Do you want to undo the damage the NAR has done to the American economy? If you’re not a criminal — if you’re not a predator — stop lending your moral and financial power to people who are.

Here’s a fun little exercise for your brain:

Suppose I sneak up behind you, throw a burlap bag over your head, tie you up and then lock you in my basement. Would you regard that as a crime?

I don’t mean just a call-the-cops crime or a phone-your-lawyer crime. I don’t mean simply a violation of some arcane statute law. Even if we were on a desert island, with no written law of any sort, would you still regard my actions as a crime against your person and your liberty?

I know I’m asking you to think for yourself, all by your lonesome, with no hints or signals from the mob and no helpful pre-printed guide to clue you in to the “right” answers. Poor you. So I’ll cut you a break: You can feel free to quit this tiring exercise at the very first instance that you are able to truthfully answer, “No, I would not regard that as a crime.”

So let’s do another one:

Instead of locking you in the basement, let’s say I let you work all day in the sunshine and fresh air, tilling and tending to my fields? You are still my prisoner, but you’re not tied up or locked up. Would you still regard that as a crime?

And, hey, we all know that forcing people to work for free is slavery, so what if I pay you a nice wage for your efforts? You’re still my prisoner, and you still have to do the work I tell you to do, but now you’re being paid handsomely. Would you regard even that little trifle as a crime?

So how about this? Suppose I set you free? Manumission! Just like you pictured it! There’s only one catch. Whenever you buy or sell food, you have to do it through me, like a feudal serf. There are other people who could trade with you, perhaps leaving you with quite a bit more profit than I will, but you are forbidden from doing business with any of those people. You must go through me, paying my price. Would you regard that as a crime?

Clarify that in your mind: If I have forbidden you to trade the proceeds of your labor with whom you would, on the terms you and your trading partners mutually agree to, would you regard that as a crime against you?

Fine. Forget about food. I’m in the real estate business now. You can buy and sell food however you want, but whenever you buy, sell, lease or rent real property, you can only do it through me, at my price. Even though other people might be able to do a better job than me, at a lower price, still you are forbidden to broker real estate through anyone but me. Would you regard that as a crime against you?

Are you feeling a little squirmy? Did we just establish that the real estate licensing laws — written in their original form by the National Association of Realtors — are criminal in their intent and criminal in their impact upon the marketplace? The white noise about consumer protection is just so much camouflage. If monopolizing trade in food is a crime, so is monopolizing trade in real estate, and the objective — criminally maximizing my profits at your expense — is exactly the same.

Now I’m going to tax your income, of course. Why? Because I have the power to lock you up in my basement, and you have no power to resist, that’s why. But here’s the creamy filling for that bitter pill: When you borrow money to buy your real estate, I’ll give you some tax money back. How will I be able to do that? I’ll take it from people who don’t borrow money to buy their real estate, or who don’t buy real estate at all. So it’s not really me giving you the money. It’s those other people, “giving” their money to you involuntarily.

Now here’s a very hard question for you: When I take money earned by other people and give it to you, would you regard that as a crime against those other people?

Did we just establish that the mortgage-interest tax deduction, the very proudest accomplishment of the National Association of Realtors, is criminal in its intent and criminal in its impact upon the marketplace?

Suppose I go all thug on those other people, forcing them to subsidize the interest rate you get on your mortgage and compelling them to repay the lender, at their expense, should you default? Would you regard that as a crime against those other people?

Did we just determine that the NAR-promoted government-sponsored entities — FannieMae, FreddieMac, FHA, et infinitely cetera — are criminal in their intent and criminal in their impact upon the marketplace?

How about if I force lenders to lend their money to people we all know can’t pay it back? Would you regard that as a crime?

That’s the NAR’s Community Reinvestment Act.

What if I induce property sellers to “gift” unqualified buyers with unearned down-payment money, so those sellers can cash out — paying me a sales commission, of course — and stick those poor put-upon other people with yet another non-performing loan? Would you regard that as a crime against those other people?

That’s the American Dream Down Payment Act, a proud achievement of the National Association of Realtors.

What if I stole money from other people and gave it to you if you elected to move very often, like I want you to? That’s the NAR’s income-tax capital-gains exclusion.

What if I stole a big pile of money from people innocent of all wrong-doing and gave it to you in a lump sum — “for free” — just for over-paying on a house right now? That’s just one of the NAR’s many, many tax credits.

Would you regard those “incentives” as crimes? What if you were on the paying end of my generosity?

I could go on all day, but I don’t need to, do I? We all know by now that the National Association of Realtors is a criminal cartel, devoted solely to committing crimes in the marketplace — to the putative benefit of real estate brokers and their salespeople and to the undeniable detriment of everyone else.

That’s a simple statement. Do you wish to dispute it? If so, you might start over at the top of this post and stop reading when you get to the place where you said, “No, I would not regard that as a crime.”

Oh, you didn’t say that? You understood in the silence of your own solitary mind that every action I postulated in this post would have been a crime, had I done those things to real people? Then you have a problem, don’t you?

The National Association of Realtors is a predator. It survives by stealing and devouring wealth earned honestly by other people, people innocent of all wrong-doing. We established this point by point, and there is no legislative activity of the NAR or its lesser-organizations that does not consist of predation. This is easy enough to prove, now that you have trained your mind properly to identify crime in the marketplace.

So here’s your problem: Are you a predator?

Do you dream of enslaving your neighbor, so you never have to work again?

Or are you happy to have the National Association of Realtors enslaving every innocent American for you, so you can subsist on the spoils of predation without having to think about it?

Or does the thought of living at someone else’s involuntary expense make you ashamed of yourself?

If you really are a predator, you might as well go to hell now. You’re headed there anyway.

But if you are not a predator, what are you going to do, now that I’ve torn the veil from your eyes?

You no longer have any room for doubt in your mind: Everything the National Association of Realtors does is criminal in its intent and criminal in its impact upon the marketplace.

Are you for that, or are you opposed to it?

Are you with them or against them?

The grand poohbahs of the NAR are campaigning right now to double their slush fund for bribing legislators, thus to double the impact of the crimes they habitually commit against innocent consumers — your neighbors, your friends, your relatives, your children. Have you told them you oppose this?

More importantly, have you told them to stop claiming that they are committing these awful crimes in your name?

Still more importantly, have you demanded that they stop committing these vicious crimes altogether?

Like it or don’t, you are complicit in this awful conspiracy. They couldn’t exist without your money — and mine, alas, since I’m a Realtor, too — and they can’t claim moral authority without your tacit moral sanction of their criminality.

If you are not a predator, you need to stand up on your hind legs and say so. If you don’t yearn to devour your neighbors, you need to tell the NAR to get its bloody fangs out of their necks.

In the short run, we may not be able to stop this mandatory forced-speech dues increase. But that doesn’t really matter. It’s just a temporary skirmish.

In the long run, if we honestly believe we pay our own way in the marketplace, we have to rid the real estate business of all of these crimes against innocent people. We have to get government out of real estate.

If you can take my money to give it to someone else, then you can force me to buy my food from you alone. You can compel me to till your fields. You can lock me in your dungeon. You can kill me, rape my wife and gouge out my children’s eyes. If you can do one of those things, you can do any of them — all of them — because you are nothing but a criminal predator.

And if you are not a predator?

Stop acting like one, and stop lending your moral and financial power to the criminal predators of the National Association of Realtors.