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July 4th Question, Part III: Americans Revolt Billions of Times a Day

Alexis de Tocqueville, French political thinke...

Alexis de Tocqueville. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Alexis De Tocqueville once said that the limits placed on the central power in the new world are different from the limits placed on national power in the old world. In the New World, the national government has jurisdiction in certain specific areas. It is prohibited by law and custom from transgressing the boundaries of its jurisdiction. In that sense its power is severely limited. But within those boundaries it is sovereign and almost completely beyond challenge. If something such as war or taxing power  is deemed a ‘federal matter,’ challenges to that power, for example the Whiskey Rebellion, were historically rare and suppressed mercilessly when they did occur.

On the other hand, Tocqueville says, the Old World functioned quite differently. The monarchs tended to be in constant conflict with other political powers regarding proper jurisdiction. The crown and the aristocracy and the colonies and provinces were engaged in an eternal game of tug of war, with each citing their own interpretation of law and custom to attempt to limit the jurisdiction of the others. Tocqueville observed that the limits to the powers of the central government in that case were largely imposed by the practical limits of enforcement. If a province was too well armed, then they went unmolested. If the aristocracy had the armies to resist, then they resisted. If colonies were too far away, or protected by seasonal factors then they had greater liberty. The monarch could only rule what he had the power to take and to keep, whereas America at the time that Democracy In America was being written tended to respect federal authority even where federales were few and far between.

It seems to be that as the United States federal government and the Presidency in particular have gradually morphed into something more like a European monarchy, our attitude towards its sovereignty has shifted. Certainly no state or province or faction of the ruling class would dare to challenge the military might of the United States in a single act of open revolt. But as time goes on we challenge it in small acts of secret revolt. Violation, for example, of our draconian system of immigration laws has become quite common. How many appointees to the federal bench or to the office of Attorney General must be caught in nannygate scandals involving child care payments to illegal aliens made under the table before we get the fact that our governing class, even that part which is directly pledged to enforce the law, routinely ignore this law? 

We have a Treasury secretary who cheated on his taxes. But he is not the only one. There are probably more people who buy goods and services via the internet and catalogues who don’t pay sales taxes than people who do. We’ve been rehabbing our 132-year-old home for several years now, and I can tell you, some subcontractors expect to be paid in cash under the table. We follow speed limits when we think they are being enforced only.  Dads let their teenaged kids drink beer. People cross the state line to buy fireworks, or any good when the sales tax is lower. People on unemployment compensation stretch it out so they can work on their eBay business.

Retirees buy discount drugs from Canada. Families share prescription antibiotics with other family members for whom they have not been prescribed. A man with cancer smokes marijuana even though he doesn’t live in a medical marijuana state. When we are driving at night and we come to a T in the road with a stop sign and there is no one else around, we slow down and roll through the stop sign. We eschew seatbelt laws when we take short safe jaunts up the block. We let our kids do a little practice driving in the parking lot before they get their learners permit. 

We don’t recycle every time they tell us to. We top off the gas tank even though they tell us not to. If they announce they are going to illegalize normal light bulbs, we buy more, not less of them to stock up. If we think that gasoline will kill the poison ivy better than some biodegradable eco-approved watered down stuff, we use the gas. Even though certain states had anti-sodomy statutes on the books up until just a few years ago, gay people had sex in their homes all the time, and did not give a thought to the ordinances. 

Businesses split in half so as to be qualified for small business exemptions from federal regulation. Farmers look the other way when they hire day laborers who clearly are not citizens.  Federal regulators write their regulations, and financiers change their form of organization in unforeseen ways to avoid the regulations, even ones they pushed for.
George Soros delists his hedge fund to avoid rules his beneficiaries wrote. Businesses treat many regulations as cost of business and just pay the fine rather than incur extreme costs. Factories and labs create commonsense workarounds to arbitrary OSHA regulations. 

And most people have absolutely no moral compunction about any of these violations of the either the spirit or the letter of the law, because deep down they no longer believe that the law, especially the tax code, represents any compelling moral principle, nor do its dictates seem any longer to be fair. They don’t think their home state has earned taxes on the Amazon purchases or that it deserves any share of the mutually beneficial exchange between you and your dry wall guy.

I bet you can think of a few dozen more examples, and increasingly we’re all in business and in personal life thinking of more and more ways to game a system which we have less and less faith in.



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  • chiguy31 chiguy31 2 years ago

    It goes further.

    When a cop stops me for speeding, I pay the fine without complaint. I knew that I was doing wrong and I got caught – cost of doing business.

    My reaction is dependent of the laws being pretty sensible and applied reasonably fairly.

    But more and more laws are both unfair, and worse, applied unfairly.

    Witness Tim Geitner being one of the very few individuals whose “Turbo Tax” defense was accepted by the IRS (try that excuse and see how much leniency you get) and then confirmed as Sec. of the Treasury (and thus head of the IRS).

    (Two weeks later Tom Daschle admitted understating his income by $128,000 and he too got a slap on the wrist. Have to wonder how many Washington insiders pay their full taxes?)

    Compare their punishments to what you or I would experience at the hands of the IRS for similar transgressions.

    What is the reaction to an ordinary individual when the IRS seizes his bank accounts, garnishes his wages (with the attendant humiliation and job jeopardy) and condemns him to years of penury through punitive fines and exorbitant interest rates?

    Probably a deep sense of unfairness, anger and a desire to right that wrong.

    Remember that small plane flying into the IRS building?

    How many people read the news reports with a sense of approval?

    Anecdotally, I have heard enough favorable comments to suggest that if pushed hard enough, there are other individuals who would contemplate similar acts of defiance.

    The “Consent of the Governed” has to be earned every day by fair laws, applied evenly, and with a light hand.

    We are moving away from those concepts and day by day, that consent is being withdrawn.

  • snooki snooki 2 years ago

    This is really pathetic. Bowyer is creating a fantasy in a doleful attempt to justify his earlier argument that an armed revolt is a viable option in the U.S.

    People who take advantage of illegal aliens are not noble objectors taking a stand against government policy. They’re dishonest cheats. The payroll taxes that they sleaze out of paying are used to pay Social Security and Medicare benefits to senior citizens. They pay under the table and avoid the payroll taxes and then collect their benes when they retire. This is not some noble revolt against an unjust system. This is a scum bag trying to get away with something.

    Some people do have a complaint with our immigration laws. Farmers, landscaping companies and the hospitality industry would like to have more cheap labor. They wish for a change in the immigration laws. These people lobby Congress to permit more visas for low-skilled workers. This is how we do things here.

    People who cheat on their income taxes are the same. They could lobby their governments to reduce spending, cut out road maintenance, police protection and national defense, but they don’t. They’re just weasels trying to get something for nothing, not gallant citizens standing up for the rights of the oppressed.

  • chiguy31 chiguy31 2 years ago

    I don’t know why you are so angry Snooki.

    Bowyer asked some legitimate question; more he stirred up a debate – you certainly responded.

    Re immigration. That is a complex question with no clear/easy solutions. Everybody will have to compromise, because we are not going to solve the problem by diktat – from the right or the left.

    Re taxes. Something like 46% of the population pays no federal income taxes. A person who pays no taxes has little stake in the tax structure of this country (other than to vote for more benefits paid by others).

    The tax system is broken; the complexity, manipulation and unfairness (see my comments above on Geitner and Daschle), discourage a sense fairness. Only the 46% who pay no taxes and the very rich can afford this system.

    Re the Buffett Rule. Why focus on raising the everyone’s taxes to the level of Buffett’s secretary? Why not reduce everyone’s taxes to Buffett’s level?

  • snooki snooki 2 years ago

    Hey ChiGuy
    Great off-topic comment, and I applaud your ability to repeat what you’ve heard from other people. One of the things that keep people reading Jerry’s columns is his tendency to express original thoughts and ideas.

    Before you go, please permit me to ask you a question meanwhile steering this conversation back to the topic of the column. You seem to feel dissatisfied with the tax code. Do you think that an armed revolt against the government is a good way to deal with your dissatisfaction?

  • Jerry Bowyer Jerry Bowyer, Contributor 2 years ago

    Chi Guy, Snooki is not angry because of what I wrote. Snooki is angry at me before I write. He/she has followed me around the internet making negative comments about everything I write, and signed up on Forbes for the purpose of doing it here. It’s kind of a stalker thing.

  • Jerry Bowyer Jerry Bowyer, Contributor 2 years ago

    What’s pathetic is this anonymous stalker thing. If you’re gong to take cheap shots, man up and use a real name.

  • junie junie 2 years ago

    I wonder if Snooki wears the Guy Fawkes mask while stalking you. lol

  • Snooki – you seem to have misread this article completely… Bowyer has stated that no group would seriously consider armed revolt against the military might of the US….

    The true gist of this article is that the current administration has gone so “off track” that now people (like myself) are fed up… and will now begin to decide on a law by law basis which ones we can ignore, and which we must contest or accept. I have no intention whatsoever to abide by ObamaCare. I will pay the “penalty/TAX” when I get caught. I will not be bullied into subsidized socialized America and become DEPENDENT on a beauacracy to run my life.

    I feel I can decide when my son is old enough to share a beer with me while watching a ballgame on TV, and I don’t need a federal law to determine that for me. I may do it when he is 15 or I may never do it. It is my own personal choice to ignore this law regardless… if I do break that law and someone reports me for it, then we will address it in court… but so many of the REAL LIFE examples that Bowyer provides are factually there…. You single out IRS cheats, and hiring illegal aliens in your response… but they are no worse than others that you don’t illuminate on… are you telling me you never speed? Do you know women who have multiple “baby daddys” and use the income subsidy they receive as their primary source of income? (I do!).

    The point is, we are being over-regulated, over-watched, and over-protected by a federal administration that has gone to far… so yes, people like me will “gallantly defie” the rights of this stupid administration to try to shape my life. I will abide by the vast majority of laws because I believe they are just… but those that are against my personal beliefs I will ignore until caught.

  • snooki snooki 2 years ago

    ChristianConservative, this is a three part column. He started off with the premise “If you are a patriotic American, you believe that there are circumstances under which it is right to take up arms against your own government.” Jerry then spent three columns trying to prove this claim.

    I suggest that if you don’t like laws being passed by the government, you work to change the administration. This is provided in the Constitution. Unless you’ve been in a coma for the past year, you would know that a lot of us are working hard trying to accomplish just that. Patriots realize that we don’t have to take up arms to change the government. In fact, the government is us.

  • t0mmyberg t0mmyberg 2 years ago

    If you do not see what he is talking about then you are part of the problem. This is among the best series of articles I have ever read, and I read for a living, the equivalent of about 2 books a day. Law has become so all consuming and so opaque that it is long past the point of efficacy. It is like the idea that if everyone is special, then no one is. Read The Mystery of Capital. You will see that in smothering the country with laws we are actually becoming more lawless.