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Marc Ravalomanana
Joined: 15 May 2007
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 Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2009 8:02 am Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| Sorry if you feel I took the quote out of context, but it was an exact quote (except for "[the 16th Amendment]"). |
Your version:
| Quote: |
| If you examine [the 16th Amendment] carefully, you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that amendment. |
What he actually said:
| Quote: |
| I think if you were to go back and try to find and review the ratification of the 16th Amendment, which was the internal revenue, income tax, I think if you went back and examined that carefully, you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that Amendment. |
Your version should have looked like this:
| Quote: |
| ...[I]f you [examine the 16th Amendment] carefully, you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that Amendment. |
But indicating the changes you (or your source) made, particularly the omission of the first part of the sentence, wouldn't give it quite the same effect, of course.
So it was hardly an exact quote. Where did you originally get it from?
| Quote: |
| I don't buy that second part of his argument that you cite, the idea that doing something long enough (even if wrong) makes it Constitutional. Lots of case law stood for a long time until new case law overturned it (one famous example being Plessy v. Ferguson (1898) until Brown v. Board of Education (1954)). |
But...Judge Fox is an authority.
Does Judge Fox not know what he's talking about? |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2009 8:13 am Post subject: |
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| Marc Ravalomanana wrote: |
| bacasper wrote: |
| Sorry if you feel I took the quote out of context, but it was an exact quote (except for "[the 16th Amendment]"). |
Your version:
| Quote: |
| If you examine [the 16th Amendment] carefully, you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that amendment. |
What he actually said:
| Quote: |
| I think if you were to go back and try to find and review the ratification of the 16th Amendment, which was the internal revenue, income tax, I think if you went back and examined that carefully, you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that Amendment. |
Your version should have looked like this:
| Quote: |
| ...f you [examine the 16th Amendment] carefully, you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that Amendment. |
But indicating the changes you (or your source) made wouldn't give it quite the same effect, of course. |
I hardly think the omitted ellipsis makes any significant difference.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
| I don't buy that second part of his argument that you cite, the idea that doing something long enough (even if wrong) makes it Constitutional. Lots of case law stood for a long time until new case law overturned it (one famous example being Plessy v. Ferguson (1898) until Brown v. Board of Education (1954)). |
But...Judge Fox is an authority.
Does Judge Fox not know what he's talking about? |
I hadn't seen the rest until you referred me to it. It was as I posted from the source I saw, Aaron Russo's film [i]From Freedom to Fascism.
I am not the final authority on any of this. My views go by the evidence before me. Now that I know more about Judge Fox, I see that, like with everyone else, I don't agree with everything he says. |
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Marc Ravalomanana
Joined: 15 May 2007
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| Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2009 8:24 am Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
I hardly think the omitted ellipsis makes any significant difference. |
Regardless, it is incumbent on Aaron Russo to render quotes honestly and accurately, and to indicate where he has made changes to 1) make it more of a soundbite, or 2) change the tenor of the whole statement. When quoting someone, you are not free to simply change it around to give it the desired look and effect without indicating you have done so, no matter how trivial , in your opinion, the changes are (and I don't think the changes are trivial).
| Quote: |
| I am not the final authority on any of this. My views go by the evidence before me. Now that I know more about Judge Fox, I see that, like with everyone else, I don't agree with everything he says. |
I actually agree with you that 90 years of "letting it slide" doesn't cut it. I was just turning the appeal to authority against you. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2009 8:52 am Post subject: |
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| Marc Ravalomanana wrote: |
| bacasper wrote: |
I hardly think the omitted ellipsis makes any significant difference. |
Regardless, it is incumbent on Aaron Russo to render quotes honestly and accurately, and to indicate where he has made changes to 1) make it more of a soundbite, or 2) change the tenor of the whole statement. When quoting someone, you are not free to simply change it around to give it the desired look and effect without indicating you have done so, no matter how trivial , in your opinion, the changes are (and I don't think the changes are trivial).
| Quote: |
| I am not the final authority on any of this. My views go by the evidence before me. Now that I know more about Judge Fox, I see that, like with everyone else, I don't agree with everything he says. |
I actually agree with you that 90 years of "letting it slide" doesn't cut it. I was just turning the appeal to authority against you. |
Despite our difference of opinion on the ellipsis, your criticisms were excellent. Thank you. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2009 3:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| saw6436 wrote: |
| Government that can do FOR you, can also do TO you. |
The same can be said of parents. |
Oh, is that why the age of emancipation is also the age when youths can vote? |
The only point I was making is that many things which can be beneficial can also be harmful. Yes, government has the potential to harm its citizens, just like parents can harm their children, doctors can harm their patients, teachers can harm their students, and so forth. There's nothing unique about government in this respect. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 7:10 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
| The People wrote: |
| The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. |
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For a Constitutional amendment to take effect, it has to be properly ratified. Instead of Wikipedia, let's look to see what a credible, high-ranking legal scholar has to say:
| US District Court Judge James C Fox in 2003 wrote: |
| If you examine [the 16th Amendment] carefully, you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that amendment. |
| Quote: |
I quoted wiki but its in the Constitution, bacasper.
James Fox is full of it. |
So then why did we need an amendment? |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 1:34 am Post subject: |
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Good question.
The purpose of modern constitutional government is to take the violence out of shifts in which group/groups hold the reins of power.
As I see it, all societies have power elites, usually noticeable by their access to gold bathroom fixtures and the absence of facility with potato peelers and mops. These elites determine the shape of society with little-to-no consultation with the masses below.
In the early modern period people still lived in villages in extended families. These were broken up with no discussion or compensation to serve the needs of the industrial society that replaced the agricultural society (that in its early phase replaced the hunter-gatherer society�and no one asked them, either).
A by-product of the change was the expansion of who the power elite included. Heredity was tossed out and elections were brought in to keep the flow of fresh blood to the top. Good move. Some consultation was introduced to the system. Emphasis on some.
What are its major duties?
1. Civic order and safety. This includes not only bashing the thieves who want to steal my TV but also constantly monitoring and adjusting to the changing social make-up. If women want the vote and won�t STFU anymore, well, so be it.
2. Keep the treacherous foreigners from stealing my pie.
3. Keep the infrastructure up to date to service the needs of the current industrial/post-industrial economy moving so we can eat.
4. Fill in the gaps left by the destruction of the previous social structure. This means legislation to keep the money boys from totally controlling my life, providing social security since I can�t sponge off my grandkids who now have to live on the other side of the continent and arranging an equitable health care system. It's the very least the fat cats can do.
5. It includes watching the money boys so they don�t pollute the air, water and farm land to the point that I can�t breathe, eat and drink in safety. They sometimes get carried away with their profit motive and the idea that he who dies with the most toys wins. They are not innately evil, but they have their human failings.
6. It includes organizing a tax system to distribute the wealth in such a way that some of the money boys only get silver knobs on their bathroom sinks so that lots of other people get indoor plumbing�so they won�t revolt�see #1. For the last 30 years the focus has been on reducing taxes so the greedy don�t become discouraged. The focus should be on the other 90% so THEY don�t become discouraged. It�s my experience that greed is a bottomless well�Donald Trump is not prone to throwing in the towel if the tax rate goes up a few percentage points.
7. The government should be an active voice and counter-weight to the other power centers in modern complex society to work for and defend the general interest, represented albeit usually weakly by elected representatives all too often bought and paid for. The position that the Founders were anti-central government is a willful misreading of the Founders� intentions. Moreover, it is an attempt to pre-define what the Constitution means and then shackle the present world with the chains of their pre-determined and misinterpreted past. Would-be strict constructionists are the Fundamentalist Christian/Moslem version of the current political scene. A good example: �Leadership, however, does not require giving voters what they want, for whimsical and capricious government would result. Republican legislators must exercise independent professional judgment as statesmen, to make decisions that are objectively right, and proved effective." (from Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell) [italics mine].
Conclusion: (for the simple-minded): Give me a gov't that works for the benefit of the general public. The people that argue for the freedom of the individual are arguing for servitude to the corporate interests. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 1:41 am Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
| The People wrote: |
| The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. |
|
For a Constitutional amendment to take effect, it has to be properly ratified. Instead of Wikipedia, let's look to see what a credible, high-ranking legal scholar has to say:
| US District Court Judge James C Fox in 2003 wrote: |
| If you examine [the 16th Amendment] carefully, you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that amendment. |
| Quote: |
I quoted wiki but its in the Constitution, bacasper.
James Fox is full of it. |
So then why did we need an amendment? |
You didn't read the wiki link, did you? We needed an amendment not because the Supreme Court ruled the income tax unconstitutional, but because of the Supreme Court's decision in Pollock.
| Quote: |
In Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. the Supreme Court declared certain income taxes � taxes on income from property under the 1894 Act � to be unconstitutionally unapportioned direct taxes. The Court reasoned that a tax on income from property should be treated as a tax on "property by reason of its ownership," and should therefore be required to be apportioned. The reasoning was that taxes on the rents from land, the dividends from stocks and so on burdened the property generating the income in the same way that a tax on "property by reason of its ownership" burdened that property. |
The controversy involved not the constitutionality of income tax itself, but rather what apportionment would mean under the Constitutional requirement:
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| Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers [ . . . . ] |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 2:50 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
What are its major duties?
1. Civic order and safety. This includes not only bashing the thieves who want to steal my TV but also constantly monitoring and adjusting to the changing social make-up. |
What the hell does the second part mean? Are you talking about phone-tapping or secret police or something?
| Quote: |
| 2. Keep the treacherous foreigners from stealing my pie. |
This is one of the duties of government, yes. Unfortunately in the US, the gov't is full of traitors working for international bankers. Their mission is to erode our national sovereignty, in favor of supra-national organizations and trade agreements. Thus we have de facto open borders (not enforced), foreign troops stationed on US soil, and industry (jobs) being shipped overseas.
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| 3. Keep the infrastructure up to date to service the needs of the current industrial/post-industrial economy moving so we can eat. |
Only viable if this infrastructure is spent into existence as value, not as debt (which is the only option while the Fed exists, where all money is debt).
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| 4. Fill in the gaps left by the destruction of the previous social structure. This means legislation to keep the money boys from totally controlling my life, providing social security since I can�t sponge off my grandkids who now have to live on the other side of the continent and arranging an equitable health care system. It's the very least the fat cats can do. |
Unfortunately social security is a product of the current monetary system monopolized by the Fed, which truly is just one giant ponzi scheme. The money is created out of thin air, and is utterly inflationary and unsustainable. Sad but true. Inflation is what destroys your savings,as well as your purchasing power, and makes you dependent on the government for welfare (basically a step-down from slave). Inflation is the worst, most insidious tax there is.
| Quote: |
| 5. It includes watching the money boys so they don�t pollute the air, water and farm land to the point that I can�t breathe, eat and drink in safety. They sometimes get carried away with their profit motive and the idea that he who dies with the most toys wins. They are not innately evil, but they have their human failings. |
The problem is that government corruption enables the criminality of such corporations more than free market regulation would. Example would be the FDA empowering Monsanto and the drug industry, doing nothing to actually enforce regulation, while making these firms even more powerful (corporate welfare, cronyism, and encouraging monopolistic behavior). Just getting rid of the FDA (and decreasing big government in general) would probably improve things.
| Quote: |
| 6. It includes organizing a tax system to distribute the wealth in such a way that some of the money boys only get silver knobs on their bathroom sinks so that lots of other people get indoor plumbing�so they won�t revolt�see #1. For the last 30 years the focus has been on reducing taxes so the greedy don�t become discouraged. The focus should be on the other 90% so THEY don�t become discouraged. It�s my experience that greed is a bottomless well�Donald Trump is not prone to throwing in the towel if the tax rate goes up a few percentage points. |
The issue is not taxes, so much as debt. The entire money supply in the US is issued as debt by the privately owned (by the money boys as you call them) Federal Reserve central bank. Most of the taxes we pay go back to the banks as interest payments. Income tax is the most important example - none of it goes back to public services, but is paid to the Fed as interest on the debt. If this debt didn't exist, the taxes would be unnecessary.
But I agree - the current system is designed to take wealth from the middle and lower classes and transfer it to the top. It is both unjust, and unsustainable. You can thank your government for enabling it.
| Quote: |
| 7. The government should be an active voice and counter-weight to the other power centers in modern complex society to work for and defend the general interest, represented albeit usually weakly by elected representatives all too often bought and paid for. |
I couldn't disagree more. The central government is by far the most tyrannical of the bunch. The diffusion of power to state and local governments is far more effective for curbing corruption.
| Quote: |
The position that the Founders were anti-central government is a willful misreading of the Founders� intentions. |
Um, no it isn't.
| Quote: |
| Moreover, it is an attempt to pre-define what the Constitution means and then shackle the present world with the chains of their pre-determined and misinterpreted past. Would-be strict constructionists are the Fundamentalist Christian/Moslem version of the current political scene. A good example: �Leadership, however, does not require giving voters what they want, for whimsical and capricious government would result. Republican legislators must exercise independent professional judgment as statesmen, to make decisions that are objectively right, and proved effective." (from Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell) [italics mine]. |
I'm not really sure about the context of his quote, but I suppose I agree with him. There is a difference between our Republic (with a Constitution to defend our liberties) and a Democracy (majority opinion rules).
| Quote: |
| Conclusion: (for the simple-minded): Give me a gov't that works for the benefit of the general public. The people that argue for the freedom of the individual are arguing for servitude to the corporate interests. |
Nonsense. Centralized government never works for you. Never, ever. Just look at every single centralized state government in history. They are the ones that work for and empower corporate interests at the expense of the public. You are absolutely deluded if you think Obama or Bush (two sides of the same coin) give a rats ass about you. They don't. To them you are just another grunting, piggish mouth to feed in the swinish multitude..
The more localized the government, the more likely your interests are to actually be represented. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:22 am Post subject: |
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There is little doubt in the truth of the Judge's statement. The income tax was never legally ratified. But, the government can never go back and undo the damage it has caused.
One interesting side element in this case is the fact that Ohio was not actually a state and ineligible to elect members to the House and Senate and its citizens ineligible to be elected Predident. It was not legally qualified to ratify this amendment.
Why?
The Federal Government forgot to make Ohio a state, and only did so in 1954. The Congress used illegal retroactive legislation in 1954 to cover up the error. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
There is little doubt in the truth of the Judge's statement. The income tax was never legally ratified. But, the government can never go back and undo the damage it has caused.
One interesting side element in this case is the fact that Ohio was not actually a state and ineligible to elect members to the House and Senate and its citizens ineligible to be elected Predident. It was not legally qualified to ratify this amendment.
Why?
The Federal Government forgot to make Ohio a state, and only did so in 1954. The Congress used illegal retroactive legislation in 1954 to cover up the error. |
So does that mean Ohio is still not a state? |
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