Posted on 11/15/2002 7:42:45 AM PST by H8DEMS
Here's hoping a million sign up.
Er... minor historical note... the Constitution didn't yet exist in 1776. Noble sentiments, but inaccurate numbers. (Of course, some lefty Bellisiles defenders might make that claim....)
Either way, it didn't exist as THE document until it was ratified, definitely not 1776.
If that's the case, then bring the sheriff with you and start making arrests. Otherwise, you're engaging in blatant slander and someone should haul your a$$ into court.
It's pitiful how every activist, on either side, is today using the insinuation of terrorism to besmirch those with whom they disagree.
I'll sign. Whats Stanleys web address?
A spokesman for We The People Congress dismissed the ADL's accusations as "an incredible propaganda campaign." Mike Bodine said the sole purpose of the anti-tax rally (called Freedom Drive 2002) is to restore the Constitution to what it was in 1776.
We were under the Articles of Confederation and the Continental Congress in 1776. The Constitution was not even drafted until 1787.
It was written to correct the problems associated with the Articles of Confederation, primary of which was its inability to provide for the payment of the Nation's Debts do to the inability to collect taxes of any kind.
James Madison, Elliots Debates Vol 3 p128:
- Mr. Chairman, in considering this great subject, I trust we shall find that part which gives the general government the power of laying and collecting taxes indispensable, and essential to the existence of any efficient or well-organized system of government: if we consult reason, and be ruled by its dictates, we shall find its justification there: if we review the experience we have had or contemplate the history of nations, here we find ample reasons to prove its expediency. There is little reason to depend for necessary supplies on a body which is fully possed of the power of witholding them. If a government depends on other governments for its revenues -- if it must depend on the voluntary contributions of its members -- its [*129] existence must be precarious."
- "If the general government is to depend on the voluntary contribution of the states for its support, dismemberment of the United States may be the consequence."
"Frankly, I don't understand how trying to uphold and defend the Constitution of this nation can be construed to be an extremist event by anybody,"
It would seem their aim is as poor as their scholarship, the remedy written into the constitution was to levy and collect taxes from the citizen, with concurrent jurisdiction:
- To form a more precise judgment of the true merits of this question, it will be well to advert to the proportion between the objects that will require a federal provision in respect to revenue, and those which will require a State provision. We shall discover that the former are altogether unlimited, and that the latter are circumscribed within very moderate bounds. In pursuing this inquiry, we must bear in mind that we are not to confine our view to the present period, but to look forward to remote futurity. Constitutions of civil government are not to be framed upon a calculation of existing exigencies, but upon a combination of these with the probable exigencies of ages, according to the natural and tried course of human affairs. Nothing, therefore, can be more fallacious than to infer the extent of any power, proper to be lodged in the national government, from an estimate of its immediate necessities. There ought to be a CAPACITY to provide for future contingencies as they may happen; and as these are illimitable in their nature, it is impossible safely to limit that capacity.
- ``A CONCURRENT JURISDICTION in the article of taxation was the only admissible substitute for an entire subordination, in respect to this branch of power, of State authority to that of the Union.'' Any separation of the objects of revenue that could have been fallen upon, would have amounted to a sacrifice of the great INTERESTS of the Union to the POWER of the individual States. The convention thought the concurrent jurisdiction preferable to that subordination; and it is evident that it has at least the merit of reconciling an indefinite constitutional power of taxation in the Federal government with an adequate and independent power in the States to provide for their own necessities.
- "The difference between a federal and national government, as it relates to the OPERATION OF THE GOVERNMENT, is supposed to consist in this, that in the former the powers operate on the political bodies composing the Confederacy, in their political capacities; in the latter, on the individual citizens composing the nation, in their individual capacities. On trying the Constitution by this criterion, it falls under the NATIONAL, not the FEDERAL character;"
- "The change relating to taxation may be regarded as the most important; and yet the present [Continental] Congress have as complete authority to REQUIRE of the States indefinite supplies of money for the common defense and general welfare, as the future Congress will have to require them of individual citizens;
Translation: "Obey what we say the Constitution says, or else."
Mike Bodine said the sole purpose of the anti-tax rally (called Freedom Drive 2002) is to restore the Constitution to what it was in 1776.
There was no Constitution in 1776; there were merely the charters of the 13 colonies (which were engaged in armed revolt against the Crown that granted those charters).
Mike Bodine would be a heckuva lot more credible as a "Constitutional Scholar" if he actually knew when it was drafted and ratified.
Oh, wait - I forgot how much easier it is to threaten than it is to persuade. I think they can forget about a million folks attending their rally - if that's the best they can do in terms of polemic, they'll be lucky to break triple digits.
A lovely bunch.
Why not organize a tax return burning party at every post office in the United States on April 15th? If enough people showed up and participated, the income tax and IRS could be wiped out in an instant. Take away the money and you take away their power and give it back to the people where it belongs.
IT'S NOT THE GOVERNMENTS MONEY !!!
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