{"id":14978,"date":"2016-12-16T16:00:01","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T16:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=14978"},"modified":"2016-12-16T16:00:01","modified_gmt":"2016-12-16T16:00:01","slug":"classic-christmas-movies-declare-taxation-is-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2016\/12\/16\/classic-christmas-movies-declare-taxation-is-theft\/","title":{"rendered":"Classic Christmas Movies Declare Taxation Is Theft"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Classic Christmas Movies Declare Taxation Is Theft<\/h2>\n

\u201cAnd it came to pass that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. And all went to be taxed, everyone to his own city, for to disobey the Roman emperor meant certain death.\u201d<\/p>\n

The message in the opening lines of\u00a0The Little Drummer Boy<\/a><\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>(1968) is as rich and pleasing to the ear as Greer Garson\u2019s euphonious narration.<\/p>\n

That there was “no room at the inn” was not a natural occurrence. It was caused by the government, like virtually all human misery.<\/span>First, that Bethlehem was so crowded and that there was \u201cno room at the inn\u201d for Joseph and Mary was not at all a natural occurrence. It was caused by the government, like virtually all human misery. Second, that all taxation occurs under the threat of violence, for to refuse to pay would result in \u201ccertain death.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is all within the first 30 seconds of the film. A libertarian couldn\u2019t ask for a better start.<\/p>\n

Taxation is repeatedly denounced throughout the story. Garson continues by noting that \u201cthere were good people who could ill afford the cruel tax.\u201d Even the film\u2019s chief villain, Ben Haramad (voice by Jos\u00e9 Ferrer), who kidnaps Aaron in order to compel him to perform in his traveling show, addresses his audience as \u201cfellow taxpayers,\u201d indicating that as bad as he might be, he is one with his audience in suffering under a much more cruel and malicious oppressor.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t have been happier that my seven-year-old daughter was exposed to all of this, along with a very age-appropriate introduction to the gospel stories. With the central lesson of Thanksgiving \u2013 that communism is lethal and private property essential to human survival \u2013 effectively erased from popular consciousness, it was refreshing to see these foundational libertarian ideas surviving in a classic Christmas special.<\/p>\n

Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town<\/strong><\/p>\n

Next, we queued up another oldie from the same\u00a0DVD compilation<\/a>:\u00a0Santa Claus Is Comin\u2019 to Town<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1970). This one didn\u2019t disappoint either. Again, the general misery within the aptly named \u201cSombertown\u201d has the same source: government. One cannot help but see the parallels between Burgermeister Meisterburger\u2019s idiotic law against toys and the US government\u2019s War on Drugs. All of the familiar characteristics are there.<\/p>\n

First, the law is completely ineffective in stopping the children of Sombertown from playing with toys, aided by a young, energetic Kris Kringle. When the government confiscates the toys, Kringle brings more. When the government starts searching houses, Kringle hides the toys in stockings hanging by the fire.<\/p>\n

Of course, each government’s failure to prevent human beings from engaging in activity that is harmless to others results in ever more oppressive measures. As they do in the \u201cland of the free\u201d today, the government finally resorts to \u201cno-knock raids,\u201d with armed men breaking down the doors of innocent and guilty alike. Parents and children huddle together in fear.<\/p>\n

Meisterberger demonstrates government hypocrisy when he breaks his own law by playing with a yo-yo given to him by Kringle. What an effective analogy for the government\u2019s own involvement in drug trafficking, both by street cops \u201cgone bad\u201d and by the CIA in its vast covert operations.<\/p>\n

“By and by, the good people realized how silly those laws were, and forgot all about them.” If only the good people of the US would attain similar wisdom.<\/span>Meisterburger further emulates the US government with ridiculous overreach in enforcing his unjust law, arresting not only Kris Kringle but his whole family, his future wife Jessica, and even the reformed Winter Warlock. All are charged with \u201cconspiracy,\u201d a tactic utilized by the government to circumvent the rules of evidence in court and put over 2 million people in prison.<\/p>\n

The story also features a useful idiot in Jessica, who at first blindly supports the law, until Kringle gives her a china doll. Realizing how harmless to others her own enjoyment of the doll is, she finally begins to question the wisdom of prohibition.<\/p>\n

Kringle escapes the dungeon with the help of the Winter Warlock\u2019s flying reindeer and remains an outlaw for many years afterward. However, the story ends happily as the libertarians outlast the oppressive Meisterbergers, who eventually \u201cdied off and fell out of power.\u201d As narrator Fred Astaire relates,<\/p>\n

\u201cBy and by, the good people realized how silly the Meisterberger laws were. Well, everybody had a wonderful laugh and then forgot all about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

If only the good people of the United States would attain similar wisdom.<\/p>\n

Within this pleasant little Christmas story, youngsters couldn\u2019t be taught a more radical libertarian lesson. The government is evil. Its edicts are often unjust and result in needless misery. The hero of the story is an outlaw who practices civil disobedience to bring a little happiness to his fellow man. Regardless of your feelings on drug prohibition, there are a thousand other parallels to real-world government oppression.<\/p>\n

Conservatives often complain that modern Christmas specials have scrubbed Jesus Christ out of the holiday, turning it into a secular celebration of gift-giving and merrymaking. That\u2019s not hard to understand coming out of \u201cprogressive\u201d modern Hollywood, whose animosity towards Christianity rivals its animosity towards free enterprise. It also explains why these wonderfully libertarian themes have disappeared from today\u2019s politically correct holiday fluff.<\/p>\n

Whatever your religious beliefs, even if you have none at all, you can\u2019t go wrong watching these classic Christmas specials with your children. Not only will they learn the true meaning of Christmas, but they will be exposed at a young age to the founding American principle that government is evil.<\/p>\n

God bless us, everyone.<\/p>\n

This first appeared at the author’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n


\nTom Mullen
\n<\/a><\/h5>\n

Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? <\/a>and\u00a0A Return to Common\u00a0 Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America<\/a>.\u00a0For more information and more of Tom’s writing, visit\u00a0www.tommullen.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Classic Christmas Movies Declare Taxation Is Theft \u201cAnd it came to pass that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. And all went to be taxed, everyone to his own city, for to disobey the Roman emperor meant certain death.\u201d The message in the opening lines of\u00a0The Little Drummer Boy\u00a0(1968) is as rich and pleasing to the ear as Greer Garson\u2019s euphonious narration. That there was “no room at the inn” was not a natural occurrence. It was caused by the government, like virtually all human misery.First, that Bethlehem was so crowded and that there was \u201cno room at the inn\u201d for Joseph and Mary was not at all a natural occurrence. It was caused by the government, like virtually all human misery. Second, that all taxation occurs under the threat of violence, for to refuse to pay would result in \u201ccertain death.\u201d This is all within the first 30 seconds of the film. A libertarian couldn\u2019t ask for a better start. Taxation is repeatedly denounced throughout the story. Garson continues by noting that \u201cthere were good people who could ill afford the cruel tax.\u201d Even the film\u2019s chief villain, Ben Haramad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2320,2318,2319],"class_list":["post-14978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-politics","tag-christmas-movies","tag-taxation","tag-theft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}