Different Views of the Taxpayer

It appears that the Village News has some thoughts that are in limbo about the Chesterfield Taxpayer. We fixed the picture to depict what we think of the Chesterfield Taxpayer. (We are the bosses after all)

Let’s deconstruct the progressive viewpoint espoused by the Editor of the Village News

Our state legislators need a wakeup call. It’s time that they step up to the plate and do what we elected them to do: provide for the common good. … Thomas Jefferson said, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

Perhaps the indoctrination of editor into the progressive movement is now complete. However, truth will win out as our Declaration of Independence, penned by Thomas Jefferson, plainly states “That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”. We elect representatives to protect our rights as they take an oath to protect and defend the Virginia Constitution and the US Constitution. Both documents protect rights and limit our government’s power, just as old TJ envisioned.

The editor clearly believes that the government is there to provide things for the collective. Thomas Jefferson would take issue with the Editor’s progressive pushiness stating:

“That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.”

Let us remind the gentle editor that the government is force. The government always requires property to be taken from someone and given to someone else in the form of taxes. A limited government is closer to providing true liberty than any other form. Returning to the words of Jefferson so there is no doubt:

I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.

OR

"A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."

Jefferson stands against the progressives of the modern era and those in Chesterfield County that believe that bloated governance is good governance.

Finally Thomas Jefferson was no friend to the newspapers; he would much preferred the Taxpayer’s blog where civil discourse reigns supreme…

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers - TJ

For good measure, In a July 7, 1793 letter, TJ urges Madison to keep local newspapers in check…

"for god's sake, my dear Sir, take up your pen, select the most striking heresies, and cut him to peices [sic] in the face of the public."

Done. Hot spud returned to Editor’s lap.

So the Taxpayer recommends that you of good conscience do not remain silent. Do not leave Chesterfield’s future to others. We can make our own destiny for our county and we need government at the local, state, and federal government to be limited and to kindly step aside. Taxation, regulation, and inflation are three sources of legal plunder and the government’s power needs to be limited in all three. Founding fathers, like Jefferson, would encourage a return to the Constitution and the principles that made our country great.

While we agree with the Editor’s chosen quote that simply states that all a bad person needs to become a leader is for the good people to do nothing. He has just identified the wrong people by claiming that “Delegate Cox, Delegate Nixon, Delegate Ware, Senator Martin, Senator Watkins and their cronies at the general assembly” are bad. These good people of Virginia are working for Jeffersonian ideals of limited governance.

The Taxpayer would encourage the editor to look at the federal level and see an unresponsive Senator Warner, Senator Webb, and President or at the local level and see an unresponsive School Board with bloated governance. However, that wouldn’t be “progressive” enough.

Ultimately, we just have differing views. The Taxpayer views the Taxpayer as a sovereign individual granting specific, written, enumerated powers to the state to protect their rights. The Progressive Editor wants the Taxpayer to forget all that garbage about the Constitution and view themselves as sheep that need to be fleeced for the purposes of the state. The difference between the two is that the sheep don’t seem to mind.