“Last week Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said that the ‘most fortunate Americans should pay more in taxes for the privilege of being an American.’ One can debate different ways of balancing the budget. But Mr. Geithner’s argument highlights an unfortunate and very destructive instinct that seems to permeate the Obama administration about the respective roles of citizens and their government.” Lawrence B. Lindsey, ‘Geithner and the ‘Privilege’ of Being American’, The Wall Street Journal, February 29, 2012
Let me remind Comrade Geithner of the opening passage of The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,”
When you next check Webster’s Dictionary, Comrade Geithner, you will learn that ‘privileges’ are things granted to one individual by another, higher-ranking individual. For example, you were privileged by some higher authority not to spend some time in jail for serious tax fraud in the Spring of 2009.
The Founding Fathers rejected outright, in The Declaration of Independence, any notion that the privilege of being an American was granted by a higher authority, presumably by Britain’s King George III. They recognized that Americans were imbued with natural rights, endowed by the Creator, and not by any government, whether autocratic or democratic in nature. They also recognized that citizens institute their governments and supervise them to ensure that their own natural rights are honored and maintained by their representatives.
“Being an American is a right, not a privilege. The privilege belongs to those who are temporarily allowed to serve this great nation in a decision-making capacity. When they turn this privilege into a right to distribute government largess in ever larger quantities – and in ways, to use Jefferson’s phrase, a ‘wise and frugal government’ would not – it is those in government, and not the governed, who bear the responsibility for our budgetary problems.” Lawrence B. Lindsey, ‘ Geithner and the ‘Privilege’ of Being American’, ibid.
Remember well what followed The Declaration of Independence, President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner. I doubt that Canada would feel comfortable in accepting you into enforced exile, should you continue to threaten the natural rights of your superiors.