Tax Day

Truth-Bringer

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 7, 2007
Messages
880
Tax Day

By Murray N. Rothbard

Originally published on April 15, 1969 in The Libertarian.

April 15, that dread Income Tax day, is around again, and gives us a chance to ruminate on the nature of taxes and of the government itself.

The first great lesson to learn about taxation is that taxation is simply robbery. No more and no less. For what is "robbery"? Robbery is the taking of a man's property by the use of violence or the threat thereof, and therefore without the victim's consent. And yet what else is taxation?

Those who claim that taxation is, in some mystical sense, really "voluntary" should then have no qualms about getting rid of that vital feature of the law which says that failure to pay one's taxes is criminal and subject to appropriate penalty.

But does anyone seriously believe that if the payment of taxation were really made voluntary, say in the sense of contributing to the American Cancer Society, that any appreciable revenue would find itself into the coffers of government? Then why don't we try it as an experiment for a few years, or a few decades, and find out?

But if taxation is robbery, then it follows as the night does the day that those people who engage in, and live off, robbery are a gang of thieves. Hence the government is a group of thieves, and deserves, morally, aesthetically, and philosophically, to be treated exactly as a group of less socially respectable ruffians would be treated.

This issue of The Libertarian is dedicated to that growing legion of Americans who are engaging in various forms of that one weapon, that one act of the public which our rulers fear the most: tax rebellion, the cutting off the funds by which the host public is sapped to maintain the parasitic ruling classes.

Here is a burning issue which could appeal to everyone, young and old, poor and wealthy, "working class" and middle class, regardless of race, color, or creed. Here is an issue which everyone understands, only too well. Taxation.

http://www.mises.org/story/2550
 
Werbung:
Taxes are onerus, no doubt about it, especially when one watches with disgust how those taxes are spent and how much is wasted. To have no taxes at all, on the other hand, is to have anarchy.

There has to be a balance.

The government is a necessary evil. Our founding fathers understood that concept well, and acted accordingly. They gave us a Constitution limiting the power of the federal government. We continue to ignore that Constitution at the peril of our liberties.
 
Just my $0.02 worth about taxes

If you sign your tax form, you have just "waved" your 5th amendment rights,
and if you refuse to sign it, you can be busted for Tax Evasion. OOPS!
is this a RACKET or what?

How many people contact their Senators and Congresspeople and ***** A LITTLE? DEMAND JUSTICE? or?

Question 4 Truth-Bringer
is there a real quote from the "Founding Fathers" of something like
... We must bind men down with the law, lest they become tyrants ....
or?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
and as we all know
the emperor is NAKED!
.
 
Taxes are onerus, no doubt about it, especially when one watches with disgust how those taxes are spent and how much is wasted. To have no taxes at all, on the other hand, is to have anarchy.

Yet there were no taxes under Thomas Jefferson, and there was no anarchy:

https://www.houseofpolitics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=898

There has to be a balance.

And as you'll see on the 7th post down on the first page of the above thread - the balance was explained by the Founders. Internal taxation was intended FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY. Tariffs were to be used to provide for general government funding.

The government is a necessary evil. Our founding fathers understood that concept well, and acted accordingly. They gave us a Constitution limiting the power of the federal government. We continue to ignore that Constitution at the peril of our liberties.

Indeed the vast majority of politicians ignore the original intent of the Constitution, and the vast majority of Americans are totally ignorant of the original intent, so they don't complain. And, by the way, you're quoting from one of the worst Presidents in history who ignored the Constitution probably more than anyone else:

"And, of course, there was the political regime of Franklin D. Roosevelt. To finance government expenditures to pay for his beloved New Deal welfare programs, Roosevelt and his cohorts began printing massive amounts of government notes. To ensure that gold would not expose what they were doing, legal-tender laws were enacted. But that wasn't the worst of it. The Roosevelt people next canceled — nullified — extinguished — every single gold clause in every single contract, public and private.

And even that wasn't the worst of it. Roosevelt and his cronies nationalized — confiscated — the gold coins of the American people and then made it illegal for Americans to own gold. Imagine — after 150 years of the strongest monetary system in history — a system free from government assault — a system that was a bulwark for American liberty — the American people became subject to serving time in a U.S. federal penitentiary for owning a gold coin!

What about the Constitution? What about enumerated powers? Unfortunately, Roosevelt had sufficient cronies on the Court to sustain his policies, especially after his infamous and shameful court-packing scheme."

From: http://www.fff.org/freedom/0596a.asp
 
Werbung:
If you sign your tax form, you have just "waved" your 5th amendment rights,
and if you refuse to sign it, you can be busted for Tax Evasion. OOPS!
is this a RACKET or what?

Yes, it is a racket and a complete fraud.

How many people contact their Senators and Congresspeople and ***** A LITTLE? DEMAND JUSTICE? or?

True. Also, how many people actually have the courage and the guts to fight the system? We could end the income tax tomorrow if the American people just refused to convict anyone being prosecuted for tax evasion. We have a right to use jury nullification to end any unjust law.

So let's educate as many people as possible about this right. And lest you say it will still require too many people, remember, you don't even need a majority of jurors, you only need one juror out of twelve to hang it and produce a mistrial:

"It is not only [the juror's] right, but his duty...to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." - John Adams, 1771

".....it is usual for the jurors to decide the fact, and to refer the law arising on it to the decision of the judges. But this division of the subject lies with their discretion only. And if the question relate to any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which the judges may be suspected of bias, the jury undertake to decide both law and fact." - Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on Virginia," 1782

"Another apprehension [about the French Revolution] is, that a majority cannot be induced to adopt the trial by jury; and I consider that as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution...." - Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Tom Paine, 1789

"It is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision.....you have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy." - Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay, Georgia v. Brailsford, 1794

"Jurors should acquit, even against the judge's instruction...if exercising their judgement with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction that the charge of the court is wrong." - Alexander Hamilton, 1804

"Petty juries, consisting usually of twelve men, attend courts to try matters of fact in civil causes, and to decide both the law and the fact in criminal prosecutions. The decision of a petty jury is called a verdict." - Noah Webster, Dictionary of the English Language, 1828

"If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by a judge, and contrary to the evidence...If the jury feels that the law under which the defendant is accused is unjust, or that exigent circumstances justified the actions of the accused, or for any reason which appeals to their logic or passion, the jury has the power to acquit, and the courts must abide by that decision." - 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, United States v. Moylan, 1969

"[The jury has an] unreviewable and irreversible power...to acquit in disregard of the instructions on the law given by the trial judge...The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard uncontradicted evidence and instructions of the judge; for example, acquittals under the fugitive slave law." - D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Unites States v. Dougherty, 1972

"The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both the law and the facts." - Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Horning v. District of Columbia, 1920

"It is universally conceded that a verdict of acquittal, although rendered against the instructions of the judge, is final, and cannot be set aside; and consequently that the jury have the legal power to decide for themselves the law involved in the general issues of guilty or not guilty." - Justices Gray and Shiras, Sparf and Hansen v. United States, 1894, dissent

http://www.crfc.org/americanjury/nullification.html

http://www.fija.org

Question 4 Truth-Bringer
is there a real quote from the "Founding Fathers" of something like
... We must bind men down with the law, lest they become tyrants ....
or?

Yes:

"Let no more be heard of confidence in men, but rather bind them down by the chains of the Constitution." - Thomas Jefferson
 
Back
Top