[verboten]

It was, right up to WWI in the United States

Up to the War for Southern Independance it was. The use of military force on the Southern Nation foretold of the force the federal government was going to exert on its people everywhere. A study of the War and Reconstruction where the Union abolished the sovereign governements of the South and exerted its powers over these once free people reveals that the US lost its proscribed restrictions once the sovereign states could no longer quit the Union. Like a gang, the US government asserted, contrary to the Declaration, that once in the US, always in the US. Ever since then power has been accumulating in the Federal capital.

Prior to WWI I'll agree that the Union was not a socialist country. WWI ended that. But, the groundwork for that days tryanny had been laid long before.

[Mark Bahner]

"Up to the War for Southern Independance it was. The use of military force on the Southern Nation foretold of the force the federal government was going to exert on its people everywhere."

Let's put it this way...if taxes were as low as they were prior to WWI (e.g. no federal income tax, no social security tax) the U.S. would be so close to my ideal of paradise, that I probably wouldn't even be a Libertarian. There would be no need, as Republicans and Democrats would be providing a completely satifactory level of government for me.

Mark (Libertarian)