“There is nothing wrong with a strategy to avoid the payment of taxes. The Internal Revenue Code doesn’t prevent that.” – Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist

In “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” Sally asks Charlie Brown to write a letter to Santa Claus for her. She dictates, “I have been extra good this year, so I have a long list of presents that I want … send as many as possible. If it seems too complicated, make it easy on yourself: just send money.”

She concludes, “All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share.” We laugh at that line because we understand what Sally really means. She doesn’t want merely what she thinks is due her, she wants more than the other guy. We laugh because we understand this really isn’t her “fair share.”

Fairness is an inherent belief of all Americans. We believe everyone should be treated equally and everyone should play by the same rules. That’s what Thomas Jefferson meant when he wrote “all men are created equal.”

Politicians know this, and unscrupulously manipulate this trait of American character to advance an agenda that’s exactly the opposite. In the name of fairness, they callously convince Americans to support policies and laws that are anything but fair and equal. President Barack Obama has adopted fairness as his campaign mantra. He repeated it so many times in his State of the Union address he sounded like a preacher asking for an “Amen.”

To our great shame and detriment, we let them get away with it, because no one wants to be against fairness. Whenever a politician says they want “the rich” to pay “their fair share” in taxes and we nod our heads and applaud we reinforce this subterfuge. And no one ever defines the terms. Who are “the rich?” What is “fair?” And who decides?

When politicians talk about fairness they’re just like Sally writing to Santa Claus. They don’t mean “equal,” they mean “let someone else pay.” When the president and his supporters allege that “the rich” don’t pay their “fair share” in taxes, what they are really saying is that the rich should pay more.

The simple but unspoken truth is that it is never right or moral, even if it is legal, to take money by force from one person and give it to another. That is theft. No one, not even the government, has the right to do it. Theft is theft, no matter who is doing the stealing. The claim that most Americans won’t have to pay more in taxes is not a justification.

That claim is also shaky, notes the Cato Institute’s Michael D. Tanner. The rich who President Obama so despises encompasses some 2.5 million Americans, including 750,00 independent and small business owners. By the president’s standards Tanner notes, a New York City teacher with 22 years service, married to a police captain, is rich.

When it comes right down to it, the charge that the rich don’t pay their fair share and should pay more is just another way of saying “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.” Income redistribution has no place in a free society. Besides, stealing from the rich is no more justified than stealing from the poor.

The charge that the rich don’t pay their fair share is also a “bit specious,” according to Tanner. I would call it a deliberate lie. He notes that the top one percent of Americans who earn 16 percent of the income in the U.S. pay 36.7 percent of all federal income taxes. And the Congressional Budget office reports that the wealthy Americans who earn about 50 percent of the income in the United States carry nearly 70 percent of the federal tax burden.

Oh and by the way, the same president who protests that the rich don’t pay their fair share employs 36 people who haven’t paid their share at all. According to the Internal Revenue Service, which President Obama supposedly oversees, they owe $833,970 in back taxes. Looks like it pays to know people in high places.

It’s not surprising that those who pose as our political leaders resort to the Orwellian tactic of reversing the meaning of words. It’s merely one tactic used throughout the ages by ruling elites to pit one group against another in order to maintain the grip on power. It’s a valuable instrument for catering to the masses by giving them entitlements in exchange for their votes. In other words, buying their votes using their own money that was forcefully taken from them.

Only Libertarians have the courage to discuss the real issue. The entire federal tax system, particularity the income tax, is not only unfair to everyone, it is immoral and unsustainable. Rather than putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound, we need major surgery. Rather than forcing one group to pay more, why not have everyone pay less? We can start by abolishing the income tax and replacing it with nothing.

Of course, that would mean that we’d have to stop out-of-control spending, particularly in the areas of entitlements and national defense. It would require our leaders to make drastic decisions which, alas, they lack the moral courage and intellectual integrity to even think about and discuss, let alone make.

Economics is not a zero sum game. If rich get richer, it doesn’t mean the poor get poorer. Libertarians envision a society where every person can achieve their full potential and tap their creativity to its full potential. A free society is one where politicians don’t tear down one group at the expense of another.

All people may start out poor, but the free market allows them to become prosperous, even rich. The best way to create wealth and prosperity, the way that has been proven successful time and time again in history, is not through government force, but by the voluntary cooperation and interaction of free persons working in a free market. Don’t allow President Obama and the media to tell you any differently. No matter how much you make, it is never fair to take your money.

R. Lee Wrights is a writer and political activist living in Texas. He is currently the Vice Chair of the Libertarian Party national committee. He is the co-founder and editor of the free speech online magazine Liberty For All. Contact Lee at rleewrights@gmail.com.

This war is stealing one of our most precious birthrights, the right to vote for the representative of our choice. It is the war on ballot access. Unlike other wars, the war on ballot access is waged by a united front of Democrats and Republicans who always willingly and eagerly stand together to restrict and obstruct any contender for political power but themselves. They’ve seized control of a nation and have no intention of ever relinquishing their stranglehold on the reigns of power.

Most Americans are oblivious to the monopoly of power exercised by the Democrats and Republicans because they’ve been conditioned to believe that “America has always had a two- party” system. Even some otherwise honest and intelligent Republicans and Democrats believe this is the way it’s always been, and seem genuinely amazed when they’re told how difficult it is for third-party and independent candidates to get on the ballot in many states.

That’s exactly what the professional political class wants them to believe. The arrogance of the two-party establishment feeds on itself; the longer it maintains and holds sole power, the more convinced it becomes of its rightness. They see nothing wrong in limiting your choices. In their haughty position of self-importance, they piously proclaim that having more than two choices on the ballot would only result in a “cluttered ballot” and “voter confusion.

These claims are merely a cover for their cynical belief that American voters are too uninformed and uneducated — in other words, too stupid — to make decisions from a long list of choices, unlike voters in countries like Iraq. The same politicians who piously demand other nations institute “democracy” have no qualms about blatantly denying to their own people the right to vote for representatives of their choice.

The stark truth is, if you’re not a Republican or a Democrat in the United States of America, you are a slave to a government controlled by a majority that forces it’s will upon you. Restrictive ballot access laws, perpetuated by the two-party duopoly, are the ultimate abuse of power. They’re depressing testimony to the mortification and calcification of the two-party system to the point that it is close to death.

“One of the best-kept secrets in American politics is that the two-party system has long been brain-dead maintained by a life-support system that protects the established parties from rivals,” said Theodore J. Lowi, senior professor of American Institutions at Cornell University. “The two-party system would collapse in an instant if the tubes were pulled and the IVs were cut. And until then, the dominant two parties will not, and cannot, reform a system in which they are the principal beneficiaries.”

In almost every case, state ballot access laws are an impediment to our rights, our freedom and our liberty. They’re designed exclusively to muzzle dissent and limit voter choice in order to secure power for the ruling class. In this election, however, America will have a clear choice and an opportunity to pull the IV tubes on the two-party duopoly.

Libertarian presidential candidate Gov. Gary Johnson may well be  on the ballot in all 50 states. But to make that happen, the Libertarian Party needs funds to secure ballot access in 19 more states. You can help that effort here.

Then on Nov. 6, 2012, be Libertarian one time and vote Libertarian to stop the war on ballot access. Help us achieve a historic one million votes for the Libertarian candidate for president. Send a clear message to Democrats and Republicans that it is your choice, your vote, your rights, and you will no longer stand idly by while they take them away from you.

Enough is enough! Make them remember this November! Vote Libertarian!

R. Lee Wrights is a writer and political activist living in Texas. He is currently the Vice Chair of the Libertarian Party national committee. He is the co-founder and editor of the free speech online magazine Liberty For All. Contact Lee at rleewrights@gmail.com.

Say no to war! Bring the troops home now! Go to The Million Vote March and make your voice heard. Join Governor Gary Johnson, Judge Jim Gray and the Libertarian Party in calling for a halt to all foreign interventions and bringing our service men and women home. Not tomorrow — today! It has already been too long since these brave souls have seen their families or kissed the soil of their homeland. Be Libertarian – one time! Let America and the world know we are here and we oppose war.

Vote Libertarian. Vote Gary Johnson. Vote to stop all war. Vote for peace.

You don’t know me, but I am one of the men who sought the Libertarian Party nomination for President of the United States. I lost that bid about a month ago. I am writing today to say how truly sorry I am you have to spend another Father’s Day away from your blessed children. It truly is to weep.

I ran for president so I could bring you home. It sorrows me that I will not be able to do that this time around. But I promise you; I will keep fighting to bring all of you home. I promise you that the Libertarian Party and its nominee Gary Johnson will not stop fighting to bring each of you home.

As a fellow veteran and father myself, you have my solemn pledge, president or not, my mantra will remain… Stop All War!

Have a nice Father’s Day and know someone at home is trying to reunite you with your children. Keep your heads down.

American politicians never talk about all the people killed in war, just American service members. Everyone else who is killed, even Americans arbitrarily classified as “enemy combatants,” are marginalized as mere collateral damage. Dollar costs consider only the “official” Defense Department budget, not the funds scattered and hidden throughout the federal budget. And the tally sheet deliberately excludes the cost of caring for the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines physically and emotionally scarred by war.

The Eisenhower Study Group at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies has compiled a comprehensive study of the human, economic, social and political costs of war. It’s available online. As you might imagine, the real numbers of wars we are presently involved in are staggering and stunning: more than 224,000 lives lost, more than 365,000 wounded, and in excess of seven million refugees.

The total estimated cost to the American taxpayer for our current wars is $3-4 trillion dollars through 2020 — plus an additional $1 trillion just to pay the interest on the money borrowed to fund war. Funding war by borrowing money is one of the devices politicians have devised to pay for war, particularly for unpopular wars. This means our children must pay tomorrow for the wars we are involved in today.

In the modern era, including Word War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War and our present conflicts, the United States has funded its wars through debt, taxation or inflation, or sometimes a combination of these methods. In each case, according to a recent report by the Institute for Peace and Justice, the result has been detrimental to the economy in the long run. In each case, the burden has fallen on the American taxpayers and the private sector, through increased taxes, increased cost of goods and shortages. In short, in each case the result has been a depressed civilian economy.

The report also found that excessive military spending can displace more productive non-military outlays in investments in high-tech industries, education, or infrastructure. The crowding-out effects of disproportionate government spending on military functions can affect service delivery or infrastructure development, ultimately affecting long-term growth rates. In simpler terms, the more the government borrows and spends for war, the less the private sector is able to grow and prosper.

For the period after World War II, if the wars had not happened the report concludes “it is likely taxes would have been lower, inflation would have been lower, there would have been higher consumption and investment and certainly lower budget deficits.” That can lead, in my view, to only one conclusion, a conclusion I reached years ago and one that is familiar to any libertarian: War is a waste. Peace is profitable.

War disrupts and distorts the free market, steals resources and workers from construction and diverts them to destruction. War does not produce anything except death. It only destroys. Jobs supposedly created by war industries, including drafting men into the military, is not full employment, it is slavery.

The businesses that profit from war are not free market entities, but “merchants of death” who would not exist if there were no war. “They are economic parasites, who take society’s resources but do not produce anything for civilian use in return,” wrote Jacob H. Huebert, author of Libertarianism Today. Again, we see that war is waste.

War spending is a monstrous manifestation of the broken window fallacy. In the war politicians’ perverted view of economics any war, no matter how many people are killed or how widespread the destruction, is an opportunity for them to increase their power and control by “jump-starting” the economy with projects to rebuild what they’ve destroyed. They deliberately ignore and discount the illogic and immorality of their actions. They have no concept that the money and resources squandered to break things, and then rebuild them, and to kill people, could have been better used building news things and saving lives.

War breeds war. War does nothing but devour valuable resources and destroy precious lives for the sole purpose of perpetuating itself. On the other hand, peace breeds prosperity. In peace, valuable natural resources can be preserved and used at home where we need them most. When there’s peace, people prosper. There have been economic booms, scientific advancements, and cultural progress after every conflict America has fought.

War is waste. Peace is production. War means we all lose. Peace means we all profit and prosper. What does America need more of right now?

R. Lee Wrights is a writer and political activist living in Texas. He is currently the Vice Chair of the Libertarian Party national committee. He is the co-founder and editor of the free speech online magazine Liberty For All. Contact Lee at rleewrights@gmail.com.

As I have said from the beginning, this is not about Lee Wrights. It’s about the Libertarian Party and the libertarian message of peace, prosperity and progress. While the campaign for the nomination is over, the campaign to Stop All War, to gain 50-state ballot access, and to win one million votes for the Libertarian candidate for president continues. It must continue. Not only because it’s what my staff and I have pledged to do, but because it’s right for the Libertarian Party and it’s right for America.

So we’ll continue to seek donations for ballot access. We’ll continue to produce videos for Libertarian candidates and affiliates. We’ll continue The Million Vote March to vote libertarian to stop all war. We’ll strive to Occupy Ballot Access in as many states as possible.

But if the Libertarian Party is going to be the Peace Party, we must begin by declaring peace among ourselves. I’ve said it at dozens of state conventions, I said it in Las Vegas, and I will say it again and again until everyone hears and believes: I am not at war. If enough of us say it, they can’t have them anymore.

Peace is the death of war. Peace is not the opposite of war. Peace is not the absence of war. Peace is the death of war. Peace happens when enough people decide they have had enough killing. Peace happens when enough people say, “I am not at war.”

And peace, like charity, begins at home. As I’ve said across the nation at state Libertarian conventions and repeated in Las Vegas: we cannot begin to stop the wars outside of a convention hall until we stop the wars within its walls. Libertarians must first stop being at war with each other before we can even begin to think about stopping the wars Democrats and Republicans conjure up. As long as we’re fighting each other, the only victor will be those who desire neither peace nor liberty, but only war and tyranny.

On Saturday night and early Sunday, between the two rounds of voting for national chair, I was besieged by people asking me if I would support this or that person, or this or that compromise. I told every one of them that all they were doing was setting themselves, and the party, up for war. I told them all: “I am not at war.”

These are not just words. Many people who know my reputation as a warrior have found it difficult to believe, but it’s true. Those who know me know I’m sincere. These are not just words to be recited, they are words that must be lived. Peace, like libertarianism, is more than a philosophical or political concept. Peace is a way of life. We must be it and live it.

Lee will also be a guest on the “Live and Let Live” radio show Sunday, May 27. He’ll be on from 8-9 p.m. CST, the first hour of the two-hour program.

The program is live on the Logos Radio Network, also know as the Rule of Law Radio Network. It can be heard on affiliate stations, including 90.1 FM in Austin. The episode will be archived here.

“While the campaign for the nomination is over, the campaign to stop all war, to gain ballot access, and to win one million votes for the Libertarian candidate for president continues,” said Wrights. “It must continue. Not only because it’s what my staff and I have pledged to do, but because it’s right for the Libertarian Party and it’s right for America.”

To begin, Wrights 2012 is focusing on Illinois, where Campaign Manager Thomas Hill is coordinating a volunteer ballot access petition drive.

“The campaign’s goal is to inspire and motivate local Libertarians to take ownership of their party’s petition drive,” said Hill “Volunteer signatures save the LP and it’s donors money that can be used to help campaigns and affiliates grow and prosper.”

Thomas spent the past 23 months working as an unpaid volunteer managing Wrights presidential campaign. Less than a week after returning home from the LP nominating convention in Las Vegas, he agreed to launch Occupy Ballot Access to help the ongoing petitioning efforts already underway in Illinois.

Thomas has set up a website to serve as a nexus for the Illinois petition efforts. It includes a tool kit page with links to PDF formatted documents containing everything volunteers need.

Occupy Ballot Access is the third project the Wrights campaign has launched to support Libertarian Party candidates and affiliates in the 2012 election. They began by producing customizable videos, provided free of charge to candidates and affiliates. In January, the campaign started The Million Vote March to achieve the historic first of one million votes for the Libertarian presidential candidate.

Correction: The petition deadline is June 22, 2012. Illinois election law requires the party to collect 25,000 signatures, but Libertarians are aiming to collect 50,000 signatures to ward off challenges.

When I started my campaign for the nomination I said that I was determined to ensure that whatever else happened the Libertarian Party would talk about war during the 2012 national convention. We did that. Every American who watched the presidential candidates debate or the convention proceedings on CSPAN heard that message loud and clear – stop all war.

They also were treated to a fine example of how political discourse should be conducted in America. During the debate, they didn’t witness the spectacle of two men going after each other, out for blood and tearing each other apart. They saw two rational and reasonable people discussing alternative ways that liberty and freedom can bring peace and prosperity to our nation.

Yes, there were contentious debates and votes – several votes – over electing members of the national committee. But no blows were struck, no blood was spilled, and no one stormed out of the room. We resolved our differences peacefully and nominated candidates for President and Vice President every Libertarian can and should support.

We showed America that Libertarians are not the bogeymen the mainstream media and establishment politicians make us out to be. We showed America why libertarians are different and how, by being different, the Libertarian Party will make a difference in the 2012 election. I left the convention proudly wearing a Gary Johnson for President button.

My entire staff and I are unwaveringly committed to working for the Johnson-Gray ticket, and continuing the Million Vote March to get one million votes for the Libertarian candidate for President of the United States – to get one million votes for peace, prosperity and progress.

Even after taking off a week to rest and recuperated in Vegas, I’m still at a loss for words to express how grateful I am to the members of my staff, all the volunteers who worked so hard on this campaign, the donors and supporters who made this campaign possible – and my family, the Libertarian Party. I could not have done anything without your hard work, dedication, and perseverance.

I would thank you all from the bottom of my heart … but for you, my heart has no bottom.

Thank you to all my staff, supporters, family and friends! I could not have done anything without you all!

I suspect he will have more to say when he recuperates. In the meantime, take a look at this presidential debate from the convention, a shining example of what a political debate should be. I hope it makes you proud to be a Libertarian. I know it did it for me.

For further inspiration, read Less Antman’s nomination speech: Antiwar is the Health of the Anti-State Movement