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comment by artifex
artifex  ·  4802 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Elizabeth Warren Quote about the Social Contract Implied in Success
Well, I think you get my point then. People like senators and congressmen, and even the president, all served on a volunteer basis. Sure, there are some issues with that (would only rich, self-sufficient people become representatives? [but then again, isn't that what we have right now?]). Save for times of war (which, from a liberty-minded perspective, Lincoln was a monster), Americans largely did not know what an income tax was.

But given that we're a nation that's in perpetual war (in order to maintain a global empire), I wonder how feasible getting rid of the income tax would be.