PittsburghThoughts

Quick! Where's Chad? Is the economy good or bad? Is the surge working? WTF does that mean? Is there a law that requires you to pay income tax?

I know the answer to the last question you say, the 16th amendment! Give yourself a pat on the back for submitting to conventional wisdom. But, watch this and you'll walk away with doubts. Video director, Aaron Russo's case rests on the conclusion that the 16th amendment was never ratified. Was it? Here's a convincing article that it wasn't ratified by the required number of states: HOW SOME STATES DID NOT LEGALLY RATIFY THE 16TH AMENDMENT

According to this argument, you can stop paying income tax. There's no law requiring it. Oh, you'll eventually end up in jail or broken and destitute, but still, there's no law requiring you to pay income tax. It's sort of like a thing that's understood, needs no explanation, taken for granted, as obvious as the nose on your face. But how can we live in a country that through pure force extracts our hard earned money when we're a nation of laws?

Lots of people have fought the IRS and lost. We know it. We fear retribution and rather than admit that we cowardly let the government extort us we allow ourselves to assume that it's all perfectly legal, as certain as death and ... taxes. But according to a few, and they have made a strong case reinforced by the fact that the IRS has refused to address this fundamental issue, federal income tax is a scam.

I have to agree. When my money goes for wars and military extravaganzas that I have no control over other than writing, phoning or showing up at my congressman's doorstep, the system is a lie.

It's been said, incorrectly I submit, that you can't prove a negative. In other words I can't prove that the IRS doesn't have the right or authority to tax me, so, let them prove that they do. So far they haven't been amenable to that idea and there's no reason to assume that they ever will be as long as they have the force of law but not the law itself on their side.

It's actually comical, people bank on their tax refunds. When I get my tax refund I'm going to_________, fill in the blank. Having money is the form of a bulk amount isn't something that we generally have the opportunity to consider and so when the IRS sends us a fat check, we react jubilantly. We've been bred to have a supplicant mentality.

How would the government operate without taxes, specifically, without income taxes? Before 1913 the income tax didn't exist in it's present form, there was a tax but it was very limited in it scope. Our country operated on tariffs and excise taxes. During the Civil War an income tax law was enacted but was also repealed after the war. From 1868 to 1913, almost 90 percent of all revenue was collected from the remaining excises.

The Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, and World War II all conferred on the people raises to the income tax. I leave out the Social Security tax because I believe in helping people stave off poverty rather than kill them.

My conclusions: War = Taxes, Taxes = Bigger Government, Bigger Government = Corruption, Corruption = More Government, More Government = Absolute Power.

This is what we have now; concentrated corruption, power and unending war. The machine runs on our money but we have little say on the direction the that machine takes. Let this battle over the IRS's ability to tax us rage on, not that we shouldn't fund roads, hospitals, schools, the Arts or the plethera of things that make a society but this war against funding war is worth fighting.