Autobiography - The Galindo Group

Ram Galindo THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN Page 17
most honorable purpose I could find in my own and sole opinion. I savored that freedom
greatly. A decade and half later I was to realize that while this is the constitutional right
of all Americans, the accumulated legal predations through excessive taxation by
government at all levels, over the years have made this right seem more a concession
than a right. Over-taxation shows the other side of the coin of patronage – tribute due to
the almighty government in payment for providing us with some protection and services
and for the opportunity to be self-sufficient. Through taxation government has managed
to close the circuit between the antagonic drives of self-sufficiency and paternalism.
If patronage and paternalism would be a drag on our ability to be self-sufficient, and
therefore free, over taxation is currently one of our worst enemies. As our Founding
Fathers conceived the American system, we, the people, grant the government certain
specific powers and not the other way around. Nowhere does the constitution provide
that government is to determine how much of our creations we can dispose of
ourselves. Although through the 16 th Amendment the people granted the government
the right to levy a tax on the product of their industry, its full effect did not become
apparent until a generation later. Government turned this weapon against its grantors
and used it, not to pay the costs of national defense as it was mostly intended, but to
redistribute wealth and to take an ever-growing share for itself. Had these results been
anticipated in their full magnitude during its debate, I believe the amendment either
would have been defeated or re-written to avoid the results that it eventually produced.
After a certain point, the growth of government is inversely proportional to individual
freedom, at least to the freedom of doing what we wish with the product of our
creations. By extension, as a growing government siphons out a greater share of the
value and product of our industry, all other freedoms are impinged upon and we
become more dependent in government, which in turn fans the fires for even greater
government – less self-sufficiency, more paternalism.
The spiral of freedom’s death at the hands of growing government is the greatest
enemy of our founders’ creation. As I illustrated with the example of my first wages, one
of the sources of freedom is money. When I was poor I simply didn’t have the freedom
to buy all that I needed, much less what I wanted. I couldn’t control my own time or
agenda. Most of us have experienced the limitations of non-affluency, and all of us
perceive wealthier people as freer to do what they want. At some point, money
becomes essential to pursue most dreams.
Therefore, choking people’s access to money, most ominously access to their own selfearned
money, is a lethal weapon against the right to pursue a dream. Seen from this
angle, big, intrusive government is our worst enemy. The founders’ gave us the
Declaration and the Constitution to protect us against big government but the forces
pushing for bigger and more powerful government are also very strong. They must be
reckoned with permanently. The temptation to spend somebody else’s money is very
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