In analyzing the causes for the dysfunctional nature of American society (e.g., soaring suicide rates, especially among young people, massive drug addiction and alcoholism, and widespread violence, including irrational mass killings), among the things to consider is the replacement of America's founding economic, monetary, and governmental system with a different system.

There were good founding principles in America and bad founding principles. Among the bad ones, needless to say, were slavery and denial of women's rights. It was a good thing that America abandoned its bad founding principles.

But there were also good founding principles. It was the abandonment of those principles that has to be considered a major cause of the many woes that America is undergoing today.

Let's consider those good founding principles that were abandoned in favor of the system that Americans live under today:

1. Americans were free to keep everything they earned.

No income tax returns. No IRS. No rushing to the Post Office on April 15. No withholding or payroll taxes. No threats of audits, liens, garnishments, and criminal prosecution for failure to pay income taxes. Whatever people earned or received, they kept 100 percent of it.

2. Americans were free to decide for themselves what to do with their own money.

No mandatory charity, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, farm subsidies, corporate bailouts, and foreign aid. Charity was entirely voluntary. No one was forced to take care of anyone. No federal welfare departments and agencies.