Transcript of the the remarks* given to the Jacksonville City Council on Tuesday, September 28, 2010, by Louis William Rose regarding the proposal to increase taxes.

Thank you Mr. President and members of the council. My name is Louis William Rose and I stand for Liberty and the Republican Liberty Caucus.

Today I’d like to talk to you briefly on the idea of liberty and taxes. The philosophy of liberty is based on the principle of self-ownership. As you can see I own a very large property. I have invested in it heavily. I own myself, I own my life. I exist in time; I exist as a human being in time past, present, and future.

If you take my life sir, you take my future. If you steal my liberty you are taking my present and putting me into slavery, and if you take my property you are taking my past, the time in the past and the effort that I used to earn money and produce things. So if you take my property you are taking a part of my past. To do this by force or fraud, to take life is murder, to take liberty is slavery, and to take property is theft. It is the same whether these actions are done by one person acting alone, or a group of people acting against the few, or even by officials. Officials have no right to take these things improperly.

Now we have condescended as citizens to allow ourselves to be taxed for basic utilities and projects that benefit the entire society. This includes Police and Fire which we are happy to pay for. Libraries and utilities and we have also agreed to pay for very basic charities like the public school system for those people who cannot arrange their lives to educate their own children at home, or pay for a private school. Aside from this we take care of widows, we take care of the sick, we take of abused children. We have no problem paying for these things.

But aside from that we wish to keep their own money; spend it, save it, and invest it as we wish, instead of having it stolen from us by bureaucrats who purport to know better than we do how to spend it and what should be done with it, and who would give it to those who have not earned it.

This is not the proper use of tax money. It should be opposed as vigorously as one would oppose the highway man who is attempting to rob you at gun point. Now you know you have each been presented with a table of $67 million dollars in cuts prepared by Concerned Taxpayers of Duval County. It was included in the Liberty Journal that you were presented with.

The Republican Party was founded upon the principles of liberty, in opposition to another party who supported the idea of slavery, and it still does, except now instead of only enslaving black men, it would enslave all men, by stealing their property.

Republicans and fellow patriots on the council, I charge you to act as patriots and vote against the taking of our liberty by taxing us into slavery.

Thank you.

*Remarks partially taken from the lecture “Philosophy of Liberty” at http://www.isil.org/See More