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THE ALLIGATOR AT THE DOOR
Douglas J. Hagmann
He told me about a Louisiana woman who bought a stately, two-story home on an expanse of property that included a picturesque pond and cypress swamps directly behind the mansion. When she first moved in, she noticed a relatively small baby alligator sunning on the bank of the pond located nearest the house. Every day, the woman would hang clothes to dry on a clothesline attached to a rear pillar of the expansive back porch. Initially, it was out of respect that she would take a freshly slaughtered chicken outside with her, tossing it to the alligator before hanging the clothes on the line. As months turned into years, she began to buy fresh turkeys instead of the smaller chickens to feed the growing alligator. First, it was one, then two a day.
One day when she did not keep to her normal routine of hanging clothes outside, she heard a loud banging on her back door. The banging was not the knock of a friendly visitor but of something much more menacing. Peering out of the window in her study located at the rear corner of her home, she was horrified to see a well-nourished, 12-foot-long monster banging its snout against the back of the house. It was no longer the small, lean reptile she once knew. The banging was continuous and becoming more incessant as the alligator demanded his gluttonous due.
Frightened, the woman ran to her refrigerator, where she had one remaining fresh turkey, retreated to her second-floor rear balcony, and tossed the turkey onto the ground away from the porch. She heard the thuds of the alligator as it moved toward the food and watched as it consumed the large turkey in one snap, then retreated to the nearby cypress swamp.
She called animal control who sent a man to survey the situation. Upon seeing the size, girth, and aggressiveness of the alligator, he asked the woman why she had waited so long to call. When she related the history of her relationship with the alligator, the man nearly shouted at the woman, what were you thinking! Can’t you see the monster you created?
And so it is with the federal government.
As we discussed the groundswell of support by citizens advocating their state’s secession from the United States, my source addressed the motivation behind the movement. “You know, this is one issue they are terrified of. People are starting to wake up, and they don’t like that.”
As we walked, he appeared to be thinking out loud, asking almost rhetorically if there was a more effective approach or perhaps one that would be needed if people were really serious about secession. “Aren’t Americans, especially the God-fearing Americans, the Christians, tired of their tax money being used and misused by the bloated federal government for things they do not want and to fund programs with which they don’t morally agree or need?”
He noted that Americans already pay taxes every day to some 90 thousand different taxing entities for items they buy or use, while the taxes paid to the federal government, or federal income tax, is something different. He began to quiz me on my knowledge of the federal income tax system. Did you know that the federal income tax is a voluntary assessment? “Research it,” he said.
He then asked if I knew how many court cases per year, on average, federal courts adjudicate related to people refusing to pay federal income tax. “No clue,” I responded. Twelve, maybe 14 a year, he told me. One of the busiest years was 28. Do you want to know why, and do want to know why we don’t hear about this low number? He paused, “because sometimes the IRS loses, and that’s not good PR for the government.”
He continued as we walked. “Don’t you get it? It’s feeding the bloated alligator, and the alligator is now pounding on the door of every American, demanding more! Isn’t it time to recognize the bloat of what has been created and stop feeding the beast?”