The fault, dear Americans, is not in our stars but in ourselves!

OK, I’ll admit it. I didn’t pay much attention in high school English class. Julius Caesar? Yawn! To be honest, didn’t really get it. I thought that Caesar was the good guy and Cassius and Brutus, the two men who led the plot to kill him, were the bad guys. But it was the ’90s, the Cold War was over and I had prom to think about. To snap up a line from Shakespeare’s play, it was all Greek to me!

Flash forward several years to our new post-9/1 1 America. We are fighting two wars, a global battle against terrorism, low interest rates and cheap money have caused a credit crisis of gargantuan proportions, the Treasury has become a free-for-all, the welfare state is growing quicker than you can say Nancy Pelosi, the government is becoming more powerful and corrupt, rampant inflation is imminent, and corporate-cronyism has replaced the free markets.

Maybe it’s time for us all to re-read history.

You see, many, many years before there was the United States of America, there was a Republic called Rome. Actually, I never realized that “Ancient Rome” as we’ve come to know it existed in three phases that spanned the course of almost a thousand years. It was founded sometime between 758 and 728 B.C. and existed as a monarchy for over two centuries. It then became a democratic Republic, which lasted for 460 years, and finally transitioned to an empire for the final 200 or so years.

The heroic beginnings of the Roman Republic were actually very similar to those of America. In 509 B.C., a rebellious group of rugged individuals, tired of abuses of the monarchy, over-threw King Tarquin and put into place a new system of government. In order to safeguard personal liberties and prevent another monarchy from emerging, these founding fathers replaced the monarchy with two elected magistrates who would each serve a maximum of one year Each magistrate would check the ambition of the other and never again would one man be allowed to rule supreme over the Roman citizens.

The Roman “constitution,” known as the Twelve Tables, was completed in 449 B.C. with an emphasis on individual liberty. The legislation would come from an elected body of officials, also known as the Senate. Under this new system of government, Rome flourished as a fledgling, agrarian republic where citizens were able to vote, hold public office, engage in trade and commerce and own property. Although Roman citizenship, or civitas, was limited to adult males, it was incredibly revolutionary at the time and, therefore, became a source of great pride for the Romans. It meant you were free!

And what does freedom bring? Prosperity!

Rome became the most rockin’ place around. Toga parties, drinking, wrestling, sporting games, bathhouses, you get the idea. Everyone who was anyone wanted to be Roman.

Life was pretty good for a few centuries. Rome grew and prospered. The Romans built roads, bridges, aqueducts, buildings, apartments, stadiums and had the most powerful military in the world. And we all know it wasn’t built in a day! The Roman Republic even had a booming financial sector, with early forms of futures and equities markets. But in 49 B.C., the party finally came to an end as Julius Caesar stood at the bank of a small river in Northern Italy known as the Rubicon.

Roman law stated that no General could cross the Rubicon and enter Italy with a standing army. If Caesar crossed, he would be declared an Enemy of the State, plunge Rome into a civil war and turn the once shining democratic republic into an empire and himself into Emperor. The Senate was terrified of such an outcome. Even Caesar, himself, hesitated. But he was too ambitious to turn around and give up all that he had worked to achieve. He wanted power, even if it meant ending the Republic. He marched forward and, in his own words, the “die was cast.” He had crossed the point of no return and became Emperor of Rome.

Brutus and Cassius did eventually assassinate Caesar in an attempt to restore the Republic, but it was too late. By then, the problems were greater than one man and had been developing under the surface for many years. In fact, many Roman citizens were happy to have Caesar take the reigns as dictator of Rome to get things under control.

Only a few prefer liberty – the majority seek nothing more than fair masters.

So, what exactly led to the moment at the Rubicon? Why did Rome fall?

Perhaps the malaise began 150 years earlier when Rome’s biggest external threat, Carthage, was defeated in the Second Punic War. While most Roman citizens were ecstatic, many were concerned that, without a common enemy holding the Republic together, a sense of apathy would set in. They were right. Over time, by the consent of the masses, Rome began to destroy itself from within. The citizens ceased to care what the Senate was doing, so long as their needs were being taken care of. The Senate began a policy of expansion, conquering new lands and looting gold and silver for the Treasury. In the early days of the Republic, the tax rate was about 1-3 percent. By 167 B.C., Romans were no longer obliged to pay taxes, as the burden could be carried by others.

There was enough revenue coming in from conquered lands to pay for everyone. As a result, a new brand of crony-corporatist, known as the pubilcani, emerged. The publicani were also known as tax farmers, who were in the business of collecting taxes abroad for a profit. The tax rate was progressive, with the publicani deciding who would pay what taxes. Corruption ran rampant.

To make matters worse, in the middle of the second century B.C., two brothers with great political ambition came to power. The Gracci broth-ers emerged from the Populares Party. They understood that they could gain enormous amounts of political power by making grand promises and using propaganda and charisma to woo the Roman citizens. They promised grain at prices below market and, eventually, for free. They promised to redistribute land, and they put into place sweeping ‘New Deal” like social reforms, which increased the welfare state. Essentially, you name it, they probably promised it. As a result of these progressive reforms, farmers rushed to live in the cities for their free grain and slaves were freed in order to qualify for the dole.

It didn’t help that there was also lots of money floating around the Roman economy from the conquests abroad. Since money was cheap and interest rates were kept very low (and, at one point, even forbidden), individual Roman citizens racked up considerable amounts of debt. The pubIicani were also in the money lending business but eventually cracked down on borrowers so they could invest their money into new markets opening up in Asia. This led to a huge credit crisis in 88 B.C.

The economy continued to crumble as debt increased and more and more hands grasped at the treasury. By the time Caesar came along, more than 300,000 Roman citizens were on the dole and an increasing number were making greater demands on the government. In fact, more legislation was passed during the end of first century B.C. than any other time in the Republic’s history. Politicians were becoming increasingly corrupt and self-interested. By the time Rome became an empire, there were so many obligations that taxes began to rise to crippling levels and emperors began to adopt a policy of devaluing the currency. Rampant inflation ensued. In fact, during the 200 years of the Roman Empire, the Denarius (Rome’s coinage at the time) went from containing 95% silver to containing .02% silver It became virtually value-less!

Roman Emperors, such as Diocletian, began grasping at straws: regulating industry and trade, nationalizing businesses and fixing prices and wages. However, despite all the concerns from the more rational members of the Senate, Rome continued to collapse. Cicero had even warned, “The budget should be balanced. Public debt should be reduced. The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered, and assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome becomes bankrupt.”

So there you have it, the breakdown of the Roman Republic (and maybe the breakdown of the American Republic) in a nutshell. We’ve modeled our government after Rome, we looked at the writings of Roman philosophers like Cicero and Cato to create our Constitution, we got terms like “senate” and “citizen” from Latin. We even designed our nation’s capital after Roman architecture. And, in a way, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and others gave us the ultimate “mulligan” when they founded America. But they also warned us of what happened to Rome and urged us not to go in the same direction. And what did we do? Like sheep and cowards, we didn’t listen, didn’t learn from past mistakes and, eager for security and temporary quick fixes, have been voting ourselves back into bondage ever since.

American, wake up! We don’t want to be Rome! Let’s not forget that this shining city on a hill ultimately burned down with Nero fiddling away!
As our leaders in Washington stand at the bank of the Rubicon, ready to cross, we must remember Cassius’s wise words in Julius Caesar when he said, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings.”

I hope my high school English teacher is impressed.

“When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the State, and calls for an exercise of the power of dissolution.” – Thomas Jefferson

What is incometax?
Would you consider giving me a hand or at least some advice based on your experience? Any help appreciated.
Thanks. Warmest Regards, Tim

It looked weird. One tip off that it is likely not a real person is that he signs a different name (Tim) than is on the email address (Andri), and his email address also includes an apparent title (Manager), which is odd.

So I asked a few of my friends what it could be. They told me it was an email from an IRS agent. The point is to entrap me into giving the agent provocateur advice not to pay income tax, which after a quick search I understood to be a criminal offense.

This is what I found in Google search here:

Criminal Penalties
Agents of the IRS’s Criminal Investigation Division investigate criminal federal income tax cases. The following are some of the more common tax crimes:…
Aiding and abetting: Section 7206(2) is generally used against tax preparers. This section makes it a crime for any person to willfully aid, assist in or advise the preparation or presentation of a tax return, claim or other document that is fraudulent or materially false, whether or not the person who is required to present the return or other document knows about or consents to the fraud or falsity.

Why would the IRS go after me?

I’ve written a fiction book, Publicani, that is based on the idea that the government is able to transfer intellectual ability from one person to another. It’s not a book against the income tax, but it could be interpreted as such. In various interviews such as here and here, I have indeed interpreted it that way.

Also, in this blog, I’ve written in the past some posts arguing against redistribution and the income tax, such as here and here.

With the trillions that Obama is taking from us in order to redistribute to unions and banks, is he really worried about fiction authors and bloggers changing America’s perception of whether taxes are evil? To be sure, taxes are his lifeblood: after all, Obama and other politicians produce nothing. But why fear an author? Is Obama becoming paranoid already?

Perhaps not. Perhaps he realizes the effect that good fiction can have. Look at Archipelago or Atlas Shrugged. And think of the chilling effect on future authors who would write bad things about the government. If he can silence his critics with a couple of fake, entrapping emails, from his perspective, it’s probably worth the cost.

Now, there is a small chance that there is a real person named Andri “Tim” Manager out there who would like to get help on income taxes. If so, then I feel very sorry for him, because he can’t! Poor guy. Because of all of the IRS regulations, it is impossible to even ask around for advice – everybody involved will go to jail. It is exactly like what happens to the people in Publicani who have nowhere to turn for help against the government.

And the word Publicani itself, by the way, means an IRS agent during biblical times.

Added August 11, 2009

Two things happened today that strengthened my belief that Obama administration is hiding behind this entrapment operation. First of all, I’ve got a letter from IRS, accusing me of some code violations. It never happened before because I don’t respect and don’t trust that agency, and thus I am always very conservatives in satisfying all their requirements to avoid any direct confrontations with them and to keep our disagreement on a moral and philosophical level only.

The fact that some private company may be a front for this andri.manager doesn’t mean that it’s not a government operation. With Acorn, Government Motors, Banks, Unions, Pharmaceuticals, and maby others, Obama administration proved convincingly that it does not hesitate to use, intimidate, and take over a private company. These emails ask about taxes, real estate, international travel, international communications, foreign students – all relatively narrow field, clearly of interest to IRS, Homeland Security, the bank regulators, and the like. If it were a private company, just collecting emails. why not ask arbitrary questions, about divorce, for example?

The second thing that happened today was this article published in Washington Post on Obama web-tracking plan.

There is a long-standing ban in place forbidding the government to track people on internet with “cookies” and other technologies. Obama administration is asking to end the ban. In the mean time, it goes around it by partnering with public companies (such as Google) and using their data.

People, who defend Obama in the comments, what do you think about flag@whitehouse.gov?

Passover, Tea Parties, Slavery, and Redistribution? All of these are connected.

Only 53% of Americans believe capitalism is better than socialism. How does socialism differ from capitalism? Redistribution. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” “Social justice.” “Economic justice.” “Fairness.”

Paying for somebody else’s housing – redistribution. Paying for somebody else’s healthcare – redistribution. Paying for somebody else’s education – redistribution. Paying different amounts of income tax per person – redistribution.

Why do we celebrate Passover? Because a long time ago, one April, Jews got up and left the country where they were slaves.

What is slavery? Using force to get other people’s property. What is redistribution? Using force to get other people’s property.

Imagine two slaves. One complains about slavery and another does not. For whatever reasons – he may be afraid, or he may even support the idea of slavery. Does it make him less of a slave? If a slave does not ask for freedom and can afford to pay part of the product of his labor, is he not a slave? How can we then be against “… tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans who don’t need them and didn’t ask for them?”

I am not talking about small peanuts either. Those “wealthy” Americans are working an extra 10 to 20 years of their lives not getting a penny, just to pay income tax.

The greatest irony is that the vast majority of American Jews and African-Americans, people whose ancestors suffered extremely from slavery, people who should know better, are now in favor of slavery. In favor of redistribution.

“Sacrifice.” “Give back to society.” “Ask what you should do for your country.” “Responsibility.” “Fairness.” All that is smoke to cover and justify slavery.

It’s not that we have bad politicians. The problem is that we are bad. The politicians more or less represent what we want. “Get the wealthy.” We have no shame for going after the property of others.

When you sit around your Passover Seder tonight, drink a glass of wine against slavery, against redistribution, for freedom!

Image courtesy of ibiblio.

Look what I found on Internet:

All men are created equal. Therefore all persons alive on this earth are of equal value before the law.

Racism has no place on this planet, in any way, shape or form.

We reject positive action (or direct action, or positive discrimination) as a negative, discriminatory policy, which enslaves minorities within a social cast.

Believing in objective values, we reject quotas and other methods of social engineering. Work and functions must be allotted to those who are objectively best qualified for it, whatever their race, faith, age, gender or culture.

Striving for political neutrality, we have no business perpetuating socialist dialectic. Victims are people, who have been willfully and unjustifiably injured. Being born into a particular social cast, doesn’t constitute an injustice.

Of course, it is humane, honorable, and virtuous to help a fellow individual or a group ob people in time of need. It’s ok,  if your resources are exhausted, to ask other people to join you. But it’s not ok for person A to use person B to force person C to help person D,  especially if by doing it you are harming person E. That’s why I have doubts about affirmative action done by the government. After all, the whole idea of Publicani is based on the self-evident truth that all people are equal.

What do you think?

But do you know what Fret is? Have you heard about Deeksha?
Fret stands short for fluorescence energy transfer. It’s an application of nanotechnology developed by the scientists at Stanford University and the Carnegie Institution a few years ago. It transfers the levels of crucial chemicals in living brain cells involved in everything from learning to memory to mood and perception to nanosensors. See here.

Deeksha is a transfer of spiritual energy to the brain. Sounds a bit non-scientific, but there may exist some supporting evidence. Judge for yourself. Check pdf here.

Publicani is based on the assumption that it is possible to transfer intellect from one person to another. This thriller looks into social problems that such transfer would create. How far-stretched this assumption is? With explosion of Fret research we may not be too far away scientifically.

But socially, we are already there. The government creates special programs and allocates resources to people who in the government’s opinion need it the most. Programs like “No child left behind” and affirmative actions help certain group of people to get better education. The programs are based on transfer of money from one group of people to another to make the recipients smarter. The donors, “the rich,” could have used their money themselves to improve their intellect. What if they pay the money to the best scientists to get private lessons in whatever they want? Unfair?

Obama famously said: “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” What if he spreads your intellect around?

Maymin: Good morning Tony. Thank you.

Savino: And Zak, tell us first of all about the title of the book, “Publicani,” what does that refer to?

Maymin: “Publicani,” those are tax farmers, tax collectors during biblical times. It’s like IRS agents who were during the time of Jesus Christ, collecting taxes.

Savino: I see. Okay. And the book is about government intrusion. It’s about the government that has a way of taking the thoughts or the intelligence from one person, transferring it to another. Tell us about that, a little bit about the plot of the book if you could. Without giving away, too much because you want people to read it.

Maymin: That’s about it! <Laughter> What you just mentioned.

Savino: But is it your scenario that this could happen in real life or is it a metaphor for something else?

Maymin: It is both. Actually, mainly it is a metaphor, a metaphor for something that people get used to, and don’t even pay attention, don’t even think twice about it, which I find very disturbing, and may be the main problem that we have right now in America. Namely, it’s the income tax. So, it is a metaphor for this.

But also it is entirely possible that in the future it will be happening. Because there is technology already developing that analyzes certain spots in our brain, where smart people would have certain activities, and there are new studies coming everyday and…I can see it is possible.

Savino: Uh-huh, and the question that’s asked throughout is that… well, first of all, two…two things perhaps. One is that it has public support; the other is that, well, if it’s for the good of society, then what’s wrong with it.

Maymin: Okay, the end justifies the means — that’s a problem and it’s a huge… you know, I don’t want to even…I came from Russia in 1980, and I know that, sometimes I feel even that I came from the future to United States. I have the experience that not many Americans had, namely, I know that it’s possible that the entire country is wrong.

People that you know, people that are smart, that you like, and they could be very much wrong. Like, it happened in Germany during Hitler’s time, it happened in Russia, during Communist Russia, when I was there.

And Americans, it’s hard to understand this, to have this experience and I already had it. And also, the fact that the income tax is becoming…it’s especially an important threat right now, because we’re becoming strong and stronger everyday. I can see that in 10, 15 years, one person may have means to destroy an entire nation, maybe, with you know, nukes, H-bombs, and stuff like that.

So we have to learn not to initiate force. And whatever we think is good, we shouldn’t force people to do this.

Savino: Your son, of course, is Phil Maymin, who ran for Congress a couple of years ago, and is on the Libertarian Party -

Maymin: Yes.

Savino: And yet, you say you’re not a member of the Party, but you believe in a lot of the tenets.

Maymin: Right, I’m not a member of the Party. But I believe, I do not necessarily agree with all the policies of the Libertarian Party, but I certainly believe in libertarian principles, and those were the principles of our founding fathers.

Savino: And one of the questions I had is I’ve heard some people that are libertarians say that especially, now with threats of terrorism, things like that, that we’re going to be giving up our rights for the good of society. Do you see things in those terms also?

Maymin: Yes. We are already giving up our rights. You know that America is about 5% of the world population and there are about 25% of all prisoners are sitting in prison in America. We are losing our rights everyday, we were losing our rights under the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration. And it is terrible.

It’s again… the government was created to protect our rights, not to give up our rights to protect us from something else.

Savino: Uh-huh. Now as far as the book is concerned, this is the first book you’ve written?

Maymin: Yes, yes.

Savino: Okay. And, what made you want to write the book?

Maymin: Well, I see that we are losing this fight against income tax by using reason only. People just ignore it. You give all kind of logical reasons; I think it’s possible even to mathematically prove that you cannot be free if you have income tax.

It’s like telling a slave, “Ah, you are free to vote. You have all other freedoms. It’s just you can’t keep fruits of your labor.” So you’re a slave by definition if you have income tax, and we are losing this logic. So I thought maybe, I can put it in the moral stance, and maybe in an entertaining way, I’ll force people to think, “Is it moral or not to come to somebody, take something that belongs to him, and give it to others because it’s for the good?”

Savino: Uh-huh. You had many biblical references, other cultural references; did you do a lot of research on those?

Maymin: Yes, yes I did. I found out by the way, not many people know what happened to Jesus Christ. It looks like according, you know many people think that he was born, and then suddenly about 30 years later, he showed up when he was 30 years old, and started making all these miracles. And there is an interesting period during which he was trained, and prepared for this mission, and I write about it in the book.

Savino: And one thing that I remember you wrote is, it could be controversial among other things, would be in the Garden of Eden. You’re calling basically, you were calling, Eve, Eve disobeyed God, but you’re saying, God is like the government.

Maymin: Yes. Exactly. Yes and there is meaning, the book has certain references to the Bible, and the Torah which is for Jewish religion. And I think the entire Bible is a story of people fighting for freedom. If you look at it, if you analyze it, that’s what actually, the message the bible sends us is, you have to fight for individuals’ freedom, for freedom of individuals.

Savino: And are you planning on writing any more books?

Maymin: I’ll have to see how well this book is accepted, and you know, it’s a very time consuming, it takes a lot of time, and resources from you, and you really have to like it. I like it, but you have to be sure that it produces some results.

Savino: Right, because there was about 200 pages, but how long did it take you to write it?

Maymin: Several years.

Savino: Is that right?

Maymin: Yes.

Savino: All right, Zak. Thanks very much for joining us this morning. And the book is available if people want to get it?

Maymin: Yeah, on Amazon, “Publicani,” and also you can read it free online on publicani.com.

Savino: All right great. Zak Maymin, of Greenwich, our guest this morning. The name of the book is “Publicani.” Thanks very much for joining us Zak.

Maymin: Thank you Tony.

Savino: WGCH News Center time is 8:28. Traffic and weather together coming up next.

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