Not so Secure Socialism
The United States Supreme Court in 1937 validated Social Security as an exercise of the Constitutional taxing power of Congress for the benefit of the general fund of the United States Treasury. The Supreme Court also said that “Congress could, in its future discretion, spend that money for whatever Congress then judged to be the general welfare of the country” having “no constitutional power to earmark or segregate certain kinds of tax proceeds for certain purposes, whether the purposes be farm-price supports, foreign aid or social security payments.”
“Protection draws to it subjection; subjection protection.”
At the time of the introduction of the Social Security Act to Congress and the American people “The President wanted everybody covered for every contingency in life---’cradle to the grave,’ he called it... the social insurance system… But the Government of the United States is not an insurance company and so it could be done.”
While the system of Federal Social Security was “sold as if it were insurance” it was not. There is a great deception, a strong delusion, that social security taxes are payments of insurance premiums to obtain specified benefits at a specified time. There is no such right.
According to the Social Security Tax Act the government has been under no contractual obligation to make any return payment from the very beginning and has carried the provision that, “The right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision of this act is hereby reserved to the Congress.” Therefore “Congress could continue to collect the so-called social security pay roll taxes even though Congress discontinued all social security benefit payments.”
This may seem a little scary for some who are or may be dependent upon such payments but that is exactly what you should expect as the national and world economies continues their descent into a domain of devastating decline, debt and disaster. To believe that you have a right to get back specified benefits because you paid into Social Security is a foolhardy fallacy, if not a delusion of false hope.
According to Dr. Clarence E. Manion, the Supreme Court held that Congress can “tax payments and earnings of employers and employees in the same way that it can tax a bottle of whiskey or a ticket to the ball game.”
A man and his naturally endowed right to his labor was not originally the same as a bottle of whiskey nor a ball of twine. The idea of people laboring for a portion of each day without pay for the government is as old as the pyramids. It is known by many names such as statutory labor, corvee, or tribute and is nothing more than a form of subjection and servitude.
Corvee’ is a French word which can mean “Gratuitous labor exacted from villages or communities, especially for repairing roads, constructing bridges, etc.” In Latin it would be covata from corrogare meaning “to gather by request”. Webster says it is an “obligation on the inhabitants of a district to perform services” or “forced labor exacted by government”.
To take a man’s labor without consent falls within a broad definition of slavery. Neither the President nor the congress had the power to compel a free people to begin to labor without pay. They could not force the entire population into becoming tax collectors and serfs, or taskmasters and statute laborers without some form of consent.
Like all these system that begin as a “request” they end a “forced obligation” with some form of consent. The Romans had a Corvee system in their protected provinces and eventually throughout the empire to maintain public works. The Jews often opposed this because it was like the system of bondage in Egypt which God told the people never to return to in the Biblical instructions for writing a constitution.
Some of the citizens of Judea had appealed to the Roman Commander in chief, Pompey for the protection. Not all Jews practiced the same religion. The Pharisees brought in their own system of social welfare under the guise of religious obligations. There had been some exclusion of Jews from individual tribute because of the Roman respect of religious freedom recognized in their law.
Pure republics have always cared for the social welfare of its inhabitants through freewill offerings, but when the people neglect their responsibility in a free society they often decline into states of socialism that begin with promises of benevolent benefaction and end in decadence, decay, and despotism. Managing social welfare by exercising authority over the people has often been a part of governments from Babylon to Rome and they all failed or betrayed their public members. No matter what promises are made by a government at its beginning the deals are often altered before their demise.
All governments expand their power or influence over the people in schemes with offers of gifts, gratuities, and benefits, which gives government an increase in authority and compels a corresponding decrease in the individual’s right to choose. What they will contribute, to whom and for what purpose becomes the province of the government, and the “Will of the People” is imposed upon the people by the benefactors chosen for the people.
Herod the Great had a grand scheme of a vast membership in a social welfare scheme called Corban. You joined with a ceremony of ritual baptism after filing an application for membership with the administering “scribe”. Payment of prescribed fees was required and annual accounting of what you paid or did not pay was made available to the proper authorities.
With annual contributions collected and recorded by the scribes this system of individual sacrifice to support the needy of society became popular with many people who were jealous and envious of the rich or just covetous of their neighbor’s goods. With guaranteed entitlements and forced contributions the apathy and avarice of the people flourished.
Members were given a white stone as a form of national ID and Herod was able to expand his hope of a kingdom of God on earth by this religious system of social security (Corban) which provided for a statutory enforcement and collection from membership in the form of a tax.
Pilate "... used the sacred treasure of the temple, called corban (qorban), to pay for bringing water into Jerusalem by an aqueduct. A crowd came together and clamored against him..." Because those funds were for their individual social welfare and the people complained.
Few understood that what should have been for their welfare had brought them into bondage though they had been warned in the sacred text. Paul and others repeated that warning for the First century Church.
Why do I say this social security system was religious? Because:
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep himself unspotted from the world.” James 1:27
John the Baptist offered a similar plan of social welfare but without the use of force used to collect the contributions of his people. His plan was based on free will offerings like ancient Israel when it was still a Republic. Christ objected to the plan offered by Herod and the Pharisees not only because it weakened the character of the people, and therefore society as a whole, but it also violated the precepts of God found in the Ten Commandments.
Jesus preached a system of social welfare that operated under the perfect law of liberty by faith, hope and charity. Christians stood fast in the liberty of Christ and cared for each others through their own system of social welfare managed by the Church. The Church in those days actually understood the Gospel of the Kingdom appointed by Christ and would never send their people to the men of government that called themselves benefactors but exercised authority one over the other in opposition to His specific instructions.
The early Church called people to repentance of that system and a new baptism of John. This was not just some meaningless ritual. They would no longer covet their neighbor’s goods through the agency of Herod’s socialist government nor Rome’s free bread and extensive welfare state. They learned to care for one another in a network of love and service.
Rome and Jerusalem would soon falter and fail under the weight of their own corruption. Christians hearing the fullness of the Gospel of the Kingdom preached by John and Christ formed a new society that would survive and prosper in true faith during that decline and fall of the Roman Empire.
It is time for the Church to call for that repentance again but first it may have to do some repenting of its own.
Related aticles:
The Corban of the Pharisees
It made the word of God to none effect.
Is our Corban making the word of God to none effect today?
http://www.hisholychurch.org/sermon/corban.php
The Nicolaitan who God hates?
Because they covet their neighbor's goods
http://www.hisholychurch.org/sermon/nicolaity.php
Chapter 4. of the book The Covenants of the gods
Employ vs Enslave
http://www.hisholychurch.org/study/gods/cog4eve.php
News With Views publication of this aticle here
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