Posted on 04/12/2007 7:28:36 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
Thanks to our nation's income tax system, individual Americans are not free--they are literally on parole.
If they fail to show up at the designated time and place to testify against themselves, they face the prospect that their material goods will be confiscated and their bodies seized and imprisoned. All this because they are guilty of the crime of doing what the most fundamental law of nature gives them the right to do--procure the means of preserving themselves and their loved ones.
A dilemma
Every year around this time, I find myself in a great quandary, a struggle between my sense of obedience to law and my sense of principle. The reason: it's time to file an income tax return.
Don't get me wrong. I have no trouble with the logic that effective government requires some form of taxation. What I can't understand is how we reconcile the clear provisions of our Constitution with the demand that every citizen testify under oath as to the amount of income they have earned in the previous year.
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution provides that "No person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." The common understanding is that every American must file an income tax return or be prosecuted for the failure to do so.
Yet, it also appears to be the case that the contents of the return can be used in evidence against us if and when we are prosecuted for tax evasion or other income tax related crimes, including perjury, if we do not scrupulously comply with the letter of the voluminous tax code.
If filing is compulsory, we are being forced to provide testimony that may be used in evidence against us. This means that we are compelled to bear witness against ourselves, which the Constitution plainly forbids.
On the other hand, those who support the use of the income tax return will say that it does not violate the Fifth Amendment because filing the return is a voluntary act. But if this were truly the case, how could anyone be prosecuted for failure to file a tax return? Prosecution brings the force of law against the individual. Acts performed under the threat of prosecution are therefore not voluntary acts, but acts done under the threat of force.
Shallow legal arguments
I'm sure that the self-interested representatives of the legal profession will spring forward to assure me that the Courts have accepted the validity of the income tax system and cooperated with its enforcement mechanisms (by sanctioning the coercion used to enforce compliance). But we all know that this offers no assurance of constitutionality.
The Courts do not reliably represent the rule of law, since they willfully ignore the plain provisions of the Constitution that is the Supreme Law of the Land and the source of all their legitimate governmental power. The Courts blithely fabricate and impose requirements that are nowhere found in the Constitution (such as the separation of Church and state) and demand respect for rights that contradict its principles and stated purpose (like the so-called right to abortion).
Given this dismal track record, it's not at all hard to believe that they would cooperate in the imposition of an income tax regime that contradicts the Constitution's plainly worded guarantee against self-incrimination.
Respect for law
If we assume for a moment that the income tax regime is enforced by means that systematically disregard one of the most basic guarantees against governmental abuse of individuals, we realize that it puts conscientious citizens in a terrible position. If they choose to cooperate, they lend credence to the abuse--so that over the course of generations, people become more and more inured to it, and ignorant of the abrogation of right that it represents. Since habitual deference to law enforcement is the only basis for the filing requirement, such deference becomes the source of government authority, rather than the plainly declared and duly ratified will of the people expressed in the Constitution.
Habitual deference to the perceived force of law is far from being characteristic of a free people. Indeed, it is the reason large masses of people in every region of the world submitted to despotism and arbitrary tyranny in the centuries before the influence of Christianity led thinkers to articulate the doctrine of God-given inalienable rights.
We must be careful, of course, to keep in mind the distinction between habitual deference to the force of law and the habit of respect for the law. The first is quite simply the product of fear, the second is the fruit of good civic education.
Courts and all the trappings of so-called law are no strangers to tyranny. They have more often been its tools and servants than its enemies. The preponderance of human history offers examples of tyrannical and unjust regimes that cowed the masses into submission using handy symbols of power to shackle the mind, reinforced by the routine application of brute force.
Constitutional self-government is supposed to achieve respect for law on a very different basis, one that commands obedience on account of the assurance that the transcendent principles of right and justice will be respected in both the substance of the law and the procedures that enforce it.
The issue
Here then is the question: If the administration of the income tax departs from the principles of right and justice plainly set forth in the Constitution, does our cooperation with the income tax regime constitute and encourage the habitual deference to force without respect for right that has been a key support for sustaining tyrannical and unjust government? Does our willingness to cooperate help to shackle the mind and will of our children and of future generations, corrupting their understanding so that they will no longer recognize the distinction between legitimate government by law, and government by force masked with the handy symbols of law?
If we truly care about liberty--which is to say, constitutional self-government based upon respect for our God-given inalienable rights--are we obliged to cease this cooperation, even as, in the founding generation of our country, people ceased to cooperate with a system of taxation that contradicted those rights?
This challenge might be less urgent if the issue involved were not so critical to the material foundations of liberty. The American founders repeatedly alluded to Blackstone's pithy dictum: The power to tax is the power to destroy. How much more so when the mechanism of taxation itself involves the destruction of one of the most vital protections against governmental abuse of the individual: the protection against self-incrimination.
The income tax gives the government the power to attack or manipulate the material resource base of the whole people, determining what share will be controlled by the government and what will be left to the discretion of individuals. It also places every individual under a requirement to reveal to the government the sources of their individual sustenance, knowledge that could be used to attack or sever these lines of supply at will. It places every individual under a reporting requirement which, aside from being incompatible with the Fifth Amendment, can at any time become the basis for embroiling the individual in legal and bureaucratic challenges that consume their time and resources in ways that can threaten their own survival and that of the family and friends who rely on them.
By contrast, Montesquieu defined liberty as the ability to live without fear that others could assault your life, In our society, livelihood is life. Franklin Roosevelt appeared to agree when he cited freedom from fear among the four freedoms for which we did battle during the Second World War. Under our system of constitutional self-government, legitimate power means power consistent with liberty. The provisions of the Constitution aim to secure liberty by establishing a government whose powers are limited by respect for the Constitution's principles and requirements.
Free-market alternative
I admit that we would face an insoluble dilemma if the income tax were the only form of taxation capable of funding our government effectively. If this were so, it would mean that republican government consistent with the U.S. Constitution and its principles is impossible. The best we could hope for would be some less evil form of tyranny.
However, the success of the free enterprise economy made possible by respect for liberty means the existence of a huge marketplace, whose transactions generate an enormous exchange of goods and services. A system of taxation that imposed a modest toll (retail sales tax) on every such open and public exchange in the marketplace would more than suffice to fund the government, without the need to threaten the livelihood or constitutional right of any citizen. In the normal course of their voluntary business and other economic affairs, people would pay for government services, just as they pay for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and entertainment.
If we care any longer to preserve the substance of democratic self-government, we need urgently to develop and put in place the free-market alternative to the liberty-destroying income tax system now in place. If we fail to do so, we leave the people, as individuals and as a whole, defenseless against the strategies of self-righteous, power-hungry elites who are already manipulating its administration to isolate and demoralize our people, crushing both their individual spirit and their ability to associate effectively for political action.
Of course. City parks are public lands...or lands owned by the collective 'public' and held in trust by the city government.
-------
And as for your holiday, if you are a business owner, you will likely have laws pertaining to your employees' pay that you will need to follow.
If this is a private business owned by a private person and not a 'public' one.... why?
That statement destroys the right to private property, the free market system AND the equity of law.
It's a Trifecta!
Well, the Fair Tax bills in Congress would require that. I'm not sure why you think one cannot answer a hypothetical question about another form of taxation.
Besides a consumption tax is nothing new. Every tax known to man has been levied by the government, so why would a filing requirement be such a mystery?
Me too :P
Where you been?
It apparently is to you. I deal with posters as they deal with me.
With other, fundamentally honest posters on this thread I have discussed the issue of inalienable right to life, liberty and happiness. For example, post 99 which sates:
I think you mean to say "states", not sates. I guess none of us are perfect....
When you act as you have, you've done anything but earn respect that is deserving of debate. I will not gloss over your error and compounding of it and just move on along to debate you on the issue of this thread. You simply have not earned the respect. Actually, just the opposite -- you have earned disrespect.
That you disrespect me is a badge of honor, sir. That you had no problem with the poster calling me a communist sympathizer and an IRS employee, but did have a problem with my comeback questioning the intellectual capacity of anyone who would make such comments is hardly evidence that you understand the term "respect" or that you really can identify a fundamentally honest poster, as you think you can.
I'm not a kid. I'm doing just fine holding your feet to the fire by not letting you get away with implying -- in what appears to be an insults -- how much more intellectually adept you are compared to many Freepers, when in fact, in the span of just a few posts you've proven the opposite.
Yes, I see your point. I should just accept the insults coming from those whose side you are (honest posters), and not disagree with anything they say because that would make me a....dishonest poster! So you keep holding my feet to the fire, but you might try lighting it first. And watch out for those errors yourself.
I see you don't think having your credibility at stake is important. I see you don't think earning the respect to be deemed worthy of debate is important to you. You think I should just gloss over your errors? Why should I care about you when you clearly don't care about your own integrity?
Credibility? You have the gall to use that word with your specious arguments about the importance of my not knowing who the author was? Talk about a hoot!
Integrity is another word I am surprised to see you write here. Again, calling someone a communist sympathizer and other insults is ok, but my return argument being akin to the killing of Archduke Ferdinand is hardly a measurement of the integrity of the poster. But I don't know your value system, and that's probably a good thing.
Posters such as you are a dime a dozen. I see them on threads where their response to a well thought out post was to criticize the failure to use spell check, or some other meaningless error having nothing at all to do with the thread.
That's an obfuscating, non sequitur straw man.
Wow! Three logic fallacies in one sentence. I'm impressed. But the point remains, and so far, you seem to be true to form.
I'll try again. Do you have anything of substance on the issues we have been discussing?
Again, why should I respect you when you don't have the integrity to respect yourself?
The integrity to respect yourself? I don't think you mean to use the term "integrity" in this context. How about "capacity" or "ability" or some other more relevant term? But then, we all make mistakes....
So I won't ask again. You have confirmed you have nothing of substance here.
I'm not sure you followed the context of the argument. It went back a couple of posts.
If this is a private business owned by a private person and not a 'public' one.... why?
Because many laws both state and federal may apply, including minimum wage laws, laws pertaining to holiday pay, and a whole host of laws regulating the business itself.
That statement destroys the right to private property, the free market system AND the equity of law.
Huh?
I'm not sure what we are arguing anymore. I thought the issue was your dislike of laws that "require such and such or else". I think I said all laws in one way or another do that. Even your examples would have laws attached that require such and such or else. That's essentially what a social structure is, for better or worse. I'm still not sure I follow your point as it pertains to this thread.
....ENOUGH taxation and you have SOCIALISM, plain and simple...
TOO much and you get a REVOLUTION....[or so I’ve heard]
Well, you said that compulsion or coercion was wrong (do such and such or else), and so I said that even if the current tax system was done away with, business owners would still have that same requirement. I then went on to say that essentially all laws are coercive in one way or another. Perhaps there are a few exceptions, but not many. Hope that helps.
Mr. Hamilton was right then and is STILL right today!
I then went on to say that essentially all laws are coercive in one way or another.
No, you made a declatory statement with no conditions.
Which I proved by example to be an inaccurate statement to which you've yet completely disproven. No comments forthcoming about "after the fact" laws.
Perhaps there are a few exceptions, but not many.
And here you disprove you own assetion that ALL laws are coercive. No changing the goalposts now, that isn't cricket!
"... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one MAKES them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
......just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted -- and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
- p.411, Ayn Rand, ATLAS SHRUGGED, Signet Books, NY, 1957
Ayn said is SO much better than I ever could have!
Oh, goody. The 'You're too slow to follow the argument'...argument.
-----
Because many laws both state and federal may apply, including minimum wage laws, laws pertaining to holiday pay, and a whole host of laws regulating the business itself.
And why do they apply? Could it be because the business owner did what he thought was his civil duty and procured a business license...i.e. legal permission of the state thereby 'voluntarily' placing himself under their jurisdiction?
-----
That statement destroys the right to private property, the free market system AND the equity of law.
Huh?
Something wrong with your hearing? Private property, you know:
[A] law that takes property from A. and gives it to B: It is against all reason and justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with such powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed that they have done it."
Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 388 (1798)
The free market system? Do I really have to explain that a business owner either pays a fair wage or goes out of business because no one will work for the miserly SOB?
The law of Equity. You know 'All Men are created equal'. Can I, as an individual DEMAND that a businessman pay a certain wage and legally punish him if he does not?
No, of course not. If that authority isn't possessed by an individual, it CANNOT be possessed by the collective and could not possibly have been given to the collective civil 'state'.
Without Equity, the law itself ceases to exist.
A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second, that second for a third, and so on 'til the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering...and the forehorse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.
Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816
Good rant, but it won’t happen. Both parties love the tax because it finances the biggest welfare system in the world, a huge war machine, unbelievable perks for the politicians, obscene amounts of “foreign aid” and immense waste.
It won’t change.
The current system extracts money from the industrious, hard-working people and gives it to slackers. No surprise that the income tax is one of the goals of world communism.
Both parties have a vested interest in keeping the current system.
A toast, to the repeal of both the 16th and 17th Amendments, destructors of America.
Isn't it, though?
-----
How many months do we have to work before we pay our taxes.
Way too many. What's the total tax rate now? 50%?
-----
Many have no time, nor the inclination, to think because of the rigors of their labor much less on "calling the mismanagers to account".
Don't get me started on how the People have become SO disinterested that they worry more about American Idol than the financial rape of the American taxpayers!
ACK!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.