politician or campaign, or just deployed much less efficiently than by a local charity or non-profit that does a particular government job better than the government does it?” the Institute’s website asks.

Further, considering how mired in its present state of odious inertia this superfluously bureaucratic State has become — and in light of resistance to drastic, immediate change — do smaller reforms to the current tax system even offer a viable solution?

What if private organizations, non-profits, religious institutions, businesses, wealthy individuals, volunteers, and cooperatives provided assistance better befitting entrepreneurs, laborers, the impoverished, the jobless, teachers, the houseless, innovators, or anyone with a specific or general need — without costing taxpayers hard-earned income they’d rather not allocate for such programs?

At present, an insidious web of laws, regulations, endowments, subsidies, and other rules and perks has so infected the administrative structure of the government, its most efficient function is interagency back-patting. But, stripping the red tape from a foundation will do little to improve mushrooming social issues that might otherwise be alleviated by a dynamic network unassociated with the State.

A sizeable segment of readers probably raised eyebrows or rolled eyes at the mere suggestion private entities could be motivated by anything other than greed — or that the desire to amass wealth is inherently devoid of compassion — but the Tax Revolution Institute arrived on its mission by investigating societal issues through the lens of skepticism.

Before discussing a number of impressive solutions — many already functioning full steam ahead, sans interference — it’s necessary to understand the coercive nature of taxation, itself.

Because forcible taxation allows the State to allot your money as it deems fit — regardless of a program’s efficiency, effectiveness, quality, or results — and you have no recourse for misallocated funds. Your money will be spent — you just don’t have a say so.

Besides rampant corruption facilitated by decision-making for the many concentrated in the hands of the few — and the accessibility that concentration provides mega-corporations and monied interests — the tax system diverts charitable funds as a middleman before the money reaches its target.

“Since people cannot send their tax money elsewhere,” the Institute’s website states, “organizations that would address social needs more effectively or efficiently than government agencies are either underfunded or never see the light of day. Moreover, that lack of competition prevents us from fairly judging the effectiveness of government solutions against all of the better solutions we’ve been prevented from having, so the quality of those government solutions falls unchecked.”

Where businesses and charities not tied to the government must deliver quality services to satisfy funders and compete with similar organizations — primarily by cutting waste and reducing inefficiency — government agencies, saddled with a steady and ever-increasing influx of funding, aren’t beholden to pragmatism. Government bookkeeping is a notorious fiasco.

Of all the kinks in the tax system as it exists today — an expansive list that could subsume countless volumes — the issue, at its core, is the lack of voice taxpayers have in the spending of their income.

However, the Institute posits,

“If you could redirect those tax dollars, the result would be revolutionary: there would finally be an incentive – indeed, a need – for politicians and public servants to clean house, to make sure that your tax dollars were doing justly and effectively what they were taken from you to do.”

There are solutions.

Our tax system is deemed voluntary — for now, in name, alone. Taking that description to heart, a truly voluntary tax system offers an unending plethora of options for channeling your money the way you see fit. For example, the Institute suggests,

“That could mean choosing not to fund corrupt agencies; it could mean diverting money to charitable programs that outperform government programs; it could mean directing money from pet political projects to the fundamental needs of your community.

“Putting choice into our system is the only way to ensure better services, delivered more efficiently and more accountably, to the people whose wellbeing is the only reason for taking their tax dollars in the first place.”

Although the idea might be difficult in a nation whose recalcitrance drowns out the loudest call for sweeping reforms, wresting your own money from the State’s bureaucratic and regulatory quagmire and directing it to programs of your choice hardly constitutes radical engagement.

In fact, that sentiment can be reduced to a single, virtually indisputable idea:

“The tax system should serve the people,” the Tax Revolution Institute asserts, “and not the other way around.”

How to make that reality — as seen in the number of groups already subverting the ailing system — will be a pleasant surprise discussed in Part Two of this two-part series.

And as the Institute points out, the issue of taxation and inefficiency has nothing at all to do with partisan politics, rather,

“This is emphatically not a political project. It is a human one, and it is a humane one.”

READ MORE:  "El Chapo"s" Daughter Speaks Out -- “My dad is not a criminal. The government is guilty,”

Couple Forced to Destroy 40yo Pond on Their Own Property Because Govt Owns the Rainwater

Butte Falls, OR — An Oregon couple has been told they must destroy a 2-acre pond on their land — the property’s most attractive feature — because the government said so.

Although Jon and Sabrina Carey purchased the 10-acre property near Butte Falls two and a half years ago, the pond has been in place for 40 years — but that fact doesn’t matter to the Jackson County Watermaster’s Office.

“I basically bought a lemon,” said Jon, who became teary-eyed at the edge of the partially ice-covered body of water being targeted by government, in an interview with the Mail Tribune. “That’s how they explained it to me.”

But the couple desperately wants to keep the stunning longstanding feature in tact, so, as the Mail Tribune reports, the Careys have “pleaded with the Medford Water Commission to adopt the pond and treat it as a municipal water source, something Jackson County Watermaster Larry Menteer has opposed because of the precedent it would set.

“The Water Commission has rights to the watershed around the Careys’ property, where dozens, if not hundreds, of ponds are located, as well as Medford’s primary source of water, Big Butte Springs.”

And the Careys aren’t the only people in the watershed who’ve had difficulties with, well, ‘the government’s’ water.

Eagle Point resident Gary Harrington spent 90 days in jail for illegally harboring some 13 million gallons of illicit rainwater — that’s enough rain to fill around 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Harrington masterfully crafted several ponds on his property — even building docks for one, and stocking it with largemouth bass — but his insistence the water would assist in fire control and prevention didn’t satisfy the government, since a “1925 state law dictates that the water belongs to the Medford Water Commission.”

As Mother Nature Network’s Matt Hickman reported in 2012,

“The bigger story here is that rainwater collection is indeed kosher in Oregon, provided that you’re capturing it from an artificial, impervious surface such as a rooftop with the assistance of rainwater barrels. But an extensive reservoir set-up complete with 10- and 20-foot-tall dams is verboten without the proper, state-issued water-right permits — after all, Oregon law dictates that water is a publicly owned resource — and Harrington did not possess said permits.”

Harrington and the Oregon Water Resources Department waged an extended battle over the ponds, and at one point, it was ruled he would be allowed to keep everything in place — but that decision was backtracked in less than one year.

Ultimately, “Rain Man,” as he came to be called, found himself charged with nine misdemeanors, spent three months behind bars, and had to shell out $1,500 in fines — and was ordered to destroy the dams and drain all the ponds.

Harrington’s case might have been infinitely more complex than the Careys’ — considering the large volume of water and infrastructure he’d put in place — but they share the same theme of overbearing government and arguably wholly unnecessary law versus the right of people to do as they please with their property.

“When you’re honest, they take everything away from you,” said Sabrina Carey, who inspected country records — which plainly showed the pond — before they purchased the property.

Going by the book might have been the ‘fatal’ error for the couple, however, since the county didn’t take issue with the pond until Jon sought to grow legal medical cannabis on the land and had to prove there was a viable source of water for the grow operation.

According to the Watermaster’s Office, the previous owners had not received a permit for the pond, so the Careys were now in violation of Oregon regulations — and they would have to shoulder the cost of draining the water.

In an effort to prove the pond is legitimate and persuade county government to allow it to remain on the property, the couple stopped using it — even though the well on their land had run dry — and began shipping in the water for daily living and gardening from nearly Butte Falls.

They’ve also had no choice but to hire attorney Sarah Liljefelt, who filed a request with Jackson County to provide a permit for them to store water, stating, “The reservoir on Ms. Carey’s property, though small, is one of the largest in the area.”

As the Mail Tribune notes, “Liljefelt said the pond is an important source of water for beavers, otters, elk, deer, bear, mountain lion, bobcat, bald eagle osprey, great blue heron, snowy egret, Canada geese and the western pond turtle.”

By all appearances, the large pool of water does more good for the environment than if it weren’t there at all — during their fight with the State, the Careys even suggested it be used for fire control and prevention, like Harrington did, as the pond is easily accessible by fire crews.

But the county has displayed only nonsensical obstinance on the issue.

“This pond seems to be doing way more public good than not being here. Why, now, is it so important to be removed?” Jon lamented.

Indeed, the 40-year-old man doesn’t even profit from the medical cannabis grown on the land he and his wife own, as he literally gives the crop — free of charge — to friends.

“I don’t make anything out of this,” he said.

Members of the Water Commission disagree on whether this is an issue worth fighting over at all, but as the Mail Tribune reports,

“Water Commission staff found several problems with the Careys’ request, including setting a precedent that could prompt similar requests and weaken state statutes while not meeting the definition of ‘municipal water source.’ The staff found it would be very difficult to access the water stored in the pond for municipal reasons, and further monitoring and following up on compliance issues would be difficult and costly for the commission.”

However, the commission also failed to state why this should be a matter for the government in the first place — why punitive bureaucracy needs to meddle with a pond on private property, serving as a valuable ecosystem, that poses no threat to anyone or anything, and isn’t even an eyesore, must be destroyed.

Besides a trailer home and dilapidated house, the pond is the only thing of value on their acreage, and, obviously, as Sabrina said, “We didn’t buy it for the double-wide.”

She told the Mail Tribune the pond should have been registered with the Oregon Water Resources Department nine years ago, but the owners at that time did not reside on the property and didn’t do so.

They have even offered to reduce the pond’s size, allow officials to inspect it when necessary, and have provided a draft easement to the commission in hopes of allowing the prized water feature to remain intact — thus far to no avail.

“We’re just trying to do it by the rules,” Sabrina explained. “I’m trying to cooperate.”

In 2012, Gary Harrington had already been through years of conflict with government officials over illicit water — and provided CNSNews with stronger sentiment on the topic:

“When something is wrong, you just, as an American citizen, you have to put your foot down and say, ‘This is wrong; you just can’t take away anymore of my rights and from here on in, I’m going to fight it.”

That government feels entitled to not only something located on private property, but that people should not be allowed to collect rain, is everything wrong with excessive government — and the overregulation of daily life.

Surviving ObamaCare’s Crippling Costs: “Become Your Own Primary Healthcare Provider”

Are you prepared to survive… the age of socialized medicine? Health care coverage shouldn’t be life threatening, but…

Unfortunately, the skyrocketing cost of health care coverage under Obamacare is forcing millions of middle class families to do without coverage, while being forced to pay the tax penalty. To do anything else is simply unaffordable.

This is a nightmare, and incredibly unfair to American families – and yet, it is now the state of the nation. This is the crushing status quo.

Prepare for the dark times ahead – and empower yourself to keep you and yours healthy and thriving. This is something your doctor, your E.R. and your government can’t and won’t do for you.

As time goes on, health care will continue to deteriorate, yet become increasingly more expensive, less available, and with more red tape than ever. This is just not a tenable situation.

If inadequate hospital and doctor visits can cost thousands, and perhaps fail to even address the problem, hard hit and struggling Americans are going to have to turn towards each other in order to maintain good health.

According to the Patriot Nurse, in this difficult situation:

“You will have to invest in yourself, and become, de facto, your own frontline healthcare provider.”

“You are going to have to know how to assess someone who is sick among your friends and family… the burden of healthcare will be put on you, asymmetrially”

That means paying to take courses and training in first aid, CPR and basic medical – or advance your skills beyond that.

It may be wise to designate one person in your family or group to take on this role, if there are no doctors, nurses or paramedics among you.

In addition to 101 medical techniques, it would be very valuable to become learned in herbal remedies, folk medicine and other old fashioned remedies that have worked for thousands of years. If these relatively inexpensive treatments work, then you can avoid costly trips to the doctor. Eating right, exercising and maintaining good health can prevent diseases and delay problems for many years, and is well worth any effort put in.

via the PatriotNurse.com:

How has healthcare changed and what is it going to look like over the next few years? What can you do to protect yourself and your family from rising costs and declining quality of care?

Besides the outright theft and fraud inherent in the socialist system, this medical scheme is setting up the nation’s population to be chronically sick, heavily medicated, vaccinated, sedated and pumped full of chemicals and government propaganda.

As already chronically ill and obese people, many of whom are in the lower economic bracket, sign up for Obamacare – subsidized by taxpayers in many cases – the cost of providing health care soars, and treatment quality declines.

This is a downward spiral.

As frightening as it is, it is best to see it from a sober perspective, and prepare your sphere to take care of most of its own problems – medical and healthcare wise, and in many other respects.

Whatever it might cost will come back to you many fold when you need care that you can’t otherwise afford. With the right training and preparations, you might be able to alleviate minor problems or even save the life of a loved one.

Of course, it is still important to know where to go if you need a hospital, an ambulance or a specialist doctor.

As SHTF reported:

In SHTF Survival: First Response Packs for Medical Emergencies, Tess Pennington of Ready Nutrition outlines some essential tools for your medical preparedness supplies, including books, supply lists and where you can acquire them:

When there is a  medical emergency, time is of the essence. Typically, medical rescue workers who respond to accidents work swiftly by having their supplies organized and at times, pre-assembled (wound care, trauma packs) to treat patients more efficiently.  Having these items pre-packaged cuts down on response time, and gives the responders more of an advantage in properly caring for the wounded. That efficiency can easily be replicated for your medical supplies or added to your SHTF sick room.

Medical first response packs can be made ahead of time using most of the medical products that you have on hand. In fact, these first response packs are not limited to medical emergencies, they can also be used for dental emergencies as well. To prepare for a SHTF scenario, it would be beneficial to take into account the most likely medical situations you may come in contact with and plan accordingly.

Pennington provides detailed supply lists for a number of scenarios including:

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  Response packs for superficial wounds

  
  

  
  


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  Response packs for hikers

  
  

  
  


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  Response Kits for wounds that require sutures

  
  

  
  


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  Suture Removal Kits

  
  

  
  


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  Response packs for advanced wound care: bleeding wounds, gunshot wounds, stab wounds

  
  

  
  


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  Response packs for advanced wound treatment: open or bleeding wounds fractures, falls

  
  

  
  


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  Response packs for 72-Hour Kits: Intended for the treatment of open or bleeding wounds caused by gunshots, knife cuts or punctures

  
  

  
  

Self-reliance and a revolutionary spirit of wellness are what is going to separate the survivors from the growing weakness and disease of the collectivized masses. Sad but true.

Just know where your knowledge limits are, and when it is time to call for professional help (and when doing so would just be a waste of precious money).

Learn more about medical prepping, emergency supplies and health care training:

The Prepper’s Blueprint: Medical, Emergency and Life Saving Readiness

Hard Core Medical Supplies – This Ain’t Your Basic First Aid Kit

30 Most Popular Herbs for Natural Medicine

Herbal Survival Kit: Remedies for the Most Common Survival Ailments

The Four Prescription Drugs You Must Have in a Crisis… And How to Get Them

Not Wealthy Enough To Meet Skyrocketing Rates, “Middle Class Is Being Crushed By Obamacare”