On the subject of taxes, the founding fathers could not have been clearer. The Constitution creates two classes of tax -- direct and indirect -- that are spelled out in the plainest possible language,
Article 1, Section 2: "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union"
Article 1, Section 8: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises...but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States"
Article 1, Section 9: "No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census of Enumeration herein before directed to be taken."
Then, to ensure the central government didn't overstep its clearly enumerated limits, the fathers added the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, which protect us from unreasonable search and seizure and direct that noone cannot be compelled to be a witness against himself.
Today, however, Washington and the courts routinely obscure, ignore and -- when all else fails -- violate these clearly defined distinctions. They get away with it because 70-plus years of compulsory, government-run schooling has erased any collective memory or knowledge of the Constitution. When people don't know what rights they have under the supreme law of the land, they don't know when those rights are being trampled and destroyed.
The only crime that folks like Irwin Schiff of Freedom Books and Bob Schulz of We The People Foundation have committed is to remind everyone of these routine violations and attempt to hold our legislators' feet to the fire. For reminding Congress and the people of these simple truths, they are branded tax protestors, cranks or worse.
When Jefferson said "Let us bind up government in the chains of the Constitution", he knew how easy it was for a central government to morph into the overtaxed police state we live in today. If Jefferson, Henry, Madison or Mason saw how eagerly Americans submit themselves to this spectral power on the Potomac, they would probably just look at each other and ask, "Why did we bother writing a constitution in the first place?"