More on Legislative Absolutism

In a landmark Supreme Court case involving legislation beyond what is Constitutionally authorized, Justice Harlan issued a powerful dissent. Below is a portion of it, taken from Downes v. Bidwell, 182 US 244 (1901).

"The idea prevails with some, indeed it has found expression in arguments at the bar, that we have in this country substantially two national governments; one to be maintained under the Constitution, with all of its restrictions; the other to be maintained by Congress outside and independent of that instrument, by exercising such power as other nations of the earth are accustomed to…I take leave to say that, if the principles thus announced should ever receive the sanction of a majority of this court, a radical and mischievous change in our system of government will result. We will, in that event, pass from the era of constitutional liberty, guarded and protected by a written constitution into an era of legislative absolutism…IT WILL BE AN EVIL DAY FOR AMERICAN LIBERTY IF THE THEORY OF A GOVERNMENT OUTSIDE THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND FINDS LODGEMENT IN OUR CONSTITUTIONAL JURISPRUDENCE. No higher duty rests upon this court than to exert its full authority to prevent all violations of the principles of the Constitution." [emphasis in original]

For the last 100 years it has been "an evil day for American liberty", just as Justice Harlan predicted. Legislative Absolutism intrudes into almost all aspects of our lives, via national laws involving powers not delegated to the central Government by the Constitution. For some odd reason, most Americans actually believe that Congress can pass any law it so desires; and that it is up to the Supreme Court to strike down laws that are unconstitutional. The second half of that last sentence is true, but the first half is not. Congress is limited by the Constitution.

Congress has no Constitutional authority to authorize funding for---just a few examples---items such as: education (billions of dollars); an indoor rainforest project in Iowa ($50 million); the International Fund for Ireland ($18.5 million); HUD (over $500 billion); or, the Food Stamp Program (billions of dollars). If the central government stayed within its Constitutional limits, then there would be no national debt imposing the hidden tax of inflation, and all government operations could be paid for with corporate taxes, excise taxes, duties, and imposts.

[NOTE: It is important for each individual to realize that consumers are the ones who pay Corporate taxes (in addition to the misapplied Individual Income Tax). The amount of the tax is proportionately built into the price of each product. How many times do you want to pay income taxes?!]

Modern Day Book Burning & Gestapo Tactics

Larken Rose is the young fellow who researched and made the video "Theft by Deception", which is available on the internet (I've referred everyone to it before). According to him, some time ago he, his wife, and their young daughter were subjected to an IRS "raid" on their home---armed men burst in yelling and pointing weapons, proceeded to rummage through all their belongings, and seized about 200-300 copies of his video. The same thing happened to his producer (and family). It should be added that Rose has not paid the Individual Income Tax for about ten years, and has dared the IRS to "show me [him] the law" and charge him with any "crime".

He was not charged with any crime, either before or after the raid. He was not even arrested. When he asked for the return of his video discs, he was told by the IRS that they will never be returned. [This, in the United States of America! Every sovereign individual should be outraged.]

This whole event is described toward the end of the piece below. [If you have dial-up, don't bother unless you can do chores while each section is loading!]

http://www.3rdear.com/861info/

Also presented in the video directly above was this bit---
In 2002, the Govt took in $767 billion dollars in taxes other than individual income taxes (in other words, the revenues were from corp taxes, excise taxes, SS taxes, Medicare taxes, duties, etc.). That same year, total Federal spending (not counting supplemental, or "off-budget", appropriations---such as the Iraq War) was $746 billion. [During the Reagan era, the Grace Commission issued a study showing that 100% of Individual Income Tax receipts went to paying the interest on the national debt. None of it went for "government services".]

The Individual Income Tax and the IRS

Some people may not be aware of this---

Many years ago, Melvin Belli (the famous attorney) attempted to locate the law requiring most Americans to pay an unapportioned direct tax on their compensation; he did so because a man by the name of Conklin offered $50,000 cash to anyone who could show him the law. Belli came up empty.

Ex-IRS agents Sherry Jackson and Joe Banister more recently attempted to locate the law, because the We the People Foundation also offered $50K to anyone who could locate such a law. Both Jackson and Banister came up empty.

As a side note, eight Supreme Court rulings (none of which have been reversed) between 1918 and 1923 concluded that the word "incomes" in the Sixteenth Amendment meant "gain from corporate activity" and that the Amendment "conferred no new taxing powers" upon the Fed Govt. [Example: Doyle v. Mitchell Brothers Company, 1918.]

Disbelievers ask, "Why, then, has the Individual Income Tax not been thrown out?" The answer is simple: other than Congressional action, the only way to do that is to file a court case. Judges will not allow it to proceed----"frivolous", they maintain.

OR THIS---

In 2002, HR 2525, entitled, The Fair Tax Act, began with these words, "Congress finds [emphasis added] that the Federal income tax: (1) retards economic growth and has reduced the standard of living of the American public; (2) impedes the international competitiveness of United States industry; (3) reduces savings and investment in the United States by taxing income multiple times; (4) slows the capital formation necessary for real wages to steadily increase; (5) lowers productivity; (6) imposes unacceptable and unnecessary administrative and compliance costs on individual and business taxpayers; (7) is unfair and inequitable; (8) unnecessarily intrudes upon the privacy and civil rights of United States citizens; [emphasis added] (9) hides the true cost of government by embedding taxes in the costs of everything Americans buy; (10) is not being complied with at sati sfactory levels and therefore raises the tax burden on law abiding citizens; and (11) impedes upward social mobility."

Regarding point # (8) above, the Fourth Amendment guarantees that we shall be secure in our persons, houses, papers and effects unless a proper, lawful warrant is issued to seize something specific. In the 1950s, the outgoing IRS Commissioner, T. Coleman Andrews, made a speech in which he said that enforcement of the Individual Income Tax violates the Fourth Amendment---because the amount of your income is no one's business but yours. In addition, every time you sign a Form 1040, "under penalty of perjury", you are waiving your Fifth Amendment right to protection from self-incrimination. No sovereign individual should be forced to waive his/her Rights.

Highly recommended:

http://edbrown.org/wordpress/?cat=4 --- the first video is the one at the next link (below).

http://www.theft-by-deception.com/ --- available for purchase (may be viewed for free above at edbrown.org...).

http://www.3rdear.com/861info/

http://www.originalintent.org/edu/ --- left side of page, under "Video Archive"--- Income Tax, a series of short (two minutes or so) videos on the Individual Income Tax.

What is the Purpose of the U.S. Constitution, and is it a "Living Document"?

The Constitution serves two basic purposes: first, to limit the Federal Government; second, to enumerate our basic Rights as individuals. Limitation is accomplished by delegating certain powers to the various branches of our Government. This next concept often is not grasped by many people: if a certain power is not delegated to any branch of our Government, then no branch (or anyone in the Government) has that power. Example: the Government has been delegated the power to use the military for only two purposes---to repel invasions and/or to quell insurrections (in this country) . [NOTE:  there is a third purpose, but it's very similar to "quell insurrections".]  Nowhere in the Constitution is the Government delegated to use the military as a world police force. Those who believe that it should be used in such a manner need to lobby for a Constitutional Amendment. That amending process (or the holding of a Constitutional Convention) is the way our Constitution is legally changed. No other way is permitted.

Supporters of the dangerous theory that our Constitution is a "Living Document" believe that we need to re-interpret the Constitution from time to time...adapt it to our modern way of life... without using the Amendment process. Justice Antonin Scalia says that is dead wrong. I most certainly agree. To quote him, "The Constitution does not change in its meaning..."; unfortunately, his view appears to be in the minority in the halls of our Government today.

Over many years, one of the results of re-interpreting the Constitution has been the exponential expansion of the power of all three branches of our central Government. That has been accomplished, in large part, without any corresponding Amendments delegating new powers. An example is the area of education. Nowhere in the Constitution is power delegated to the central Government regarding education. A more recent example is the area of citizen identification via the REAL ID Act, which takes effect in May of 2008. Again, nowhere in the Constitution is the central Government delegated the power to have anything to do with ID. That's why we've never had a national driver's license, and why the Government stresses that your SS card is not to be used for ID. In both those examples, an Amendment is required for the Federal Government to have any power whatsoever. Those Amendments, to my knowledge, do not exist.

According to Justice Scalia, the "Living Document" concept took hold about fifty years ago. Other results of this concept have been numerous challenges to the Bill of Rights, especially the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments. The concept is dangerous because, as Scalia says, "...with such an approach, the Constitution can say anything you want it to. But this nation was not built on the principle that Judges, attempting to gauge the will of society, would interpret the Constitution differently as time goes by...". More from Scalia: "A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless."...quotes from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 14, 2001.

The Rights of individuals never change (the Constitution does NOT grant us Rights, they are our birthright**) and the limitations on the Federal Government do not change without a Constitutional Amendment or Constitutional Convention. That's the way it should be, but that's not the way it is today.

**Someone needs to tell this to Attorney General Gonzales, who recently suggested that the Constitution does not GRANT us the Right of habeas corpus (the right to know in court of what we are being accused); therefore, according to him, the Government does not necessarily have to observe it.

Our Subverted Federal Government

Executive Branch

Where or where to begin? A few examples should suffice.

Signing Statements (added to bills when the Pres signs them into law) have been utilized by many past Presidents, not just King George. In the past, however, the purpose of such a Statement has been to clarify a portion of the law for the use of the department/agency which will be responsible for implementing and enforcing the law; the clarification may be necessary in order for the department to write its regulation, which is the implementing tool.

[For those readers not familiar with the difference between a law and a regulation, let me explain. (For seven years I worked for a large County's environmental management department, HazMat Division; in that capacity I became intimately familar with County, State, and Fed laws and regulations in the environmental field.) When a bill is passed into law, the raw law is handed over to the department which will implement the law, so that the department can write a (usually) much more detailed regulation. It is the regulation that is enforced. Should a matter go to court, both the law and the regulation are cited; however, the law reigns supreme... or at least, it should. In the Fed realm, a "law" is designated by the letters "USC"; a "regulation" is designated by "CFR".]

King George (please excuse the well-deserved sarcasm) at times uses Signing Statements for a completely different purpose. Sometimes he uses them to say, in effect, "If I so choose, this law (or some portion of it) does not apply to me."; he does this because certain NeoCon theorists have convinced him that he possesses an expanded "Unitary Presidency" (a theory), which basically means that Congress has virtually no control whatsoever over his actions.

"The Bush administration has interpreted the theory more expansively than previous administrations. As for what specific constitutional limitations on the judicial power President George W. Bush may have in mind, the argument used by the President and his supporters is widely regarded as consistent with legal positions promulgated by John Yoo, particularly as recorded in several of his legal memoranda while working at the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel under Bush. Yoo's positions include that the use of military force is, like presidential vetoes and pardons, an unreviewable matter. Yoo's opinions are widely seen by legal scholars as controversial and contrary to most scholars' understanding of the Constitution." [Emphasis added] From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory .

Let's move on to the Individual Income Tax. After the 16th Amendment was ratified (there is some argument about that, but to me it's an issue not worth pursuing), Congress passed the Income Tax LAW---USC Title 26. Then the raw law was turned over to the IRS (a part of the Treasury Dept., which is a part of the Executive Branch) so that they could write the REGULATION---the IRS Tax Code---CFR Title 26. Once that was done, the taxation of individuals began. Challenges to both the law and the regulation followed.

Between 1918 and 1923, eight Supreme Court rulings (none of which have been overturned or reversed) concluded that the word "income"---or perhaps it was "incomes", can't recall offhand---meant "gain from corporate activity", and that the Amendment conferred "no new taxing powers" upon the Fed Govt. Congress then revised the law, incorporating the conclusions of the Court. The IRS then revised the regulation---the IRS Tax Code---but, purposely (an opinion) buried and scattered the relevant revisions in the voluminous and convoluted Code. It continued to tax individuals, referring to them (in small print) as "voluntary taxpayers"; the word "voluntary" was dropped in 1954 or thereabouts. The Tax Code has been revised since then as well, but the basic premise above still holds.

It is important to note that phrases such as "Married Individuals", "Heads of Households", and "Single Individuals" do not appear in the first revision of the Income Tax LAW, but only in the regulation--- the IRS Tax Code. A few years ago, We the People Foundation ran a full-page ad in USA Today, offering $50,000 cash to anyone who could produce a law requiring a tax on an individual's labor---in other words, a tax on a wage-earner's compensation. Two IRS Agents, Joe Banister and Sherry Jackson, independently decided to claim the money; for them, they figured, it would be a slam-dunk. On their own times, each began researching. After months of exhaustive research, both came up empty. Banister then approached his IRS superiors, inquiring as to the location of the law (not the regulation); he was "asked" to resign. [On his website, http://www.freedomabovefortune.com/ , on the left side of the Home page click on "Resignation Documents" for some interesting reading. One can also download his Preliminary Report on his investigation (about 50 pages, as I recall) for more details.]

No one has successfully claimed the $50,000 because there is no such LAW. For years, I believed that "tax resisters" (members of the Tax Honesty Movement) were kooks and crazies. It turns out they were correct regarding their claims. All those years, I was a tax chump, along with most Americans. The IRS Tax Code is impeccably Constitutional (assuming that, in fact, the 16th Amendment was properly ratified), but it is MISapplied to all wage-earning individuals.

Next is the Executive's treatment or mistreatment of the Fourth Amendment. Need I say more? Unless there is a duly authorized warrant, we are to be secure in our houses, persons, papers, and effects. Warrantless eavesdropping, warrantless mining of bank records, warrantless monitoring of phone call destinations and frequencies of calls ALL violate the Fourth Amendment. Surprisingly, the subverted courts have agreed...at least on the issue of warrantless eavesdropping. King George finally dropped the Executive's appeals on that topic and now (supposedly) no longer engages in the practice.

Legislative Branch

Due to time constraints, I refer you to my previous post--- "Legislative Absolutism". I shall expand on that subject later, in a different post.

Judicial Branch

A couple of examples should suffice.

I remember when the fairly recent Eminent Domain case involving the seizing of land (private homes) and then giving/selling it to private developers reached the Supreme Court. I thought to myself, "This is a slam-dunk; Eminent Domain is to be used for public roads, govt buildings, etc."---imagine my shock when the 5-4 decision was revealed. The justification given was that such action expands the tax revenues of the City/County. No one's home or land anywhere is any longer safe from the tentacles of the government.

Finally, going back to the Individual Income Tax, court judges do not allow tax case defendants to submit into evidence any of the eight Supreme Court rulings mentioned above---"not relevant". Nor are they allowed to introduce into evidence any revealing portions of the IRS Tax Code (CFR) or the Income Tax Statute (USC). This...in a tax case! In effect, the Judge invariably says, "I'll tell YOU what the law is; you're not allowed to tell me."--- So I ask, where is due process?

CONCLUSION

To a large degree, individual sovereignty in this country has been superceded by a Collectivist State---Fascist State, if you prefer. [Totalitarianism is totalitarianism.] The individual has been subordinated to the State. It is our fault as a People; we have not been vigilant. Our Founders must be turning in their graves.

To those who believe that voting still matters, and that our current situation is a "Bush problem", or a "NeoCon problem", or a "Republican problem", I offer this. Bill Clinton also made use of warrantless wiretapping. Bill Clinton also used the military for purposes other than the Constitutionally authorized repelling of invasions and/or quelling of insurrections. FDR and LBJ were the KINGS of Legislative Absolutism, even though they were Executives.

Something must be done, and time may be short. It is entirely possible that de facto President Cheney (sorry, that's how I see him) may resign due to ill health well prior to 2008. King George will then appoint his (W's) virtual successor, and the NeoCon troops will rally the conned base of evangelicals (that's the way I see it...conned) and non-evangelical Conservatives...thus continuing the dynasty. Make no mistake---the election in 2008 will be the dirtiest campaign in the history of the Alpha Quadrant. That's not even considering the possibility of a rigged election due to the use of electronic voting machines.

I urge everyone to get involved in re-establishing the Freedom envisioned by our Founders. Take a look at the "Recommended" websites, the links for which are in the upper left of this page. If you agree, sign the Petitions for Redress found at givemeliberty.org, view the film, "America: Freedom to Fascism", learn the basics at originalintent, and if possible, participate in civil disobedience events or protests described at givemeliberty and freedomtofascism.

Legislative Absolutism

Our Constitutional Republic no longer exists. Almost 100 years ago, with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, an era of Legislative Absolutism took hold and has progressed to this very day. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution instructs Congress to regulate the value of our money, but in 1913 Congress abrogated the Constitution by passing the Fed Reserve Act. That changed the Constitution...without an Amendment or a Constitutional Convention.

Passing a bill into law requires only a simple majority, but changing the Constitution by Amendment requires approval of three-fourths of the States. Obviously, it is much easier to pass a law than to add an Amendment to the Constitution. Via Legislative Absolutism, Congress has vastly expanded the powers of the Fed Government in a completely unconstitutional manner into areas in which it has no delegated power. That alone is reason enough to throw off the chains of our present government through the peaceful means proclaimed at givemeliberty.org---join the movement.

From the Magna Carta to the Declaration of Independence, people have declared individual sovereignty and the concept of a servant government. Can anyone honestly say that we in the United States have a servant government today? Ever since its establishment, our government has expanded exponentially regardless of which major political party was in power. With that expansion has come more and more intrusion into our personal and professional lives. There is no end in sight.

What passes for a Republic in the U.S. today is actually a strange, sometimes mild form of fascism administered (for all practical purposes) by a cartel of corporatists, government elitists, and bankers. For an interesting account of this cartel, see "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins... http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3968544393356669182 . It is time for a radical, peaceful change.

Also of interest are: http://www.freedomtofascism.com/ and http://www.givemeliberty.org/ and http://www.originalintent.org/ .

It is time to re-establish We the People.