The tyranny of the children

Actor and director Rob Reiner wants the voters of California to approve an extra 1.7 percent income tax on individuals who earn over $400,000 and couples who earn over $800,000. The money would go to fund preschool education for all children in the state in a voluntary program that aims to raise the percentage of kids in preschool from 47 percent to 70 percent.

Reiner cites a Rand study that purports to demonstrate that more preschool education means fewer high school dropouts, fewer cases of child abuse and fewer criminals.

Reiner says these high-income Californians can afford to pay the tax, especially after their federal tax cut.

What's wrong with this argument?

Well, his facts may be wrong, because it's hard to see how the Rand study could separate the long-term effects of preschool from the long-term effects of having the kind of parents who care about education enough to send their kids to preschool. But that's not the problem with the argument.

The problem with the argument is that it makes your freedom vanish in a cloud of baby powder.

Think that's overstated? Follow along.

Children need preschool. Their parents can't or won't pay for it. The government finds people who can easily pay for it and uses the force of government to make them pay for it.

And then what about health care? And housing? And college?

And what's that tugging on your sleeve? It's one of the Clintons, reminding you that about a billion people around the world live on about a dollar a day.

People have needs. The question is, do they have a right to other people's money?

If you think the government only picks the padded pockets of the rich, think again. The U.S. tax code provides "child tax credits" for people with young children, which means people without young children pay higher taxes, even if they earn the same or less. Why? Because the government thinks people with children need the money they earn, and people who don't have children, well, don't.

Or maybe it's because people with young children fall into the category of uncommitted swing voters, and politicians find it expedient to pander to them with money that was earned by somebody else.

If need is a license to take money from other people, then everything you have is subject to confiscation by people who need it more. You are enslaved to the needs of people you don't know and have no control over. No matter what decisions they make in their lives, their needs have first claim on your efforts.

Of course, political pragmatism and biannual elections will prevent the government from taking much more than you will tolerate. But wherever you draw the line, you will be called selfish and uncaring and you will be blamed for the suffering of other people's children, or, as the government calls them, "our children."

The framers of the U.S. Constitution didn't talk about needs or children. They were greatly influenced by eighteenth century English legal scholar Sir William Blackstone, who wrote that the absolute rights of Englishmen were life, liberty and property. He said a man has the right to his life and limbs, the right to move freely from place to place, and the right to own and enjoy his property.

Freedom is not about schools, or hospitals, or day care centers. Totalitarian states have all those things, and people swim through shark-infested waters to get away from them.

Freedom means the right to live your life and enjoy the fruits of your own efforts. Think twice before you give it up, in the name of the children or anything else.


Copyright 2005