Today’s Chairman’s Report is written by Jade Walle. Jade is a partner of a CPA firm and is on the board of Americans For Fair Taxation.
Cancel Culture and the FAIRtax
Cancel culture is a cruel and ugly phenomenon that has stormed into American society and entwined itself into the very fabric of our lives. Cancel culture has been defined in varying ways, including, as quoted in a May 19, 2021 Pew Research Center analysis, trying to silence someone that does not have the same belief as you.Cancel culture violates affected people’s civil rights. Another aspect of cancel culture is rewriting history and prohibiting the expression of certain facts because they are offensive to a racial, religious, ethnic, economic group, etc. The goal is to make people comfortable at any cost, including historical accuracy. If bad things happened that make people uncomfortable, any and all reference to those bad things must be erased.
The fire.org’s January 31, 2022 FIRE survey highlighted that six in 10 Americans “…feel that our nation’s democracy is threatened because people are afraid to voice their opinions, according to a new survey from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.” This leads us to an obvious question.
What in the world does the cancel culture have to do with the FAIRtax?
It has everything to do with it. Cancel culture is a war of words. Many things in this life often come down to a war of words, be it with our enemies, counterparts, colleagues, friends, spouses, and the largest battlefield of all, our own minds.
For the FAIRtax and its founding grassroots organization, Americans for Fair Taxation (“AFFT”), there have been times when it has received bipartisan co-sponsor support in Congress. This was especially true in the years immediately following the FAIRtax’s late 1990s creation. The two Neal Boortz FAIRtax books document mass gatherings and a groundswell of support for the FAIRtax that was effectively squashed by the media. To this day, you will very rarely hear the FAIRtax mentioned in any serious, sincere discussion of US tax policy.
When AFFT president Steve Hayes was interviewed in 2017 by Stuart Varney of the FOX Business channel, Steve could barely even mention the FAIRtax without Mr. Varney cutting him off and dismissing the idea as implausible. The FAIRtax Guys talk about this spectacle frequently on their weekly podcast, FAIRtax Power Radio, which I encourage you to listen to each week.
There has also been a directive by one political party to prohibit its members from co-sponsoring H.R. 25, the FAIRtax Act, in the House. Party leadership wields a sharp sword as it relates to committee appointments, sponsorship, contributions and future power within the party.
Two items are worth mentioning as we contend with the reality of cancel culture. First, cancel culture denies men and women their chance to traverse the arc of humanity. Some of life’s most compelling stories are those of change, where someone was the worst of beings and whose 180-degree turnabout is so captivating and enthralling, that you have to keep on reading or hearing about it. When people are canceled, they’re shut down and denied this normally human opportunity, because they’ve been marked with a scarlet letter and relegated to oblivion. Think about the incredible come-back stories that will never be told because of this horrible trend.
The second point is to try to understand the root of this monstrosity. The fire.org article cited earlier notes that, “Nearly one-quarter of people surveyed are “fairly often” or “very often” afraid to state certain opinions for fear of losing their jobs or their standings in school, while 18% are similarly “afraid to say what [they] believe” for fear of the potential consequences. Eight percent admit they often feel pressure to say things they really don’t believe “in order to fit in.”
When we hear these statistics, the root cause is revealed, if only somewhat. The very act of silencing someone is a veiled attempt at imprisonment and taken to its logical conclusion, murder. Humanity has struggled for eons trying to create a truly free society. Taking away someone’s right to speak their ideas, opinions and even their very thoughts runs 180 degrees counter to all that we’ve struggled for.
Here we are again railing against the freedom we’ve known for such an infinitesimally small portion of human history. One of the most compelling of all historical figures, Jesus Christ, was a victim of the cancel culture of his day. Ultimately, he was not beaten, murdered and crucified for his actions which included feeding thousands on a hill, healing the blind, crippled, mentally unstable, possessed, and even bringing a dead man back to life. No, he was murdered because of his words. He dared to express thoughts, ideas and concepts that ran counter to the religious establishment’s status quo, and it cost him his life.
Make no mistake, those who oppose the FAIRtax want us silenced. We are a threat to the status quo that is cronyism, a sordid and ugly lobbying cartel, and the existing power structure in Washington. However, think about the good that the FAIRtax will bring to this incredible place we call home, naming only a very few:
- The end of countless amendments to the IRS tax code that we are all responsible to know, understand and apply;
- The end of filling out IRS tax returns (individual, corporate, gift, estate, etc.);
- The end of the regressive payroll tax (that hurts our working poor the hardest);
- The end of our government having a right to our most intimate personal and financial data;
- The end of embedded taxes being built into the cost of everything we purchase; and
- The end of $1 trillion a year in illegal tax evasion (tax evasion is estimated to be reduced by 95% with FAIRtax enactment).
Let’s work hard to keep bringing the FAIRtax message to everyone who will listen. Perhaps the only way to avoid being permanently canceled and relegated to oblivion is to generate such a groundswell of support that it becomes a tidal wave that the status quo just can’t cancel.
Conclusion
As Jade explains, there is an increasing trend by many to simply dismiss arguments and positions with which they disagree, not by dealing with the merits of the case, but by attacking the character, intelligence and motives of the people making those arguments. When this happens, you can be sure of two things. They can’t defeat you with logic, reason, facts and common sense, and they are very afraid of you and your opinion.Like bullies everywhere, people who attack and not reason need to be confronted. Because they are almost always cowards, they will scurry like cockroaches when you turn on the lights.
What Can Each Of Us Do?
We can write letters and make calls to our elected representatives and attend Zoom town hall meetings demanding that if they really want to allow Americans to “TAKE BACK CONTROL”, the first step is to eliminate the income/payroll tax system and enact the FAIRTAX!
If you want to prevent the IRS from being further weaponized to punish those of us who may object to the D.C. opinions and dictates of what is good for us, then help us PASS THE FAIRTAX!
The IRS will be gone and we will pay our taxes when we make purchases. WE and not D.C. Elites will decide how much federal tax we pay!
If you have friends who don’t know about the FAIRtax, send them to FAIRtax.org. Have them watch the white boards under “How It Works” and, if they agree, ask them to please join us.
Then contact your Members of Congress and the President and demand that Congress pass -the FAIRtax—the only fair tax
Remember, if we don't continue to tell the truth and demand a change, then this quote from George Orwell's 1984 may foretell our children's future:
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
Is it hopeless? When confronted with a seemingly impossible problem, remember the statement attributed to the author George Bernard Shaw who wrote, You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”
Isn’t it time for us to ask, “Why not?”
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