The Hollow President

July 23, 2002

I want to express my deep gratitude to the American public for its overwhelming and encouraging response to my candidacy for the presidency of the United States in 2004. Thank you, Wanda, Donna, Greg, and Tom!

At this rate, victory appears well within reach, without the need for campaign tours, financing, media exposure, and hype. How am I planning to defeat the forces arrayed against me? Simple: the chain letter.

If each of my supporters acts now, each sending my message to two others who would like to live under the U.S. Constitution again, and each of them in turn recruiting two more, we can build a majority well before November 2004. Do the math. The Internet will greatly accelerate our progress.

Swelling numbers of Americans now realize that the United States is ripe for "regime change," and that President George W. Bush has already proven himself a "nonessential government employee." One can hardly imagine a more radical regime change than a return to lawful government.

Under my administration, as I have already made clear, the Federal Government will cease to collect income taxes, and monies already appropriated will be impounded and returned to the taxpayer. As soon as possible, taxpayers will virtually cease to exist. At least nobody will pay taxes above the level Americans paid under the reign of King George III.

A modest tax on tea should suffice to finance the legitimate operations of the government. What is the point of celebrating our independence from England, unless our own government is at least as mild as that of King George?

The Constitution forbids depriving people of their property without due process of law. Punitive taxes at current levels, levied on people who have committed no crime, flagrantly violate this principle. In fact, such taxes would constitute "cruel and unusual punishment" even for most convicted criminals.

Worse yet, the "national debt," now in the trillions of dollars, means that every American infant born today "owes" about $120,000. Where is a child supposed to get that kind of money? If this "debt" has been imposed on him without his consent, before he was even conceived, it is a shameless lie to tell him he enjoys "self-government." Indeed, nobody has the right to impose debt on anyone else. I will demand the repudiation of the "national debt."

But won't this destroy the credit of the United States? That's the idea. The government will never again be able to borrow money and bequeath its debt to another child. The technical name for this is liberty.

Now let's briefly take up a few other issues.

What about the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance? I would delete them. Lest you suspect I'm pandering to the atheist vote, I would repeal the entire Pledge. Americans should not be taught that they owe their allegiance to the government; the government is supposed to be their servant, not their master. The Pledge has helped make Americans the submissive sheep they are today.

Gun control? The Second Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, limits the powers of the Federal Government. It clearly forbids any Federal gun control. Its chief purpose is to enable "the security of a free state" - which is what the original states were. They were supposed to be able to defend themselves, by taking arms if necessary, against Federal usurpations of power.

Today, of course, this would be impossible. In contrast to the days of the Civil War, when the states could defend themselves for several years, state resistance to the Federal Government would be crushed within hours. The purpose of the Second Amendment can only be realized when the Federal Government itself is disarmed. It must be deprived of all weapons and forces that enable it, or might enable it, to exercise tyranny over the states. This would entail a drastic reduction of the entire U.S. military establishment and the misnamed "defense" budget.

Such a reduction would leave the U.S. Government harmless. It would no longer be capable of antagonizing people, including "terrorists," all over the world. Why do so many Americans fear the loss of imperial power? We'd be much better off without it, like all the formerly imperial nations of Europe, which were spared last September 11. Why should we be taxed to buy ourselves so much trouble?

Joseph Sobran