The following message was sent to the host and proprietor of the Small Government Alliance, Tim O'Brien. Tim had written a column (<— go here for the SGA original column and comments) which I posted on the Coffee Coaster in July 2010: "Constitutional Crisis: Where liberty lives and dies." That column made some statements regarding the 'income' tax and the 16th Amendment, which I felt
needed to be clarified. So I commented and Tim replied to my comment.
Pete Hendrickson also had the opportunity to read Tim's column, and felt compelled to write to his (and my) good friend, Tim, to present his case on the true nature of the 'income' tax in response. This is the open letter that Pete had sent to me from his federal political prison in Milan, Michigan, for posting publicly on the Coffee Coaster.
An open letter to my dear friend, Tim O'Brien,
of the Small Government Alliance
Dear Tim,
You know I love you. But I was taken aback, and quite disturbed, by what I read in your July 24, "Soapbox" article titled, 'Constitutional Crisis- Where liberty lives and dies.'
While a typically great Tim O'Brien piece in most every respect, things said about the income tax were unfortunately incorrect. The errors have at least two ill effects: getting this important subject wrong makes getting other important subjects right impossible by way of the Garbage In, Garbage Out (GIGO) effect (as I shall explain presently); and it is the persistent proliferation of misunderstandings about the tax that has me playing Galileo the Heretic right now.
For instance, you repeat the long-standing product of poor scholarship and deliberate misinformation cultivated by those who want America to believe that the tax was the product of a Constitutional amendment in 1913 to the effect that the 19th-century tax was repealed in 1872. This is not true.
Looking at the 1870 law providing for the what-was-then standard two-year authorization of the application of the tax reveals that it merely went into hibernation in December of 1872. It was never repealed. Looking at the text of the 1913 enactment first reviving the tax after the 16th Amendment reveals the same fact, as that text directly references the many pre-amendment tax provisions, of which it makes use. Looking at the derivation tables for the more modern IRC versions reveals that 30-40% of the current code derives its authority from enactments prior to the 16th amendment. All of these authorities can be found on your CtC Companion CD. But the easiest bit of research to debunk this myth is to look at pages 68 and 69 of 'Cracking the Code- The Fascinating Truth About Taxation In America' to read the actual preamble to the 1939 IRC, in which the fact that our modern embodiment of the law relies on legislation dating back to 1862 is flatly acknowledged.
Please, don't ever again say, or even think, that the income tax -- or even just "today's" income tax -- began with, or is grounded in, a Constitutional amendment. In fact, any time you encounter such an assertion in someone else's work, or one to the effect that the tax was repealed in 1872 (or at any time since 1862), treat it as a warning that anything else said on the subject of the tax by the purveyor of the error should be disregarded. (GIGO, don't you know.)
You can easily see why this bit of cognitive accuracy is important. That myth about the 16th Amendment allows for the proliferation of another: that the tax is now something that it couldn't have been before, that is, a direct, un-apportioned tax on general American revenue. No matter how often and how clearly the Supreme Court has said, "No, this isn't so...", the persistent misunderstanding of the 16th Amendment and the origin of the tax feeds the notion that in 1913, a power never granted to the federal government came into its hands. This leads to a grumbling acceptance of the misapplication of the tax without suspicion or skepticism on the part of huge numbers of Americans.
Worse, the heavily-promoted myth about the significance of the 16th Amendment causes many Americans to overlook one of the chief defenses against a rogue government put in place by the genius of the founders: individual control over the state's access to resources. The lack of historical memory and of widespread current understanding of this potent weapon is one of the primary reasons for many of the threats to liberty faced by Americans today.
Misunderstanding the income tax is also a contributor to the modern mistake of viewing the Constitution as having been a massive screw-up on the part of the framers, or a massive "sleeper" subterfuge that somehow kept the federal government to a profile never rising above 4% of GDP for 125 years, with only periodic episodes of offense, all the while just waiting for the moment to leap out and impose tyranny. (Granted, at least one of those "periodic offenses" was pretty significant, but any decent scholar will acknowledge that the War of Northern Aggression was conducted in defiance of the Constitution, not in compliance with it.) Imagining the Constitution to have been the problem serves to displace responsibility from where it really belongs: those Americans who fail to discipline that ambitious state with the tools the founders provided.
As your own article observes, it is only when individual Americans preserve liberty in their hearts that their liberty can be secure, and that doesn't mean simply paying lip service to one's rights, and throwing a good barbeque on the Fourth. It means honoring and enforcing one's rights with action, even in the face of state disapproval. We have certain specifically recognized rights, and specifically enumerated restraints on government (not to disparage rights unmentioned, and leaving for another conversation the fact of enumerated powers and its implications), because it was anticipated by the founders that the state would encroach, and that we would need to actively bind it down. Too many of us having failed to do so thus far is not the fault of the Constitution, or of those who designed it or relied upon it. The fault is in US, and committing it is made easier and more likely by the perpetuation of myths such as that of the 1913 "origin"-- or even just "transformation"-- of the income tax.
A few other misunderstandings which make an accurate understanding of the tax impossible (again, the GIGO effect) appear in your subsequent exchange with Coffee Coaster's Brian Wright (www.thecoffecoaster.com) . To address one: the Supreme Court only struck down ten sections of a MUCH larger tax act in its ruling in Pollack v. Farmer's Loan & Trust in 1895-- it by no means declared the income tax unconstitutional. See 'The Supreme Court and the Meaning of "Income"' in CtC for the details on the court's ruling, and the subsequent jurisprudence on the issue of the tax, including an accurate discussion of the limited, loophole-closing purpose, meaning and effect of the 16th Amendment, as laid down by the High Court. (Also, see losthorizons.com/Intro.pdf for an even more detailed drill-down on these subjects.)
Further, the perfectly benign 16th Amendment was not "crafted" to provide for a subterfuge; it has simply been subsequently exploited as part of a subterfuge conceived a generation later, when it was noticed-- much to the voracious political class's delight, I'm sure-- that Donald Duck's exhortations to the American people during WWII led to a massive adoption of serfdom, and those who benefited have never looked back. Grandpa was really NOT a moron, but, unfortunately, Dad was...
Finally, you make a few comments about my current circumstances and suggest that it is a consequence of my analysis of the law being "rejected" in a courtroom. Nothing could be further from the truth-- indeed, the course of things just underscores how right I am.
While it is true that my defense team made serious errors, the government was obliged to step deep into corruption to get its way with a jury even in the face of a less-than-sterling defense presentation. This involved
- refusing to let the jury see key evidence in the words of the actual statutes, even after they asked to see them
- "interpretations" of statutes custom-crafted by the prosecution and selected as part of the jury instructions only after all the evidence had been presented
- the prosecution being allowed to present hundreds of pages of documents containing variously vague or more specific allegations relevant to the charges despite putting not one single witness on the stand to validate and be cross-examined about any of this material
- not a single witness ever testifying to any single element of the charges, but the jury being given instructions that essentially left it no choice but to convict, and much, much more.
All of this had to be done because the government CAN'T overcome the truth about the tax revealed in CtC in a fair contest, and never has. (To see a documented snap-shot of government efforts to suppress CtC, including details on many of the liberties taken by judge and prosecution in this last-ditch criminal assault, see this document.)
Cheat it did, and thus, I sit here in order to frighten Americans away from the liberating, empowering truth revealed in my books, even as readers across the country continue to receive complete refunds of everything withheld, or paid in, in connection with the income tax, Social Security and Medicare "contributions" and all, and/or acknowledgments of no "income" received and no tax owed.
I'm not here because my analysis was "rejected", I'm here because my analysis is correct, and those grown accustomed to a lifestyle requiring that analysis to be kept from view are unscrupulous, and enjoy the benefit of widespread, deeply-rooted misunderstandings about the tax such as those that unfortunately compromise your otherwise typically excellent article on the true dwelling-place of liberty.
Best Regards,
Pete Hendrickson
Well stated, Pete. I shall see to it that your comment is also posted on Tim's site.
May your appeal find its way to justice, and you be returned to your family and friends on the eve of restoration of the Republic.
