Selected Cuts

Red meat for muscular minds and spirits

Revisiting The 9/11 Fraud

The Swamp Always Deepens Thanks To The Delusional Style In American Politics

The Misunderstood "National Anthem"

Liberal; Conservative; Restorationist

Using The Enemy's Attacks Against It

On Accurately Framing The Issues

Assessing The Damage From The Misapplication Of The Income Tax

So, What's Up With The "Tax Honesty Gurus"?

THE "Smoking Gun" Proof Of Government Corruption

The Rule Of Law Is Being Murdered In Cincinnati

The Founders' Defense Against Sociopaths In Office

Some Important Questions And Answers

The Deferential Disease

Taxation Without Representation

My Birthday Rant

The Elephant In The Room

The Crime Of The Century

Meet The Master Programmer Of The American Matrix

America's Only Hope Lies In Spreading The Truth About The Tax

Nine Out Of Ten Lawyers Agree...

Breaking Rad- Federalism For Real

Revisiting The 9/11 Fraud

And reminding those who care of key proofs of the truth.

Nov. 13, 2017: RECENT REVELATIONS ABOUT U.S. military operation in Africa-- all unbeknownst to even members of Congress, and justified as falling under the limitless mantle of the post 9/11 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed in 2001-- have put 9/11 back in the news in a way rather out of the ordinary in recent years. Normally, these days, there is a little carrying on about it on the anniversary itself, but not much more.

We have also had a documentary recently appear on Netflix purportedly offering an objective examination of the "9/11 Truth, Lies and Conspiracy Theories", as its title proclaims. (It becomes clear in just the first few minutes of the film that its real purpose is to divert consideration from the dangerous questions of how and why to the harmless "mystery" of a spectacular and simultaneously failure of all US intelligence and security systems in what would be described as a damningly coordinated fashion by anyone not diverted from consideration of the "how and why" questions...)

In light of the foregoing, I am prompted to revisit the subject after several years of neglect. I want to remind everyone-- especially those in the "truther" community-- of a key facet of the 9/11 storyboard routinely missed by far too many. This key facet of the 9/11 crimes is the one thing that fatally debunks all the outward-pointing spin and knocks the pins out from under efforts to distract and divert.

THE "KEY FACET" OF THE 9/11 CRIMES TO WHICH I REFER consists of the anthrax attacks conducted during late September and early October, 2001. These attacks must be always kept fully in mind and in play whenever 9/11 truth is being debated.

It is an unfortunate fact that superficially sensible-seeming doubts about the airplane attacks can be generated and championed (if only by stubborn refusal to acknowledge anomalies or the unlikeliness of multiple near-supernatural coincidences). But there can be no such explaining away or downplaying out of sight the mailing of anthrax-laden envelopes to influential media figures and politicians just when needed to overcome opposition and secure adoption by Congress of the USA PATRIOT Act.

That is, the prospect that disgruntled former CIA employees (the al Qaida mujahidin organized by the agency to harass the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s) undertook to attack targets in America on 9/11 has a certain plausibility capable of pushing suspicions of other actors with other motives off the radar screen in regard to the events of that day. People buy that notion, and even prominent "alt" figures like Ron Paul and others have fed this rationale with lots of daring talk about "blowback" and such (something only relevant to the idea that angry Muslims committed the 9/11 attacks).

But "pissed-off Muslims" can't explain the anthrax attacks.

The imperviousness of the anthrax mailings to "they hate us for our freedoms" or "blowback" nonsense is underscored by the lame suggestions by the Bush administration (and others plotting to use 9/11 to gut the American rule of law) that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the mailing of the anthrax letters (fortified by lies about the discovery of "bentonite" in the anthrax). This manifestly absurd notion served to distract a still-hysterical public from thinking clearly about those letters until their purpose was accomplished and then was quietly dropped without any real replacement explanation being floated.

AGAIN, REMEMBER how these letters were used.

The pernicious USA PATRIOT Act (UPA) had been written in large part in the late 1990s and held in the wings in various forms while awaiting a "Pearl Harbor" moment in which they could be fastened on the American people. These parts had been shambled out into daylight and offered as necessary answers to the supposed terrorism threat exemplified by the 9/11 events throughout the second half of September and the first half of October, and then consolidated into the omnibus act signed by President Bush on October 26, 2001.

During the period of introduction numerous facets of the UPA raised hackles among the general public in a big way-- concerns which were echoed by a number of influential media figures and politicians. (Back then the mainstream media hadn't yet become a lap-dog propaganda organ for the state in nearly the way it is now, and still harbored journalists possessed of actual American sensibilities.)

In obvious response to the hampering of the UPA effort by these cautionary voices-- that is, in an obvious effort to turn these media and political voices of opposition around, or at least give them pause-- these two communities were treated to specialized hysteria-induction by way of anthrax.

NOW RECOGNIZE that the mailing of these poisoned letters served a political purpose here in the United States. They cannot plausibly be said to have been meant for any other purpose.

Recognize further that having been timed the way they were, and in the context and purpose for which they plainly were, the mailing of these anthrax letters is obviously integrated with the 9/11 events. (Again, this fact is ironically underscored by the Bush administration's efforts to tie the two sequences of events together by false ascriptions to Saddam Hussein for purpose of maintaining hysteria until the UPA was enacted-- and further underscored by the fact that once enactment was accomplished no more of these letters were sent).

That is, the same people were responsible for both series of events, and it wasn't Muslim terrorists. Muslim terrorists might plausibly have had a "blowback" reason to attack American targets, but they cannot plausibly be said to have had any reason to secure passage of the USA PATRIOT Act.

It is only those in the domestic power structure, and their financial and policy beneficiaries, that had reason to secure passage of the UPA.

SO, HERE'S MY WORD to all the "truthers" out there: Integrate the anthrax letters yourselves, into your understanding and your arguments about 9/11.

Use the current revived attention to the ridiculous and dangerously-elastic construction of the AUMF that also was facilitated by the 9/11 hobgoblin to revive your extremely-important demands for real investigation and real assignment of responsibility for the heinous murders of roughly 3,000 innocent people in 2001.

Add assignment of responsibility for the assault on the rule of law by way of the "Patriot Act" to your goals.

Finally, I urge all "truthers" to wake up to your larger civic responsibilities and learn and spread the truth about the one Constitutionally-provided means for Americans to bypass a plainly co-opted or otherwise compromised political class, from which no solutions to the problem they themselves represent will be had. I speak of the truth about the American tax structure, through which the Founders brilliantly and presciently equipped the American people to restrain-- on individual initiative-- a state gone rogue.

NOTE: Some of my previous comments on the anthrax attacks can be seen here; my main post on the 9/11 issue can be found here. A commentary written in the immediate aftermath of 9/11-- just when, in fact, the first anthrax letters had been discovered, and lacking the perspective of later writings but still, I think, worth reading-- can be found here. Conceptually related material can be found here and here.

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, al l of them imaginary."

- H. L. Mencken

*****

The Delusional Style In American Politics

We should be so lucky as to have an actual "paranoid style" motivating voters...

A LOT OF INTERESTING QUIRKS in the American political psyche were highlighted during the 2016 presidential campaign. The one most interesting to me is the widely-held notion that it's possible to have a big, rich and activist state which, despite these attributes, nonetheless humbly respects and protects individual rights and subordinates itself to the rule of law.

Accompanying this peculiar notion of a humble and respectful superstate is another silly idea-- that Americans can persistently send large amounts of money to Washington and their local statehouse and yet simultaneously be rescued from having to do so by people from Washington and their local statehouses. Both of these crazy ideas are expressions of the Delusional Style of American Politics.

The recent "repeal Obamacare" debacle should prove to all that no remedy for Leviathan will be found in the political process. Even just this one recent statist offense-- a takeover of the healthcare market not fully in place until only two years ago and which is widely despised and considered a harmful wreck by Democrat and Republican voters alike-- is so invulnerable to a political remedy that a "reform" was the best the political process could muster, and even that half-assed effort largely failed.

I BELIEVE DELUSIONAL EXPECTATIONS of a humble Leviathan and saintly office-holders are the result of a relentless campaign by every political hack of the last 119 years to misconstrue the concept of "American Exceptionalism". Under the misconstruction, America-- or the American structure of government-- is imagined to be inherently incapable of elevating scoundrels, incompetents and outright criminals to office, or, at a minimum, is imagined to be self-correcting should this have happened by means of the same mechanisms that allowed the problem to arise in the first place.

But this is crazy-talk. Incumbents in high office have enjoyed re-election odds of over 90% for decades, with only few and slight occasional dips down to the upper 80s for the House and little more volatility for the Senate. The bureaucrats that actually interpret and administer policy are in office for life, as are the judges and justices that write and re-write and interpret and enforce whatever they fancy as the law.

Under no circumstances does the American structure contain meaningful self-correcting mechanisms by way of the political process. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Like any other, the American political process tends to cement into place the status quo generally. Also like most any other, the American political process tends to steadily raise the bar of political-class bad behavior which will be punished-- or even remarked at all-- by their fellows, who conveniently reserve unto themselves the power of punishment.

AGAIN, THE VIEW THAT AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM LIES in our political structure, which somehow can be counted on to produce good rulers or at least discipline the bad ones, is the source of delusion. In fact, that delusional notion is nearly the precise opposite of the truth.

American exceptionalism actually lies in the fact that key areas of power and decision-making are Constitutionally-withheld from our governmental organs and those who find their way into office, no matter how good or bad they may be. As Jefferson said, explaining this point, "Let no more be heard of confidence in [any officeholder], but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

Areas from which politicians and their cronies and appointees are kept by the chains of the Constitution are left to states (themselves bound down by their own Constitutions), and, more broadly and more importantly, to the rule of individual Americans. The Founders understood that individual Americans, and ONLY individual Americans, would, in exercising their power on behalf of their own self-interest in each such area, further the well-being of all in a natural "invisible hand" ripple-effect dynamic of sobriety and prosperity as first (or at least, most famously) spelled out by Adam Smith in his 1776 masterwork, 'The Wealth of Nations'.

Chief among the areas of power withheld from unreliable office-holders is the disposal of the wealth of individual citizens. The Constitution is carefully designed to prevent the state-- that is, the organ embodying the aggregate will of the majority-- from exercising control over any individual's wealth or means of acquiring wealth.

The Founders well understood that control over the means by which a man satisfies his wants is control over his will-- which is to say, despotism. Our federal and state Constitutions proscribe all means by which governments and those who run them can exercise despotism.

Thus we have the great rules of federal taxation by which any and all capitations and other direct taxes (click here to see what this means-- it's not what you think) are confined to application by the mechanism of apportionment. Only indirect taxes (click here to see what this means-- it's not what you think), which by their nature leave regulation of their burden in the hands of the individual (click here to see what this means-- it's not what you think), can be applied without this insulating device.

IT IS THESE CONTROLLING PROVISIONS RELATED TO TAXATION, along with other strict limits on government power and authority, that make America exceptional. It is not our political structure; rather, it is what we keep from being vulnerable to the products of our political structure.

Reliance on the political process, and hoping that White Knights will be produced thereby who will save us from the corruption and criminality of the last products of the political process, is just the usual delusional stupidity that has plagued and paralyzed mankind since the first naif hoped the new king would have lesser appetites than the one just departed. Only the exceptional withholding of power from any and all office-holders will do the trick.

"A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him."

-Ezra Pound

*****

Liberal; Conservative; Restorationist

Toward a proper, more accurate spectrum.

AS I SUSPECT IS TRUE OF MANY MODERN AMERICANS, I have never been able to comfortably place myself within the "liberal/conservative" bipolar spectrum of political leanings. This dichotomy is just not a comprehensive model of its subject.

Properly understood, and as used today, "liberal" and "conservative" are expressions of one's leanings in regard to the growth or activism of the state. Liberals favor (or are tolerant of) an activist state-- as by the perspective that the United States Constitution affords latitude in the perception and exercise of state power, and that latitude being "liberally construed". Conservatives favor or reflect a perspective of stasis-- that preservation of the legal and citizen-state status quo, whatever it may be, is a good unto itself (and so that status quo is to be conserved).

It can be said this way-- liberals want fluidity in the law (often so that whatever their latest libertine fad can be indulged without hindrance or with the support of state power); conservatives want stability (even if this means cementing into place present-day outrages against natural rights which had successfully been established by yesterday's liberals). I know many self-labeled conservatives will bristle at that description, but ask them when was the last time they agitated on behalf of repealing all compulsory education laws, all existing federal gun control measures, all drug criminalization acts, etc..

(As a side note, it is important to also understand that "liberal" and "conservative" are not expressions of political philosophy. In the sense of political philosophy, these terms are meaningless.

Liberal in what regard? As noted above, and as known by all, the exercise of this philosophy comprehends a "liberal" demeanor toward only "politically correct" behavior, and endorses a savage intolerance of any difference of opinion as to what should be so considered, or how, or whether, homage must be paid to the reigning orthodoxy of the day.

Conservative of what? The people's liberties? Not as practiced, as shown in the question above. Conservative of state power? Not according to the rhetoric of self-described conservatives, at least...

This as distinct from an actual political philosophy, such as libertarianism, which lays down a fundamental body of principles to be dogmatically applied in all cases and circumstances, without regard to any personal preferences or interests.)

SO, IN LIGHT OF THE INSUFFICIENCY of the liberal/conservative dichotomy to express my own position on state growth and activism, I propose an additional selection: "Restorationist". Restorationism is a view that state power and behavior, and citizen/state relationships, should be reset to their original status as conceived and implemented legally by each provision of the relevant Constitution by which each state was established (United States Constitution in regard to the federal government; each state Constitution in regard to that state).

Simply put, a restorationist wants the state bound down by the chains of its Constitution in the sense and to the degree and effect that it was when each measure of that Constitution was adopted. It is a rejection of stare decisis as a judicial doctrine, and a rejection of the status quo to any degree in which that current state of things has already deviated from original intent.

"The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working underground to undermine our Constitution from a co-ordinate of a general and special government to a general supreme one alone. This will lay all things at their feet. … I will say, that “against this every man should raise his voice,” and, more, should uplift his arm..."

-Thomas Jefferson

AS IT HAPPENS, we have just last week [at the writing of this article] been treated to an opportunity to model restorationism. In the news this past Friday (and perhaps for a few days prior) were stories about a new technology being drooled over by police departments and totalitarians of all stripes by which people can be remotely scanned for the detection of state-disfavored possessions on their persons (that is, for concealed weapons).

These devices are along the lines of portable, projector-function TSA body-scanners, with the intended deployment being on the streets by police, who will, without probable cause of any kind, search random individuals. Some deployment is also intended against motorists during traffic stops.

The use of these devices is arguably not a Fourth Amendment violation under the current "interpretation" of the amendment by the courts. Because the use of the devices is harmonious with the status quo, conservatives won't denounce it on grounds that it is a Fourth Amendment violation (although some might denounce the "gun control" motivations or implication behind this particular deployment of the technology). Liberals won't denounce it because they embrace gun control (though they might denounce it if it were used to detect hash pipes-- though again, not because of the Fourth Amendment issue, but only because of the recreational drug use infringement of this particular application).

However, the use of this technology as proposed IS a Fourth Amendment violation, regardless of the object of the search, under the amendment as understood and intended by its authors. Thus, a restorationist will denounce these mobile scanning devices no matter what the application-- they are Constitutional violations anywhere the Fourth Amendment or its equivalent is the law of the land (and privacy violations anywhere, period).

ANYONE WHO PUTS HIS/HER MIND TO IT for five minutes will come up with a dozen (or two dozen, or five dozen) other examples of Constitutional provisions which are routinely violated by the state under the legal status quo. Just considering the original intent and real meaning of the Commerce Clause alone will gin-up five dozen. Only a restorationist will recognize and stand against these crimes.

I invite everyone to try "restorationist" on for size. You may find that it's a very comfortable fit.

"Be the change you want to see in the world."

-Mahatmas Gandhi

*****

On Accurately Framing The Issues

Never let the bad guys pick the paradigm.

I SAW AN OPINION PIECE the other day that really got my back up. It was titled, 'Civil Asset Forfeiture Without Cause Should Be Illegal'.

Wow!

WORD TO PUNDIT: Civil asset forfeiture without cause IS illegal.

The People's law, supreme above any enactments of Congress and any pretenses of authority for such enactments by congressionally-selected jurists, plainly makes it illegal for the state to deprive any person of property without due process of law or to take private property for public use without just compensation in its Fifth Article of Amendment. (The same is found, in one way or another, in every individual state Constitution, too.)

Congress can make no law authorizing "civil forfeiture without cause". Every act of seizing property from someone without due process and/or without just compensation is the act of an outlaw. In fact, it is for the suppression of just such acts that the United States and the several state governments are instituted.

Your title should be, 'What Do We Do About A Government That Acts Illegally?'

BUT WAIT-- THAT'S NOT ENOUGH... Let's not forget that civil asset forfeiture is just one offense of many. Consider, for instance, that Congress can make no law authorizing searches and seizures other than by a particularized warrant based on sworn probable cause. Nor, to pick another example, can it authorize a non-apportioned direct tax, either.

Every capture of data without such a warrant as its basis and every collection of a tax on non-privileged activities without apportionment are also the acts of outlaws. Again, it is for the suppression of such offenses that the United States and the several state governments are instituted. And again, these few examples are just a handful of the total.

Your title REALLY should be, 'What Do We Do About A Government That Refuses To Do Its Job And Instead Acts Illegally Pretty Much 24/7?'

IN FACT, CALLING FOR "civil asset forfeiture without cause" or any other offense against the Constitution to be made illegal, as you have done, is an enablement of government's illegal behavior. It is a buy-in to the state-serving and servile notion that laws mean what the government wants them to mean, or whatever it says that they mean.

The truth is quite the contrary. Laws mean what their makers intended when imposing them, and the meaning of laws placing restrictions or obligations on the state can never be subject to determination by any organ of the state.

There is no latitude and there are no exceptions, even if the effort to evade the law is done under some pretense of judicial interpretation or congressional enactment. Change your title.

***

UNFORTUNATELY, THE KIND OF REFLEXIVE SUBORDINATION of the fundamental law to secondary, government-enacted legislation or judicial construction on display in this forelock-tugging pundit's article is now deeply embedded in the American psyche. The sad fact is, over the last three or four generations many Americans have been successfully saddled with a progressivist confusion of the state with the People.

This confusion leads to the state-serving notion that whatever elected and appointed officials do reflects the will of the People and therefore can be seen as an authorized amendment of the People's law. Welcome to the "living Constitution".

Overall, the effort to confuse the People with the state is part of the "engineered consent" program begun by the Wilson administration under the direction of Sigmund Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays. The object then was to quell dissent against drafting American boys and sending them off to die in the mud in France. But once the program's efficacy had been demonstrated, new purposes were found aplenty, and the operators of the state never looked back.

Few government programs have been so successful. Few have been so harmful to the wellbeing of the American people.

SO, TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WELL. Don't let them confuse the state with the People, or imagine that the operators of the state can "interpret" or construe or enact in any way contrary to the Constitution. Learn to call things by their true names and denounce the acts of government outlaws for the crimes and violation of oaths that they are.

Never let the bad guys control the terms of the debate. Read the riot act to any brain-dead pundit who says, "There ought to be a law...!" when there already is one.

OH, AND BY THE WAY, there IS an answer to the question that should have been asked as the servile pundit's article title: 'What Do We Do About A Government That Refuses To Do Its Job And Instead Acts Illegally Pretty Much 24/7?'  Here is that answer. 

"It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error."

-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson

"A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate"

-Thomas Jefferson

NOTE: Related articles can be found here and here.

*****

Assessing The Damage From The Misapplication Of The Income Tax

Americans end up as dependents when nearly every one should retire a millionaire.

I HAVE AN ABIDING CONCERN that the average American is completely unaware of the "opportunity cost" of the exploitive misapplication of the income tax to earnings which don't actually qualify that has been widespread since the 1940s. (If this subject is new to you, see this to get a quick handle on the scam and this to quickly see the truth of that little story. Or, click here for a much more in-depth presentation.)

Laid out for viewing, that opportunity cost is startling and appalling, to say the least. Let's have a look (working with available 2015 figures).

ACCORDING TO THE U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, median individual earnings in 2015 for all workers over 15 totaled $30,240. We'll use that low-weighted figure so as to be exceedingly conservative (the higher the earnings-figure with which we begin, the more dramatic are all the lost opportunities we're going to examine).

Treating that $30,240 as subject to the income tax and applying the 2015 $6,300 "standard deduction" for a single filer and a $4,000 single personal exemption, we end up with a "taxable income" for 2015 of $19,700. (Some folks would apply a few additional specialized deductions, which would reduce this figure somewhat in those cases. But since many would not, and we're using a low-weighted starting point anyway, I'm going to treat those variables as evening out for purposes of this discussion.)

The nominal federal income tax on a single filer reporting $19,700 of "income" in 2015 was $2,498. The FICA income tax bite on that filer's $30,240 of earnings was $4,626.72. (Those working for others may be surprised at that figure, since they only see half of the FICA tax bite being diverted from their pay. But the worker actually pays the whole thing. The other half, which is nominally "paid" by the company, is financed by a reduction in what would otherwise be the worker's total pay.)

So, we have a tax extraction of $7,124.72 from our model young worker during 2015. Even under a 401(k), only a small fraction of just the non-FICA third of that total can be deferred until taken later at an unknown and possibly higher rate, and even that modest reduction can only happen by a much larger reduction in available current "take home" pay. All in all, a pretty hefty chunk gets taken, and especially from an earnings total of only $30K. But we're just getting started.

Over our model's working life, his or her earnings will rise, and dramatically more will be extracted each year in taxes. Upon reaching just the average (mean) earning level of $44,510, our worker will be tapped for $10,703.03 (while still using 2015 tax figures, which skew low against reasonable projections into the future, and even while throwing in an extra $5,210 mortgage interest deduction at this point).

SO, THAT"S THE CURRENT SITUATION for most American workers, broadly sketched: a whole lot of money being extracted under the auspices of the "income tax". Even allowing for no rise over average earnings throughout, and figuring that 23 of his or her 45 working years remain at the median number before rising overnight to the mean figure and then never increasing further, our model will have had taken away between ages 20 and 65 a total of $399,335.22-- just in "income" taxes.

What's more, that already very large figure is just the federally-collected portion of the income tax. Residents in 43 of the fifty union states face additional applications of the same tax, making the actual total extracted considerably higher.

In return, our deeply-mulcted worker can expect to get back a lifetime total in Social security and Medicare benefits of $484,000. (This is based on current (2015) benefit levels, to be fair to our current earnings- and tax-rates model, as calculated by the Urban Institute.)

OK, SO FAR, SO SUCKY. We're supposed to be living the American Dream, and the reality is not so "dreamy".

But wait, there's more! Now let's look at the opportunity cost of that income tax extraction from our young worker. Best sit down...

That same worker, if keeping the otherwise extracted amounts of his or her own money over that period and investing it-- even at an unreasonably-modest long-term rate of return of only 5%-- would end up with $1,403,398.28 in the bank at age 65!

Here's how we get there: 5% interest on $7,124.72, with the same amount added to the principle each year (in a single increment, which is a calculating factor that skews the results downward as compared to the constant increases which would really take place), yields $331,823.31 after 23 years (see the calculator here). Bumping the rate of annual principle increase to $10,703.03 over the next 22 years winds up at that whopping $1,400K+.

BUT LET'S STOP BEING SO GENTLE with the tax-scam status quo! Bump the rate of interest to a much more normal 7% (see, for instance, this and this) and our worker ends up with a staggering $2,515,665.66 at age 65!

Think about it. At 65, our non-victimized worker could afford to charitably contribute twice as much as would have been taken from him over his entire working career in "income" taxes, and still have in hand-- for retirement, care of family and legacy-- well over three times what SS and Medicare would dole out to him! And all while having had the full use of every penny of what would have been called his "take home" pay throughout those working years.

Further, this is without factoring-in the somewhat smaller but otherwise identical advantages and added increments of wealth from retaining and investing income tax amounts collected by the states. Those collections are committed under precisely the same income tax scam deployed by the feds to improperly apply the tax (again, explained here + here in simple terms; here more comprehensively, and here in complete detail).

SO THAT'S HOW TO PROPERLY ASSESS THE INCOME TAX SCAM-- a deep, grinding, ruinous rip-off, which steals away the wealth and well-being to which every hard-working American is truly entitled. Think about how much more in charge of his or her destiny everyone would be if unhindered by the scam. Think how much more powerful every individual American would be.

Think how much more powerful and in command of your own destiny YOU would be. Maybe thwarting that is part of the reason for the scam...

It's amazing to me that everyone responsible for perpetrating, perpetuating and concealing the truth about this nasty scheme isn't facing an angry mob.

***

P. S. Do you fear that everything will grind to a halt if the misapplication of the income tax ends and only the 30 million or so Americans who really owe it are left paying it? Not so. See this.

FIND THIS ARTICLE as a sharable and printable .pdf here.

*****

So, What's Up With These "Tax Honesty" People?

The leaders of this community are a huge problem, but could be a huge solution

ONE THING HAS SERIOUSLY MYSTIFIED and bothered me over the years. I'm talking about the stubborn refusal of so many "tax honesty" leaders to acknowledge the unique and indisputable accuracy of CtC.

It's one thing for the media to be slow to recognize revelations of the liberating truth about the tax. Journalists generally don't even realize that the subject merits scrutiny of this kind in the first place.

But folks like Larry Becraft, Chris Hansen, Joe Bannister and Bob Schulz-- to name just a few with influence in the very large community of tax-truth activists-- DO realize. In fact, by their own declarations, the truth about the tax is the Holy Grail for which they have been searching for the better part of their adult lives.

And yet, now that the truth has been uncovered, and sharing it with more Americans is all that is needed to deliver its benefits of liberty and the restoration of limited government, these folks are not lending a hand. Instead, many of them spend much energy distracting Americans away from the truth!

IN THE EARLY YEARS AFTER CtC's REVELATIONS were first  published in 2003, slowness of recognition and acknowledgement were forgivable. But we are now 13 years on, with hundreds of thousands of hard-core acknowledgements by 35 federal and state tax agencies behind us, all thoroughly vetted, and some made only after protracted agency efforts to resist.

We are also 13 years into a steadily-better-documented series of transparent government and judicial evasions concerning CtC. Every one of these evasions constitutes an unmistakable back-door admission of the insurmountable correctness of its revelations and the degree to which they are THE solution to the "ignorance tax" scam that has plagued America for the last 75 years.

After all, you don't lie about the contents of a book, conduct bogus judicial proceedings, outright lie to the jury about the text of key statutes in not just one but two show trials, or create elaborate hoaxes to frighten people away from something you can defeat on its merits.

Nor do you make all those hundreds of thousands of refunds and other concrete acknowledgments during all the foregoing efforts at suppression, mis-information and evasion-- each incident of which is but a part of a seamless campaign of suppression for the entire 13 years-- unless you have no choice.

And even all that is just the practical evidence. Let's not forget the scholarship and data involved in CtC's revelations (a taste of which can be found here). By themselves they are enough to prove the truth, even if the besieged state had done nothing but stonewall the whole time.

Doubts are no longer credible. Denial is no longer forgivable.

AND YET, THESE INFLUENTIAL "TAX HONESTY" FOLKS persist in their refusal to help spread the word, and instead throw stumbling blocks onto the field before those who do. Some of these distractions are blatant nonsense, like the "section 83" silliness, or the endless variations of the argument that citizenship and/or residency is relevant to the tax. Others are more passive, like encouragement of the "show me the law" stance, which erroneously suggests to the credulous that the advocates of that stance have done thorough research and honestly concluded that "there is no law".

Whatever their hobby-horse, though, every "tax honesty guru" who allows him- or herself to be seen as such and yet does not present the actual truth about the tax, either by directing all comers to CtC and losthorizons.com or by thoroughly learning the truth themselves and commencing to share it each in their own way, actively hinders the realization of its benefits. Every distracted "tax honesty" activist is someone not helping move the ball downfield, and is, rather, much like a disease vector, spreading the distraction from which they suffer to others.

WHY DOES THIS MATTER? Here's the reason: The "tax honesty" community runs to an estimated 35 MILLION Americans. Look at this excerpt of an IRS response to an inquiry in 1998 on the subject:

So, in 1998, the IRS itself estimated 63 million non-filers who its data indicates would appear to have a legal requirement to file (by which would be meant "information return" allegations of payments of "income" above the exemption threshold).

It can't be assumed that all of these 63 million in 1998 were "tax honesty" non-filers, of course. But many doubtless were-- anger at the lawlessness of the IRS was so high that year that Congress held hearings on the agency's abusive practices and ultimately enacted the "Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998"-- you know, the act in which Congress felt obliged to provide a "Taxpayer's Bill of Rights".

Considering the passage of another 18 years in which the internet has had a chance to expose vast numbers to even erroneous adverse notions about the tax and the increased population overall, I feel pretty good about my very conservative estimate of there now being 35 million or so in the defiant "tax honesty" community. Whatever the exact number, it is a very big one.

Do you understand now why the simple task of spreading CtC's revelations is so pregnant with promise for really and truly transforming America by the restoration of limited government, liberty and the real rule of law?

So, perhaps you also understand my frustration with folks like Becraft, Hansen, Schulz and others who not only don't help spread the truth, but actively hinder the truth's spread.

It's this simple: Once just 1% of 35 million Americans get it, within 6 months 10% of that number will get it.

Once 10% of 35 million Americans get it, the "ignorance tax"  scam is dead.

In short, as little as one year after these influential "tax honesty" folks end their distractions and start spreading the truth, the Big Bad can be history. 

Please help them see the light.

*****

*****

  Some Important Questions And Answers

...for those of us in the fact-based, law-abiding, liberty-and-rule-of-law-preserving community...

WHEN MAKING ITS RULING ON THE MEANING of the Constitutional term "capitation" (in Pollock v. Farmer's Loan & Trust, 157 U.S. 429 (1895)), the Supreme Court drew upon the analysis of American statesman Albert Gallatin. Gallatin was variously a state and federal congressman and senator, U.S. Minister to England and France, and the longest-serving Secretary of the Treasury in U.S. history.

While Secretary of the Treasury, Gallatin produced a detailed report of matters relevant to that office, titled, 'A Sketch of the Finances of the United States'. Within this report Gallatin discusses the various Constitutional tax options available to the Congress for dealing with future federal revenue requirements.

Some of Gallatin's material, particular what is explicitly cited by the Supreme Court, is well known. It's been presented to every serious student of the tax for many years in CtC:

"..Albert Gallatin, in his Sketch of the Finances of the United States, published in November, 1796, said: 'The most generally received opinion, however, is that, by direct taxes in the constitution, those are meant which are raised on the capital or revenue of the people;...' ... "He then quotes from Smith's Wealth of Nations, and continues: 'The remarkable coincidence of the clause of the constitution with this passage in using the word 'capitation' as a generic expression, including the different species of direct taxes-- an acceptation of the word peculiar, it is believed, to Dr. Smith-- leaves little doubt that the framers of the one had the other in view at the time, and that they, as well as he, by direct taxes, meant those paid directly from, and falling immediately on, the revenue;...'"

Pollock v. Farmer’s Loan & Trust, 157 U.S. 429 (1895)

So, here we have what the "income tax" is not and cannot be-- a tax raised on the capital or revenue of the people. Remember, "capitations and other direct taxes" still must be apportioned, and the "income tax" is neither apportioned nor a "capitation or other direct tax":

If [a] tax is a direct one, it shall be apportioned according to the census or enumeration. If it is a duty, impost, or excise, it shall be uniform throughout the United States. Together, these classes include every form of tax appropriate to sovereignty. Whether the [income] tax is to be classified as an "excise" is in truth not of critical importance [for this analysis]. If not that, it is an "impost", or a "duty". A capitation or other "direct" tax it certainly is not.

Steward Machine Co. v. Collector of Internal Revenue, 301 U.S. 548 (1937) (Emphasis added; citations omitted.)

Okay, then. No matter what it may look like as currently administered, the "income tax" is not Constitutionally-authorized to be a "capitation"-- that is, a tax on the capital or revenue of the people.

Nor is the tax on the activity that produces the capital or revenue of the people (or the event of receiving it, or anything else of that kind). The unanimous Supreme Court in Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916) tells us that this is also not authorized, just as common-sense would indicate. The court declares that if any scheme were devised by which a tax is nominally imposed only on the revenue-producing activity of the people-- or on the event of receiving the revenue, or on spending it, or whatever-- as a "workaround" for reaching the revenue without apportionment:

"...the duty would arise to disregard form and consider substance alone, and hence subject the tax to the regulation as to apportionment which otherwise as an excise would not apply to it."

SO. IF THE INCOME TAX IS NOT SIMPLY ON REVENUE (or the revenue-producing activity, or the receipt of the revenue, etc.), and yet is measured by the receipt of revenue nonetheless, as the income tax is, then the tax must be falling on some characteristic extraneous to any of those other characteristics.

Such a taxed extraneous characteristic has to be peculiar to only some revenue (or activity or receipt or whatever). If it was universal to ALL revenue or the manner or means by which revenue is produced or received, a tax on it would again be simply a tax on revenue generally, and thus a capitation with the apportionment requirement. So the thing actually taxed under the income tax has to be a special feature of only some revenue, which is subject to the tax only because of that feature, with all revenue not so distinguished being not subject to the tax (which we might also put as not being "income" in the context of the income tax).

What could such an extraneous, non-universal characteristic be? Well, the answer is given to us by the Pollock court, which declares the income tax to be an excise, and the Brushaber court, which declares the income tax to be an excise, and even by the US Treasury Dept., which both on its income tax forms and through its spokespeople declares the income tax to be an excise.

Why do those declarations answer the question? Because "excise taxes" are taxes not on common revenue, but only on revenue that proceeds from the exercise of government-granted privileges.

NOW, HERE'S THE NEXT QUESTION: Is your exchange of labor for value in the marketplace a privilege bestowed upon you (and withholdable from you) by the state?

That would seem to be a very important question, wouldn't it? If your exchange of labor for value in the marketplace is a privileged activity bestowed upon you (and withholdable from you) by the state, then I guess you owe a tax, and should be grateful to the state for whatever part of your earnings is left to you.

But how about if your exchange of labor for value in the marketplace isn't a privileged activity bestowed upon you (and withholdable from you) by the state? Do you still owe that tax? Is it wise and prudent to let your activities be treated as though your work is a privilege?

How is complacency or timidity on that question going to play out into the future? And into the future of your children?

Think about it.

“I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.”

-H. L. Mencken

It will surprise none but the most naive that the tax-collecting state really wants everyone to imagine that all their economic activities are exercises of privilege, and that the state has a claim on everyone's productivity. Such lusts are natural to the fascist impulse to which all states are prone.

Thank goodness our Founders anticipated that depraved impulse, and hard-wired the "capitations" restrictions into the Constitution. All we have to do is educate each other about those restrictions and insist that they be upheld.

*****

Taxation Without Representation

How many realize that this is the consequence of misunderstanding the income tax?

IN 1776, "TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION" was a chief complaint of the American colonists and a core motivation behind the Revolution. The colonists recognized the inherent dangers (and philosophical illegitimacy) of control and consumption of anyone's wealth being determined by anyone other than its owners, either directly or through their representatives in a properly-constituted congress.

Eventually, the colonists killed or fought into submission all those in America who didn't get, or dared to resist, the principle of "if taxation, then only as specified by our representative legislature." The power to authorize or control the government's access to resources was stripped away from all executive and judicial officials and, with the adoption of the current Constitution and its imposition of certain strict and specific rules concerning this power, was placed exclusively in the hands of the legislature.

OVER THE YEARS Congress has designed a number of taxes. Among these is the income tax, which was put into place in 1862 and was administered as Congressionally-specified over the next 80 years.

But do you think the income tax as administered today is still the one designed by Congress? Not for most people...

Congress designed a perfectly benign, very popular tax on gains from the exercise of federal privilege, which are known as "income" in the context of the tax. This tax as actually written is so popular that when a Supreme Court ruling on behalf of a railroad investor thwarted its application in the 1890s, the American people adopted a Constitutional amendment to preserve it, despite the concerted opposition of the thoroughly-connected crony capitalists in whose favor the Supreme Court had ruled.*

However, that all changed in the early 1940s. At that time America faced a queer combination of circumstances that included the effects of the bizarre four-term reign of FDR, the social pathologies of war and the Great Depression, and a 30-year-old concerted effort by those with an interest to confuse as many Americans as possible about the meaning and effect of the by-then-a generation-in-the-past-passage of the 16th Amendment.

Seeing an opportunity, executive branch agencies (the DOJ and IRS) implemented a dramatic change in the way the income tax was applied, described to the public, and represented in legal proceedings. Although the legal reality of the tax as written didn't change, for most people the income tax as practically-experienced became the broadly-loathed effectively-unlimited abomination that is now an American synonym for ugly, scary and tyrannical.

In short, beginning in the early 1940s, most Americans began to be subject to taxation without representation, in practical effect. These Americans have no longer been living with the income tax as designed by their congress but instead have been assaulted by a misapplication of the actual income tax under a scheme concocted by executive-branch agencies and executive-branch appointees in federal courtrooms. This distortion of the actual income tax tries to reach ALL gains, in outright defiance of Congressional specification, while still clothing itself (read: concealing itself) in the form of the actual income tax.

It's easy to see why the colonists were so adamantly opposed to taxation without representation, isn't it?

Happily, now that the actual Congressional design of the income tax has been re-discovered, restoring America to the benefits of "if taxation, then only as specified by our representative legislature" is simply a matter of spreading the word and invoking the law. Happily, no revolution is needed; all that is needed is resolution.

*A number of folks who are doubtless well-meaning but who understand neither the income tax nor the 16th Amendment have made mistaken arguments for many years about the adoption of the amendment. Click here for more on this.

*****

My Birthday Rant

SO, I DON'T KNOW HOW I'VE MADE IT THIS FAR, but Sunday I hit the big Six-O. TJ has made plans for me which fill up the whole weekend, and as a consequence, this single, early-posted article will be in lieu of a regular mid-edition update this week.

In a way, this works out well, though, because the main thing I want to say this week is a supplement of the article above (and the previous article to which it relates).

In those earlier articles, I focus on the actual facts about the income tax and the hugely harmful tendency of some to confuse, obscure and evade those facts. Today I want to say a few words about why this is done, and here they are: Moral cowardice.

We'll look at some facts, their implications, and the shameful and harmful way in which moral cowards try to evade them.

The Facts

Here is one of those indisputable facts: The income tax IS an EXCISE:

A unanimous United States Supreme Court in Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916)

It's not just CALLED an excise, and "excise" is not some kind of "label of convenience" or meaningless bit of esoterica. An excise is a particular kind of tax, which is inherently and inescapably limited to certain kinds of objects by its nature.

An excise CANNOT apply to unprivileged activities or the gains from unprivileged activities. This is not because Congress hasn't chosen to so apply it, or for any other reason of option or election. Again, the limitation is inherent.

An excise cannot lawfully apply to unprivileged activities for the same reason a woman can't be a little bit pregnant. If you're pregnant, you're all the way pregnant, by the nature of the thing; and if it's an excise, it can only apply to privileged activity, by the nature of the thing.

"Case law recognizes no distinction between a privilege tax and an excise tax. See Bank of Commerce & Trust Co. v. Senter, 260 S.W. 144, 148 (Tenn. 1924) (“Whether the tax be characterized in the statute as a privilege tax or an excise tax is but a choice of synonymous words, for an excise tax is an indirect or privilege tax.”); American Airways, Inc. v. Wallace, 57 F.2d 877, 880 (M.D. Tenn. 1937) (“The terms ‘excise’ tax and privilege’ tax are synonymous and the two are often used interchangeably.”); see also 71 AM JUR. 2d State and Local Taxation §24, (“The term ‘excise tax’ is synonymous with ‘privilege tax,’ and the two have been used interchangeably. Whether a tax is characterized in the statute imposing it as a privilege tax or an excise tax is merely a choice of synonymous words, for an excise tax is a privilege tax.”) Thus, the excise tax now before us is, by more complete description, purportedly an excise upon a particular privilege, assessed according to the quantity of substance possessed in enjoyment of such privilege."

Waters, et al. v. Chumley No. E2006-02225-COA-RV-CV, Court of Appeals of Tennessee

We know the limited nature of the income tax (in particular, as distinct from other excises) by another fact, as well-- any tax on UN-privileged gains or the activities that produce them is what is know as a "capitation". Capitations are required to be apportioned by unchanged, still-the-supreme-law Constitutional provisions (two of them). Therefore any tax on gains from activities which is not apportioned cannot be on non-privileged activities, and must be confined to privileged ones.

There isn't even a pretense of an effort to dispute any of this at any level of government:

"If [a] tax is a direct one, it shall be apportioned according to the census or enumeration. If it is a duty, impost, or excise, it shall be uniform throughout the United States. Together, these classes include every form of tax appropriate to sovereignty. Whether the [income] tax is to be classified as an "excise" is in truth not of critical importance [for this analysis]. If not that, it is an "impost", or a "duty". A capitation or other "direct" tax it certainly is not."

U.S. Supreme Court, Steward Machine Co. v. Collector of Internal Revenue, 301 U.S. 548 (1937) (citations omitted.) (The bracketed material is mine, of course-- the court here was discussing one of the FICA income taxes, and rebutting the plaintiff's argument that the tax was an impermissible non-apportioned direct tax.)

"[The Sixteenth] amendment made it possible to bring investment income within the scope of the general income-tax law, but did not change the character of the tax. It is still fundamentally an excise or duty with respect to the privilege of carrying on any activity or owning any property which produces income."

Former Treasury Department legislative draftsman F. Morse Hubbard in testimony before Congress in 1943 (Think clearly here: Hubbard is not saying that carrying on any activity or owning any property which produces money is now suddenly a "privilege"-- he is speaking in the context of the income tax, in which "income" refers only to the gains from privileged activity, and observing that this fundamental characteristic of the tax was not changed by the 16th Amendment.)

"The Supreme Court, in a decision written by Chief Justice White [Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. Co.] , first noted that the Sixteenth Amendment did not authorize any new type of tax, nor did it repeal or revoke the tax clauses of Article I of the Constitution, quoted above. Direct taxes were, notwithstanding the advent of the Sixteenth Amendment, still subject to the rule of apportionment…"

Legislative Attorney of the American Law Division of the Library of Congress Howard M. Zaritsky in his 1979 Report No. 80-19A, entitled 'Some Constitutional Questions Regarding the Federal Income Tax Laws'

The Implications

NOW I HOPE EVERYBODY MADE IT through that short collection of citations* with eyes unglazed, because we want to keep the point center-screen: The tax is an excise, and an excise is only on specialized stuff, which BY THE FACT THAT IT IS SPECIALIZED STUFF means that it is NOT on ALL stuff. This is clear and unambiguous even without knowing what qualifies as "specialized" and what does not.

Again, we KNOW this; it is a FACT: only some kinds of gains from economic activities are subject to the tax-- others are not. Let that sink in and take root. Now...

The gains that ARE subject to the tax are only those that some folks get from the exercise of privilege. This is a FACT.

Gains from the exercise of anyone-and-everyone's right to produce wealth and engage in trade (the normal kind of economic activity engaged in by most folks) are NOT subject to the tax. This is a FACT (and that's why those who know the difference, and know how to say so, don't pay the tax).

Now here's where we get to the point about moral cowardice:

Because the tax falls only on some kinds of gains and not others, every person who fills out a tax form must decide whether or not (or which, if any, of) his gains are of the "privileged" variety subject to the tax, and therefore to be listed on one or another of the "income" lines on the form. If gains are listed, and exceed the exemptions available, that person must apply the tax to his listed "income" and agree that the amount calculated is lawfully and properly owed by him to the government.

Every person is likewise entitled to express a conclusion that he received $0 "income" (gains of the privileged variety) if that is what he determines to be true (and to assess $0 tax accordingly, and reclaim any and all amounts withheld from what he has determined to be non-"income" relevant to the excise tax).

Thus, every person filling out a tax return and listing his earnings as "income" and putting down a "tax owed" figure is declaring himself to have gainfully exercised a federal privilege and to be liable for the tax. (For those who can't get that the "privilege" involved has to be one extended by the taxing authority, 'cause that where its claim to a piece of the action arises, let it be enough to say that they are declaring their gains to be from privileged activities of some kind, as distinct from those conducted by right-- that's good enough for purposes of this commentary.)

The Shameful, Harmful Efforts To Evade

KNOWING THAT THE JUNK-YARD DOG that is the state really WANTS everyone to pay the tax on ALL their gains, whether those gains are actually taxable or not, some folks just can't muster the stones to fill out tax forms honestly and accurately. They prefer, in abject cowardice and immorality, to LIE ON THEM and falsely declare-- over their own signatures-- that they believe that all their gains of a given year are from the exercise of a privilege by virtue of which the state gets to take part of the proceeds, simply to please the dog.

However, being moral cowards as well as the more general kind, these folks can't admit their shame. Therefore, they do all they can to confuse and obscure the truth about the tax.

They moan that the tax is theft, and forced upon them. They claim that the tax is some kind of unapportioned direct tax inexplicably agreed-to by Americans of 1913, or that whether this is true is frustratingly unclear. They say whatever-- anything to keep everyone else from realizing they're just shit-in-their-pants appeasers and enablers of the rogue state's ambitions to be freed of all restraints.

It's been twelve years since CtC appeared and laid the truth about the tax bare. It's been twelve years since braver men and women began demonstrating that the junk-yard dog is, after all, just a dog, and that the law rules as it should when invoked by grown-ups who take it seriously. These shameful dissemblers have no excuse of ignorance to rely on.

And frankly, even if they've never heard a thing about the truth about the tax, these dissemblers would still be covered in shame. They claim to believe the tax is theft and illegitimate and wrong. Leaving aside the error of these characterizations of an actually legitimate and highly-desirable tax on private profits from the voluntary exploitation of public resources, which is what the income tax actually is, if these folks believe it to be what they say it is, why are they signing those 1040s declaring, under oath, that they believe its application to their earnings to be "true, complete and correct"?

Every time these folks sign a 1040 with their earnings listed as "income", they are saying, regardless of whether they know what "income" really is, "Yes, it's true and correct that I received $XXX of what is relevant to list on an income tax calculation and self-assessment form"; and then later, "Yes, it is true and correct that the tax I owe this year is $XXX." Can there be any greater hypocrisy than these folks calling the tax theft and illegitimate and wrong, while still making those declarations?

And so, these frightened dissemblers sow confusion about the tax, try to scare others away from knowledge and upright behavior, and attack people like me with name-calling and smears. But they never tackle the facts. To do that would lead right to the logic laid-out above, and that just wouldn't do for these folks. Instead, they do all they can to distract everyone else away from those facts, to the great harm of us all.

SO, THAT'S MY BIRTHDAY RANT-- and my birthday wish is that I won't need to do another one next year. That wish will come true if you you all will give me the gift of spreading this email around to everyone you can, and do all you can to encourage the moral cowards sharing space here in America with the rest of us to, "Buck up, Sissy-pants!" and start telling the truth.

"The day we see truth and do not speak is the day we begin to die."

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

"It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime."

-Thomas Paine

*Those who need MORE citations and authorities to really take in the true nature of the income tax and the meaning of excise, and of capitation, and so on, can find it all at losthorizons.com/The16th.htm.

*****

The Elephant In The Room

TWO WEEKS AGO I POSTED 'Declaration Day'. This is a somewhat sharply-worded little commentary about comforting but harmful delusions, and the moral and civic responsibility of every American to decline their embrace.

To be more specific, 'Declaration Day' concerns the deeply-rooted and well-watered delusion that operators of the state have service and subordination to you as their personal career goals, and the rather-darker reality that operators of the state are your economic and political competitors, to whom your rights are an impediment. D-Day is also about how difficult it can be recognize or admit that disturbing reality.

The sad fact is, the more power a state's operatives get their hands on, the more corrupt is their agenda and their behavior. (The corruption is always there, in big states and small-- but the operative of weak states can't get away with much bad behavior, or cause great harm in pursuing their personal agendas.)

The REALLY sad fact is, the operatives of the United States in the year 2015 have been foolishly allowed to get their hands on a lot of power. They are now very corrupt in both agenda and behavior, and that's the "elephant in the room" that some folks just don't want to notice.

TO SOME DEGREE, that disregard of state corruption is understandable. People can be easily distracted from what is actually right before their own noses, and gotten to overlook what should be obvious to anyone truly paying attention. See for yourself. Watch this short video and try to count all the passes:

How did you do? Based on the research done with this film, you had a statistical 50% shot at seeing everything you should have-- that is, half of the test subjects in the clinical tests with this film failed to see what they should have.

So, the success in keeping you blind to the sordid reality of state corruption and quietly hooked-up as a fuel-supply for your exploiters is partly just a weakness of human nature. It can, to some degree, be forgiven-- we have access as a culture to a huge amount of information, and a huge number of interests strive to capture our attention at all times.

BUT THERE'S SOMETHING ELSE, TOO. There is a less forgivable human foible than distractibility, and that is a preference for not seeing what disturbs us. This is what the "elephant in the room" metaphor is really all about-- a tendency of timid people to deliberately avoid taking serious heed of big, challenging problems, and to instead buy into comforting fictions designed to foster a delusional belief that the big problem isn't really a problem at all.

In this "denial" mode, timid people maneuver around the "elephant" until so practiced at doing so that they no longer even realize it's there. They only have 15% of their living room left to them, and it stinks, and there's elephant-poo everywhere, and the elephant keeps eating more and more of the food in the house.

But timid people in denial have made themselves become used to the diminishments they suffer and blank them out. Even the certain knowledge that at some point the ignored, ever-growing elephant is going to crush them into paste against a wall vanishes beneath a mental fog of denial.

THE KEY TO THE "ELEPHANT'S" SUCCESS in being left alone until it's so big as to be a real problem-- and even more intimidating than ever-- is its appearance of intractability. Once the "elephant" reaches a certain size, the idea of evicting it-- or even just taking charge of it-- becomes difficult to imagine. And when it is an active beast, it becomes difficult to even fully assess its dimensions in order to simply begin to imagine how to take control of the situation.

The default response of child-like minds to this sort of problem is to resist thinking of it as a problem

Adolescent minds recognize the problem, but can't get past the paralysis of its daunting dimensions. That is, adolescent minds get locked in a cognitive loop in which they demand one big solution to the big problem they perceive. Any possible solution that isn't complete and comprehensive in one fell swoop is rejected as too dangerous ("It'll just make the elephant mad and I might get trampled...").

Being unable to imagine that one big solution (or able to only imagine a big solution that is itself as frightening as the problem against which it would be directed), the adolescent mind cycles without forward motion through, "Big problem... can't see a viable solution... big problem..."

Adolescent minds also fantasize a lot about spontaneous changes in defiance of the black-letter historical record, such as imagining that suddenly the elephant is going to let itself be voted into a diminished stature by the other inhabitants of the house, or that one part of the elephant is going to decide the other parts are too big, and command them to shrink. This is a psychological mechanism for coping with what is seen in the hind-brain as a dire but irreconcilable dilemma (and these fantasies are the inspiration for the snarky question, "How's that been working for you?").

Adolescent minds talk about the elephant a lot. They complain and grumble and try to exhort others to take notice. They just don't actually do anything. Like the childish-minded, the adolescent-minded abide in a state of accommodation of the elephant-- letting it do what it will, always stepping out of its way and maneuvering around it. The only difference between the two is that the adolescent-minded know what's going on and are anxious about the future.

GROWN-UP MINDS, ON THE OTHER HAND, recognize reality and understand that if a problem is "too big to be solved" the solution is to make it a smaller problem. And when the problem is an elephant in the room of the kind of which we speak, that means stop feeding the beast. Nothing else will do; nothing else is needed.

Here's the thing about our American "elephant": When ours was introduced into our house (being created by our forebears in recognition of the fact that houses DO get some benefit from having a little elephant), it was done with an unprecedented understanding of how elephants can grow and become dangerous. Our forefathers took precautions, and laid in place an "elephant-control" mechanism, in the form of specific and carefully-designed rules about how the elephant can get his food.

Those rules are still in place today-- they were hard-wired into the elephant at its creation-- and the elephant has no way to change them. All the elephant has been able to do is trumpet some noise over the Founders' signal, so that many modern Americans don't realize the resources available to them, and some glaring and stamping about, in hope of keeping Americans who are awakening to its threat in the "adolescent-minded" state.

BE A GROWN-UP (meet a few here).

Study this;

and this;

and this.

Start shrinking the elephant. 

*****

Meet Edward Bernays- Master Programmer Of The American Matrix

...and then meet some good Americans who have taken the "red pill"...

BY DESIGN, YOU DON'T KNOW how much you've been manipulated by the masters of the matrix. The simple answer is, "a lot".

Since as far back as 1917, the United States has been applying the techniques of "consent engineering" to unknowing Americans. This is the process by which members of a society are conditioned to certain myths and misunderstandings for the benefit of the engineers. Edward Bernays is the father of the field.

The nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays was hired by the Wilson administration to overcome broad majority opposition to American involvement in World War I. Bernays worked in the propaganda mill known as 'The Committee on Public Information', applying notions of how to manipulate psychological vulnerabilities gleaned from his better-known uncle's research and theorizing in order to influence Americans perceptions, choices, beliefs, acceptance and behaviors.

The success of Bernays' efforts astounded everyone. Public opinion was stood on its head, until the man who had achieved re-election to a second term in 1916 on the slogan, "He kept our boys out of war" could send 117,000 young Americans to their deaths in Europe, with another 204,000 wounded.

The masters of illusion, and their clients, never looked back.

SO, 1917 MARKED THE BEGINNING OF THE AMERICAN MATRIX, a now 98-year-old web of delusions about the meaning of the law, the nature of lawful government under America's unique Constitutional structure, and a variety of historical facts very relevant to those issues. That's where you've been living your entire life.

It is because of the power of the matrix that today's state has successfully gotten away with misapplying the income tax on an enormously broad scale for over 75 years, despite the tax laws never having been changed and the fact that the tax remains a benign, limited application excise just as it has been since 1862. Under the power of the matrix, the beliefs most Americans have about the tax have been molded to suit the state's ambitions, and that's all that is needed.

OF COURSE, BECAUSE THE MIS-APPLICATION OF THE TAX is entirely accomplished by virtue of the delusion rather than any actual legal underpinning for treating non-privileged economic activity as taxable, the key to liberty from that mis-application is nothing more than knowing the truth. This is why the tens of thousands of students of the liberating, matrix-dispelling truth exclusively revealed in 'Cracking the Code- The Fascinating Truth About Taxation In America' (CtC) routinely recover everything taken from them under the mantle of the tax when they simply invoke the law as actually written, and why a DOJ tax attorney recently acknowledged in court that CtC-educated Americans have recovered or retained billions of dollars over the years and that the IRS is "vulnerable" to CtC.*

CtC is the "red pill". I suggest you take one and wake up, copper-top.

***

*It goes without saying that the only things to which a tax agency is "vulnerable" are actual, legitimate provisions of the law, accurately invoked. This is why the state struggles so hard to promote myths about the tax and to suppress the truth.

The power of the illusion rests entirely on there being enough people in its grip. Once enough break free and start speaking the truth, the whole evil delusion-exploiting scheme collapses, resulting in a restoration of restraints on the state and the liberation of the American people.

For more on the American matrix and the responsibility of grown-up men and women to shake off the delusions and act to uphold the law, see this and this and this.

*****

Nine Out Of Ten Lawyers Agree...

...THE SUPREME COURT IS EFFECTIVELY "INFALLIBLE" in its legal opinions. So, when that court says:

• "[B]y [capitations and other] direct taxes in the constitution, those are meant which are raised on the capital or revenue of the people; ... paid directly from, and falling immediately on, the revenue;..." "[Capitations are taxes in which people are rated] according to what is supposed to be their fortune, by an assessment which varies from year to year;"

• "[T]he Sixteenth Amendment did not authorize any new type of tax, nor did it repeal or revoke the tax clauses of Article I of the Constitution...  [Capitations and other direct] taxes are, notwithstanding the advent of the Sixteenth Amendment, still subject to the rule of apportionment…;"

• "If [a] tax is a direct one, it shall be apportioned according to the census or enumeration. If it is a duty, impost, or excise, it shall be uniform throughout the United States. Together, these classes include every form of tax appropriate to sovereignty. Whether the [income] tax is to be classified as an "excise" is in truth not of critical importance [for this analysis]. If not that, it is an "impost", or a "duty". A capitation or other "direct" tax it certainly is not;"

• "…taxation on income [is] in its nature an excise...;" and

• "...the requirement to pay [excise] taxes involves the exercise of privilege," 

...sensible, grown-up Americans turn their attention away from figuring out how to please the IRS and instead focus on learning how they have been so successfully misled about all this over the years (and how to recover their improperly collected money...).

How about you?

Are you a sensible, grown-up American; a fit inhabitant of the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave?

Or are you fit only for the New World Order, in which those who connive their way into positions of power in the State apparatus rule you, morning to night-- "authorized" by virtue of your ignorance of the law to take from you what they wish and give of your hard-earned to themselves and their cronies, clients and co-conspirators?

Seriously, do you respect the law or don't you?

If not-- if you've not stood up to recover your wealth, and if you aren't doing all that you can to shake your neighbors awake to the individual-liberating, State-restraining truth about the tax, why is that?

Is the mere sense that some officials are apparently willing to commit crimes all that it takes to resign you-- and your future and your children's future-- to the whims, caprice and corruption of those who live handsomely off your sweat (and thus will never stop unless you make it happen)?

Isn't that rather like waking up to discover you're being drained of blood by a giant parasite and deciding not to move for fear you'll anger the beast...?

To put it another way, ISN'T THAT CRAZY??!!

Isn't it just as much crazy to convince yourself to lie quietly for your consumption by imagining that there must be something good for you in the situation, because...[enter your comforting delusion here]? Or because you hear the beast muttering into your ear over and over, "I have been authorized to take your blood... I have been authorized to take your blood... I have been..."?

You've just seen (if you hadn't seen it before) that the highest court in the land says the beast has NOT "been authorized". And frankly, if you wake up enough to listen really closely, you'll hear that the beast is REALLY saying, "I have been authorized to take your blood... under certain circumstances which I presume apply here since you haven't said otherwise..."

I tell you, my friend, this is WAKE UP TIME!

We're already thirty-one days into the three-and-a-half month period during which the beast fills out its menu for the rest of the year. This is the time when you can sign up-- either by outright declaring your earnings to be what tax law calls "income", or by standing silent like a box-of-rocks as a "non-filer"-- for a long slow blood-letting during which you get weaker and the ever-hungry beast gets stronger.

But it is also the time when you can rebut the presumptions of the beast and sign out of the incremental abattoir. That is, it's also the time when you can choose to keep yourself whole and hale-- dignity, self-respect and blood-supply intact-- by just saying "No!"

And you know what happens when you do? The dynamic flips. You get stronger while the dangerous beast gets weaker.