The Birther Crew

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You put WAY too much faith in the average human. For all of the IQ an individual has, as a group they are as easy to herd as sheep. I see it happen every election cycle. It's like a button is pressed and the brain is turned off.

Besides, only the "law scholar" would perhaps notice the change, and since lawyers had the most to gain by making the amendment disappear (keep in mind there were very few lawyers back then), who would call foul?



Prove that assertion. I've read the actual court case ruling. The judge did not dispute the fraud as having never happened. His reason for upholding the fraud was "public policy" not "rule of law."



And this surprises us why? I could go on at length about the 14th Amendment (I have a small book that focuses just on that one alone).



No. The problem is with the people. When you realize that big money interests have decided who will win before you ever get to vote, the electoral process is exposed for the joke it is. Most states have no purpose for a convention or caucus because by the time they get to go to the ballot box, most of the candidates striving for office have been eliminated by the states that got to vote earlier and the media circus. If the media loves someone, that should be reason enough to suspect something is wrong.

Public financing = government decides who gets to run. Strict spending limits have a virtue, but the problem is that private parties can spend to do their own campaigning. So, if Obama is capped at $100,000, that doesn't stop other parties from each spending $100,000 to help Obama get elected. There is a multitude of ways to get around such limits.

Perhaps to prohibit non-living, non-American citizen entities from being allowed to contribute or spend on advertising would help. You can create 1,000 corporate entities to funnel money through, but you can't make legal adult citizens overnight. Put a cap on donations from individuals and only individuals can donate or buy advertising. Impose strict criminal penalties on those who break the law. It would at least limit a candidate to the money they can raise from living people who actually support them.

Won't stop a corporation from having it's employees give, so I suppose you'd have to criminalize efforts to coerce employees into making donations on the corporation's chosen favorite.

The estimate is the common excuse for tyrannizing the public. People are inclined to pursue what they perceive to be in their own particular interest. That is the way it is. Having a government to literally ride herd on them only enables a self-selected elite to pursue what they perceive to be in their interest. And if this elite suffers from the illusion the know what is best for ALL of us, then we shall suffer accordingly.

ruveyn

Clearly you are not familiar with me.


Google it, I think a professor at Georgetown refuted that particular conspiracy theory pretty well. In any case, both major parties and all three major presidential candidates in 1912 supported the income tax and the 16th amendment. It had incredibly broad support. You're digging yourself into a ditch if you are going to seriously suggest that the 16th Amendment was somehow sneaked past an unwilling public. And by whom? By the wealthy and powerful, who have the most to lose by an income tax? That narrative makes no sense. It's self-evident BS.


So I take it you are in favor of repealing the 13th Amendment and bringing back slavery? And repealing the 15th Amendment and barring blacks from voting? No? How come? Because you don't actually give a damn for the proper legal procedure of how something is or is not passed, you just use that as a cover to promote your own agenda (in this case, anti-tax).


Good freaking luck changing those. People will remain the same detestable vermin they have always been. If you want any improvements, you need to construct an institutional framework that will limit the damage done by human idiocy.


Hence I don't really see the point in bothering with the formal machinery of democracy.

Utterly irrelevant. I read the actual court ruling. I don't need the opinion of a liberal university teach saying something contrary. I read the actual court ruling. That the political machine of its time (federal, mind you) supported income taxation DOES NOT mean that the individual states (or the people) supported it.

How did it get past people?

1. Secretary of State LIED and nobody questioned it. Yeah, our state voted no, but there was no state-by-state listing of how the tally went. So, If KY said "no," they presumed enough of the other states said "yes."

2. The way the political machine works, once something is sent away, the peons in government don't think about it any more. Had the 16th Amendment only applied against states that voted for it, then each state would have had a vested interest to see that what was entered on the federal record matched what they sent in, but that was not the case. If enough states ratified it, then it was imposed against all states.

Oh, and do check your facts. The wealthy and powerful have don't miss what's taken in taxes and the Tax Code is written to allow a multitude of ways for them to actually pay less than they would normally owe, and believe me, the wealthy exploit every loophole the code allows.

Which court case are you talking about? And how does it prove that the 16th amendment wasn't ratified?

And it was not just the federal government machinery in favor of income tax, it really did have a massive base of support among the common people.


Evidence please? You can look up the records of which states ratified. More than enough for it to pass did accept the amendment.


The very wealthy often pay less income tax than their full obligation, but you can't seriously be delusional enough to believe that they pay even less than they would in the absence of an income tax? I mean, there is no way you're actually that stupid. Just think a moment before you say things like that.

Material for your consideration. Certainly, I'm sure you can Google many sources happy to make opposing arguments.

This World Net Daily article summarizes the issue nicely (for easy reading):

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=17398

Off hand, I believe this is the case I saw the wording in, and I'll go ahead and point out what you are likely to point out to me.

Miller v. US
http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F ... -2969.html

The simple rule of law states if something is right or wrong. As the court notes (1) the Secretary of State KNOWING that most ratifications did not comply with the rule of law consulted the Solicitor of the Department of State who ADVISED the Secretary of State to declare the amendment adopted. The solicitor's advice was not following the rule of law, but rather his interpretation of it.

If you study the law you will routinely see both politicians and courts find ways to do what the letter of the law does not permit by twisting the law into something that arguably permits doing what is otherwise prohibited.

This doesn't make it lawful or right. It is simply the power brokers abusing power. As you stated, there was wide spread support of the 16th Amendment among those in power. They needed it to deal with the new Federal Reserve Bank (which was incepted and given power over monetary policy at that same time as the 16th and 17th Amendments were crafted).

If you want to sit back and say, "The state can do no wrong," then I suppose, yes, the argument against the 16th Amendment is irrelevant. I don't agree. The courts routinely pervert justice for what is desired...a major reason why our legal system is falling apart.

US v. Foster
http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F ... -1925.html



Or, in simple translation, even though the rule of law is quite clear we want the plaintiff to be able to prove individual malfeasance in order reconsider this issue. Never mind that 73 years later it's near impossible to prove such. An easy way for a court to ignore evidence and just accept what was accepted by those who came before.

Imagine if rapes and murders were treated by this standard. Investigate the guilty party and not press charges because you can't prove he did it and later evidence showing he did is irrelevant because for X years you accepted that he didn't do it.

Again, the oldest relevant case I see cited in the above case. (1960)
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/16th.htm

In every case, the court disregards the rule of law (and procedure) and says that the challenger must prove the states intended to ratify something OTHER than what was drafted by the federal government. As such, inconsistencies in drafting of what was returned can be ignored.

Contract law is much, much more flexible and you CAN NOT have a valid contract if the offer and acceptance are not MIRROR IMAGES of each other. How can the ratification of a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution NOT be a mirror image but be satisfactory?

This is the court bending over backwards to maintain 50 years of bad law because it is what government wants.

Oh, and BTW, I am not "anti tax." Taxation is a necessary evil, and I pay taxes, but the Income Tax is a tool for harassment and enslavement of the common man. The IRS exists to inflict fear and extort money. There are many valid proposals for a taxation system that is simple, fair, and near-impossible to utilize to harass and oppress people (Ever try to read the Tax Code? Most IRS experts don't know what all is in it because of how much it contains.) or to give blatant tax advantages to one group at the expense of another.

The Indiana Court of Appeals determined the question, on its merits, with respect to both Barack Obama and John McCain in Ankeny v. Governor of Indiana (2009) 916 N.E.(2d) 678 (Ind. Ct. App.)

Nice red herring.

The text of the case was the court affirming the lower court ruling NOT because Obama's citizenship was upheld but rather for the petitioner failing to state a cause upon which the lower court felt it had any authority to grant relief.

End result...it was dismissed on a procedural issue, not a factual one.

Actually, I would tend to disagree with your originalism anyway, holding conventionalism and pragmatism as better accounts for law anyway.

I mean, let's put it this way: lawmakers and lawyers screw up, and sometimes the screwups don't get caught for long periods of time. To say that we should radically cut away current legal norms because of this is dangerous to society, undercuts the very purpose that animates our laws, and serves little purpose.

This isn't to say that you aren't correct, but even if you are correct, it doesn't matter. Let's say that you are correct, do you know what will happen? One of two things:
1) The US government utterly collapses causing massive social instability.
2) The US government immediately ratifies a constitutional amendment that does the job of the 16th amendment, and the only real difference is the numbers for the amendments and maybe the fact that more modern values go into the new tax amendment. (values that you wouldn't like *anyway*) (and no, the IRS and the existing tax law are going to likely be included in any new amendment anyway, simply because drafting an all new system might cause too many issues. If any politician really wanted to abolish the tax code as it stood, they could have done it a long time ago)

This isn't to say that you are right on the history, this is to say that the history of it all doesn't matter.

I mean, you can say that this kind of reasoning is "a major reason why our legal system is falling apart". I would disagree, but also note that our legal system will *actually* fall apart if the 16th amendment is not accepted, which... y'know, destruction is worse than corruption.

You know that certain crimes have a statute of limitations anyway. That being said, I completely agree with the court ruling. I mean, the court punted to a long list of precedents, and precedents are important for a common law system. The US uses a common law system, so by the court doing this, I would hold that they did the right thing.

Even further, I consider the court's basic reasoning correct:
"[He] has merely pointed to technical variances which may be of some historical interest but which have no substantive effect on the meaning of the Sixteenth Amendment."

Technical variances aren't a matter I would ever hold as important, unless they had substantive effect on the meaning of the law put in place. Particularly given the "long and unbroken chain" of cases where the 16th amendment has been used. Holding that one court can overthrow so many years of precedence because of minor technical variances in a few documents seems to me to be more destructive to the rule of law, than outright burning the constitution and just basing all future decisions on precedent.

So, zer0netgain, you're holding to a particular legal theory that isn't even the most commonly accepted one in legal theory, to argue that the US courts need to destroy America, and even then with this legal theory, it is likely that many lawyers holding to it would disagree with you. So.... I don't think you have a case, period. Rather, I think that even going your direction is a sign of ideology and/or insanity.

EDIT: Also, your comment about how "tax code is just a means to harass people" is just as valid if we hold the entire legal structure as this kind of issue as well. There are more laws than anybody knows about as well, and more than any computer could even comprehend.

Additional EDIT: This source directly attacks one of your sources, Bill Benson. http://www.quatloos.com/bill_benson_debunked.htm

It seems to me that even an originalist could make the arguments against Benson that this source makes. Thus, I think it is pretty conclusive that this whole 16th amendment thing is bunk.

You are incorrect. While the lower court did reject the plaintiffs claim on procedural grounds, the appeal did, in fact, go into the substantive merits of the cause of action. You might argue that this is obiter, but the court did examine the question of nationality law and determine it.

It is now well settled law that birth within the United States is sufficient in and of itself to meet the qualification requirement.

Personally, I don't think Obama's citizenship matters all that much. He works for the corporations and the banks. THAT'S what matters. Even if he was shown to not be born in the US, they would just find someone else to replace him.

The objection that each state did not pass identical versions of the amendment is bunk. The "differences" were comprised almost entirely of alternate capitalization and misspellings.


Learn to freaking read. There was widespread support for the 16th Amendment throughout the entire country, especially among working people. If anyone opposed it, it would have been from the wealthy, which would likely include most everyone in power.


When have I ever said that? You are, once again, making crap up with no basis in reality.


Oh gee, imagine that, a court following precedent. Yeah, that's a real perversion of how our system is supposed to work.


So a difference in capitalizing one word means the state didn't actually ratify the amendment? Are you also going to claim that Ohio wasn't actually a state at the time? (that is one of the arguments I saw last time I looked up this issue)


Blatant lies. You will get nowhere with dishonesty.


Combination of amorphous conspiracy theories and a rather delusional understanding of what an income tax is. You do realize that by the nature of an income tax, the rich pay a hell of a lot more than the "common man," right? Your complaints as to the complexity are related to IRS policy and not the 16th Amendment itself. An income tax could be much simpler than ours is.

You really just don't even have a case to make here.

Oh, heck, just look at the data.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/press/show/22652.html

The bottom 50% practically only pay taxes just for issues of looking good and maybe because of concerns about marginal tax increases. Their contributions amount to nothing.

Prove that because short of the proponents for the 16th Amendment telling the masses that only the "rich" and businesses would pay taxes, why would anyone support the government being allowed to seize money from their weekly paycheck?

Caveat: That may have been exactly what happened....it certainly is the tactic Obama is using to sell programs to the American people today.



The problem with legal precedent is that BAD LAW can be generated and courts will just use the rule of starie decisis to follow the BAD LAW. Right is right. Wrong is wrong. We saw this with Jim Crow Laws. They were upheld on the basis of starie decisis until the Supreme Court had a fundamental change in philosophy and then when Brown v. Board of Education came around, they found a way to justify REVERSING a generation of bad law. It wasn't starie decisis, it was a court doing what was right in spite of bad precedent.



No, you just can't see facts.

The "rich" (ultra rich) might pay more in quantity, but they can evade a large portion of what they are supposed to pay thanks to favorable treatment and loopholes.

The "rich" that the liberals/progressives love to demonize are common people like you and I who work hard but manage to be successful by the efforts of their own hands. They are responsible for the bulk of job creation and wealth creation in America, and they have the heaviest burden under the IRS code because they're not "super rich" and don't get the tax avoidance options of the "super rich" and there is a hostile environment against the sole proprietor as compared to corporate entities.

The only thing the income tax pays for is the national debt. Not one service you get comes from your income tax. The government has the power to print its own money but unconstitutionally delegated that to a private bank (the Federal Reserve Bank) who LOANS every penny, every year to our government and then demands it back with interest. WE are then taxed to pay this debt, and it is illegal (even for the government) to pledge the wealth of another party without express written consent of that party as surety for a debt. Creation of the federal reserve system, income tax and direct election of congressional representatives/senators were all pushed through at the same time, and it was the beginning of the end of American economic stability and strength (and don't try to argue the Great Depression....the stock market crash was engineered to create the crisis to which these answers were provided to resolve).

Americans are taxed at every turn. Government is not bound by what is collected the prior year...they borrow all they want and leave future generations to figure out how to pay for it. It is a fiscal disaster. The IRS is utilized to harass and terrorize people and small businesses. If we even NEED a "income tax" to keep society going today, the way it's done needs to be taken down and a simplified and fair process put in its place.

Because people want government programs to be funded, and it makes sense to tax based on ability to pay.


Still, the default is to maintain the status quo until it is demonstrated to be the wrong solution. You have not demonstrated it to be wrong.


Go read the link AG posted.


Meh, the rich usually do not earn their wealth "by the efforts of their own hands." I don't really care all that much, they can have their (often unearned) wealth, but I'm not interested in listening to the ultra-rich whine and play the victim, much less in listening to middle-class morons acting as apologists against their own interests.


Proportionally, the highest tax burden is on the middle and upper middle classes.


Evidence and sources please? I have seen these assertions many times, but never one scrap of evidence.


RTFC. Article 1, Section 8.


You don't know any economic history, do you?


Random conspiracy theory with no supporting evidence, and your own timeline is about twenty years off.

I mean, thus far in this conversation I have not seen any evidence that would suggest you to be a sane or informed person. You just keep piling on ridiculous assertion after ridiculous assertion.

I took a US government course and my teacher openly said that was exactly what happened.