The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible - Bastiat Institute

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Chapter 21 • “Give Me Your Past or Your Future!”
Jonathan looked bewildered. “But doesn’t the Council of Lords
do good things for people with the tax money?”
“Oh, sure,” she said dryly. “Some people become rich. But if
paying taxes is so good, then why doesn’t the tax collector just
persuade you of the benefi ts and let you contribute voluntarily?”
Jonathan pondered this idea. “Maybe persuasion would take a
great deal of time and effort?”
“That’s right,” said the thief. “That is my problem, too. We both
conserve time and effort with a gun!” She spun Jonathan around with
one hand and tied his wrists together with a thin cord, then pushed
him to the ground and gagged him with his own handkerchief.
“There. I’m afraid the tax collector will have to wait.”
She sat down next to Jonathan, who wriggled but was unable to
move. “You know what?” said the thief as she counted the money.
“Politics is a kind of purifi cation ritual. Most folks think it’s wrong
to envy, to lie, to steal, or to kill. It’s just not neighbourly – unless
they can get a politician to do the dirty work for them. Yeah, politics
allows everyone, even the best among us, to envy, to lie, to steal,
and even to kill occasionally. And we can all still feel good about
it.”
Jonathan twisted his face and made some noises. The thief
laughed, “So you’d like to yell, huh?”
Jonathan shook his head vigorously and, to her amusement, he
looked up with mournful eyes. “Okay,” she said, “Let’s hear you
whimper. But don’t get too loud,” she warned tapping the end of her
pistol fi rmly against his nose. “I can make you very uncomfortable.”
She crouched at his side and jerked the handkerchief below his
chin.
Stretching his jaw painfully Jonathan challenged her, “But it’s
wrong to steal!”
“Maybe. The important thing is to do it in a really big way so
that no one will notice that it’s wrong.”
“Steal a lot and no one will notice that it’s wrong?”
“Sure. Little lies are bad. Children are taught not to be little liars.
But really big liars can get streets named after them. If you steal a
little bit you might go to the people zoo. But if you steal a whole lot,