Democrats and Keyser Soze

 

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled,” advised Keyser Soze, “was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

 

One of the best lines in movie history, uttered by the recently un-personned Kevin Spacey in his Oscar-winning turn in The Usual Suspects, it has the benefit of being true.

 

Not to plot-spoil for readers who have not found time in the past quarter-century to see this 2-hour tour de force, the twist of the tale is that, not only does the devil very much exist, he takes the form you would least suppose.

 

That is, he feigns weakness, innocence, and vulnerability, even as he exercises wickedness, power, and control.

 

The trouble for Democrats in recent days is that their disguise has become transparent.

 

If it seems this dialectic equates the Democrat Party with the devil himself, then you are following aptly.

 

Millions of us are neither hard-core Republicans nor diehard Trump fans, but we know we could never join with the Left in general or the Democrats in particular.

 

This is because we see the Democrats as the party of partial-birth abortion (and selling dismembered baby parts thereafter), relentlessly sexualizing children who make it into the world, incessantly dividing people by race, purveyors of lies and profanity, hateful accusers of Christianity and traditional mores, control addicts and tormentors of those who dissent, the political arm of the angry mob.

 

We rarely say as much in public or out loud. Differences arise on this issue or that, but declarative statements identifying Democrats with metaphysical evil are generally left to the firebrands of the Right, or religious types who specialize in talking that way.

 

But the conduct of Democrats, not only during the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination process but in the months and years preceding, has made the correlation clear.

 

What is most dumbfounding to traditional people is the hurricane of hypocrisy and flurry of lies that surround this.

 

Nearly a half-century after the fact, it is still considered impolite or harsh to point out that Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy left a young woman to drown in a car after he drove off a bridge.

 

That act in itself is purely evil. But equally chilling is to witness the successive generations of Democrats who excuse, deny, or ignore this incident, even as they accuse their political opponents of waging “war on women.”

 

Democratic Senator Robert Byrd was an active and enthusiastic member of the Ku Klux Klan who uttered the vilest racial terms on television right up until the early years of this century. He was embraced by his party and remained safely in office until his death, even as Democrats constantly accuse the other side of racism and bigotry.

 

We are barely a year removed from a Democratic partisan stalking out a baseball diamond and expressly confirming that the people playing there were Republicans before opening fire, yet Democrats and their media fellow-travelers fret that it is Republicans whose views “could lead to violence.”

 

Which brings us to the Kavanaugh debacle.

 

From the beginning, the peculiar aspect surrounding the accusations against Kavanaugh was not that Republicans might not believe them; rather, it is that Democrats themselves do not believe them.

 

It is an odd, almost ethereal idea, rarely spoken but largely understood, that on this as on so many issues, Democrats do not believe the words and phrases they passionately deploy.

 

Everyone, Left and Right, knows this fight is about something else. The things Democrats say about Kananaugh are rhetorical weapons of opportunity, and they know it.

 

This is why narratives continue to shift, demands are ever-changing and never satisfied, and the battle rages over generalizations regarding “women” and “survivors” rather than the facts.

 

Jesus described the devil as both “a murderer” and “the father of lies.” The juxtaposition is significant, since to lie is, in essence, to murder the truth.

 

From Moses to Milton to Michael Moore, the denial of objective truth, defined and dispensed from above, has been central to the devil’s modus operandi.

 

When Democratic Senator Cory Booker congratulated one of Kavanaugh’s accusers of speaking “her truth,” he said a mouthful.

 

Barack Obama once defined sin as “Being out of alignment with my values.”

 

As a professed Christian, it is possible Obama meant the violation of immutable right and wrong, the trespassing of objective truth, which can be felt within the soul of each person, if they wish. We all have that place inside us. God lives there.

 

Given his party affiliation and public record, however, it seems more likely Obama means compromising truth and goodness as determined by himself alone.

 

On innumerable issues, from the Kavanaugh case to their newfound yet sacrosanct belief that gender is a matter of individual choice, Democrats declare things they themselves know to be untrue and, indispensable to their need to play God, insist that everyone else yield to their pronouncements.

 

Relatedly, a word about mobs: Deep within the human mind is the burning desire to control others, and to punish those who resist. This is most effectively performed as part of a mob. Essentially, that is what Twitter is for.

 

This innate need to rule and harm is tempered in those who accept they themselves are not the sole arbiters of good and evil. But within those who insist they alone determine “their truth,” anger burns, particularly at those who refuse to submit.

 

Whatever your political affiliation, you know very well that Democrat politicians would never be hounded out of restaurants, harassed in public places, have their homes surrounded and vandalized and their children mocked, as has happened to Republicans lately.

 

This particular technique of mobbing and public abuse is a staple of Castro’s Cuba and other communist regimes. In America, it was incubated on the college campus before its recent graduation to national politics. And it is a practical manifestation of the devil’s rage against the light.

 

Lies are the means to, and the purpose of, power.

 

“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize,” avers Voltaire. For all Democrats’ complaints about “white male privilege,” no Leftist utterance would seem complete without a swipe at white people, particularly men.

 

And who cannot be criticized? Anyone who achieves victim status. Currently, this includes Kavanaugh’s accusers, no matter how outlandish their claims.

 

Here, as in Keyser Soze’s example, brute power wears a veil of innocence and vulnerability.

 

The point is not that Democrats, in particular, are evil. All people are evil.

 

The difference is that traditional Americans, and Christians by definition, understand this about themselves and recognize the need for redemption by a higher power.

 

For Democrats, there is no higher power but power itself.

 

theo@theocaldwell.com

Tax Reform is Useless to Americans Abroad

On any significant topic, every news outlet sounds more or less the same.

The headlines will be different, as will the slant of the reporting and analysis (to the extent those remain mutually exclusive nowadays), but within the body of the text, the same facts and bullet points will be repeated again and again, no matter where you get your news.

This is because, despite their towering self-regard (or perhaps because of it), journalists simply do not know very much about the world. Consequently, they copy, ape, echo, cull from wire services and one another, while almost never applying the necessary diligence to tell their audience something new.

The same is true of politicians. Members of Congress, in particular, often with limited real world experience or responsibility beyond casting one of 535 votes on issues that are largely pre-determined, have precious little understanding of what affects regular people.

Beware when you hear a politician tell you a folksy tale about someone coming up to them on the street or in the grocery store, calling them by their first name and asking them a softball, open-ended question like, “Hank, what are you going to do for me and my family?”

On an instinctual level, you know that conversation never happened – at least, not the way you are about to hear it. But, absent a genuine comprehension of what matters to normal people, politicians must conjure a composite of the average voter to make their point.

There is no better recent example of this disassociation than the noise surrounding Republicans’ recently released tax reform plan.

Regardless of how granular news outlets promise to get in their coverage of the bill, their reports will all say pretty much the same things: the corporate rate may be cut to 20 percent, deductions for mortgage interest, state and local taxes remain bones of contention, the House version must conform to the precise requirements of the Senate (here, your reporter might be slightly intrepid and insert the word “picayune”), etc., etc.

Among politicians, discussion is similarly predictable and useless. Democrats bashed the bill as being a boon for “the rich” even before it was written. Republicans are all droppin’ their g’s and sayin’ the same things about helpin’ workin’ families.

Meanwhile, literally millions of Americans around the world are looking for one, simple change in the world’s most onerous, punitive tax system. But you can read the news and listen to politicians until your eyes fall out and your ears fall off and, unless you come across this column, you will find not one word about it.

We are looking for the abolition of America’s absurd and larcenous practice of demanding taxes from its citizens living abroad.

Much is made of the reform’s repatriation of international corporate profits, and one can even hear the term “territorial tax system” uttered now and then but, on the individual side, there is no mention of liberating 7 million Americans – plus their families, business partners, various visa holders and others considered “US Persons” – from the worldwide clutches of the IRS.

If you are one of these many people and you do not live in the United States – indeed, even if you have never been to the US – the IRS requires that you nonetheless file American tax returns, along with a copy of your tax return from your country of residence, plus all your banking and investment accounts and the values thereof. Moreover, if it is deemed you would have paid more under US tax law, you are required to pay the difference, as well.

This is the very definition of taxation without representation.

To those of us affected, this outrage is nothing new. But to listen to journalists and politicians banging on about “tax reform,” it is as though we do not exist.

In a dozen years advocating on this issue, I have encountered precisely one politician who understands it: former Congressman Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), who currently serves as President Trump’s Budget Director.

Senior as Mulvaney’s position is, the OMB Director does not write legislation.

Certainly, after I explain the problem, politicians have expressed generic concern but, for all the action I have seen, I just get rolled into the amalgam of their made-up grocery store guy.

Every quarter, a new record is set for the number of Americans renouncing their citizenships. The reason we know this is the US Treasury Department publishes these people’s names in a petty attempt to shame them for opting out of an unjust system.

The institutional assumption is that these former Americans have done something ignoble that should be brought to light. In fact, the opposite is true: It is unbecoming a nation that styles itself the “land of the free” to make financial prisoners of its citizens.

Until it liberates millions of people who neither live in America nor make use of its services, and who have already paid their taxes elsewhere, this supposedly simpler, fairer tax reform is nothing of the kind.



Theo Caldwell is a dual American-Canadian citizen living in Toronto. Contact him at theo@theocaldwell.com

Do Not Empower US Border Guards on Canadian Soil

As is so often the case, an important policy change that could affect Canadians in a direct and personal way has been given scant coverage – and negligible criticism – in the news media.

One would hope that a ceding of national sovereignty and the subjecting of Canadian citizens to potential arrest and physical violation by a foreign power operating within our borders would engender some pushback – or at least discussion – but here we are.

In this case, the House of Commons passed bill C-23 in June, the wretched thing now resides in the Senate, and there is a good chance you wouldn’t know that’s bad news until it’s too late.

In brief, this leprous legislation would give American border guards at Canadian airports the power to detain and even strip-search travelers attempting to enter the United States. Moreover, it removes the right of travelers to walk away from US border preclearance if they choose.

One of the few Canadian outlets to cover this issue, the Globe and Mail, has provided a self-parodying object lesson in getting things wrong, editorializing that C-23 “should be a no-brainer” and “the sooner this bill becomes law, the better.”

This bespeaks a misunderstanding of the differences in the exercise of power between Canada and the United States.

As a citizen of both countries, with affection for each and reasonable literacy in their respective cultures, please allow me to assure my fellow Canadians: This is one facet of American life you do not want on your soil.

The exchange of common humanity for a police-like uniform, the clipped, minatory “sir’s” and “ma’am’s” that accompany petty authority, and a repulsive eagerness to punish or imprison – these are all part of Americans’ routine interactions with their myriad constabularies.

The “Land of the Free” holds more prisoners than any other nation on earth. This is a little-known but undeniable fact, belying America’s incessant banging on about its “liberty.”

Canadians are generally unaware of this unpleasant reality until they find themselves on the business end of it – often at the US border.

There are many reasons for America’s penchant for imprisonment – from its misbegotten “war on drugs” to the viral spread of punishable acts defined by unelected agencies – but none is more potent than its cultural craving for authority and demand for obeisance.

Already, US border officials at Canadian airports behave as though they have the power to search and detain – relying on travelers’ ignorance of their actual authority.

They go so far as to creep around Canadian terminals in plain clothes, identifying and harassing unsuspecting passengers.

A female acquaintance of mine was recently put upon by one such operative in a Toronto airport bar, after she had cleared US customs.

He flashed a badge and demanded she come with him. Canadian as she is, she obliged. She was hustled into a windowless room where several US officers questioned and accused her for hours, reducing her to tears and causing her to miss her flight.

Now, could you imagine those jokers with legitimate power to detain and strip-search, ratified by the Canadian government?

The young lady in question is a pleasant, law-abiding person who was meeting friends for a shopping weekend in New York. Attractive and alone, she was vulnerable prey for jumped-up nasties with little else to do.

As an American guard at the Canadian border recently admitted to me, “At the southern border, we actually do stuff; up here, we just pretend to do stuff.”

And there it is – Canada is about to hand police powers to otherwise indolent foreign agents who, by culture and necessity, will be eager to exercise their new authority upon the nearest soft target: you.

This change has been in the works since 2015, providing numerous, bi-partisan targets of ire.

Blame it on Stephen Harper’s authoritarian streak, or Barack Obama’s advancement of the administrative state, or Donald Trump’s inherent evil, or Justin Trudeau being Justin Trudeau – whatever it takes to get your motor running. Just don’t let this happen.

Theo Caldwell is a dual American-Canadian citizen. Contact him at theo@theocaldwell.com

The Tax Reform No One Talks About

“A territorial tax system – what IS that?”

So inquired a White House reporter of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin as he outlined President Trump’s tax reform proposal.

The question itself, and the baffled tone in which it was delivered, reveals much about why Americans who rely on news media for analysis of economic matters, and tax policy in particular, remain so benighted.

In particular, American citizens, their families, business associates, and various other “US persons” seem blithely unaware of the power claimed over them by the Internal Revenue Service.

To wit, if you are an American, or married to one, or in certain sorts of business with one, the IRS demands that you file and pay taxes to them every year, even if you have never set foot in the United States.

This is almost never discussed in the mainstream media, presumably because politicians, journalists, and various financial talking heads simply do not understand the issue. In a country where a majority of citizens do not hold passports, perhaps this it to be expected.

But the fact remains that Americans who move abroad, whether they are leaving in a huff because their preferred candidate lost an election or simply emigrating for work or family, must still file and pay US income taxes as though they had never left.

Specifically, the IRS requires a complete US federal tax filing, along with a copy of the tax return filed in the country of residence, so the two can be compared. If it is found that the filer would have paid more in tax under the American system, the taxpayer is expected to send the difference to the US Treasury – again, even if that person has never been to the United States.

Beyond the self-evident taxation without representation inherent to such a regime, the crushing complexity of the US tax code makes compliance difficult and expensive.

It is not uncommon for Americans abroad to send a few pages and a cheque to the tax authority of the country in which they reside, but then have to spend thousands of dollars to process and send a 50-page return back to the United States, even if they owe nothing further.

This is applicable to more than 7 million Americans who live in other countries, along with their spouses and various other associates and relations. These people are acutely aware of the injustice and inconvenience of this system.

And yet, you can read financial newspapers and watch business programs until your eyes fall out and hear nary a word about it.

The flummoxed query posed to Mnuchin pertained to Trump’s plan to reform the corporate tax system, such that American companies doing business abroad will be taxed only on their US operations. This would be a worthwhile change and, pace the intrepid reporter who seemed buffaloed by the concept, would bring the United States in line with almost every other nation in the world.

But, as usual, there has been no discussion of whether the individual American abroad will be liberated from the worldwide clutches of the IRS. It is all well and good to offer relief to corporations – indeed, for at least the past three presidential cycles, Republican candidates have phonetically repeated that $1 trillion will be “repatriated” by such a reform – but what about an employee of one of those companies stationed overseas? Or, for that matter, what about someone who has nothing to do with America or its corporations, with the exception of having been born there, or having a spouse or parent who was?

Currently, the only escape for Americans living abroad is to renounce their citizenship, and even that requires hefty fees and payment of an “exit tax” – essentially a capital gains tax on all assets above a certain threshold. Moreover, the IRS reserves the right to scrutinize former citizens’ taxes for years to come, and those deemed to have renounced for tax reasons are technically prohibited from entering the United States.

A few years ago, the US Treasury Department began publishing quarterly lists of Americans who renounced their citizenship (and every three months brings a new record high number of renunciations), presumably to shame those people.

Rather, the shame is on a government that treats it citizens as property, demanding money from livelihoods and toil that take place in other nations.

No other country in the world subjects its citizens to this sort of worldwide taxation, with the exception of Eritrea. But the United States actually gets away with it.

Combined with other excesses such as FBAR and FATCA – whereby Americans living abroad must annually report the numbers and holdings of all their financial accounts to the IRS – the current regime is indefensible.

At the moment, ex-patriots of Russia, North Korea, and the People’s Republic of China enjoy greater economic freedom than Americans living abroad. This is one of those appalling, counterintuitive facts that, upon hearing, one squints and rationalizes and inwardly insists must not be true. And yet, it is.

As the adage goes, Americans once rioted because the British put a tax on their breakfast drink – and it wasn’t even coffee.

A tax reform worthy of America’s legacy of freedom will liberate its citizens all over the world.



Theo Caldwell is a dual American-Canadian citizen living in Toronto. He has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange and the Kansas City Board of Trade. Contact him at theo@theocaldwell.com

Christians Get Special Treatment

Surely we can agree that what Christians need most is a good talking-to from people who don't share their beliefs.

It's quite something, isn't it? The same people who spend this time of year kicking over crèches, expunging Christmas carols, and ensuring no Christian prays in public nevertheless have an ironclad grasp of what Jesus thinks about everything from immigration, to abortion, to gay marriage and guns.

People who wouldn't dream of calling Caitlyn Jenner "Bruce" or pointing out that he's not a woman (much less "woman of the year") are perfectly at ease lecturing adherents of a faith they don't even follow.

On issue after issue, Christians routinely earn a jolly good spanking for not living up to leftists' standards or for questioning the supremacy of liberal orthodoxy.

The leitmotif is that Christians are hypocritical, failing to meet moral obligations that the critics themselves do not recognize.

Of particular bemusement is the glee displayed whenever a prominent Christian is caught misbehaving, as though this reveals some previously hidden truth about the faith. But if the jackals knew anything about Jesus’ stated mission, they’d know Christianity is a religion for bad people.

If you were already perfect, you wouldn’t need it. This is why Jesus is not a Christian.

And so we endure the know-it-all smirks of media types, the insufferable sanctimony of leftist celebrities and, of course, the ubiquitous, judgey rants of angry, showerless hippies.

Speaking of which, Barack Obama called it “shameful” and “not American” to consider prioritizing refugee status for Middle Eastern Christians who are fleeing ISIS and the Syrian civil war.

Why is that? Christianity has been the most persecuted religion in the world for some time, and the treatment of Christians in Syria and Iraq has been especially vicious. If they were of any other faith, would giving them special protection be likewise ruled out of bounds?

The question of Syrian refugees has occasioned a field day for those who sneer at Christians. To wit, anyone who questions the importation of tens of thousands of people about whom we know very little and have understandable security concerns is, ipso facto, making baby Jesus cry,

Knock it off, gaylord.

I honestly don't know what Jesus would do about the Syrian refugees, and neither do you. Certainly, he would prescribe love and compassion, but how best to apply that? Is welcoming a city-sized population of unknowable people from a region rife with terrorism compassionate to those who might be put at risk?

Would the best thing for Syrians be to establish safe zones close to their home, or even to help them win their country back?

These are difficult questions, with which many good people are grappling.

But it requires an egregious caliber of self-regard to suppose you know for certain what the answer is, based on a book you probably haven't read and don't believe, and to encapsulate your high-mindedness in a cartoon on your Facebook page.

Even George Stromboulopoulos, who should be saying nothing but sorry for his weekly desecration of the formerly revered institution of Hockey Night in Canada, delivered a bizarre little lecture to the “Bible Belt” by way of that damn Kermit meme.

Revealing the quality of judgment that sees him appear coast-to-coast-to-coast each week in pajamas fashioned into suits, Snuffalupagus enlists Kermit to equate Syrian refugees with a certain other “Middle Eastern family seeking shelter, fleeing persecution” at Christmastime. Get it?

He states it’s, “hard to disagree with the facts” but then mentions that “technically” Joseph and Mary were just traveling for the census of Caesar Augustus before adding, incomprehensively, “but it adds to the poignancy of the refusal.”

Never mind that this is hipster doofus nose-ring nonsense – there’s a dig at Christians to be had so, as the kids say, I’m just going to leave this right here.

In my previous column, I mentioned the politically correct spontaneous combustion of Liberal Cabinet Minister Chrystia Freeland on Real Time with Bill Maher. I bring it up again for two reasons: First, stupidity of this sort cannot be confined to a single session of prose; second, as she is my Member of Parliament, I claim the special privilege of acute embarrassment.

In her mangled wreck of a discourse, in which she attempted to create an equivalence among extremists of all religions, Freeland noted, “The Bible says, ‘an eye for an eye.’”

Neither Freeland, nor her fellow panelists, nor even columnists purporting to upbraid her for her performance possessed the biblical literacy to know that Jesus specifically refuted that concept. This is how we got the expression, “turn the other cheek” (which the Lutherans famously adapted to, “kiss my ass”).

Nevertheless, despite knowing almost nothing about the religion, while oversimplifying and misinterpreting what little they have gleaned, the left are quite sure that whatever has gone wrong, Christians are somehow to blame.

Which of course brings us to Colorado, and the recent shooting in and around a Planned Parenthood clinic.

In the media and online, it was striking to see the clawing desperation for the perpetrator to be a practicing Christian.

Even after it was revealed that Robert Lewis Dear has no religious bent (he isn’t even a Republican!), the UK’s Daily Mail reported that a cross “was displayed outside his house.” Have a look at the “display” yourself.

Egads, it’s a pair of sticks which, if you look at sideways, yeah, kinda looks like a cross (either that, or…I got nothing, it’s a pair of sticks).

No matter – to these people, he may as well have erected a scale replica of Christ the Redeemer on his roof.

Among the most relentless accusers are former or nominal Christians, eager for the “strange new respect” of the mainstream left.

An erstwhile friend of mine, who has made a career of hopping back and forth between sides in the culture wars and sneering at whomever he disagrees with at the moment, was quick to proclaim, “Many ‘Christians’ should be deeply ashamed today.”

Mind you, this was without knowing the shooter’s religion or political affiliation – and he has none, to speak of. Based solely on the fact that he was inside a clinic of Planned Parenthood – where no staff or patients were injured – he is presumed to be Christian and his guilt is extrapolated to other adherents of what is (for now) the world’s largest religion.

Now, my old pal may be a toothache and a bore, but he is far from anomalous. The internet and the airwaves were inundated with silly-bears of this sort, complete with the tiresome, preening self-righteousness the supposedly tolerant reserve for Christians.

But you know what? Let’s give it to them. Let’s assume the shooter was a tambourine-banging, Benny Hinn-believing, white suit-wearing Christian weirdo (or, if you like, a busy-fingered pederast protected by Vatican City’s lavender mafia – whatever stereotype makes you feel most self-satisfied).

Isn’t this when the reflex to proclaim that a person’s religion has nothing to do with their actions kicks in?

Just ask John “You Name It” Kerry about all the other things that cause people to do bad things before religion is to blame.

What’s that you say? Only one religion benefits from that kind of rote, politically correct defence? You’re almost there.

It’s true, Islam inspires people to find new and exciting ways to explain away the plain truth of some of its adherents’ behaviour. But no other religion would be so swiftly, viciously, and comprehensively villainized for the actions of one believer as Christianity.

Sure, a lot of people don’t like Israel, but no responsible, otherwise employable person would come out against “Jews” immediately after an attack like the one in Colorado, even if there were evidence of a Jewish culprit.

So, while Islam is uniquely protected and cherished by those who wish to think well of themselves, it is merely first among equals. Perhaps Islam’s defenders are so eager and unequivocal in their insistence that the religion has nothing to do with violence because they’ve had so many opportunities to rehearse this line.

Among many other things, political correctness is a conscious choice to invert reality. In this case, whenever we are attacked by radical Muslims, the acceptable leftist reaction is to insist that the group most in need of protection and accommodation is Muslims.

Only Christians can be instantly blamed, and subjected to collective guilt.

To those who indulge in these daily little judgments and mass assumptions, I say the following:

I am a Christian, but not a very good one. In fact, I’m Presbyterian, which barely even counts. I’m not supposed to tell you I think you’re a dope and your worldview is mush-minded idiocy (in this way, I do the job other Christians won’t). I do and it is, but that’s between me and God.

Which brings up another point – if you knew my religion’s holy book nearly as well as your smug status updates and moronic hashtags suggest, you’d know you weren’t put on this earth to be my judge. Jesus specifically said that before you worry about the speck in my eye, you ought to take the stick out of somewhere yourself.


Theo Caldwell is standing in the dark. Contact him at theo@theocaldwell.com

People Who Won't Be President

We must remember that Democrats are not like normal people. In their world, Barack Obama is a brilliant, inspiring speaker and Joe Biden should be trusted with scissors.

It is within this context that someone like Hillary Clinton, a canker sore of a public figure, is considered a natural, even inevitable, leader. Notwithstanding Mrs. Clinton's recent email fiasco - true to form, it combines Tsarist arrogance with her usual, Exorcist-style projectile vomit of lies - one expects she will run for president. It is her nature.

What would she do with herself if she weren't attempting to run your life? No matter your background, you have always known such people. They are the hall monitors, the student council scolds, the home owners' association snoops. They cannot imagine you could make do without them, and they are fearful to let you try. Mrs. Clinton has to run. She owes you that much.

There are, certainly, other prominent Democrats contemplating a bid for the presidency. Copious press photos of former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley playing guitar in sleeveless t-shirts suggest he aspires to high office. The absurd Elizabeth Warren is often mentioned, having advanced her career by claiming Cherokee heritage, despite her blonde-haired, blue-eyed visage giving her the distinct appearance of one of the Village of the Damned kids all grown up and granted Harvard tenure.

Meanwhile, somewhere, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo searches the skies like Prince Humperdinck tracking a falcon on a cloudy day, hoping for a sign that his time has come.

The upshot is the Democratic nominee for president will almost certainly be one of four people - and Mrs. Clinton counts for three of them.

On the Republican side, in this contest and in life, some measure of practicality is appropriate. News outlets plaster exponential Brady Bunch photo grids across the screen, suggesting any one of dozens of candidates could capture the GOP nomination. Whether this is undertaken sincerely or simply as fodder for panelists, it is monumental silly-bears. One need not go so far as to predict a winner at this early stage (although this column would be unsurprised to see Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker inviting Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush to join him on the ticket next year), but it insults intelligence and beggars belief to suggest that so many pretenders are credible.

Like Cliff Clavin naming three people who have never been in his kitchen, this list is nowhere near comprehensive. Herewith, however, is a primer on Republicans who won't be president:

Ben Carson - A respected neurosurgeon, a reliable proponent of limited government, and an inspiring personification of self-made success, Dr. Carson has a better chance of being elected pope than president. Besides that the American people plainly do not consider the modern presidency an entry-level political position (Eisenhower was given course credit for liberating Europe), Carson lacks the experienced touch and sprawling infrastructure a plausible run requires. He is a good man without a hope.

Carly Fiorina - While she would never admit it, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO must know she is running for vice president. Besides the neophyte knocks applied to Carson, above, Fiorina is not nearly so charming as her supporters seem to think. Her angry woman routine, plainly conceived to show the eventual GOP nominee how well she stacks up against Hillary Clinton, is of limited appeal. Beyond this, her tenure at HP was not an unalloyed success and her unsuccessful run for a Senate seat in California does little to recommend her for the national campaign.

Lindsey Graham - You'd need a jeweler's loupe to find South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham mentioned in discussions of GOP presidential contenders but trust us, he's in there. Conservative columnist Ann Coulter identifies Graham as the only Republican member of Congress against whom it's always okay to run a primary, and this bespeaks his standing on the right. Perpetually imagining himself one speech away from political superstardom, Graham has apparently extrapolated his ability to cling to the GOP Senate nomination in the most Republican state to the belief that he has a national constituency. Even among South Carolinians likely to appear on the national ticket, Graham ranks no higher than fourth - after Governor Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott, and the indispensable Congressman Trey Gowdy.

Mike Huckabee - A consequence of involvement in American politics (besides the attention of the IRS, if you're a conservative) is daily inundation of blast emails. For the millions of us who have received endless electronic solicitations to buy heart pills, reverse mortgages, prostate enhancers and so on from former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, it is a stretch to see him as commander-in-chief. Compounding Huckabee's relentless hucksterism are his tendency toward tax and spend "moderation" and the unsettling insincerity of his friendly, cornpone image. This Huck won't hunt.

Bobby Jindal - A political prodigy, former Congressman and current Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has a bright future in someone else's Cabinet.

John Kasich - Rumpled and peculiar, Ohio Governor John Kasich has advised staffers of his inevitable presidency since his days in the House of Representatives. He is the sort of candidate who looks spectacular on paper - experience in Congress, on television, and a two-term governor of a crucial swing state - but unpleasant in person. He is at once sanctimonious and jittery, heaping compliments on himself while scanning the room for quick escapes and weapons of opportunity. Whether they can summon the exact words, Kasich will alert voters to that Confucian axiom: Never trust a weirdo.

Mike Pence - Indiana Governor Mike Pence is the riskiest name on this list, inasmuch as he could be president, perhaps even a fine one, but it is difficult to see his path to the GOP nomination. When asked about 2016 in TV interviews, Pence provides energetic, rehearsed replies, barely concealing his enthusiasm for the top job. It seems he plans to wait for an opening, but that makes him a longshot in a crowded field of eager competitors.

Rick Perry - The longest-serving governor in America, Rick Perry of Texas, is a gentleman but not a scholar (his new glasses notwithstanding). To wit, his infamous "oops" moment in the 2012 primary debates, wherein he forgot the third of three Cabinet departments he proposed to abolish, was not a one-off. Perry knows Texas like the back of his hand but, when it comes to national and international policy, he is desolate. No amount of study can transform a candidate into a plausible president if he does not live and breathe this sort of thing already. Perry is respected and admired by those who worked on his 2012 campaign, but even they can see that he is not made to lead America. You can't put in what God's left out.

Rick Santorum - Having scored a stunning upset in Iowa in 2012, by the skin of his teeth and after cleaning the windows and mowing the lawns of every caucus-goer in Des Moines over the previous year, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum remains hopeful. But none of us is made for all markets, the vast majority of us will never be elected to anything and, in Santorum's case, if he were going to catch a presidential wave it would have happened by now. At 56, with a lengthy Congressional career already behind him, Santorum may go on to do good things. Becoming president is not among them.

Donald Trump - Please.

Of course there is, and will be, much more to say of this race before it is through. Contenders like Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, et al. will either earn a spot on the roster above or break through to bear the palm of victory. Meanwhile, Walker is being asked about evolution (always a sign that a conservative is polling well), Rubio is hoping Republicans have forgotten his immigration gambit, and Jeb is raising gobs of money (though this is not necessarily dispositive - President Giuliani, call your office).

But, as the Psalmist said, our days are numbered. One hopes this list helps us make the most of our time.

Theo Caldwell is a host on Newstalk1010 Radio. Contact him at theo@theocaldwell.com

"Lost" Emails Should Be the End of the IRS

There is a double indignity to being on the receiving end of a bad lie. The insult of being served with obvious dishonesty is compounded by the liar's presumption that you are stupid enough to swallow it.

Claims by the Internal Revenue Service that they’ve “lost” emails from Lois Lerner and a half-dozen other employees pertinent to the agency’s targeting of conservative groups represent just such dual scorn.

As is well known to anyone who runs a business – or, heck with it, anyone who's rushed their laptop to a strip-mall repair shop – there is almost always some way to recover emails and hard drive data. This is especially true of networks with backup protocols and storage requirements, such as the IRS requires of the private entities and individuals they audit.

From the outset, the IRS has responded to this matter in ways they would never accept from taxpayers. Starting with Lerner’s absurd contention to Congress that she had done nothing wrong, followed instantly by her invocation of the Fifth Amendment, to the agency’s year-plus of stonewalling and prevarication in the face of legitimate inquiry, this ridiculous outfit has held itself to a lower standard than it demands of the citizens it purports to serve.

Now, with this laughably convenient lie, that the very emails Congress is requesting have somehow vanished into the bowels of Lerner’s Commodore 64, the IRS has defied satire to such a degree that it can never be taken seriously again.

Consequently, we who advocate the abolition of the IRS must continue to highlight its institutional dysfunction, rather than focus on a few individuals.

Inasmuch as this scandal is personalized, its potential as a catalyst for change is diminished. If, however unlikely, Lerner were to go to jail, or President Obama were to be directly implicated, a satiated public could suppose the responsible parties had been served their just desserts. But this problem is systemic, not personal. It is the bureaucracy itself that must be eviscerated.

Counterintuitive though it may seem, the incrimination of a president is small potatoes compared to the import and opportunity this moment provides. America's decline is not a function of a particular chief executive, no matter how mendacious or incompetent. Rather, it is hastened by the nation's ubiquitous and permanent bureaucracy, of which the IRS is emblematic.

Alas, it was inevitable that the IRS imbroglio and its attendant investigations should become partisan affairs. This is not because Republicans hope to take down Barack Obama as Democrats seek to protect him – this president has proved impervious to scandal, or even basic scrutiny – but because the bureaucracy and the Left are one.

For all their self-labeling as agents of "progress" and "liberal" ideals, the Left are guardians of ossified, statist, liberty-squelching systems across the globe.

Like the guy in the office who tries to give himself a nickname ("From now on, could I get you to call me T-Bone?"), they insist they're about freedom and fighting for the little guy, even as they ensure he remains little.

It is axiomatic that the bigger a government gets, the smaller citizens become. This column has previously noted that in modern America, there is a tax consequence to every undertaking, literally from cradle to grave. In this way, the IRS is the vanguard of the nation’s regulatory juggernaut.

Little wonder, then, that the Democrats, the party of government, reflexively leap to the defense of the IRS, and left-leaning sympathizers roll their eyes at the suggestion of disbanding it, as though America could not survive without this malignant agency, which has existed for less than half of the nation’s history.

But this has to be the last straw.

Yes, as the most officious, militant and corrupt tax authority in the world, the IRS maintains the threat of force against citizens. But that is all it has. How can anyone – left, right or indifferent – respect them again? Transparent dishonesty and blatant corruption have stripped the IRS of whatever legitimacy it once possessed.

What, then, to replace it with? Of the two most conspicuous alternatives – a consumption tax or a flat tax – the former is furthest from the current mandate of the IRS, thereby facilitating the outright dismantling of that hideous structure.

Remove taxation entirely from the realms of income, health, religion, speech, charity, and the myriad other aspects of daily life infected by its touch. Under a consumption tax, when you buy something, you pay a tax on that transaction, and that is the end of your obligation to finance the federal government.

Critics refer to such a system with the deliberately provocative and misleading moniker of “regressive,” meaning it affects rich and poor alike in equal proportion. Besides that a flat tax does precisely the same, the result of a consumption tax is that those who earn and spend more will be taxed at higher amounts. In this way, wealthier individuals and organizations shoulder a higher portion of the tax burden than those with less, and arguably a higher portion than they do under today’s so-called “progressive” system.

President John F. Kennedy, an aggressive tax-cutter, was fond of pointing out that the Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word “crisis”: one stands for danger; the other for opportunity. America is in crisis, prominently represented by the corruption of its tax authority. This is, however, an opportunity to change the country for the better.

theo@theocaldwell.com

Of course Canada is more business-friendly than the United States

A recent report from Bloomberg News ranks Canada as the second-best country in which to do business, behind Hong Kong and ahead of the United States. This comes on the heels of a survey by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation, in which Canada was rated sixth in economic freedom, while the United States came in twelfth.

To anyone who has done business in both countries, this comes as no shock.

Indeed, the only surprising thing about these reports and the surrounding analysis is that Americans continue to be flabbergasted each time their system of high taxes and crippling regulation, backed up by a draconian prosecution regime, is revealed not to be working.

As I explained to Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson last year, not only are Canada’s personal and corporate tax rates lower than those of the United States, the compliance burden of the American system – including the international theft perpetrated by the Internal Revenue Service in the form of its worldwide reporting requirements – makes serfs of its citizens and renders the country inhospitable to business.

Reports of Canada’s economic success usually give credit to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and that’s fair enough. But there is nothing novel to Harper’s approach. Politicians of many parties in numerous countries have opted to reduce tax rates as a means to increase revenue and entice capital. It is only relative to other modern Western leaders, to whom the concept of growing an economy by shrinking the government has seemingly never occurred, that Harper’s approach seems revolutionary.

From a policy perspective, Harper bears little resemblance to the hard-right, puppy-eating Sith Lord his liberal detractors imagine. As just one example, despite enjoying a Parliamentary majority – which amounts to near-dictatorial powers until the next election – Harper’s Conservatives have just enacted one of the environmental movement’s most absurd agenda items (and this is some distinction) in the form of a ban on incandescent light bulbs.

Fair or not, Harper’s image is bloodless and cold. He is not a smiley sort, and this is perhaps a good thing as his attempts to seem cheerful result in a Bond-villain rictus that puts no one at ease. While this may satisfy some people’s notion of a heartless conservative, the test of a political leader is the effectiveness of his policies, not how chummy he comes off while spending other people’s money.

For the United States, this demonstrates that electing leaders on the basis of demographic superficialities and big government populism, even as their policies harm the same middle class they purport to help, is a path to economic mediocrity and worse.

But elected leaders are only part of the problem. America’s administrative state, wherein myriad regulations are drafted and enforced by anonymous, unaccountable bureaucrats, smothers the prospects of small business. This distinction is important, as large corporations are better able to absorb the costs of massive regulation – and indeed, can lobby to have those regulations crafted in their favor – while small business is the lifeblood of a vibrant economy, creating two-thirds of the new jobs in America.

An entrepreneur seeking access to North American markets would be positively loopy to choose the United States over Canada. Apart from America’s crushing regulatory and tax requirements, its fearsome prosecution apparatus stands ready to mete out harsh punishments for mistakes or non-compliance. This rapacious, unforgiving system, for which incarceration is the default solution, informs the cruel irony that the “Land of the Free” holds more prisoners than any other country on Earth.

As a matter of commerce, justice, or just day-to-day living, America is one of the least-free developed nations in the world. In almost every respect, not only is Canada a more liberty-minded environment than the United States, it isn’t even close.

Theo Caldwell is an author, investor, and a former Member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange and the Kansas City Board of Trade.  He can be reached at theo@theocaldwell.com

Charles Krauthammer's Defense of the 'Victimless' NSA

In conservative quarters, telling Charles Krauthammer he’s wrong is like giving the Pope a noogie. As a graduate of Harvard Medical School, a board-certified psychiatrist, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist, Krauthammer is rightly revered as the most brilliant participant in modern political debate.

Unseemly though it may be for a plebian like me to take crayon in hand and write that Krauthammer is mistaken, in his defense of the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance program, he is.

Krauthammer is the most prominent among a number of conservatives who, while advocates of limited government in other spheres, have defended the NSA’s collection of Americans’ phone records and electronic data as essential to national security. A recent tack, which both Krauthammer and Senior Political Analyst Brit Hume have articulated on Fox News Channel, is to state that not a single victim of abuse under this program has been identified.

The spectacle of such respectable public commentators advancing a defense so specious burns the eyes and sears the soul.

By its very nature, the NSA program is secretive, such that citizens cannot know if their communications are being read by government operatives. What we do know is that all phone records and emails are collected, and it is the scope and opacity of the system that offends freedom-minded people.

Perhaps we cannot yet point to someone whose Pier 1 card was cut up before his very eyes because a disgruntled public servant opted to futz with his credit rating (although we know that NSA officers have used their positions to spy on love interests – are those people not victims?), but officials have admitted to “minor” abuses of the database. By and by, we can expect more to emerge.

It has been less than a year since the general public learned of this nefarious undertaking, and new revelations of its scope appear daily. Every step of the way, the government has admitted to as little as possible, while outright lying when it could. As Tony Stark observed of intelligence agencies that fear intelligence: “Historically, not awesome.”

Contemplating President Obama’s recent speech on the NSA, Krauthammer concluded that there would be no practical change to the program, and ended his analysis with, “If I were a lefty, I’d be really upset.” Usually, Krauthammer’s meaning is clear, but I admit to being puzzled by this cast-off remark. Having never been accused of leftism, yet disquieted by the NSA program and the president’s unwillingness to curtail it, does Krauthammer contend that I and millions of Americans who object could only do so as a reflex of modern liberalism?

He may see an inconsistency at work, whereby conservatives who have been hawkish in years past betray their principles by weakening our anti-terror apparatus.

I submit that the greater contradiction, which has more profound implications for the republic, is represented by erstwhile champions of personal sovereignty and individual freedom, like Krauthammer, advocating ubiquitous government surveillance in the name of “security.”

Almost as unsettling as Krauthammer’s departure from good sense is the gentlemanly, previously prudent Hume defending the NSA thusly: “This program threatens no one unless it’s abused.”

Exactly. About how many government programs, or even household objects, could one say the same? The IRS threatens no one, unless it decides to. The police are no danger, unless they opt to be. That waffle iron is no threat, unless you close your hand in it. And so on.

As a matter of pure semantics, perhaps Krauthammer, Hume and others are correct. When you have no privacy or space of your own, when you have no expectation that your personal communications will not be monitored by the authorities, you are less a victim than a slave.

In free societies, governments ought not to have this power. Personal privacy is a codified, self-evident right of citizens, and the burden of proof is upon those who wish to compromise it, not those who seek to maintain it.

In previous, rare instances in which my conclusions have differed from those of Dr. Krauthammer, I have assumed that the mistake was on my side. But brilliance and bad judgment can occupy the same space, and some of the most profound, perspicacious thinkers can be very wrong on big issues (the late Christopher Hitchens’ ardent atheism comes to mind).

A breathtaking resume, impeccable reasoning, and scholarly intonation are no match for common sense. In this case, the mass surveillance of citizens by their government is anathema to a free country, and the brightest among us, Charles Krauthammer included, ought to see that.

Theo Caldwell is an author, investor, and a former Member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange and the Kansas City Board of Trade.  He can be reached at theo@theocaldwell.com

Hillary Clinton as Ted Kennedy

I like to think Chappaquiddick was the reason Ted Kennedy never became president. That is, when he ran against President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination in 1980, one hopes voters concluded it would be unseemly to elect a man who had driven a woman off a bridge and left her to drown while he salvaged his political career, as Senator Kennedy had done eleven years before.

That is one plausible version of history. Another is that timing, the power of incumbency, and Kennedy’s inability to articulate exactly why he wanted to be president doomed his bid.

This is called to mind by recent House and Senate reports on the 2012 terrorist attack of the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans died. Many analysts predict the reports’ revelations will be devastating to the expected presidential campaign of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Perhaps Clinton’s failure to provide adequate security, as had been requested by consular staff, or her subsequent misleading of the American people and the families of the deceased as to the reasons for the attack will be her undoing. Then again, perhaps her fate will hinge on matters less consequential.

The circumstances of Clinton and Kennedy are not directly analogous. While Clinton’s misconduct amounts to insouciance and deception – hardly unique in politics, although hers resulted in dead Americans – Kennedy was personally responsible for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. Nevertheless, each instance provides opportunity to consider whether America elects or rejects potential leaders on the basis of form or substance.

Ted Kennedy embodied much of what is wrong with the US Senate, as well as American political dynasties. Both offer sinecures to dyspeptic incompetents, affording them immense position and privilege to behave in ways that would get regular people fired or imprisoned, all the while claiming they are engaged in “public service.”

He lacked the wit and bipartisan appeal of his presidential older brother, Jack, to whom he owed much of his political success. John F. Kennedy was, like Ted, famous for indiscretions with women, but his personal charm, the romance surrounding his too-short life, and the fact that nobody drowned as a result of his shenanigans spared him the same opprobrium.

Similarly, Hillary is a less-affable member of a political clan although, unlike the Kennedy brothers, her scandals are often of a different stripe than those of her family members. Ted Kennedy drank too much at a party, then drove off with a woman not his wife. If one could picture a Clinton doing such a thing, it wouldn’t be Hillary.

There is some commonality in the vicissitudes of Hillary and those of her husband, Bill. In modern political parlance, “Clinton” is often shorthand for dishonesty. There are other aspects to the name, of course, encompassing Bill’s two presidential terms and post White House career, Hillary’s eight years in the Senate and four years at State, but a statement or person characterized as “Clintonian” is understood to be blithe with the truth, at best.

Even so, there is an appreciable difference in the manner of dishonesty of each Clinton. In Bill’s case, to take just one example, when he squints defiantly and insists he “did not have sexual relations with that woman,” even those appalled by his conduct can appreciate his reasons.

In Hillary’s case, from claiming she was named for Everest-conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary (notwithstanding that Sir Edmund was still a New Zealand beekeeper at the time of her birth), to saying she landed in Bosnia “under sniper fire,” she tends toward easily exposed falsehoods designed to craft an image. In this respect, she is more like Al Gore than Bill Clinton.

Even when fibbing with practical intent, Hillary does so in a way that is insultingly obvious. In her infamous, “What difference does it make?” congressional testimony on Benghazi, her tack was to shift the debate to two options more favorable to her cause (“Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans?”), as though these were the questions at hand, rather than whether she neglected her duty and lied about it.

Add to this that her policies and pronouncements, true or otherwise, are often uttered through a supercilious, Nurse Ratched rictus, and the “inevitable” Hillary remains a tough sell.

Certain aspects of the 2016 campaign are foreseeable. Reliable quarters will characterize any opposition to Hillary as “anti-woman,” casting her as the personification of female aspiration (in stark contrast to their treatment of Sarah Palin). But the effect of the Benghazi episode on the contest cannot be predicted.

There are myriad excellent reasons why Hillary Clinton should not be president of the United States. If she goes from front-runner to also-ran in 2016, as she did in 2008, will it be because of her failures in office, or her personal shortcomings? The answer, to the extent it can be divined, will say much about the discernment of American voters.

Theo Caldwell is an author, investor, and a former Member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange and the Kansas City Board of Trade.  He can be reached at theo@theocaldwell.com

America's Greatest Problem

If this is your first week following the news, you could be forgiven for believing America’s biggest problem is that pylons were placed with extreme prejudice on a New Jersey bridge last September.

The closing of the George Washington Bridge by members of Gov. Chris Christie’s staff, apparently as payback for the denial of an endorsement by the local mayor, has reached the level of national scandal for two reasons: Christie is a formidable presidential contender, and he is a Republican.

Many have pointed out that the media have devoted more time to this regional dust-up involving a potential president than to the weaponization of the IRS by the man who actually is president, Barack Obama.

That’s fair enough. The United States possesses the most oppressive and rapacious tax authority in the world, and siccing it on political foes is unworthy of a leader. But these issues are merely symptomatic of the real problem.

Indeed, both stories – the IRS debacle and bridge imbroglio – have some bearing on what truly ails America. Sages from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to Mark Steyn have warned of the peril posed by faceless bureaucrats whom you don’t know, didn’t vote for, and against whom you have no recourse, possessed with tremendous power to screw with your life.

And whether you find yourself in the throes of a thorough audit, or unable to speak your mind or practice your religion for fear of crippling costs and possible imprisonment, or simply stuck in traffic for hours because some politico wanted to teach someone a lesson, you are experiencing a manifestation of America’s greatest problem: the loss of personal freedom.

This is a systemic, cultural crisis, with incidental relevance to particular politicians.

Christie is the wrong man to lead America not because members of his staff engaged in petty revenge tactics, with or without his knowledge. Rather, Christie is poorly cast as Leader of the Free World because he demonstrably does not believe in individual freedom.


Moreover, he announces his antipathy to personal sovereignty with bluster and swagger, as though it were absurd to dispute that ubiquitous security and total surveillance are crucial to our liberty.

Christie is of that breed of benighted Republicans who may not agree with what you say, but will defend to the death the National Security Agency’s right to monitor it. Such politicians, who purport to represent the party of personal freedom and responsibility, really ought to know better.

Likewise, Obama campaigned for the presidency promising to restore civil liberties and undo the national security excesses of his predecessor. Instead, he has exacerbated these issues and taken government intrusion upon private life in bold, new directions.

The loss of personal freedom spans every aspect of modern existence, from doing business, to getting around, to behavior in your own home. If individuals are not free to strive and speak and move about as they wish, what is America, really? A continental land mass with a large consumer market?

How long is that sustainable? Josef Schumpeter called capitalism incomprehensible without an understanding of the role of the entrepreneur. The concept of entrepreneurship is not confined to commerce; it means a person making a different choice, doing things his own way, and bearing responsibility for the outcome. A “free society” in which everything is legislated, regulated and overseen is likewise incomprehensible, and anathema to freedom.

Modern Americans are living off the last sparks of other people’s ideas. If the Bill of Rights were written today, is there any chance it would codify individual liberty through negative licenses (that is, things the government may not do to you)? Or, more likely, would it mandate the wants and entitlements of a soft people who wouldn’t know what to do with freedom if they found it?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote of this when he gave the Sturm und Drang movement its first novel hero in the person of Young Werther: “Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.”

Goethe refined this notion in later years, writing in his oft-quoted Elective Affinities: “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”

When I hear Americans bang on about how free they are, I genuinely wonder what their frame of reference might be. That is, do they mean they enjoy greater liberty than, say, Saudi Arabians or North Koreans? Well, super, but was oppression of that type ever on the table?

Compare the United States to other English-speaking, developed nations, and its reflexive boast of “freedom” is exposed as utter rhubarb. For example, Americans are more likely to be imprisoned, dispossessed, or killed by their own government than citizens of most any country it is their tic to disdain.

Many Americans have no clue how other nations do things, yet insist their way is better. Even lacking a frame of reference, free countries’ cops don’t roll through cities like they’re re-taking Fallujah, their tax departments do not pursue citizens around the globe, passengers at their airports are not prodded and probed like super-max inmates, and their governments do not monitor and store all their electronic communications.

The U.S. Department of Education has its own militarized wing. For that matter, so does most every government agency. Having banished the concept of an innocent misunderstanding, and since they have all the jazzy equipment anyway, their default position is to stick a gun in your face, lock you up, and confiscate your property, if not shoot you on the spot.

This column would rather light a candle than curse the darkness. Herewith, therefore, are a half-dozen suggestions to get us off that road to serfdom, and back on the narrow path to freedom:

• Demolish any public policy that begins with “War on.” That means the War on Terror, the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, the War on What-Have-You. As we have seen with each of these, saying we are at “War” provides a catch-all justification for silly-bears and abuse. The language is both reflective and instructive of a mindset that sees government enforcers as soldiers, in combat with the very people who pay their salaries.
• Abolish the IRS.
• Provide any citizen who is the subject of a government action or complaint with the full names and resumes of the public officials conducting the investigation.
• Punish police who abuse the public more harshly than civilians who commit similar crimes. For example, if a cop uses his badge and uniform as a subterfuge to commit violence upon a citizen, he should be charged not only with the relevant degree of assault, but also with exploiting his public position to do so.
• Return responsibility for airport security to the airlines.
• Cease the government’s collection of private communications except when a warrant has been issued, naming the individual to be monitored and the reason for suspicion.

People often lament a lack of bipartisanship and comity in politics. This is an opportunity to achieve just that. Liberty-minded citizens on the Left and Right have agreed on a number of these issues (the NSA, for example), and the pressing need for a re-birth of freedom surpasses other political differences.

This needs to be the defining issue of our national discourse. As we head into midterm elections this November and choose a new president in 2016, what difference does it make (to borrow a phrase) if corporate tax rates are 35 percent or 25 percent if Americans are not free to pursue happiness in the manner of their choosing, to go confidently in the direction of their dreams?

America has been described as the last, best hope of Earth. If that is true, if it is even close to being true, we owe it to the world, and to the generations who bequeathed us our freedom, to right our course and restore our liberty.

Theo Caldwell is an author, investor, and a former Member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the American Stock Exchange and the Kansas City Board of Trade.  He can be reached at theo@theocaldwell.com