[citizenx7]

Sorry if I have not addressed all you have submitted for discussion my friend. I'll be honest with you, when I see about a foot or two of your cites, I do tend to flash by them, because it will take quite some time to go to the source and read it all. I don't have the time to do that now, but perhaps later.

I would like to request that you speak with a little more respect, when discussing the alternatives. You may not like what Mr. Schulz is saying, but it is worthy of discussion. There is no evidence, that I am aware of, that he is in this for the money! In fact, it has obviously cost a lot of money and time/effort. There are many people who believe that there are questions which need to be answered. FIRST, and foremost, an answer to the formal petitions. The government has already said they would, and then reneged.

There are answers one way, and the other, in the historical record. There is confusion in the record. I guess thats what lawyers are paid to do. But, I, for one, would like to see the answers from the government that is paid to do that.

Ultimately, I think I deserve that. I'm a citizen, I am a veteran, etc.

Again, from reading your posts, I have no doubt in your sincerity, or in your ability to marshall massive amounts of data. But, somehow, you are missing the ultimate questions, having to do with freedom, and the Constitution. Look around you, do we still live under the Constitution or not? Those are the questions which must be answered here. These are the matters that belong on Free Republic. These are the matters that should be discussed by all free citizen's of our Republic.

I'll try to get back on, later tonite, and hopefully there will be a civil discussion here, of the beauty of our form of servant government. The problems and solutions, many of which are addressed by the We The People Foundation for Constituitional Education.

[ancient_geezer]

But, I, for one, would like to see the answers from the government that is paid to do that.

Who in Government are are looking for answers from? Schulz looks to get answers from bureaucrats who cannot authoratatively answer his questions nor are the paid to answer is questions any other way than they have, for they are only minions and spokesman of the real culprits, Congress and the American People who elect Congresses.

I don't see Schulz addressing his complaints of high and abusive taxation to either.

What answers are you looking for that have not already been answered and you should be able to answer for yourself?

Has there been an assult on our liberties as we compare to what we had even 50 years ago?

Yes.

Has State and National government attempted to extend it exercise of power to the boundries of what that the Constitution enumerates and tested the limits of its authority therein?

Yes

Have the American People allowed even encourage this testing of Constitutional limits?

Yes

Has State and National government gone beyond any reasonable interpretation of the commerce clause in extending authority over the individual at the insistence of the American People?

Yes.

Has State and National government gone beyond what I consider to be the boundries of the Bill of Rights in its quest for control, and the quest for security by the American People?

Yes.

What is your responsibility to answer Schulz' questions?

Total! You are a soveriegn citizen, or so Schulz & company claim. It is you the citizen that must be the basis of change, for you make the Congress, and demand the services the bureaucracies are tasked to administer.

Do any of those questions, say anything about abuse of the enumerated power of Congress to lay and collect taxes "to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;"

No! For the power of Congress to lay and collect taxes from the individual as opposed to the state is the 1st enumerated power in Article I Section 8 of the Constitution, and is one of the primary reasons the Constitution was written and ratified by the people of the founding of our nation.

Three of the Five Judges of the first Supreme Court were proponents of the Constitution and delegates to the Constitutional Convention, and had this to say about the enumerated power to tax given to Congress under the Constitution:

Hylton v. United States(1796), 3 U.S. 171

"A general power is given to Congress, to lay and collect taxes, of every kind or nature, without any restraint, except only on exports; but two rules are prescribed for their government, namely, uniformity and apportionment: Three kinds of taxes, to wit, duties, imposts, and excises by the first rule, and capitation, or other direct taxes, by the second rule. "

"the present Constitution was particularly intended to affect individuals, and not states, except in particular cases specified: And this is the leading distinction between the articles of Confederation and the present Constitution."

"Uniformity is an instant operation on individuals, without the intervention of assessments, or any regard to states,"

Furthermore the Court has made it very clear as to who ultimately hold the responsibility to change things that are not right.

McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819)

• "The power of taxing the people and their property is essential to the very existence of government, and may be legitimately exercised on the objects to which it is applicable, to the utmost extent to which the Government may choose to carry it. The only security against the abuse of this power is found in the structure of the Government itself. In imposing a tax, the legislature acts upon its constituents. This is, in general, a sufficient security against erroneous and oppressive taxation."

For,

LICENSE TAX CASES, 72 U.S. 462 (1866)

• "It is true that the power of Congress to tax is a very extensive power. It is given in the Constitution, with only one exception, and only two qualifications. Congress cannot tax exports, and it must impose direct taxes by the rule of apportionment, and indirect taxes by the rule of uniformity. Thus limited, and thus only, it reaches every subject, and may be exercised at discretion."

PACIFIC INS. CO. v. SOULE, 74 U.S. 433 (1868),7 Wall. 433

• "Congress may prescribe the basis, fix the rates, and require payment as it may deem proper. Within the limits of the Constitution it is supreme in its action. No power of supervision or control is lodged in either of the other departments of the government."

Lane Co. v. Oregon (1868), 74 U.S. [7 Wall.] 71:

• [T]he people, through the constitution of the United States, 'established a more perfect union by substituting a national government, acting, with ample power, directly upon the citizens, instead of the confederate government, which acted with powers, greatly restricted, only upon the states.' In no other way can the supremacy of that constitution be maintained. It creates a government in fact as well as in name, because its constitution is the supreme law of the land, 'anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding;' and its authority is enforced by its power to regulate and govern the conduct of individuals, even where its prohibitions are laid only upon the states themselves.

Thus:

Springer v. United States(1880), 102 U.S. 586

"Our conclusions are, that direct taxes, within the meaning of the Constitution, are only capitation taxes, as expressed in that instrument, and taxes on real estate; and that the [income] tax of which the plaintiff in error complains is within the category of an excise or duty."

"[W]henever the government has imposed a tax which it recognized as a direct tax, it has never been applied to any objects but real estate and slaves."

"If the laws here in question involved any wrong or unnecessary harshness, it was for Congress, or the people who make congresses, to see that the evil was corrected.
The remedy does not lie with the judicial branch of the government."

 

Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, 157 U.S. 429 (1895)

• "The people of the United States constitute one nation, under one government, and this government, within the scope of the powers with which it is invested, is supreme."

• "Without the States in union, there could be no such political body as the United States. Both the States and the United States existed before the Constitution. The people, through that instrument[the Constitution], established a more perfect union by substituting a national government, acting, with ample power, directly upon the citizens, instead of the confederate government, which acted with powers, greatly restricted, only upon the States.

Champion v. Ames(1903), 186 U.S. 321

• 'But if what Congress does is within the limits of its power, and is simply unwise or injurious, the remedy is that suggested by Chief Justice Marshall in Gibbons v. Ogden [21 US 1, 9 Wheat. 1, 6 L. ed. 23], when [195 U.S. 27, 56]   he said: 'The wisdom and the discretion of Congress, their identity with the people, and the influence which their constituents possess at elections, are, in this, as in many other instances, as that, for example, of declaring war, the sole restraints on which they have relied, to secure them from its abuse. They are the restraints on which the people must often rely solely, in all representative governments."

---

I suggest that Schulz and folks are barking up the wrong tree, if they want answers to their tax questions.

I submit Schulz & Company are asking the wrong questions if they figure on addressing the fundamental problems regarding impositions on individual liberty in this republic.