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.
Stupid?... the federal reserve banks are privately owned..
Stupid... is not knowing that... already..
It gets worse than that but knowing that is a start..
I've never denied they were.
That they are mostly foreign owned banks
Prove the above assertion you made in post #150.
Why?.. The shareholders roles are minutia for this conversation.. Whether its 10% or 90% foreign ownership means NOTHING.. here.. its a strawman..
The point is the federal reserve is NOT FEDERAL AT ALL..
He was right in that the Fed Reserve is not ‘federal’ but is owned by private individuals with globalist ties.
Why are you so argumentative about this?
Don’t you want to learn?
So you made it up and I caught you. LOL!
The point is the federal reserve is NOT FEDERAL AT ALL..
Oh my God! Next thing you'll tell me my jumbo shrimp really aren't jumbo.
Great, who owns it?
Why are you so argumentative about this?
I get tired of arguing about the Federal Reserve with idiots.
Don’t you want to learn?
Sure, so teach me.
People are trying to discuss an important issue with you.
Whether foreign bankers own the federal reserve or the federal reserve bankers own the foreign central banks is moot. If you see the people that are in the circles of international central banks and the World Bank, there is an overlap. But this is not the issue.
He is chain pulling.. i.e. playing a gambit..
Moot? Does that mean he lied?
Watch the film in post #159.
It’s really a good film. You’d be surprised at how well done it is and how instructive it is. There’s no ‘goldbug’ business about it.
Thank you.
No, he drew a conclusion from circumstantial evidence. It was not a lie I don’t think. I think it was an educated guess.
Moot means it’s not really the issue one way or the other.
So when he does some more research he should admit he was wrong. You agree?
Moot means it’s not really the issue one way or the other.
If foreign ownership is moot, why did he bring it into the thread?
My only question is why this thread seems to be bringing out so many of the "strange" types. Frankly, none of your posts made a nickel's worth of sense. A couple of you here on this thread are either just trying to learn logic, and I'm the guinea pig, or you're just trying to disrupt a reasonable discussion of something that's over your head. I'm not sure which, but either way you offer nothing of substance to the discussion. But don't feel bad. As I said, you're not the only one.
He’s trying I think to draw attention to the fact that people at the World Bank, the International Bank of Settlements, the European Central Banks and the Federal Reserve are connected and seem to follow orders from one authority.
For example the IMF and the World Bank have people that serve in both, and who meet with Fed Reserve people regularly and Federal Reserve people receive appointments from these foreign entities.
From the inside there is no foreign or non-foreign distinction. For example Henry Kissinger is a liason among several of these entities. The people that employ him may be Americans, or they may be European. But I think they are internationalists with no real country affiliation.
Of course this is not the important part of understanding how it is all tied together. The film has alot of professors, former IRS commissioners and agents, politicians, jurors, victims, esteemed authors, think tank
policy specialists, public interest researchers and more. The story script ties it all together so that you walk away understanding the big picture. There is nothing ‘goldbug’ about it. Everyone in the film is objective and not conspiracy driven.
It’s a very unifying film.
Near the end of the film the screen flashes in sequence:
Stop being a good democrat.
Stop being a good republican.
Start being a good American.
And after watching the film you’ll understand what the director means by this.
What is really important to understand is what’s in that film.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4312730277175242198
True, it will be a fight to get it back to Americans.
philman, we as Americans still have the power if we are united.
We still have the power to get it back. Let’s stand united on this. To see how we can get it back please watch this film:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4312730277175242198
Does this mean you're not going to tell me who owns the Federal Reserve?
For example the IMF and the World Bank have people that serve in both, and who meet with Fed Reserve people regularly and Federal Reserve people receive appointments from these foreign entities.
You know the the United States is a huge funder of the IMF and World Bank? Do you think as part of the funding agreement, we might get to appoint people to the IMF and World Bank? Or would you prefer we give them money and just have furriners running them?
Of course I understand the things you are asking and commenting on.
Why are you intent on arguing these things?
All I asked was to watch the film. It would be fun to discuss it. What’s wrong with that?
Were you drawing a conclusion from circumstantial evidence? Was it was an educated guess?
Why are you intent on arguing these things?
Why do you say things that you refuse to back up?
It would be fun to discuss it.
Does the film say stuff like "the Fed Reserve is not ‘federal’ but is owned by private individuals"? Or stuff like "That they are mostly foreign owned banks"? Or like this, " The IRS is a tool of foreign citizens"?
The worst thing I've done to myself today is waste as much time as I have with a few of the strangest wingnuts I've seen on FR in a while.
You don't know that. All you know is what I posted. You don't know what I think about other remarks on this thread, save for the posts where I responded. Besides, because someone else does something that weakens their arguments means that you should too. Isn't that special -- NOT!
Then that was between me and the other poster. What was your business in it, save to simply try and get attention? Nor did I see you castigate anyone else. And I'll repeat it. Anyone whose argument is to call someone a communist sympathizer because of a legal argument has a dearth of intellectual capacity. And that goes for those who carry their water for them too.
There's two or three posters effectively debating your arguments. I thought it would be more fun to step in the face of your arrogance. If you're going to imply intellectual superiority via seeming insult you had better not be intellectually lazy. Why set yourself up? Raise the bar, so to speak?
I take it, you don't claim to be one of the two or three posters....hopefully? I sense you suffer from an extreme lack of self image. As for the effectiveness of their arguments, those who support their position would presume their arguments are effective. Those who do not wouldn't. So what?
Obviously you didn't do any of that. Incompetence to do basic research to any measurable degree. Intellectual laziness... Intellectual Superiority?! HA! ...Come on, that's funny. The irony? You don't think that's funny?!? I think I know some who does...
Heck, I'm glad I can provide some humor for you. You do need it...badly. By the way, the phase is "I think I know some who do". How's that for intellectual superiority?
"It is better to sit in silence and be thought a fool than to open ones mouth and remove all doubt." -- Mark Twain.
Indeed, you might well heed that admonition.
I see your game now.
Just reviewed your posts:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/user-posts?id=35130;more=46629056
and you’re the same everywhere.
Whatever it was that caused you to be this way is I think beyond anyone on FR to fathom.
Good luck.
We’re done.
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