Posted on 09/20/2008 7:42:06 AM PDT by Dick Bachert
Over the years, I have selectively posted this to those threads and posters where it might apply and bolster the discussion.
Given the critical nature of the upcoming election and what I believe is an increasing level of interest in the demographic mix in the country, I feel that posting this as a vanity thread for ALL to see (as opposed to being buried within another thread) might be beneficial to understanding the forces which will certainly influence events on November 4th. DB ******************************* An astute student of history and human nature, Thomas Jefferson, predicted what we see happening here in America. As ambassador in France, he witnessed the run up to the FIRST socialist/communist revolution there. He penned the following observations concerning what would happen HERE should that socialism come to the United States. He CORRECTLY predicted that we would become an increasingly contentious and litigious people as we shouldered one another out of the way to get OURS from the public trough and the trough would soon be empty.
He also knew where the bulk of the problem would originate.
That whirring noise you may hear coming from that mountain in Charlottesville, Virginia is Mr. Jefferson getting up to around 3600 RPM.
A 6 minute video with this information may be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypLu49pq3bI
"The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIX, 1782. ME 2:230
“I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. Papers 12:442
"I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere; and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173
"Our cities... exhibit specimens of London only; our country is a different nation." --Thomas Jefferson to Andre de Daschkoff, 1809. ME 12:304
"Everyone, by his property or by his satisfactory situation, is interested in the support of law and order. And such men may safely and advantageously reserve to themselves a wholesome control over their public affairs and a degree of freedom which, in the hands of the canaille of the cities of Europe, would be instantly perverted to the demolition and destruction of everything public and private." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:401
"An insurrection... of science, talents, and courage, against rank and birth... has failed in its first effort, because the mobs of the cities, the instrument used for its accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty, and vice, could not be restrained to rational action. But the world will recover from the panic of this first catastrophe." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:402
"I fear nothing for our liberty from the assaults of force; but I have seen and felt much, and fear more from English books, English prejudices, English manners, and the apes, the dupes, and designs among our professional crafts. When I look around me for security against these seductions, I find it in the wide spread of our agricultural citizens, in their unsophisticated minds, their independence and their power, if called on, to crush the Humists of our cities, and to maintain the principles which severed us from England." --Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814. ME 14:120
Amen!
How sad for America that we no longer have men of Jefferson's caliber -- and, more importantly, PHILOSOPHY -- to serve the country.
I hate this anti-city movement. Cities are vital. I’d much rather live in a crowded city than a soulless exurb. What does TJ think about all the mega suburbs with their cookie cutter McMansions and nothing but strip malls for commerce? Was he down with those?
Oh, Mr. Jefferson's words are very much loud and clear here at his University.
“JFK once gathered his entire cabinet and several world leaders in the East Room of the White House. Surveying the group, he is quoted as having remarked “There hasn’t been this much intellectual power in this room since Mr. Jefferson took his meals here — ALONE!”
It appairs JFK was tooooooo full of himself and his cabinet.
So I do not support your Amen.
I love cities too.
Do a bit more research.
Jefferson would throw the burbs in with the cities as the mindset is about the same.
If you actually read his words (and there are many more at the referenced site) he was distinguishing between the CITIES and the scattered small enclaves where those who live on and work the land (FARMERS) were located. At the time, he considered them to be far better grounded and aware of the nature of REAL freedom than the denizens of the large cities where “the mobs” gathered (as they had in France and much of Europe).
Sadly, that was before FARM SUBSIDIES and other “programs,” which may have been a concerted — and largely successful — attempt by the big government leftists who have essentially captured the central government to co-opt and control these rural people and an ideology they correctly considered dangerous to their growing power.
The question: Is there more or less freedom in America today than in the Post Revolution Jeffersonian era?
There will be a quiz on November 4th!
Cities are an essential part of American greatness, and American cities are quite different from England's London and France's Paris the two major European cities in which Jefferson spent a significant amount of time.
In Europe, the capital city becomes the only metropolis of any importance and continually grows in size and influence with every passing year.
One out of every five English live in London and its suburbs, one out of every five Dutch live in Amsterdam and its suburbs, one out of every seven French live in Paris and its suburbs.
Washington DC exerts nowhere near the amount of power and cultural influence in the USA that London, Amsterdam and Paris do in their countries.
In America cities ebb and flow in size and influence. For many years Philadelphia and Baltimore were powerful metropolises. Now they are shades of their former selves while cities like Houston and Phoenix have grown and supplanted them. Chicago and Detroit had their hour in the sun as well - and Chicago may again.
Only one city in American history has had a prominent role from the beginning until now: New York.
And even New York almost collapsed in the 1970s. And the US was only governed from New York very briefly.
American cities are not European cities.
I have done my research. I know that he would have lumped them together. My point is with those in modern times that think exurbs somehow fall into the Jeffersonian ideal. I love the rural country, but if not that the next best thing is a great city. Exurbs are hell.
While I agree that the suburbs of today are soulless, it goes w/o saying that the “burbs” as you describe them, just didn't exist in Jefferson's time. Cities, and their inherent problems, did however.
His position was, and still would be today that “the urban” is functionally a parasitic drag on “the rural”. Today's suburbs are merely an urbanized extension of the condensed city lifestyle/ethos, expanded by sprawl. It's an attempt by the fleeing to drag the familiar along with themselves as they escape the collapse of the inner city mess they created.
Cities are only “vital” as long as they are running on the efforts of others. Goods and resources from the hinterlands are collected and concentrated in cities at the expense of “the rural”, often by the force of arms, to feed, clothe, and house thankless mobs of self-destructing, hive-minded, ever-expanding city crowds.
What industries do exist in the cities are generally reliant on rural materials to exist. The principal values they derive from location in cities are cheap labor (a function of supply and demand), concentration of capital (primarily generated from rural sourced commodities/goods), and proximity to transportation corridors (mainly to other cities).
Cities have to expand, or they collapse upon themselves and eventually die. Hence the “burbs”, which are simply a different manifestation (or, as some feel an “infestation”) of the urban phenomenon.
“Rural” can and does generally simply “be”, It's self-sufficiency and independence scares oppressive governments, and reminds city dwellers of their own dependencies and inabilities to fend for themselves. Thus, rural dwellers are both a threat, and a necessary evil to city dwellers.
How much food do they grow in NY City, or Chicago? How much cotton, and timber, and how many oil pumps are located in the heart of urban America?
Personally, there are some cities I tolerate, but I'll take small-town and rural America any day.
Mr. Jefferson may have had warm thoughts early in the run up to the French Revolution but lost faith when it degenerated into a wanton bloodbath and venue for revenge for its corrupt “leaders.”
It is what prompted him to make the comment I cited in my debate question to Newt in one of his re-election campaigns here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIo8FJJMps8
And the question — whatever the reason — STILL is: Do we have more freedom or less since that time?
“...the natural tendency of things is for government to gain
ground and for liberty to yield...let no more be heard of
confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”
“And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms....The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants” —Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William S. Smith in 1787. Taken from Jefferson, On Democracy p. 20, S. Padover ed., 1939
Mr. Jefferson got more things right than wrong.
We still do have men and women of this caliber. They just don’t want to get involved in the partisan rancor that is politics today...who wants their personal life torn apart by jackels?
ping
30 million of us are now free who would have been chattel slaves at that time.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants
That was something Jefferson said when he was in the first flush of his love affair with the stirrings of revolution in France.
Jefferson's appetite for revolutionary bloodshed waned with the rise of the guillotine.
The logical conclusion of his words would be that Americans should assassinate politicians whom they believe to be acting contrary to liberty.
To Jefferson's credit, he didn't say things that stupid very often.
Anyway, in a distributed information economy, ideas generated in “the rural” are of no less value (actually, given the lower costs of generating them in “the rural”, they're probably worth more, due to higher profit margins or lower prices) than ideas generated in “the urban”, and are no harder to come by (one can write just as well at a farmhouse table as in an inner city office cubicle [and probably be far healthier for it]).
I don't believe that “ideas” from the city are more vital than ideas from the outlands. We rural folks can live without the “superior ideas” generated in the city, but city boys sure can't live without the food generated by country men. Some of those "city ideas" are also what are hurting our economy.
I almost prefaced that tree of liberty quote with nearly the same words you used to define it but wanted to give you a “gotcha” opportunity. You took it.
Please let us know when we may see your name on a presidential ballot.
And he OFTEN discussed the need to remind those in power that THEY WORK FOR US.
We are clearly approaching — already IN? — a period when the lovers of liberty must again do some reminding before our numbers are too small to make the critical difference.
Watch that video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIo8FJJMps8
to see just how perceptive Jefferson was. It’s unfolding as you read this.
Having said these things, the doltish Mr. Jefferson and I defer to YOUR superior wisdom and insight.
read my post again. I said food is not the main driver of our economy. And to think you ‘rural folk’ can live without ‘city ideas’ is true, but your life expectancy won’t be too high. I will say again, I love rural life, but we don’t live 200 years ago, and our understanding of those times will never be complete. Nostalgia for things that never were is a mental illness. Live here, live now.
"And he OFTEN discussed the need to remind those in power that THEY WORK FOR US" -- UNDER THE STRICT LIMITS IMPOSED ON THEM BY THE CONSTITUTION!
Thanks for posting this!
Here’s one of my favorites which relates to the financial mess we find our selves in.
“I place economy among the first and most important of republic virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.” -Thomas Jefferson to William Plumer, 1816
An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will.. . . The People cannot be safe without information. When the press is free, and every man is able to read, all is safe.” Thomas Jefferson
I know we do, my comment was that when JFK said it he was full of sh**, to think that none had ever stood in that room since Jefferson of equal mind before he and his band on leftists idiots sat there.
Suburbs are just extensions of cities.
In Jefferson’s day, the backbone of the economy, the responsible citizens with a real stake in the country, were the farmers and planters - land owners in a mostly rural setting. If Jefferson were alive today he would most likely be talking about the small business owners and entrepreneurs that have taken up that role.
As an aside, however: I have lived in the biggest of cities East and West and have come to the conclusion that quality of life is inversely proportional to population density. The sole advantage I can discern to living in a large metroplex is the availability of entertainment (Very important to a young or single person but not so much to one raising a family) and the opportunity to spend money.
Jefferson belonged to a landed aristocracy. The concepts of land and wealth were inseparable. Jefferson viewed America as an agricultural nation governed by a landed gentry with almost mystical bonds to the land. He fear the possibility of an unlanded urban proletariat and insisted on property qualifications for the right to vote.
Hamilton never worked on a farm, spent his teenage years as a factor at a trading concern, read law, hung out his single in New York to become the city's leading business attorney -- and ended up as the nation's first banker. He had no sympathy for the agricultural way of life. Hamilton's vision of America was of an industrial, commercial and trading power. He viewed wealth as tied to successful effort and earned merit, not to land. Like Jefferson, he feared an urban proletariat and favored property qualifications. But he was a city boy through and through, and was never happier than when walking past the commercial banking concerns on Wall Street. From his perspective, that was America!
The key to understanding all this is to understand that Hamilton won the argument.
Yep, that’s about got it.
That philosophical distinction is almost certainly what prompted Jefferson to remark that he feared banks and banking institutions more than he did a standing army.
We are today living with the problems caused by banking instutions — with a great deal of help from an economically illiterate congress more concerned with reelection than they are with the future of the nation.
I believe it was the Romans who barred two types of citizens from holding public office. Eunuchs because, unable to reproduce, they care little or nothing about the future of the nation. Bastards (the old term for those of illegitimate birth) because, having no memory of their ancestry, the fear was that they would care little about history.
I believe most of the philosophical eunuchs and bastards now “representing” us would have been barred from office in ancient Rome.
We really do get the government we deserve. I guess we should be glad we’re not getting all we’re paying for — yet!
The "mob" to which he refers were the rough equivalent of today's underclass. They had little or nothing in common with the majority of people living in American cities today.
European cities of the time, particularly Paris, had huge numbers of extremely poor people and a few rich ones. Darn few in between.
It is from an address made, April 29,1962, by JFK in welcoming a group of Nobel Prize winners to a dinner in their honor at The White House.
Thanks for looking that up. I wasn’t able to take the time when I posted it, hence the very rough paraphrase.
When we lived in DC area (while in the USAF) between ‘62 and ‘66, my beautiful nearly 6’ tall wife worked at the old Financial General Corporation offices at 1701 Pennsylvania Avenue. While out for lunch one day, she walked by Blair House just as JFK and a small SS detail emerged to walk back across to the White House after visiting a guest at Blair. According to the my wife’s friend, Kennedy swiveled and nearly stopped as he smiled at the tall, pretty Irish lady with the big hair.
We were there for the funeral in ‘63. I’ve come to learn more about JFK — some good, some bad and some of the good he was trying to do is probably what got him killed. I will hear those muffled drums until the day I die.
Which is, of course, why Marxists HATE a middle class and attempt to destroy it.
*************
The Middle Class Must Not Fail
by Taylor Caldwell
With the rise of the Industrial Civilization in the world,
about 200 years ago, there also arose a social body which we
know as the middle class. Before that, most of the world
suffered under a feudal system in which the people were
truly slaves of their governments in all things. There was
no strong buffer between them and their despotic rulers, no
assurance of freedom to pursue commerce and to live
decently, to keep the fruits of their labor and hold the
paying of tribute at a minimum. The middle class made the
dream of liberty a possibility, set limits on the
government, fought for its constitutions, removed much of
governmental privilege and tyranny, demanded that rulers
obey the just laws as closely as the people, and enforced a
general civic morality.
Sound readers looked to the experience of Rome, the first to
encourage a middle class, noting that Rome had been a strong
and prosperous republic, with much public virtue, a large
degree of freedom for every citizen, and a constitution (the
Twelve Tables of Law) on which our own is based. After the
fall of Rome, governments had everywhere destroyed the
middle class, returned to despotism, and entered the Dark
Ages. It had been centuries since a rising middle class
resolved to keep government at a minimum and to force
respect for the people and eschew tribute except for such
absolute necessities as armed forces, street protection, and
the guarantee of authority of contracts in commerce.
AN INTERNATIONAL ELITE
Those who for centuries had ruled their nations, from father
to son, in total despotism, realized that they were
threatened. Were they not the elite, by divine right? Were
they not by birth and money entitled to rule a nation of
docile slaves? Did the people not understand that they were
truly inferior dogs who needed a strong hand to rule them,
and should they not be meek before their government?
Little wonder that the elite hated the middle class which
challenged them in the name of God-given liberty. And
little wonder that this hatred grew deeper as the middle
class became stronger and imposed restrictions through which
all the people, including the most humble, had the right to
rule their own lives and keep the greater part of what they
earned for themselves.
Clearly, if the elite were to rule again, the middle class
had to be destroyed. It had to be destroyed so despotism
and the system of tribute could be returned, and grandeur
and honor and immense riches for the elite — assuring their
monopoly rule of all the world. For you see, the elite of
all nations, then as now, were not divided. They were one
international class, and worked together and protected each
other. But the middle class laughed and said “we will bind
you with the chains of our Constitution, which you must obey
also, lest we depose you, for we are now powerful and we are
human beings and we wish to be free from your old
despotism.”
The elite did not give up. While it profited from the
Industrial Revolution which under liberty of enterprise
freed the people from the feudal and despotic systems, and
which gave a new birth to the middle class, it also hated
the threat to its own authority. It did not wish to destroy
the Industrial Revolution; it wished to use it for its
exclusive purposes. In the early 19th century this elite
looked for a way, once and for all, to regain its power and
extort tribute from the people and so destroy the burgeoning
middle class which stood in its way, and to subdue the
populaces again to their proper role as slaves of government
by the elite.
CONSPIRATORIAL ADVANCE
Through the “League of Just Men”, elitist conspirators
sought a fanatic to cloak the point of their purposes in
slogans and cant. The man they hired was Karl Marx.
Certainly Marx was no worker; he had never soiled his hands
with labor. He hated the middle class, which he
contemptuously called the bourgeoisie, for he considered
himself superior in mentality and breeding to what he called
“the gross merchants of commerce and exploitation.” He did
not attack the waiting despots, no indeed. They were of one
mind with him. Rather he proposed in his books and
pamphlets the return to government of the total power to
exact tribute from the people in order that government might
better direct every phase of the peoples’ lives, as he
asserted, “for their own welfare.” The elite, in turn,
would control the governments.
Marx began to accuse the middle class of heinous crimes and
aroused the workers against their benefactors. He labored
to create envy and malice among the workers — all aimed at
the entrepreneurial middle class which had raised them from
serfdom, restored their human dignity, and given them
liberty for the first time in nearly 2,000 years.
Karl Marx was made to order by the self-styled elite. They
financed the propagation of his sedition all over Europe and
in America. They bled France and Germany with it. They
financed sedition in Russia. And the plan began to succeed.
By 1910, the Scandinavian countries had already fallen to
the socialism of Karl Marx. Only three nations stood
between the elite and their ambitions — the British Empire,
Czarist Russia and the United States of America.
Much is now made of supposed Czarist tyranny. But the fact
is that the Czar of Russia had already granted his people a
greater measure of freedom. A constitution had been
established, and a parliamentary system. Russia, too, was
well on her way to nourishing and encouraging a middle
class.
HATE AND ENVY
The elitists were anxious to promote the Marxist notion of
demanding tribute from the people, for only through forced
tribute could freedom be destroyed and the people reduced
again to forced labor for the benefit of the elite. Only
thus could the middle class be eliminated. So, we have Karl
Marx’s infamous notion: “To each according to his needs,
from each according to his ability.” That is a foundation
for slavery and tribute. Marx and the elite had a juicy
bait for the workers, who were deluded to envy and hate the
middle class which had freed them. If the riches were taken
away from the middle class, then the workers would become
their equals. Marx called this redistribution of wealth.
Not wealth from the elite, with their vast fortunes in every
country of the world — inherited fortunes which would not
be taxed as income — but wealth from the strong middle
class, which would be robbed in the name of the people.
Only “earned” income would be vulnerable to seizure.
But in the way of all this happiness for the conspiring
international elite, and the slavery of the people, stood
the United States, the British Empire and Czarist Russia.
They would have to be destroyed. Britain had only a small
income tax, used for the armed forces, for roads, for the
maintenance of law and order, and for the payment of a tiny
body of bureaucrats.
Over and over, in America, the elite tried to establish
their federal income tax, but they did not succeed. The
people were too vigilant, too jealous of their freedom, too
proud, too respectful of themselves. They embraced the
ancient proverb, “To work is to pray,” and they guarded the
fruits of their labors. No, America had no graduated income
tax to drain the capital of the hard-working middle class,
and so she became strong and rich and powerful, the envy of
nations which exacted tribute and forced labor from their
people. Attempts were made to exact such tribute from
Americans during the Civil War and the war with Spain, but
each time the Supreme Court declared that our Constitution
prohibited it. As late as 1902, the graduated income tax
was again declared unconstitutional, and the Chief Justice
observed: “It is a method to enslave our people, and deprive
them of their liberty and right to the fruit of their
labors.”
The conspiratorial elite fumed. How best, now, to institute
their system of tribute and slavery? The solution was WAR.
During wartime, governments were better able to tax the
people, harnessing their patriotism to maintain enlarged
armed services.
And so the elite began to prepare America for war, and
conspirators of the French and German and Russian and
English elite worked with them — for the destruction of
their own nationals and the elimination, once and for all,
of the defiant middle class. The American elite, under
advice of their brother conspirators in other nations,
proposed an amendment to the American Constitution — a
graduated income tax, just as Karl Marx had proposed. To
support this elite were very busy, through their henchmen,
the socialists and the populists, and through their secret
communists, in arousing the envy of the workers against the
middle class. They told the workers that they would never
be taxed, “only the rich,” and even then the highest rate
would be only two to three percent. And the taxes would go
to “our exploited workers,” through all sorts of government
benefits. The unthinking, the envious, the stupid, and the
malicious thought this was wonderful. They supported the
16th Amendment — the federal income tax — and it was
passed into law in 1913.
Now the stage was set for war, the attack on the British
Empire, Czarist Russia and the German Empire. The major thrust
of the effort to destroy the freedom of the whole world, and
reduce it to total control by the elite, had begun.
The rest is sad contemporary history. Few in America heeded what
Thomas Jefferson had said long ago, that when we are taxed on our
earned incomes, in our food and drink, in our coming and going,
in our property, we would face the return of slavery and the
reestablishment of an all-powerful and despotic elite. So it is
that we of the middle class are being destroyed through the
exaction of tribute, resulting in an ever-increasing power and
despotism of a central government controlled by a conspiratorial
elite, and everlasting wars to subdue us and drive us to our
knees.
NEVER AGAIN?
Do not believe for an instant that the world’s conspiring elite
in every nation have so much as a serious quarrel among them.
They have just one object: control through tribute. Your
slavery, through tribute, and mine. And they use wars for their
purposes just as they use inequities, harassment, bullying,
capriciousness, and extortion of their graduated income tax. The
system of taxation with which they have yoked us is really forced
tribute from the hard-working, and especially from the middle
class, who are slowly being eliminated.
Behind this attack are the self-styled elite, secure in their own
power and riches. Most of them have huge fortunes which are tax-
exempt. But every man and woman of us — we of the middle class
— are taxed in our food and drink, in our comings and goings.
The harder we work, the more tribute we have to pay for the elite
are determined that never again will the middle class challenge
them, and never again will we be able to save money and so rise
to power, and never again will we protest the slavery they have
planned for us.
But many of us still dare to protest, and will continue to do so
while God gives us breath. To be effective, we know we must
direct our attacks on the real criminals, the wealthy and
powerful secret elite of all the world — the conspirators
laboring night and day to enslave us. Even our own government is
now their victim, for it is the conspiratorial elite who choose
our rulers, nominate them, and remove them by assassination or
smear.
I have fought these enemies of liberty in every book I have
written. But too few have listened to me, as too few have
listened to others who have warned of these conspirators. The
hour is late. Americans must soon listen and act — or endure
the black night of slavery that is worse than death.
* * * *
(From Grolier’s Academic American encyclopedia)
Caldwell, Taylor
Interesting essay from Caldwell.
I agree completely with her that the middle class is the creator of our modern world and its freedoms.
I don’t really agree that there has been an ongoing concious conspiracy by “the elite” in all countries to attack and destroy the middle class using socialism as a blind. This leads us straight into the conspiracy theory of the bankers (often code for Jooos) and the commies being a secret alliance.
For one thing, in most countries, especially in America, “the elite” is not a fully self-perpetuating group. Few of the elite of 100 years ago still have significant economic power, much less political power.
I hope that during your stays in rural America, you live like the locals. One of the major problems in rural America is the influx of folks from urban areas who want to impose the same nanny state local government that they say they’re fleeing from. (Dear God, Marge, what is that smell? I think they’re raising ANIMALS on that farm next door! We need zoning!)
You might want to read this. And find the “jooos” for me. These folks come in ALL sizes and shapes.’
Quigley was Bill Clinton’s MENTOR at Georgetown and praised Quigley in his acceptance speech.
Conspiracy?? NAAAHHHHH!!
“Tragedy & Hope” Carroll Quigley, Macmillan Co, NY 1966 Partial pages 949-950
The radical Right version of these events as written up by John T. Flynn, Freda Utley, and others, was even more remote from the truth than were Budenz’s or Bentley’s versions, although it had a tremendous impact on American opinion and American relations with other counties in the years 1947-1955. This radical Right fairy tale, which is now an accepted folk myth in many groups in America, pictured the recent history of the United States, in regard to domestic reform and in foreign affairs, as a well-organized plot by extreme Left-wing elements, operating from the White House itself and controlling all the chief avenues of publicity in the United States, to destroy the American way of life, based on private enterprise, laissez faire, and isolationism, in behalf of alien ideologies of Russian Socialism and British cosmopolitanism (or internationalism). This plot, if we are to believe the myth, worked through such avenues of publicity as The New York Times and the Herald Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor and the Washington Post, the Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s Magazine and had at its core the wild-eyed and bushy-haired theoreticians of Socialist Harvard and the London School of Economics. It was determined to bring the United States into World War II on the side of England (Roosevelt’s first love) and Soviet Russia (his second love) in order to destroy every finer element of American life and, as part of this consciously planned scheme, invited Japan to attack Pearl Harbor, and destroyed Chiang Kai-shek, all the while undermining America’s real strength by excessive spending and unbalanced budgets.
This myth, like all fables, does in fact have a modicum of truth. There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical Right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so. I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960’s, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. I have objected, both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies (notably to its belief that England was an Atlantic rather than a European Power and must be allied, or even federated, with the United States and must remain isolated from Europe, but in general my chief difference of opinion IS THAT IT WISHES TO REMAIN UNKNOWN (emphasis added) and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known.
The Round Table Groups have already been mentioned in this book several times, n6tably in connection with the formation of the British Commonwealth in chapter 4 and in the discussion of appeasement in chapter 12 (”the Cliveden Set”). At the risk of some repetition, the story will be summarized here, because the’ American branch of this organization (sometimes called the “Eastern Establishment”) has played a very significant role in the history of the United States in the last generation.
The Round Table’ Groups were semi-secret discussion and lobbying groups organized by Lionel Curtis, Philip H. Kerr (Lord Lothian), and (Sir) William S. Marris in 1908-1911. This was done on behalf of Lord Milner, the dominant Trustee of the Rhodes Trust in the two decades 1905-1925. The original purpose of these groups was to seek to federate the English-speaking world along lines laid down by Cecil Rhodes (I 853-1902) and William T. Stead (1849-1912), and the money for the organizational work came originally from the Rhodes Trust. By 1915 Round Table groups existed in seven countries, including England, South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and a rather loosely organized group in the United States (George Louis Beer, Walter Lippmann, Frank Aydelotte, Whitney Shepardson, Thomas W. Lamont, Jerome D. Greene, Erwin D. Canham of the Christian Science Monitor, and others). The attitudes of the various groups were coordinated by frequent visits and discussions and by a well-informed and totally anonymous quarterly magazine, The Round Table, whose first issue, largely written by Philip Kerr, appeared in November 1910.
I am perfectly well aware that there exist groups, especially in the early years of the last century, who believed the USA and the British Empire should grow closer together. I believe Churchill was among them, as of course was Rhodes.
To equate these private discussion and pressure groups with the “Eastern Establishment,” a nebulous term referring to high-status WASP society in general, is absurd. As is the attempt to claim that these groups “controlled” events, especially by such nefarious schemes as secretly financing communists to overthrow middle class rule.
That said, I agree wholeheartedly with the observation that if we truly wanted to use “progressive taxation” to increase equality, we would tax wealth, not income. An income tax acts to help keep people from becoming wealthy. It does little to reduce the wealth of those who already have theirs tucked away. It is thus one of the best ways for the wealthy to pull up the drawbridge behind themselves.
Despite this, it has been remarkably unsuccessful in America at accomplishing this. The wealthiest people in America today are almost wholly unrelated to those who were in that position 100 or 50 years ago.
I didn’t “equate” these “pressure groups” with the “Eastern Establishment.” QUIGLEY — who studied and was close to them for many years — did so!
And as for the INCOME TAX as a means to their ends, there’s a little something below for you to chew on.
And while these folks may not have the means to precisely take a nation where THEY want it to go, they are, with the help of their handmaidens in a controlled national media, perfectly capable of EXPLOITING events, warping the response to such events to advance their ends. Not perfectly Hegelian but, over time, quite effective.
Tell me a bit more about yourself. I get the sense that you have some personal and explicit reason — perhaps occupation connected — for resisting the concept of historical conspiracies. Any objective observer can name countless such schemes. And, given that old FDR once observed that “Nothing in politics happens by accident.”
He said that at about the same time his major dome, one Harry Hopkins, after one too many libations at a track in Maryland was overheard by a reporter to answer a friend’s question re. the philosophy of the New Deal to say “Tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect. The American are too damn dumb to understand.”
And that, Sherman, is the key element making conspiracy possible even here in the land of the free and home of the brave.
****************
THE HISTORY OF THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT
by Dr. W. Cleon Skousen
Strange as it may seem, the Sixteenth Amendment (which gave the American people the affliction of confiscatory income taxes) was never supposed to have passed. It was introduced by the Republicans as part of a political scheme to trick the Democrats, but it backfired.
Here’s the story.
The Founding Fathers had rejected income taxes (or any other direct taxes) unless they were apportioned to each state according to population. Nevertheless, an income tax was levied during the Civil War and upheld by the Supreme Court on the somewhat tenuous reasoning. When another income tax was enacted in 1893, the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional. In connection with the two Pollock case reviewed in 1895, the Court declared that the act violated Article I, section 9 of the Constitution.
During the following decade, however, the complexion of the Court changed somewhat, and so did public sentiment. There was great social unrest and the idea of a tax to “soak the rich” began to take root among liberals in both major parties. Several times the Democrats introduced bills to provide a tax on higher incomes but each time the conservative branch of the Republican party killed it in the Senate. The Democrats used this as evidence that the Republicans were the “party of the rich” and should be thrown out of power, forcing President William Howard Taft to acknowledge in political speeches that income taxes might be all right “in principle”, but it was well known among close associates that he was strongly opposed to such a tax.
The Bailey Bill
In April 1909, Senator Joseph W. Bailey, a conservative Democrat from Texas who was also opposed to income taxes, decided to further embarrass the Republicans by forcing them to openly oppose an income tax bill similar to those which had been introduced in the past. He introduced his bill expecting it to get the usual opposition. However, to his amazement, Teddy Roosevelt and a growing element of liberals in the Republican party came out in favor of the bill and it looked as though it was going to pass.
Not only was Bailey surprised, but Senator Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island, the Republican floor leader, frantically met with Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of
Massachusetts and President Taft to work out a strategy to demolish the Bailey tax bill. Their own party was split too widely to permit a direct confrontation, so the strategy was to pull a political end run. They announced that they favored an income tax but only if it were an amendment to the Constitution. Within their own circle, they discussed how it might get approval of the House and the Senate, but they were quite certain that it could be defeated in the more conservative states-three-fourths of which were required in order to ratify the amendment.
Thus, the Democrats were off guard when President Taft unexpectedly sent a message to Congress on June 16th, 1909, recommending the passage of a consitutional amendment to legalize federal income tax legislation.
The strategy threw the liberals into an uproar. At the very moment when their Bailey bill was about to pass, the Republicans were coming out for an amendment to the Constitution which would probably be defeated by the states.
Reaction to the Amendment
Congressman Cordell Hull (D-Tenn., and later Secretary of State under FDR) saw exactly what was happening. He took the floor to excoriate the Republican leaders. Said he:
“No person at all familiar with the present trend of national legislation will seriously insist that these same Republican leaders are over-anxious to see the country adopt an income tax...What powerful influence, what new light and deep seated motive suddenly moves these political veterans to ‘about face’ and pretend to warmly embrace this doctrine which they have heretofore uniformly denounced?” {1}
He went on to expose what he considered to be a political trick. He needn’t have been so concerned. The slogan of “soak the rich” automatically aroused Pavlovian salivation among politicians both in Washington and the states. The Senate approved the Sixteenth Amendment with an astonishing unanimity of 77-0! The House approved it by a vote of 318-14.
When Republican Congressman Sereno E. Payne of New York, who had introduced the amendment in the House, saw that this end run was turning into a winning touchdown for the opposition, he was horrified. He went to the floor and openly denounced the bill he had sponsored. Said he:
“As to the general policy of an income tax, I am utterly opposed to it. I believe with Gladstone that it tends to make a nation of liars. I believe it is the most easily concealed of any tax that can be laid, the most difficult of enforcement, and the hardest to collect; that it is, in a word, a tax upon the income of honest men and an exemption, to a greater or lesser extent, of the income of rascals; and so I am opposed to any income tax in time of peace...I hope that if the Constitution is amended in this way the time will not come when the American people will ever want to enact an income tax except in time of war.” {2}
The end run of the Republican leadership did indeed backfire. State after state ratified this “soak the rich” amendment until it went into full force and effect on
February 12, 1913 (Ed.note: Mr. Bill Benson, in his book “The Law That Never Was” has since documented massive...and outcome changing...federal interference in the certification of the votes of the individual state legislatures. The votes for and against from Kentucky, for instance, were switched by then Secretary of State Philander Knox.)
Did it Soak the Rich?
Certain writers such as Alfred Hinsey Kelly and Winfred Audif Harbison (authors of “The American Constitution: Origins” [New York: Norton, 1970]) rejoiced that this
amendment “shifted the growing burden of federal finance to the wealthy.”{3} Nothing could be further from the truth!
The wealthy, especially the super-wealthy, had anticipated this development and had created a clever device to protect their riches. It was called a “charitable
foundation”. The idea was to cosign the ownership of wealth, including stocks and securities, to a foundation and then get Congress and the state legislatures to declare all such charitable institutions exempt from taxes. By setting up boards which were under the control of these wealthy benefactors they could escape the tax and still maintain control over the disposition of these fabulous fortunes.
Long before the federal income tax was in place, multimillionaires such as John D. Rockefeller (who once said “I want to own nothing and control everything”), J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie had their foundations set up and operating. The next step was to make certain that the new tax bill passed by Congress contained a provision
specifically exempting their treasure houses from taxation.
The tax bill which the Sixteenth Amendment authorized was introduced as House Resolution 3321 on October 3, 1913. It turned out to be somewhat of a legislative potpourri for tax attorneys, accountants and the federal courts. In the ensuing years, untold millions of dollars have been spent trying to figure out exactly what this tax law, and those which followed it, were intended to provide. However,
tucked away in its inward parts was that precious key which safely locked up the riches of the super wealthy. Here are the magic words under Section 2, paragraph G:
“Provided, however, that nothing in this section shall apply...to any corporation or association organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific or educational purposes.” All of the foundations of the
super-rich were designed to qualify under one or more of these categories.
How the Cute Little Monkey Grew into a Gorilla
When the first income tax was sent out to the people, the Congress chortled confidently that “all good citizen will willingly and cheerfully support and sustain this, the fairest and cheapest of all taxes.” That was the cute little monkey part. After all, the first tax ranged from merely 1% on the first $20,000 of taxable income and was only 7% on incomes above $500,000. Who could complain?(Ed. note: In 1994 “dollars” that $20K is now over $250K and the $500K is today over $6 million!)
At first, scarcely anyone did. Little did they know that before the tinkering was done in Washington, this system would be described by many Americans as the most
unfair and expensive tax in the history of the nation. Within a few years, it had become the principal source of income for the federal government.
In the beginning, hardly anyone had to file a tax return because the tax did not apply to the vast majority of America’s work-a-day citizens. For example, in 1939, 26 years after the Sixteenth Amendment was adopted, only 5% of the population, counting both taxpayers and their dependents, was required to file returns. Today, more than 80% of the population is under the income tax.
Withholding Taxes
The collection process was greatly facilitated in 1943 by a device created by FDR to pay the costs of WWII. It was called “withholding from wages and salaries”. In other words, the tax was collected at the payroll window before it was even due to be paid by the taxpayer. Economists point out that this device, more than any other single factor, shifted the tax from its original design as a tax on the wealthy to a tax on the masses—mostly the middle class. Investigations disclosed that the truly wealthy pay relatively little or no income tax at all.
Some idea of how the cute little monkey grew into a gorilla is perceived from the fact that nearly half of all federal revenue is now raised by income taxes. Furthermore, the higher brackets are literally confiscatory—but by “due process”, of course, under the Sixteenth Amendment. Rates have been as high as 94% in the upper brackets during wartime, and even in peacetime they are presently 50%. (Ed. note: This piece was apparently written when the top rates were higher than in 1992. Not to worry, however: Watch for higher rates coming soon to an IRS office near you!) Medium income people up through the upper middle class pay between 12 & 35%. Nevertheless, at all levels it has become sufficiently burdensome to discourage the attainment of basic economic advantage which most Americans seek.
Weaknesses of the System
The most damaging aspect of the Sixteenth Amendment is the fact that it vitiated the unalienable rights provided in the 4th Amendment. This is the amendment which protects privacy—privacy of the home, business, personal papers and personal affairs of the private citizen. None of these are disturbed by a poll (head or capitation) tax because it is so much per person regardless of the circumstances, but when the tax is based on income, the IRS is assigned the most unpleasant task of making certain that everyone pays his fair share. This task is physically impossible without prying into the private papers, private business and personal affairs of the individual citizens. By any standard, it is a miserable assignment. Furthermore, it is impossible to run audits and surveys of all taxpayers and so the audits seldom check more than 2% of them.
There are many things wrong with this approach. Worst of all, it puts the government tax collectors in the gorilla role and intimidates citizens who are unlucky enough to be audited with the feeling that they are “victims” of an
unfair system.
The IRS also finds it difficult to avoid the attitude that each taxpayer is a cheat, even a criminal, who must somehow be cornered and caught. This has brought the structure of the entire income tax collection process into question.
For example, the underground economy of monetary transactions (which is conducted without records) is well known. It is estimated that losses in federal revenues from this underground economy are at least $100 billion per year. (Ed. note: Probably closer to $200-300 billion!) Obviously, this is not fair to those who are paying their share. Then there is an estimated $65 billion per year which is lost
because it is not reported. This is considered unfair. There is a lot of padding on expense accounts, which is estimated to reduce the tax total by another $18 billion.
Other operations, both legal and illegal, jumps the total up a few billion more.
There has also been extensive criticism of the prosecution of tax cases. The appeal is through a system of tax courts which are without juries. In order to get a tax case into a regular court where there is a jury, the citizen must pay the tax and then sue the government.
Thousands of complaints have also poured into the IRS concerning the tactics used by some of its agents. Citizens feel they are treated as criminals rather than suspects who are innocent until proven guilty.
Is there a better way? Here is one answer by a former head of the IRS.
A Former IRS Commissioner’s Statement
T. Coleman Andrews served as commissioner of IRS for nearly 3 years during the early 1950s. Following his resignation, he made the following statement:
“Congress [in implementing the Sixteenth Amendment] went beyond merely enacting an income tax law and repealed Article IV of the Bill of Rights, by empowering the tax collector to do the very things from which that article says we were to be secure. It opened up our homes, our papers and our effects to the prying eyes of government agents and set the stage for searches of our books and vaults and for
inquiries into our private affairs whenever the tax men might decide, even though there might not be any justification beyond mere cynical suspicion.
“The income tax is bad because it has robbed you and me of the guarantee of privacy and the respect for our property that were given to us in Article IV of the Bill of Rights. This invasion is absolute and complete as far as the amount of tax that can be assessed is concerned. Please remember that under the Sixteenth Amendment, Congress can take 100% of our income anytime it wants to. As a matter of fact, right now it is imposing a tax as high as 91%. This is downright confiscation and cannot be defended on any other grounds.
“The income tax is bad because it was conceived in class hatred, is an instrument of vengeance and plays right into the hands of the communists. It employs the vicious communist principle of taking from each according to his accumulation of the fruits of his labor and giving to others according to their needs, regardless of whether those needs are the result of indolence or lack of pride, self-respect,
personal dignity or other attributes of men.
“The income tax is fulfilling the Marxist prophecy that the surest way to destroy a capitalist society is by - _steeply graduated_ taxes on income and heavy levies upon the estates of people when they die.
As matters now stand, if our children make the most of their capabilities and training, they will have to give most of it to the tax collector and so become slaves of the government. People cannot pull themselves up by the bootstraps anymore because the tax collector gets the boots and the straps as well.
“The income tax is bad because it is oppressive to all and discriminates particularly against those people who prove themselves most adept at keeping the wheels of business turning and creating maximum employment and a high standard of living for their fellow men.
“I believe that a better way to raise revenue not only can be found but must be found because I am convinced that the present system is leading us right back to the very tyranny from which those, who established this land of freedom, risked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to forever free themselves...”{4}
REFERENCES
{1} Congressional Record-House, July 12,1909,p.4404
{2} Congressional Record-House, July 12,1909,p.4390
{3} Original edition, p.626
{4} The Utah Independent, March 29, 1973
EDITOR’S NOTE:
THERE IS A BETTER WAY. GIVEN THE CURRENT LEVEL OF UNDERSTANDING AMONG THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, AN IMMEDIATE RETURN TO THE FULLY CONSTITUTIONAL CAPITATION, HEAD OR POLL TAX
WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE AT THIS TIME. THERE IS, HOWEVER, AN INTERIM STEP: THE REPLACEMENT OF THE CURRENT INCOME TAX WITH A FEDERAL CONSUMPTION TAX LEVIED AT THE POINT OF PURCHASE.
IF YOU THINK THE CURRENT SYSTEM IS GREAT, DO NOTHING. I ASSURE YOU THAT IT WILL BECOME EVEN “GREATER” STILL. IF, HOWEVER, YOU BELIEVE THAT AMERICA IS TOO PRECIOUS TO BE FURTHER DAMAGED, BOTH ECONOMICALLY OR MORALLY, BY THE PRESENT SYSTEM, YOU HAD BETTER GET BUSY. YOUR KIDS AND GRANDKIDS WILL THANK YOU.
WANT TO HELP? RUN “FAIRTAX” THROUGH A SEARCH ENGINE, FIND ONE OF THE GROUPS PROLIFERATING AROUND THIS ISSUE, PLUG IN AND WORK TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.
Two quotations for you to ponder while considering what level of involvement is right for you:
“As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he be involved in the action and passion of his times lest he be judged NEVER TO HAVE LIVED.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
“We believe a man should be concerned about public as well as private affairs, for we regard the person who takes no part in politics not as merely uninterested but as useless.” –Pericles (Citizen of Athens)
So, you have at least two choices:
DO NOTHING – AS ADVOCATED BY SOME OF THE MINDLESS MYRMIDONS OF MEDIOCRITY OF AND WHEN YOU LEAVE THE PLANET – AND, DESPITE RUMORS TO THE CONTRARY, WE ALL DO – IT WILL BE AS THOUGH YOU’D NEVER BEEN HERE (i.e., USELESS) or
DO SOMETHING!
Join with the several millions of Americans who are ready to make this essential change happen by joining one of the growing number of grass-roots organizations now working for this important change in the way we do business in what used to be the “…land of the free and the home of the brave…”
We may never have another shot at ridding ourselves of a tax system an ostensibly free people ought never to have tolerated in the first place. We can spend a few bucks (thanks to the same gang of conspirators who ALLEGEDLY saddled us with the income tax, we no longer have any “dollars” but that’s another story)— now or pay later with even more of our wealth — AND our remaining freedoms.
The choice is yours!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.