Taxation Of Private Property, Or The Regulation

Utopianism Substitutes Glorious Predictions And Unachievable Promises For Knowledge, Science, And Reason, While Laying Claim To Them All.

Consequently, Citizen Legislators, Rotating Back To Their Communities After A Short Period Of Public Service—considered An Indispensable And Routine Characteristic And Design Of Representative Government At The Time Of The Founding, And For A Century Thereafter—have Been Replaced With A Professional Ruling Class Led By Governing Masterminds. For The Most Part, They Are Isolated From The Communities From Which They Hail And Are Consumed With The Daily Jockeying For Position And Power Within Their Ranks. Moreover, They Both Pander To And Lord Over Their Constituents.

Politicians And Bureaucrats Are Substituting Their Uninformed, Largely Political Decisions For Those Of The Marketplace. Their Past Miscalculations Demonstrate That They Do Not And Cannot Possess The Information, Knowledge, Means, And Discipline To Manage The Economy.

The Oil Industry Is Hardly Free To Operate As Efficiently As It Could Or To Be As Responsive To Consumer Demands As It Would Like. It Has Become, In Essence, A Quasi-state-run Enterprise, Because It Cannot Drill, Transport, Refine, And Store Fuel Without Receiving Government Permission, Complying With Government Regulations, And Paying Taxes At Every Level Or Production.

The Conservative Does Not Despise Government. He Despises Tyranny. This Is Precisely Why The Conservative Reveres The Constitution And Insists On Adherence To It.