"The Constitution was intended to expand power of the government"

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

All you are doing is regurgitating the same lame arguments that enemies of the Constitution have brought forward for years, twisting and contorting the text to suit your needs. I oppose the income tax. You seem to come up with "justifications" for it.

No, I cited a factual, historical event that actually happened in 1795 (YOU TRIED TO DENY) that has affected this country in profound ways for 200+ years because people like you fail to comprehend it and fail to understand exactly why we are all being stolen from by the federal government.

 

[Galileo Galilei]

No shit the 16th Amendment granted no new taxing powers because the power to tax has always been delegated. Duh!

The only thing the 16th Amendment did was close the source loophole which only affected the apportionment rule not the powers delegated. If income was derived from land it was no longer to be considered a direct tax subject to apportionment.

However I do not recognize the 16th Amendment because it was not lawfully ratified and as such is null and void.

No I am talking about taxes on people. Go back and re-read the positions the Supreme Court has adopted for the past 200+ years based on a brief I already posted.

The power of an individual federal income tax on wages was not allowed by the original Constitution, nor was it allowed in the rulings right after 1913, per the Supreme Court and the Constitution.

 

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

The AoC didn't even have a Supreme Court. So if congress had passed an income tax law, there's no way it would be struck down.

It sure would have hard to fool people when under the AoC everyone know plain as day there was no taxation power delegated to Congress.

 

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

The power of an individual federal income tax on wages was not allowed by the original Constitution, nor was it allowed in the rulings right after 1913, per the Supreme Court and the Constitution.

OMG... you can't be serious. Are you really serious?


PROGRESSIVE INCOME TAX STARTED IN 1861

 

[dude58677]

If 200+ years of SCOTUS rulings did not back up that 1795 interpretation of direct versus indirect you might have a point. Considering SCOTUS has backed up that interpretation of direct versus indirect you have no point.

If you are going to argue against Hamilton and his Federalist friends who brought about a Constitutional Convention to expand the powers of central government granted under the Articles of Confederation, then why not extend your logic right on out to the very document and claim the Constitution is not legitimate because the Federalist coo was out of line with the founding fathers?

Wow!!!!!! You are now against Ron Paul? Just as Galileo Galilei and I have figured. You are a TROLL!

 

[ClayTrainor]

OMG... you can't be serious. Are you really serious?


PROGRESSIVE INCOME TAX STARTED IN 1861

Minor Correction. According to Wikipedia, the progressive Income Tax started in 1862. A Flat Income tax began in 1861.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1861

The income tax provision (Sections 49, 50 and 51) was repealed by the Revenue Act of 1862. (See Sec.89, which replaced the flat rate with a progressive scale of 3% on annual incomes beyond $600 ($12,742 in 2009 dollars) and 5% on incomes above $10,000 ($212,369 in 2009 dollars) or those living outside the U.S., and perhaps more significantly it was explicitly temporary, specifying termination of income tax in "the year eighteen hundred and sixty-six").

 

[Galileo Galilei]

It sure would have hard to fool people when under the AoC everyone know plain as day there was no taxation power delegated to Congress.

Congress doesn't always obey paper barriers, especially during emergencies. Learn your history. There were blatant violations of the AoC shortly after the ink dried. Our Founding Fathers understood what was going on back then. You don't. I know you think you are smarter than George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin, but you are not. Please give it a rest it is Constitution day.

 

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

Wow!!!!!! You are now against Ron Paul? Just as Galileo Galilei and I have figured. You are a TROLL!

We got some real winning posts today of people who can't separate the B from the S.

On one hand you are going to say what Hamilton and friends did advocating a new Constitution centralizing power to have things like standing armies, taxation, etc. were great but Hamilton really sucked after that. Either Hamilton & friends sucked or Hamilton & friends were great.

How come I am the only one making historical citations and you and Galilei are just running your mouths to support the Federalists?

 

[Galileo Galilei]

OMG... you can't be serious. Are you really serious?


PROGRESSIVE INCOME TAX STARTED IN 1861

That tax was unconstitutional. It was rammed through during a civil war, and eliminated as soon as the nation came to its senses. Our Founding Fathers warned us of the dangers of civil war.

 

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

Minor Correction. According to Wikipedia, the progressive Income Tax started in 1862. A Flat Income tax began in 1861.

Read the actual text of the 1861 Act. Not all incomes were taxed the same. Also, foreign incomes were taxed differently. It is chapter 49 of an Act in 1861 that implemented a ton of taxation, including several import taxes, direct taxes, and income tax.

Let me know if you need to to cite it.

 

[osan]

Okay, Ron Paul Forum posters! Don't let me down here!

I would have to say that your opponent may be correct. The Constitution is a tremendously flawed document when looked at in the context of sound governance pursuant to the ideals of personal liberty. To suggest that the brilliant minds of the likes of Madison and Hamilton were not aware of the problems inherent in the very structure of many of the sentences therein is to stretch credulity beyond the breaking point. By no means could I call myself a Constitutional scholar, but I am aware that there was quite a lot of drama attached to the architecture of the new government and while I admire the likes of Jefferson, there are several other characters whose trustworthiness finds non-trivial question in my eyes. I believe it behooves us to view these men as human beings and not as demigods as many are so apt to do. Who is to say that there may not have been a traitor or two among even the greatest of those men - those who would craft clever loopholes in the interests of an agenda no in consonance with that of liberty, fairplay, and equal opportunity for all? Had he not been caught, would not Benedict Arnold likely be viewed through similarly rose-colored lenses today? We really must be smarter than this.

That aside, there are the Federalist Papers and Anti-Federalist documents, as well as voluminous other written works that exposed the framers intentions.

More to the point, who cares? Seriously, what does it matter? Why must we look to the framers for validation? I have seen some middling to better brilliance right here in this forum. What immutable law of nature denies us our voice and reason? I see none. It is readily demonstrable that freedom is the proper and natural state of human existence and that any initiation of force against the rightful actions of the individual cannot be justified under any circumstance whatsoever. It is readily demonstrable that even in America we are slaves to a mob of immoral usurpers that have no rightful claim to the authorities they presume to wield over the rest of us. The very concept of "government" is one of the most dangerous notions mankind has ever managed to vomit forth from the bowels of its most profoundly wretched members. Governance, OTOH, when set forth and administered in its properly minimal extent and in honest fashion, is a very different proposition.

The longer this charade proceeds, the more clearly I see that those wishing to be free must assert that state of existence for themselves with the unequivocal willingness to apply the held instrumentality of force in the degree and manner required to secure and maintain that state. The ONLY thing the usurpers understand is force.

 

[Mini-Me]

Wow!!!!!! You are now against Ron Paul? Just as Galileo Galilei and I have figured. You are a TROLL!

Live_Free_Or_Die not trolling. He posts pretty harshly, confrontationally, and maybe overconfidently on issues of legal terminology, but he's posted here in good faith for a long time. Importantly, he's not exactly defending the income tax, so to speak. He's defending its legality on technical grounds, but he still recognizes it as extortion/theft.

Galileo, on the other hand is a bit dogmatic, and he tends to accuse anyone who disagrees with him of being a troll. He's called me a troll, he's called Amy a troll in this very thread, he's calling Live_Free_Or_Die a troll, and I honestly couldn't count how many honest regulars he has called a troll, simply for disagreeing with him. I'd take his opinion on who is and isn't a troll with a grain of salt.

I don't know who's actually correct on the question of the income tax's Constitutionality. I mean, it's pretty obvious that an income tax signed into law in 1861 and 1862 by Abraham Lincoln of all people is not itself strong evidence of Constitutionality, since a.) unconstitutional laws are passed all the time, and b.) this was the same guy who destroyed federalism...and I guess this is partially how he funded it. Similarly, Supreme Court decisions by themselves should be taken with a grain of salt, since the SC regularly rules in a manner totally contradictory to the text of the Constitution.

 

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

That tax was unconstitutional. It was rammed through during a civil war, and eliminated as soon as the nation came to its senses. Our Founding Fathers warned us of the dangers of civil war.

SCOTUS did not have a problem upholding it until the justices had an epiphany in 1895.

 

[YumYum]

The proof is in the pudding. Look at how big our government is today. The current size of our government demonstrates how the Constitution allowed for the expansion of Federal government. If the framers wanted to keep the Federal government from expanding, they would have written the Constitution in a way that would have prevented it from becoming the monstrosity that it is today. In much the same way that the Federal Reserve System was written up, the framers decieved the Public by creating a document that appeared to have checks and balances. But in truth, the Constitution is ambiguous, and the framers made it that way for a reason. Hamilton was a very smart man. I smell a Rothschild.

 

[dude58677]

Live_Free_Or_Die not trolling. He posts pretty harshly, confrontationally, and maybe overconfidently on issues of legal terminology, but he's posted here in good faith for a long time. Importantly, he's not exactly defending the income tax, so to speak. He's defending its legality on technical grounds, but he still recognizes it as extortion/theft.

Galileo, on the other hand is a bit dogmatic, and he tends to accuse anyone who disagrees with him of being a troll. He's called me a troll, he's called Amy a troll in this very thread, he's calling Live_Free_Or_Die a troll, and I honestly couldn't count how many honest regulars he has called a troll, simply for disagreeing with him. I'd take his opinion on who is and isn't a troll with a grain of salt.

I don't know who's actually correct on the question of the income tax's Constitutionality. I mean, it's pretty obvious that an income tax signed into law in 1861 and 1862 by Abraham Lincoln of all people is not itself strong evidence of Constitutionality, since a.) unconstitutional laws are passed all the time, and b.) this was the same guy who destroyed federalism. Similarly, Supreme Court decisions by themselves should be taken with a grain of salt, since the SC regularly rules in manner totally contradictory to the text of the Constitution.

Maybe you aren't a troll but to disagree with Ron Paul on a KEY ISSUE shows his true colors.

 

[erowe1]

Maybe you aren't a troll but to disagree with Ron Paul on a KEY ISSUE shows his true colors.

What is the key issue where you think he's going against Ron Paul?

 

[Galileo Galilei]

The proof is in the pudding. Look at how big our government is today. The current size of our government demonstrates how the Constitution allowed for the expansion of Federal government. If the framers wanted to keep the Federal government from expanding, they would have written the Constitution in a way that would have prevented it from becoming the monstrosity that it is today. In much the same way that the Federal Reserve System was written up, the framers decieved the Public by creating a document that appeared to have checks and balances. But in truth, the Constitution is ambiguous, and the framers made it that way for a reason. Hamilton was a very smart man. I smell a Rothschild.

The central government was smaller in 1912 than it was in 1781. In 1912, the central government accounted for only 1.75% of the GNP per the Mises Institute. That would be like a federal budget today of less than $300 billion. In 1913, the States fundamentally changed the structure of the Constitution. It is totally idiotic to blame the Founding Fathers for something the state governments did 125 years later. Yet people here go on and on and on in their quest to rip apart our Founding Fathers. Isn't all the attacks against our Founders on the History Channel enough? For God's sake people, it is Constitution Day! Can you give it all a rest?

 

[dude58677]

The proof is in the pudding. Look at how big our government is today. The current size of our government demonstrates how the Constitution allowed for the expansion of Federal government. If the framers wanted to keep the Federal government from expanding, they would have written the Constitution in a way that would have prevented it from becoming the monstrosity that it is today. In much the same way that the Federal Reserve System was written up, the framers decieved the Public by creating a document that appeared to have checks and balances. But in truth, the Constitution is ambiguous, and the framers made it that way for a reason. Hamilton was a very smart man. I smell a Rothschild.

No, old meanings are taken out of context. Welfare and militia had a very different meaning then what progressives say it means now. The amendment process though is clear and doesn't allow for it to be scrapped or easily amended. So the progressives only choice is to take it out of context.

 

[BuddyRey]

If you don't like the Constitution, then please head over to the dailykos.

So everyone who has a problem with the Constitution is a socialist? Well excuse me all to Hell. Somebody send a memo out to Lew Rockwell, Tom Woods, Doug Casey, Boston T. Party and others informing them that they have been stripped of their "Party status" until further notice, and that they must report to Minitrue at 0600 hours for formal re-education.

 

[dude58677]

The central government was smaller in 1912 than it was in 1781. In 1912, the central government accounted for only 1.75% of the GNP per the Mises Institute. That would be like a federal budget today of less than $300 billion. In 1913, the States fundamentally changed the structure of the Constitution. It is totally idiotic to blame the Founding Fathers for something the state governments did 125 years later. Yet people here go on and on and on in their quest to rip apart our Founding Fathers. Isn't all the attacks against our Founders on the History Channel enough? For God's sake people, it is Constitution Day! Can you give it all a rest?

No, a hater of the Constitution cannot give it a rest and the reason is because they want to ruin a good holiday for the people who cherish it.