Carl Wells Books

I live in what I consider the country of Indiana. It is still officially a state in the United States, but my recommendation is that we secede as soon as possible. Meanwhile, I personally consider myself a citizen of Indiana rather than of the U.S. Don’t tell the feds.

Sales tax in Indiana is 7%. I am old enough to remember when sales tax in this country–excuse me, in this state–was 2%. What’s that? Okay, full disclosure: I am actually old enough to remember when sales tax in Indiana was 0%. And, believe it or not, so are a lot of other people.

The sales tax in Indiana was approved by a constitutional amendment voted on in 1962. The sales tax then began in 1963, at 2%. A tax of 2% is not very high. It is however, considerably higher than 0%.

In the 56 years since the sales tax here started, the percentage has gone much higher, from 2% to 7%. This happened in several stages–two or three, I think, but I’m not sure. We stayed at 2% for a while, then after a few years began going higher. We have been at 7% for quite a while. I have heard no rumblings about trying to go higher. I’ve also heard no rumblings about trying to go lower. More on that in a minute.

Sales taxes vary considerably in the United States. According to a recent (July/August 2019) report by AARP, Tennessee and Louisiana have the highest sales tax, at 9.5%. (AARP describes sales taxes as “Combined state and local tax rates as of Jan. 1,” but for sake of simplicity I will consider their report as giving us the state sales tax.) But almost all of the states (plus the District of Columbia) have a fairly high tax, 5.4% or higher. There are two states with what we might call moderate sales tax, Hawaii at 4.4%, and Alaska at a scintillating 1.4%. I call 5.4% and above high, and most of those states are 6% or higher, many in the 8s and 9s.

Here is the shocker: four states still have a sales tax rate of 0%! Those states are, in alphabetical order, Oregon, Delaware, New Hampshire, and Montana.

Apparently, once you leave 0%, the sales taxes go higher in the short or long run. Indiana began with a beatific 2%, but now is up to 7%. Only Alaska and Hawaii have stayed below 5.4%, and Hawaii is not far below, at 4.4%. So my advice to Oregon, Delaware, New Hampshire, and Montana, is that you continue to not let the sales taxers get their toe in the door. Once the toe gets in there, pretty soon it is followed by the foot, then the whole body (encased in body armor and carrying rifles). Your 2% will pretty soon become anywhere from 5.4% up through 9.5%.

Here’s some more free advice. It goes out to any politician who wants to get elected and really wants to help people. I know that latter phrase sounds funny, but there really might be a few politicians who care about the people in their own state. Call me hopelessly naive, but I think that if there are very few such people, there could be more of them. Anyway, here is the free advice, especially to those running for governor: make lowering the sales tax a serious plank in your platform.

If an Indiana politician running for governor campaigned on lowering the sales tax from 7% to 5%, he would attract attention, and the attention would be good among a lot of voters.

We like hope. Hope is rare these days. Moreover, most of us are gradualists by nature. I would prefer a sales tax of 0%. I think that is what the sales tax should be. But whisper 5% in my ear, and I will be impressed, and possibly even vote for you if you are not otherwise a baby-killing jerk. If I can see that you are serious, and that your long-term goal is to lower the overall expense of government, I will pay attention to you. So will a lot of other people.

So, potentially honest politician, give us hope. Don’t tell us that you will immediately insure that the sales tax falls to zero. You couldn’t do it. You would be lying. Tell us that your goal is to get the sales tax back to 5% for now. Maybe lower someday. Don’t over-promise. Then, if you are elected, fight like the dickens to get the sales tax down to 5%. Even if you only get it to 6%, we will be grateful. Even if you honestly try, and fail, we will be grateful.

The question arises: are we the people willing to have less services come our way, if the sales tax is 5% rather than 7%? I don’t know. Quite possibly we are not willing. One thing I can promise you without fear of contradiction is that we the people are deliriously corrupt. We wouldn’t have the quality of national government that we have, if we were thoughtful, honest people. But things aren’t are as bad on the state level as they are nationally. An honest politician on the state level is still a theoretical possibility, and on the state level we occasionally vote for someone who is neither a socialist nor a crook. It may not happen often, but it happens now and then.

Here is another potential plank to your campaign platform. Promise that you will do all in your power to stop the fraudulent telephone calls we get constantly. Again, don’t over-promise. Don’t brag that you will immediately make Indiana a place where crooks are afraid to operate. It would be a lie. Just say that you will diligently pursue making the state such a place. Then if you are elected, follow through on your promise. Seriously try to make Indiana a place where crooks avoid. Even if you succeed only slightly, we will be grateful. Give us hope. Right now we notice that telephone crooks and credit card crooks are never captured and punished. The political class seems to consider such crooks as sort of part of the natural environment, like gravity or mosquitoes. But they don’t have to be part of the natural environment. They could be people on whom a ton of bricks fall if/when they are caught and convicted. A ton of bricks on crooks may encourage other crooks to stay out of Indiana. And if something like that could happen in Indiana, why not other states?

If you can honestly do so, give us hope.

How do things get done? How do buildings go up, how is food grown, how are streets built and cleaned, how are books printed–and so forth, world without end, amen? Things get done because somebody works to do them.

This week we will try to have some fun thinking about basic economic issues. This blog post may be a little disjointed, but why does fun have to be jointed?

Picture a cruise ship going down just off an empty desert island somewhere in a mild climate. All 1,000 people on the ship make it successfully to the island. There are lots of palm trees bearing coconuts, there is fresh water here and there, and not much else. Now what?

Well, if the 1,000 people are content to eat coconuts (of which there are plenty year around), and content to sleep on the grass, and content to set aside a few places as toilet facilities, then the people could stay alive until they are rescued (if they ever are rescued). But if they want to eat more than just coconuts, and want to get shelter from rain, etc., at least some of them are going to have to work.

Let’s say only ten of the 1,000 are willing to work. They build shelters, they supplement their diet with fish gained by fishing, three of them begin to grow crops of whatever they can, and so forth. If nobody else will work, that group of 1,000 people will remain living at a very bare subsistence level. Things could get even worse, if the 990 vote that the ten workers have to share what they produce with the 990 who don’t want to work. That would discourage the ten from trying to be productive, since what they produce by the sweat of their brow would only be taken from them via majority rule.

However, the more people who are willing to work, the wealthier that community becomes. What if all 1,000 people are willing to pitch in and do something? Some are very diligent, some moderately so, and some work at least a little bit. Some are gifted in their work, some moderately gifted, others not so much. Still, everybody would be producing something which was of value to someone else. What some of them produce might not be exactly a product, but it could be a service which someone else wants. Cleaners, cooks, story-tellers, and lots of other types of people would be hired.

If everybody works, pretty soon nobody would be sleeping on the grass and eating only coconuts. There would be buildings, rudimentary at first, but improving gradually over time. Some people would be fishing successfully. Some would be able to farm well, growing something besides coconuts. There would be paths which might get better and better over time. Pastors might be hired to lead the spiritual life of some of the people.

Everything accomplished on that island would be accomplished by work. Ultimately, all work is done by hand, although in many or most cases we might say it was done by a hand directed by a brain. Even someone who was operating strictly by using his brain–say a master builder who knew how a cabin could best be constructed–would only be successful because his brain knew how to direct the hands on building process. He might not directly be using his hands very often, but his brain work would be directing how the hands of others were placed.

If everyone works, that island might become quite prosperous. On the day when the 1,000 people managed to scramble ashore bringing little more than themselves, they probably felt discouraged and in many cases fearful. They could not even cover themselves from the rain! Now, a few months or years later, using only the “natural” things provided by God, plus their own ability to plan, and plus their own willingness to work, many of the people would begin to feel hopeful about the future. No doubt most or even all of them would still hope that they would be rescued from their island as soon as possible, but if they had to stay there they could do so successfully. They could, after a fashion at least, flourish.

A medium of exchange might start out being coconuts. Fish might be another item used as a medium of exchange, although the rapidity with which fish deteriorate (not to mention their variation in size and quality of taste) might be a problem. Perhaps silver or gold might be discovered on that island, leading to a very convenient medium of exchange.

Who would be wealthy and who would be moderately well to do, and who would be poor, would work itself out quickly. The master builder able to organize the construction of pleasant and sturdy homes will be earning quite a bit. So will the skilled farmer, and the skilled doctor. The person with less sparkling abilities will earn less.

But, and this is crucially important, that unskilled worker will still have the ability to earn a living. And that living can improve. He may start out hauling fish in a basket to the market, for which he is paid very moderately. If he wants to live more prosperously and is smart enough to save some of his earnings, he will eventually be able to hire someone with mechanical skills to build him a wagon. In that wagon our unskilled worker will be able to haul more fish to the market than he was able to haul when he had only a basket. His wages will go up.

The proportion of income earned (whatever the medium of exchange turns out to be in the short or long run) will arrive naturally.

The promising prospects of the 1,000 people can be ruined by the way they choose to organized themselves politically. If 60% of the people vote to take away the “excess” income of the most productive among them, they will discourage the producers from producing. Why produce wealth only to have it stolen by envious and lazy people who want you to work for them for nothing in return?

Democracy is part of the problem, if the people are willing to steal. But perhaps the spiritual leaders of the people will preach a brand of Christianity which teaches that it is wrong to steal from others, even if the stealing is done by majority vote? Such men can be imagined. The people might listen, or enough of them might listen to such biblical teaching that the property of others was well protected! (Hey, this is my desert island, and I’ll say that property there would be protected if Christian preachers preached and lived the whole-orbed Christian truth.)

When we work to provide something our fellow humans need and want, we are contributing to the wealth of the whole community, not just to our own wealth. A street which we have cleared of litter is a part of the wealth of the whole community. We might be paid a very small sum to pick up trash, but we are adding to the common wealth. (We commend the good people of Kentucky for understanding that at some gut level: Kentucky is a commonwealth, not a state. More power to them. Now all they have to do is use biblical principles to apply that insight in every aspect of their commonwealth, without trying to expropriate the wealth of others. Okay, that’s not so easy, but it can be done.)

Everything is done by hands working. Picture this North American continent as it was when the Europeans arrived. There weren’t a lot of buildings. Not a lot of food was being grown. Come back a few centuries later, and even in Flyover Country we have quite a few nice buildings, we have roads, we have fields growing food to feed not only ourselves but lots of other people. Most of us don’t sleep on the grass. All because people were willing to work.

Some of us have not worked very productively but if we work and don’t force other people to provide for us, we are net contributors to our national wealth. The gifted English writer Theodore Dalrymple has said it very well for us:

“Of course, civilization is not only an attachment to the highest peaks of human achievement. It relies for its maintenance upon an infinitely complex and delicate tissue of relations and activities, some humble and others grand. The man who sweeps the streets plays his part as surely as the great artist or thinker.” (Our Culture, What’s Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses, p. 157)

Work is crucial to how we prosper. If we can avoid envy, can avoid trying to live on the production of others, we all can help maintain and grow civilization, even if our personal contribution is minor. Work is a wonderful thing.

In our discussion last week of Sherman’s March by Burke Davis, we noted that it is a wonderfully informative and thought-provoking book. Today in part II we will quote a few paragraphs that made a special impression on me.

This incident took place in South Carolina, the state most despised by the North for its leadership in promoting secession. Foragers–a polite name for men who stole whatever they wanted for the use of the Union army (and no doubt for their own personal use in many cases) were not likely to be popular with the citizens of the South. In this instance in South Carolina a Union forager came to grief–he was executed by southerners and left with a sign reading DEATH TO FORAGERS. General Sherman’s order was that any southern atrocity was to be repaid by the execution of a Confederate prisoner of war. The regimental commander balked at this order, but Sherman threatened him with court-martial should he fail to comply. Then we read:

‘Guards were sent to the prison corral, and the captive rebels were forced to draw lots. A soldier passed among them holding aloft a hat with several slips of paper, one of which bore a black mark. A gray-haired old man named Small drew the black-marked slip.
‘Chaplain Cole of the 31st Illinois prayed with the victim and led him into a ravine where he was to be shot. The regiment formed a hollow square above.
‘”Do you have anything to say?”
‘The old man’s voice was flat and unhurried: “I was forced into the army. Never was in a battle. Never wished the Yankees any harm.”
‘After a pause he said, “I have nine children, all girls. I’m a Methodist preacher back home.” Chaplain Cole could bear no more. He hurried to his tent and remained there. Private G. B. McDonald saw that several Federal soldiers were blinking tears from their eyes as the firing squad shuffled into place. The old man was blindfolded and placed against a tree.
‘Don’t tie me,” he said. “Just let me stand here.” Major Rhoads nodded and the old man leaned on the tree, hands at his sides. A soldier placed a handkerchief in one of Small’s hands. “Drop it when you’re ready,” he said. The major turned to the firing squad. “Be sure to take good aim,” he said. “Don’t wound him.”
‘The Wisconsin soldier Hosea Rood watched sadly: “When all was ready, there was a few seconds of death-like stillness and suspense, every eye riveted on the handkerchief in the old man’s hand; it fluttered to the ground.” The volley rolled and Small’s body stiffened, quivered and fell to the ground. “As the smoke floated away among the tall pines our boys looked with sadness upon the bleeding corpse of a brave old man who had met death unflinchingly and heroically for the crime of another man . . . If the old man had bounded away into the forest we’d never have run a step to catch him.”
‘Still, as Private McDonald conceded, Sherman’s harsh revenge was effective. The rebels no longer left murdered foragers at the roadside. Oliver Howard reported, “I do not remember an instance after that in my command of brutal slaying.”‘ (pp. 204-205; the ellipsis is Davis’)

In the Bible the punishment for a crime is to fall on the person committing the crime, not on anyone else. (There are cases where punishment may fall on a representative not personally guilty, but they are rare.) Still, Sherman lived by “the end justifies the means” and it sounds like the means were effective.

Imagine having nine children, and all of them turning out to be girls! God had blessed the Methodist preacher enormously. He and his wife must have known it. And now, greatly blessed as he must have known himself to be, he had to face execution for a crime another had committed. (Sort of, I suppose, the way his Savior had died for the sins Mr. Small had committed.) He had not wanted to go into the Confederate army, but conscription had come to him. Bearing the Yankees no ill will, he must have gone into the army reluctantly, but probably feeling it was his responsibility to go. Here a deeper understanding of the Scriptures might have caused Mr. Small to say, “No, I won’t go. I disapprove of your war and won’t take part in it.” God might have permitted him not to be forced into the army. Of course we cannot know what would have happened had he spoken in that manner.

Maybe God allowed the man who was most ready to come to Him to be the one who picked the paper with the black mark.

He was, in any case, a brave man and he spoke and died in a manner worthy of his Christian faith. We can hope that he, his wife, and his nine daughters, were reunited one day in heaven. God grant that we may meet them there some day in the future.

An incident like this reminds us of the point we made last week: once you loose the dogs of war, bad things tend to happen to lots of people. Better not to go to war, if it can possibly be avoided.

Sherman’s march is an important part of our American history. We know too little of it, and of the Civil War in general. Maybe when the disunion of the United States comes, in the distant (or more likely the near) future, we will make time to read more and to ponder more about that horrific and destructive and wicked war. Who knows, when we think a bit on the topic we might cease our idolatry of Abraham Lincoln, the most destructive man in U.S. history. Some of us have stopped already, although not enough.

Burke Davis has given us an informative, even-handed, and thought-provoking book. Even if you love Abraham Lincoln, hate the South and believe the imperial United States is now and always has been the cat’s pajamas making the world safe for democracy, truth, justice, and the American way, you will probably find a lot to interest you if you decide to read Sherman’s March.

Most of us need to read more about the Civil War (War Between the States; War of Northern Aggression; etc.). I am preaching to myself as well. Only late in life have I begun to do a bit more reading on the topic; I could have and should have started decades ago. Oh well; better late than never.

I had heard of Sherman’s march to the sea, of course, and had a vague idea of what went on: northern General William T. Sherman marched with his troops through Georgia, burning quite a bit of the state as he went. His success helped end the war with the North on top. Even reading Shelby Foote’s lengthy and excellent non-fiction trilogy, a few years ago, did not cause me to learn (or at least remember) a lot of details.

A book entirely devoted to the topic of Sherman’s march has helped me to learn a few more facts. The book is Sherman’s March by Burke Davis (b. 1913-d. 2006), first published in 1980.

A few details now stick in my mind much better. For example, the march was not only through Georgia. After Georgia, Sherman went through South Carolina and then North Carolina. Georgia was not treated softly. But South Carolina came in for more intense vengeance than either of the other two states, because South Carolina was considered a primary source of the South’s rebellion. North Carolina, on the other hand, was dealt with much more gently, because the state had not been hardcore secessionists compared to other states.

“There was now less pillaging and almost no burning of houses, since Sherman had made it clear that North Carolinians, never fanatical Secessionists, bore little responsibility for starting the war.” (p. 206)

All this shows that Sherman’s attitude was picked up on by his men. If he had wanted to treat Georgia and South Carolina less violently, his troops would have gone along with his wishes spoken or unspoken.

Our presuppositions are crucial for how we behave. If we have wise presuppositions and try to act in accord with them, we have a good chance of behaving in a good fashion. However, if our presuppositions are wrong, then when we act in accord with those wrong presuppositions we are going to act in a wrongheaded manner.

General William Tecumseh Sherman was a gifted general. He was a great strategist, and by nature a leader of men. What we have to ask ourselves is, were his presuppositions correct? It seems to me that Sherman acted in response to two principal presuppositions: 1/people in the South were traitors for trying to leave the union, and therefore needed to be defeated in war and dealt with as harshly as traitors are usually dealt with; 2/the best way to end the Civil War was to make the civilian population pay an enormous painful price for supporting the South in their unrighteous rebellion; destruction of their homeland would make the civilian population wake up and smell the coffee; the end (ending the war) justifies the means (destruction to the civilian population). If we grant Sherman his presuppositions, then we can readily see his march to the sea (and beyond) as completely wise and justified.

Both of these suppositions are wrong, however. 1/The southerners who seceded were not traitors. The South had a perfect right to secede, which only an intellectually dishonest person–or someone who has never thought about the issue at all–could deny. The North could only think well of themselves if they found a way to consider the South as traitors. The self-deception of the North (and of General Sherman personally) was off the charts. But self-deception is the most common deception of all, and it takes hard work to be intellectually honest. So the North self-righteously convinced themselves that they had a perfect right to force the South back into the union. That was the beginning of the empire. We have been an empire ever since. Empires do what they want, and consider themselves to be in the right as they do it.

2/The end does not justify the means. ‘And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say), “Let us do evil that good may come”?’ (Romans 3:8). No, the way to get to a good end is to use a good means. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). This is the testimony of the Bible throughout, and common sense should tell us that this is logical and reasonable and the way we would expect the world to be put together if someone with good sense were in charge. Which, if the God of the Bible exists, is exactly what we have. Paul and God are correct: the end justifies the means is a wrongheaded presupposition.

So General Sherman acted on wrong presuppositions, and not surprisingly ended up doing a lot of bad things to people who didn’t deserve to have those bad things happen to them. Those bad things included theft of property, destruction of homes and property, rapes of women (both white and black), and sometimes death. We need to get our presuppositions right in life. Wrong ones bring disaster to us and often disaster to other people as well.

In part II next week I will discuss an incident or two which took place on Sherman’s march. Here I want to conclude part I with two major takeaways we all could consider. The first one will probably be uncontroversial. The second one will induce more head-scratching (or screaming in disagreement).

1/When you once loose the dogs of war, lots of bad things happen. Men who would have stayed quietly at home, trying to earn a living and have a family life, and who would seldom have been in serious trouble for wrongdoing, became very different men once they were in the field fighting a war and powerful to enforce their will on a hopelessly powerless population. Theft, rapes, murders, burnings (other than the rare exception which we can expect as long as people are people) would never have been done by these men, had they stayed quietly at home. It is far better to not go down the path of war, because once that path is opened, lots of bad things happen to lots of people. We all need to think a lot more than we do, about when it is wise to go to war.

2/We are not likely to make much progress in thinking about how reality is put together until we admit that the South had a right to secede. One doesn’t have to agree that the South was wise, or that their form of slavery was biblical. We could probably list ten ways the South was wrongheaded. (That would be a useful exercise for another time.) One of the things I think they were wrongheaded about was their willingness so quickly to take up arms. But we need to stop pretending that they had no right to secede.

Burke Davis has given us an incredibly valuable and thought-provoking book on Sherman’s march. I think partisans of the North, partisans of the South, and people who just want to find out what happened, will all learn a lot from reading this book. It is 335 pages, and is readily available on the Internet for very reasonable prices. I found decent prices (under $6.00 total) at Amazon and Alibris, but Abebooks was spectacular, with a total price for a used paperback at just $3.79.

Next week we will conclude our discussion of Sherman’s March by Burke Davis.