The rhetoric of the two leading candidates in the campaign for the presidency demonstrates the fundamental flaw with the graduated -- or "progressive" -- income tax.

The idea of the "progressive" tax is socialism, pure and simple. And you can see how it works to empower the state and disenfranchise the individual in America today.

It sounds great in theory, which is why government schools begin indoctrinating kids on the logic of the progressive tax in elementary school. The concept is that those earning more not only pay more in real dollars, but in higher percentages as well. This is supposed to be "fair," because the wealthy can afford to pay more.

In reality what always happens in such systems is that you create political class warfare. The highest earners and the most productive people in society bear an increasingly greater share of the burden of operating government. Government's main role becomes the redistribution of this wealth -- taking it from the rich and giving it to the poor, always, of course, with an 80 percent cut going to administer this legalized thievery.

As we enter the campaign, U.S. taxpayers are paying a higher percentage of gross domestic product than anytime since World War II. Most people are not complaining because most people are not paying these confiscatory rates. About 50 percent of the public -- earning, say, below $30,000 a year -- pay next to nothing, or about 3 percent of the total raised by the federal government.

In other words, 97 percent of the tax money is extorted from the top 50 percent of taxpayers. I use the term "extorted" advisedly. Just try not paying the so-called "voluntary" income tax if you think we're not paying it at the point of a gun.

I'll bet 90 percent of those reading my words right now fall into that top 50 percent. Did you realize you were one of the "rich folks" who have been getting off too easily and not doing your share to help the less fortunate?

That's the way the Al Gore campaign sees you.

But what's the alternative? The other leading candidate, George W. Bush, comes along and proposes a wholly inadequate 25 percent tax rebate. He's not proposing scrapping the tax code entirely, as the Republicans promised in the 1994 victory that handed them control of the Congress. He's not proposing eliminating the unconstitutional income tax. He's not proposing the elimination of withholding that results in the confiscation of our property before we ever see it. He's not even proposing a flat tax or a radical reduction in tax rates to below 10 percent.

No, he's just suggesting a one-time rebate, hoping to buy your vote with your own money.

I must admit, it has more appeal than Gore's plan. He's trying to buy somebody else's vote with your money.

You see, he says it's not fair that you should get a small piece of your own money back again, because people who didn't pay any taxes wouldn't get any back. So, his campaign is geared toward buying the votes of the least productive people in society -- in fact, people who, for the most part, live on the dole in one form or another.

The Democrats' goal has always been to get more voters dependent on government in one way or another, so that they can control elections by simply squeezing more money out of the productive sector of society -- creating virtual serfs of the most productive workers.

The 2000 election for president, thus, is rigged in a way to ensure there will be no fundamental reform. If Gore wins, the squeeze on productive, self-reliant people will be immediate and severe and our nation's definition of fairness will have been turned on its head -- perhaps forever. If Bush wins, we will be no closer to constitutional government, no closer to eliminating the socialist tax system, no closer to restructuring the federal government to be a servant of the people. But some of us will have been bought off by a few goodies. We'll get to keep a little bit of our own money -- this time.

And that, in a nutshell, is what all the Sunday morning talk shows are about. That's what the debate between Bush and Gore will be about between now and Election Day. And that's what your choice will be if you vote the candidate you deem the lesser of two evils in November.