Better than the Flat Tax, the Flax Tax saves our economy and our health! (satire)

Tuesday, October 04, 2005 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: flax seeds, healthy oils, omega-3 fatty acids

There's a lot of talk today about the flat tax as a new way to raise revenue for the federal government in the United States. At the same time, in the worlds of health and nutrition, there's a lot of talk about the benefits of flax seeds and omega-3 oils. Now, I propose that we combine these two and create a Flax Tax. The Flax Tax can have tremendous benefits for us all, both in terms of lowering our effective tax rates and enhancing our overall health. In fact, the Flax Tax can save our nation! Let me explain how:

Here's how it works: Instead of paying tax in dollars, we pay tax with flax. That's right, we all get flax seeds and we pay our taxes in healthy oils. You see, the problem today with paying taxes in dollars is that the federal government can then decide how to misuse those dollars. This is how we end up with dollars used for ridiculous pork barrel projects. This is how dollars get devoted to building more rockets, bombs, ammunition and funding wars all around the world. It's because we -- the people who pay the tax -- don't really have any control over what happens when those tax dollars go to Washington. (It's the lobbyists, stupid...)

But if we pay tax with flax, it would be much simpler. You can only do so many things with flax. One of the things you can do is grind it up and put it in people's oatmeal, and that has the effect of enhancing the brain health of the entire country. It actually prevents heart disease. It helps prevent Alzheimer's disease and dementia. It gives people better mental function and stronger nervous systems. It enhances their cardiovascular health, reduces the risk of heart attacks and helps control blood sugar and diabetes. In fact, flax seed oil or any omega-3 oil, for that matter, is very good for people, so if we had a Flax Tax, Washington would have no choice but to find something healthy to do with the flax.

Flax-powered vehicles

You can do things other than just putting it in oatmeal, by the way. You can also use flax oil as a form of bio-diesel fuel. Right now there are diesel engines that run on vegetable oil. With a little modification, you could run them on flax oil, too. In this way, a Flax Tax could slash the cost of fuels for vehicles, drastically reduce air pollution from combustion engines, and end our dependence on foreign oil. You could just grow your own fuel in fields across the country instead of having to assault foreign nations who are obviously coveting OUR oil under THEIR sand. (The bastards...)

You see, there are many uses for the Flax Tax. Instead of building bombs we'd be building brains; instead of bombing little countries, we'd be investing in our little children and feeding them right. I mean, gee, if Washington had all of this flax sitting around, they'd have no choice but to ship it off to school lunch programs and retirement centers and hospitals, where they would find ways to put flax into the food items on the menu and to get it into the mouths and bodies of the people out there who need omega-3 oils. Which is pretty much everybody, by the way.

Did you know you can make crackers, cookies, breads and pastries with flax seeds? In fact, raw foods chefs know how to make all sorts of delicious meals out of flax. Just today, I ate some "refried beans" made with flax, barley miso and spices (no beans at all).

Answering the critics of the Flax Tax

Now, I know some critics might say there's not enough flax in the world to convert to a Flax Tax if everybody paid in flax. There's just not enough flax to go around. Hogwash! There are a number of solutions for that. For one, you could make other forms of omega-3 oils an alternative accepted currency. For example, people could pay in chia seeds. They could just fill up their pockets with chia seeds, drive down to the local post office and pay their taxes with this ancient Incan superfood. (The Incas ate chia seeds as "warrior food" because it gave them such great energy that they seemed altogether invincible... that is, until the Spaniards arrived and destroyed the chia-chewing Incas. Which is why modern Peruvians speak Spanish, if you can believe that...)

There are also other forms of healthy oils. What about cod liver oil or salmon oil? What if we all paid tax in salmon? That would be great because then Washington would have to figure out what to do with all this salmon or all of this cod liver oil. What if we paid tax with vitamins and minerals and nutrition? What would happen then? Wow. We'd have this whole country with a surplus of healing nutrients and Washington would have no choice but to hand them out to everyone, free of charge.

But wait a minute! How would our government get anything done if it ran on flax instead of dollars? Are you kidding me? You think our government is getting anything done? Can you name one honest program that actually helped you and wasn't some sort of government trick to shovel more dollars into the pockets of pharmaceutical companies or convince you to give up more of your Constitutional rights for the sake of "security?"

And yet you might say, "You can't actually build roads and highways by paying people in flax." I'm not sure I agree with that. I see signs every day of people who say, "Will work for food." Flax is real food. A lot of people will work for healthy nutrition if you give them a system where they can become healthier and they don't have to spend so much money on prescription drugs or live a life in chronic pain or rely on organized medicine and outrageous therapies like chemotherapy and radiation. So, if we did have a Flax Tax, I'm sure there are plenty of people who would help build roads just to get some healthy food on the table. You CAN pay people in nutrition. It's been done before: ancient civilizations in South and Central America actually used cacao (real chocolate) as a form of currency. (Wow, you could actually EAT your savings account and feel good about it!)

Flax currency is actually worth something!

Our modern system of currency is worthless anyway. Those silly pieces of green paper with Presidents' pictures on them... you think that money stands for anything? The gold standard was dropped decades ago. U.S. currency is only worth the willingness and ability of the U.S. government to back it up, and the U.S. government is bankrupt many times over. Our esteemed President, George W. Bush has -- get this -- outspent the greatest big government liberal spender in history: Lyndon Johnson!

Seriously, what if flax were a form of currency? Then we could pay our landlords with flax. We could pay our electric bill with flax. You see, if you turn flax into the currency, you would actually have something of substance, whereas today the dollar is based on absolutely nothing. And, of course, the Federal Reserve determines what a dollar is worth by how much money it creates in the M2 money supply. (Neat trick, huh? They just print up more money and spend it. If you did the same thing, you'd go to jail for counterfeiting...)

So if you think this is a silly idea, don't knock it until you've tried it. The Flax Tax could really work. I'm serious. It could totally work. All we have to do is convince Washington to switch over to the Flax Tax. That may take a little bit of doing. I'm considering hiring some lobbyists who work for flax farmers to get this legislation passed next year.

If you think all of that is silly, let me explain how this is 100% real and genuine. You could actually do this for yourself and your family. You can exchange worthless U.S. dollars, paper money backed by nothing, for real flax seeds containing real, healthy oils that will really benefit your health. You know how you do that? You go down to your local food co-op and hand them some of this useless paper money, and they will let you walk out of there with flax seeds. How amazing is that? You can take those flax seeds home and you won't even be arrested for shoplifting. That's amazing!

So, if the Flax Tax never passes, don't worry. You can still get flax yourself by exchanging your worthless paper dollars for real, healthy flax seeds. Or chia seeds. Or nutritional supplements... you get the picture. Trade in your useless paper money for something with real value: flax! (Just don't eat all your savings at once...)

This is Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, reporting for Truth Publishing.