Man the Outlaw #3: Do Not Steal

You would think this would be an easy one, right? I mean, no one is in favor of getting their stuff stolen, so one might think.

First off, lets look at why this is a Commandment. In ancient cultures around the world and even up to relatively modern times in some cultures, stealing from adversaries was totally okay and even stealing from your own people was okay sometimes. Stealing a horse was a rite of passage for some if not most Plains tribes in North America. Similarly in ancient Sparta in order for a young warrior in training to become a full fledged man in their society, they had to steal food. From their own people. They also had to kill a slave, which in some sense or other was property of their own people.

When you steal from someone, you may be taking something that they need to live on, so in some situations theft can be akin to murder. Lets suppose some situation where that is not true: Joe has a knick-knack that is totally useless but it is still his, and Billy-Bob steals it. What injury is done?

Well first one assumes that in order for Billy-Bob to steal it, he would first have to covet it enough to brave Joe's wrath. That is a violation of the 10th Commandment from the get-go, before the deed is even done.

He has also insulted the dignity of his brother, one who is made in the image of G-d. While this is not technically one of the Ten Commandments, it is a commandment nevertheless: love your neighbor as yourself. This is not a commandment to an emotion. This is a commandment to a realization: that your neighbor is equal with you before the sight of G-d. Therefore you do not treat him in a way that you would consider unjust if it were done to you. Disrespecting the image of G-d is a form of disrespecting G-d.  So that is two other Commandments right there that are broken when someone steals. If you consider that often theft also includes lying or the willingness to do so, that would be three.

It is rightly said that loving G-d and love (respect) of neighbor is the heart of all the Commandments. You can infer all the Commandments from these two, although since most people don't understand all the implications of these two commandments it is good to spell them out.

* * *

Now, you would think that nobody disagrees with this idea of not stealing, or that at least they wouldn't admit it if they did. This is actually not true. On the most basic level, it's hard to run a government without money. And it is hard to get people to give the government money out of the kindness of their hearts, especially without wanting something significant in return. So they are compelled to give it: it is stolen. The fact that it is a government that is doing the stealing makes no difference in the sight of G-d.

Until the Civil War though, this money was provided by tariffs. There were tariffs on imports, on whiskey, and for awhile on glass windows, strangely enough. The import tariff could be considered a kind of border crossing fee and so would be entirely legitimate. No one presumably is forced to cross a border or to convey goods across one. Governments have the right to patrol borders and exact tariffs on trade across it. The tax on whiskey might be less legitimate, but again no one is forced to make whiskey, and whiskey is also potentially corrosive to the moral order so it is hard to count that one against them. Up until this point, the collection of money for the government was arguably morally legitimate from a Ten Commandments viewpoint.

(As an aside, the Supreme Court of the US notwithstanding, corporations are not people. Corporations may have rights in our system, but under G-d's system they have zero rights because they aren't real and they aren't people. They're a legal construct. So go ahead and tax the hell out of them if you want, you aren't breaking the 8th Commandment.)

Anyway, getting back to the history of taxation in the US. The Civil War changed this benign and so far biblically sound basis for government finance by instituting the first income tax. Now, tariffs could be extremely unpopular, and in fact conflict over tariffs exacerbated tensions between North and South leading up to the Civil War. I am not saying tariffs were popular or even good, just that they were morally defensible from a Ten Commandments viewpoint.

Congress imposed the first income tax on the North in 1861 to help finance the war. However, it was not until 1913 that Congress wrote itself a blank check from the American wallet. This was when the 16th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, which reads:

"The Congress shall have power to lay

and collect taxes on incomes, from

whatever source derived, without apportionment

among the several States, and without

regard to any census or enumeration."

So a blank check drawn on the American bank account, pretty much.

This is still theft, and still an institutionalized breaking of the 8th Commandment. It actually does not matter who breaks the Commandment, king, prince, President or Congressperson, pauper beggar or anyone else whatsoever. G-d is no respecter of persons. What matters is that it is broken.

So this is the sad state of affairs at the beginning of the 20th Century, but while nobody could rightly defend it biblically, people could defend it practically. America needs those big guns to chase off the bad guys, and someone has to pay for it. Of course America would also wind up using those big guns to oppress the less fortunate and to pursue empire-building, but that for another time.

THEN the Great Depression hit. Then FDR came along. I think it is very hard to object to Social Security because nobody wants old people begging on the streets, least of all me, since I am an old person. However, SS was not set up as a sort of government insurance program that you could opt into, which it perhaps should have been. The government knows better, you must pay. And probably they are right that no young person is going to want their pay docked for the sake of their old age, so they made it mandatory. Here's the thing: you can find instances where breaking the Commandments truly appears to be for the greater good. I actually DON'T want Social Security to be abolished: I only believe that according to the morality of the Ten Commandments, it probably OUGHT to be. It is still theft. It is hard to argue that any of the social programs of FDR weren't for the good of the citizens. I agree that they were: I also have to agree that all that has to be paid for, and it has to be paid for by theft in the form of taxation.

The mold was set, which it wasn't really up until that time: the government can steal from you for whatever it considers to be the good of the country. And the government is people. And the Ten Commandments applies to people, however important they are considered to be.

Now, you could argue that even worse forms of taxation and even forced labor were practiced by biblical Kings like King David and that is totally true: it is never said that G-d agreed with it. IN fact it is stated in 1 Samuel 8 that G-d disagrees with the whole idea of human kings and warned people of all the terrible consequences that having human kings would cause.

"But when they said, “Give us a king to judge us,”

their demand was displeasing in the sight of Samuel;

so he prayed to the LORD.

And the LORD told him: "Listen to all that the people

are saying to you;

it is not you they have rejected,

but they have rejected Me as their king.

Just as they have done from the day

I brought them up out of Egypt

until this day, forsaking Me and

serving other gods, so they are doing to you."

~1 Samuel 8:6-8

So, the government is illegitimate (setting up a king other than the only rightful king, G-d, and His law) and their taxation is illegitimate (a violation of the 8th Commandment.) The fact that we don't like the implications of this reality does not make it go away.

So what is happening today? People are urging the government to go even further in their theft and redistribute wealth. Some are pushing for government-paid reparations for blacks. They are wanting government to abolish student loans (which you could make an argument for that being at least partially biblical) but more, to provide free college education. And many other such things they want, at the cost of more government theft.

It should be said that in a truly biblically-based society, such enormous concentrations of wealth as exist today would be an abomination. Traditional Jewish society has help to the poor as a moral obligation. G-d has some pretty damning words against the wealthy in the Tanakh, the Christian Old Testament. Income inequality beyond a certain point is regarded as proof of a society's godlessness, which in this society it seems like proof would be abundant. G-d's wrath is poured out on those rich who do not help the less fortunate.

How do we fix this though? G-d's solution is through revolution in our hearts, a society turning its hearts to G-d. America's solution is theft, the breaking of the 8th Commandment. And upon whom is the majority of this tax burden placed? Not the rich, they can afford lawyers and accountants to make sure they don't pay a stinking penny. The working class, the middle class, even the poor; they pay the bill. Yet more injustice piled on America's moral account sheet.

I am not saying that obeying the Commandments is easy or that doing so would be without issues. I am saying this is G-d's law: DO IT.

G-d alone is Life; G-d alone we must obey. Those who love not G-d will not have life. There is no true freedom apart from G-d's law. Remember that G-d FREED the Israelites. He did not free the Israelites from bondage in Egypt so that He could bind them in Israel. He freed them so that they can be truly free. And there is no freedom without the Law.

We can be bound by G-d's law or we can be in bondage to men. There is no third option.