Friday, October 21, 2011
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Citi Bank Arrests Account Closers
Pass this around! Shame shame shame!!! "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable." -John F. Kennedy
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Ron Paul Nails it Again
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive - Ron Paul Extended Interview Pt. 1 | ||||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive - Ron Paul Extended Interview Pt. 2 | ||||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive - Ron Paul Extended Interview Pt. 3 | ||||
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Saturday, August 13, 2011
The Deadly Threat From Rick Perry
Bruno's & Ripoll's Bulletin is named after the heroic freethinkers Filippo Giordano Bruno and Cayetano Ripoll. Bruno was burned alive as pictured by the Catholic Church on February 17, 1600 for refusing to play along with their dogmatic ignorance of Nature and reality. Cayetano Ripoll was hanged on July 26, 1826 on orders of the Spanish Inquisition for being a Deist and for teaching others about Deism. He was the last person to be murdered by the Spanish Inquisition.
The Deadly Threat From Rick Perry
by Bob Johnson
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When a politician or a member of the clergy is a real threat to people and society, regardless of what party or religion they are from, it's important that we let people know about the threat. Otherwise, how can people defend themselves from it? We've exposed foolish statements from both the conservatives and from the liberals as well as from most "revealed" religions. Anything and anyone who's a threat to the free exchange of ideas and who is prone to creating more wars and misery will be addressed by the World Union of Deists.
Texas Governor Rick Perry, who held a Christian mass prayer meeting last Saturday in Houston and promoted it through his state office, is not only a Christian charlatan, but is also a neoconservative.
One key priority of the neocons is the well-being of the Jewish state of Israel. This is because the neocons are biblically grounded, particularly in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. The Old Testament is primarily a blue print for Jewish supremacy and world domination by Israel. For example, Deuteronomy 28:1 has God saying to Israel, "And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth." Deuteronomy 28:10 has God telling the ancient Hebrews, "And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of thee." And verse 13 has God saying to Israel, "And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them."
The overwhelming vast majority of U.S. politicians obediently fall in line with Israel and its powerful lobby. They know they need the Israel lobby to win reelection, so they are happy to sacrifice America's youth and the tax dollars from American tax payers in wars for Israel's benefit. A good example of this is the ongoing war in Iraq. That war, according to former George W. Bush adviser and former Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, was started for Israel's security. Like George W. Bush, Rick Perry, if elected, would be a faith-based president. In fact, if Perry is elected the United States will in all probability be in at least two more wars, one against Israel's enemy, Iran, and the other against Israel's enemy, Syria. Perry openly stated, "My faith requires me to support Israel."
Currently the Jewish state of Israel is throwing Palestinians out of their homes and building homes for Jews on the land of Palestinians. The European community is opposed to this ethnic cleansing by Israel. One key issue that is causing so much violence is Israel's refusal to follow international law and United Nations Security Council Resolution 478 which calls for a shared Jerusalem. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem, which is currently under Israeli occupation, for the capital of a Palestinian state. There is no guessing what Rick Perry would do as U.S. President regarding this potentially explosive question. In 2009 Perry was in Israel and was awarded the Defender of Jerusalem Award! This award is given to people who promote the idea that God gave the Jews the "holy" land of which all of Jerusalem is part of and that the entire city should be Israel's capital.
Anyone who uses their reason would never believe that God gave real estate to the ancient Hebrews/Jews. This unreasonable belief is part of Judaism. In fact, religious Jews are taught that Mashiach, aka the Messiah, will rule the world from Jerusalem.
The best way, and for long term success, the only way, to stop all the religious violence in the world and to counter such violence promoting religious myths as belief in the Mashiach ruling the world from Jerusalem is to employ our God-given reason and to encourage others to do the same. The God-given reason found in Deism can go a very long way to short-circuit the destructive power of the "revealed" religions. If we all consistently give it our very best, Deism will replace the violence promoting "revealed" religions and make the world a place of natural progress and happiness. As Thomas Paine wrote, "In Deism our reason and our belief are happily united."
Help Out With Our Deism Summer Advertising Campaign
We still have a ways to go in our WUD Summer Advertising Campaign. Our goal is to raise $800.00 in order to purchase online advertising which will reach 100,000 new people with Deism. To date we've raised $180.00 which we're very grateful for. If Deism is to successfully compete with the "revealed" religions and have a fighting chance in reaching people, we all have to dig deep so Deism's advertising budget will begin to reach that of the "revealed" religions who spent $161.6 million on Internet advertising alone in just one year, 2007. If you're able and willing to help please use the below 'Donate" button to pitch in with your donation. Or you can mail it to us at: World Union of Deists, Box 4052, Clearwater, FL 33758 - USA. Thanks!Progress! Bob Johnson
www.deism.com
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
A Candid Interview With Beelzebub T. McGlobalist
Special Note: This is a parody…obviously, though the attitudes and responses portrayed are unfortunately based on expressions of common real-life gobalists. Enjoy…
The following is a very special interview with Beelzebub T. McGlobalist, the foremost representative of the incorporated organization of global bankers, political frontmen, and think-tank propagandists that make up such popular and exclusive clubs as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group, and the G20. With financial centralization and subsequent iron fisted autocracy on the rise, we thought it would be fun and possibly even titillating for our readers to hear straight from the horse’s mouth what lies in store for us, the lowly peon pond scum of the Earth, in the near future. Numerous alternative analysts have calculated likely outcomes of social and economic destabilization in the wake of engineered collapse, however, we thought it best to go directly to the source, and ask those who actually created the framework for catastrophe that waits ahead. This is a no-holds-barred look at globalization. Won’t you join us…?
Alt-Market: Good day, Mr. McGlobalist. Thank you for agreeing to this interview on such short notice.
McGlobalist: Yes, we sometimes feel it necessary to put in a little face time with “cannon fodder” like you, even though I personally find the very idea of your existence rather distasteful…
Alt-Market: Ok…….Is it alright if I call you T-Bub?
McGlobalist: Sure, that’s what Kissinger calls me…that, or “Sugar Pants”…
Alt-Market: Umm, let’s stick with T-Bub.
McGlobalist: Very well…
Alt-Market: T-Bub, it has been openly admitted by you and your associates in the IMF that your ultimate goal is the dissolution of sovereign state economies and political frameworks. You also admittedly desire to restructure those economies and governments into a single centralized financial system and a single supranational governing body. Is it just a coincidence that the ongoing global debt crisis and the subsequent devaluation of the Dollar and the Euro are pushing us towards that exact scenario, or did you “help things along”?
McGlobalist: Are you kidding?! Of course we helped things along! You think that international banks like Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan could possibly participate in a massive securities fraud like that of the derivatives bubble WITHOUT the complicity of Central Banks around the world, not to mention regulatory agencies like the SEC? I mean, we created such levels of bad debt it’s mathematically unfeasible to calculate it! You can’t hide that much financial toxicity for years on end unless ratings agencies, government oversight institutions, and the Federal Reserve itself, allow you to do so. Luckily, the average American wants to believe its all some “crazy mistake” or the “stupidity of politicians”. It’s easier for people to believe in random coincidence than to believe their world has been turned upside down on purpose. How do you think global elitists like myself have survived for so long?
Alt-Market: So then, if you already have your greasy hands wrapped around most of these institutions, why deliberately cause them to collapse?
McGlobalist: Psychology, my boy. Psychology. It’s not enough to force people to accept centralization, or even to trick them into believing it doesn’t exist. Eventually, you have to make them ASK for centralization. They have to believe that it was their decision all along to relinquish their sovereignty. Nation states have served their purpose. Now, we feel its time to shed them like so much dead skin and move on. Think about it! We create a problem, then, we offer a predetermined solution which the peasants automatically cling to because most of them are too apathetic to help their own situation. When they finally realize how much they have lost in the process, the only culprits they have left to single out for blame are themselves. In the meantime, we can sit back and relax in relative obscurity. Elitists have been playing this game for centuries. I’m amazed that you people haven’t caught on yet. It’s the freaken’ digital age for crying out loud!
Alt-Market: Good point. But, what about those who say your plans are not for the good of the citizenry but actually a brazenly insane attempt to satisfy your own hubris?
McGlobalist: I just ordered a huge plate of barbequed ribs, you want any…?
Alt-Market: ……….No. Could you answer the question please?
McGlobalist: You’re pushier than the ATF at a Branch Davidian compound! Look, you know that feeling you get when you drown your first potato sack full of puppies…?
Alt-Market: I can’t say that I follow you……
McGlobalist: Ok, let’s see…..how about when you were interned at one of our fine public education facilities as a little whelp? You remember the “special needs” kids on the short yellow bus?
Alt-Market: Is this going somewhere, T-Bub?
McGlobalist: Did you associate with those children?
Alt-Market: No, not really.
McGlobalist: Did the teachers let them run wild unsupervised?
Alt-Market: No.
McGlobalist: Well, that’s how we look at you and those like you. You can’t be left to your own devices. Who knows what would happen! Some kids just eat paste, but some set their own heads on fire! We’re doing what we do for your protection. Civilization would self destruct without our guidance.
Alt-Market: What does that have to do with killing puppies?
McGlobalist: Yes, well, imagine that the puppies are retarded….
Alt-Market: Maybe we should move on. You claim that collectivist efforts like globalization are the “wave of the future”, and that concepts such as America’s Constitutional Republic are “old and outdated”. However, isn’t it true that political sovereignty and liberty are actually very new ideas in the grand scheme of history? And, isn’t it also true that globalization is just a rehashing of mercantile feudalism which has been going on for thousands of years?
McGlobalist: Yes, but, have you ever seen a GLOBAL feudalistic empire? Now that’s something new! The Constitution is just an anomaly. It’s an embarrassing document for us, and it’s caused a lot of frustration among my associates. Thankfully, our federalized school system has all but abandoned teaching even the basics of Constitutional law and the Revolutionary War. There are plenty of Americans out there today who have no clue what their legal rights are, or why they have the country that they have. Some of them even spread propaganda undermining Constitutional understanding for us! It’s fantastic! The best possible advantage for an autocracy is when a considerable portion of the public goes out of their way to help us enslave them.
Alt-Market: Many members of your “exclusive club” have expressed philosophical positions that lean towards eugenics, and forced population reduction. Where do you stand on this subject?
McGlobalist: The world is obviously overpopulated, though I have no specific scientific data to back this position. The last time I went to the economic summits in Davos, my limo was stuck in traffic. Can you believe that?! That’s proof enough for me. I frankly couldn’t care less about the environment. I hold considerable shares in the Monsanto Corporation, which violates the environment and the laws of nature on a daily basis. The thing is, watching you people breed like mice is upsetting to my stomach.
Alt-Market: So your support of cap and trade, and international carbon taxes, is a farce?
McGlobalist: (Laughs) You want to know why the Earth gets hot sometimes? Try the sun! Carbon is harmless! It has nothing to do with global warming. In fact, our climate change labs at East Anglia and NASA never release the source data for their so called experiments through FOIA, even though they are sued constantly. So, we can say anything we want about global warming, and no one is able to check our numbers to see if we are lying. They can suspect, but they can’t prove it, unless someone floods the internet with our private emails and fraudulent computer models. Damn hackers….
Alt-Market: What about globalist support for the World Wildlife Fund, and the increased powers of the EPA? What is that all about?
McGlobalist: Ah, we’re big fans of “sustainable development”. For those who are not familiar with that idea, it means essentially that I can take your house, and your land, whenever I want, and turn it into a forest preserve, or a condo, depending on my mood. The EPA and the WWF are tools that we use to assert sustainability disinformation and utilize eminent domain outside of its original parameters. The point is, you are a parasite, and mother earth needs to be deloused.
Alt-Market: Even if you were correct in your claim that overpopulation is a problem today, who ultimately gets to decide who lives and who dies in your “sustainable world”?
McGlobalist: That job should be left to the immutable laws of the scientific method.
Alt-Market: And who gets to interpret what those “immutable laws” say?
McGlobalist: The smartest people on the planet, of course.
Alt-Market: And who decides who is the “smartest”. Isn’t that in part a subjective determination?
McGlobalist: No. The smartest people are the smartest people. Sheesh! What kind of interview is this? We elites have already proven ourselves the most intelligent, so such decisions should be left to us. It’s evolution, plain and simple…
Alt-Market: You don’t seem that intelligent to me…
McGlobalist: Well, you’ve only known me for twenty minutes. Trust me, I’m like, soooo good at Algebra….
Alt-Market: It has become incredibly clear over the past decade that a movement supporting decentralization, Constitutional liberties, and sound anti-Keynesian economic principles, has taken shape. The Liberty Movement is growing steadily stronger, and is quite aware of the strategies of globalization. Does this concern you?
McGlobalist: Decentralization? What the hell is that?
Alt-Market: It’s where we don’t let you do whatever you want.
McGlobalist: That’s crazy talk! My dump truck sized ego prevents me from even fathoming a future in which I am not King of New York A-Number One! I need to call my friend Mark Potok at the Southern Poverty Law Center and ask him to look into this “Liberty Movement”. If anything, we’ll just falsely associate them with racists and terrorists. Always draw indirect connections between your opponents and the designated villains of the society you wish to control. That’s how you marginalize so called “truth seekers”; paint them as monsters to frighten the oblivious public.
Alt-Market: Speaking of which, the DSM-IV mainstream psychiatry manual has recently been edited to include something called “Oppositional Defiant Disorder”. Basically, the establishment controlled psychiatric community (who I see as drug dealers with degrees), is now labeling anyone who shows disobedient or hostile behavior towards “authority figures” as clinically insane. The DSM has a long history of promoting establishment propaganda in its pages. Is this not just another case of marginalization through junk science?
McGlobalist: People who defy authority are indeed dangerous, and should be given the psychological help they require in order to assimilate into society.
Alt-Market: But who determines what “authority” is? If I show hostility to a lying scumbag in sweatpants and a wife-beater, then I’m “normal”. But if you give that same dirtball a badge and a uniform, then suddenly I’m “crazy” for disliking him? It makes no sense. Authority is an arbitrary label doled out by governments or stolen by governments. You can’t base a psychological diagnosis on the dislike of an arbitrary label, it’s completely unscientific.
McGlobalist: Ok, look, just between you and me, we’ve been pulling this gag for a long time. Its classic! Categorizing any person or group that opposes you as “crazy” is a tried and true strategy. Crazy people are ignored, even if they are right. That’s the beauty of it! That’s why we’ve been conditioning Americans with the use of the term “conspiracy theorist”. Someone hears “conspiracy theorist”, they automatically and unconsciously think “crazy person”. Why not make up a clinically recognized disorder associated with very natural aversions to the abuse of power and then label almost everyone as mentally ill? Also, diagnosing a person with anything makes it much harder for that person to obtain a firearm. Slaves should be unarmed and docile, and…..they should laugh at all my jokes.
Alt-Market: Speaking of firearms, this past month whistleblowers within the ATF have exposed a false flag operation in which the U.S. government actually smuggled firearms to drug cartels across the Mexican border, then tried to blame the surge of American guns in criminal hands on innocent gun dealers and on our 2nd Amendment rights in general. Do you believe this subversive activity on the part of the ATF and the U.S. government will damage your ability to undermine the 2nd Amendment?
McGlobalist: These little slip-ups are unfortunate, but not a setback by any means. We ran the same game back in the 80’s in what was later called the “Iran Contra Scandal”. Who was punished back then? I mean really punished? That’s right, nobody. The public investigation barely even touched on all the cocaine we were running through the same operations. Man, the 80’s were great! You would not believe all the drugs and prostitutes that were being passed around between me and my CIA buddies and the wild parties in D.C. with Congressmen just begging to get in the door! I felt like a modern day Caligula! There was this one time when my best friend brought in this donkey, and he gave it too many pills, and….
Alt-Market: Let’s stay on topic Mr. McGlobalist. Besides, you’re obviously describing the movie ‘Bachelor Party’ with Tom Hanks…
McGlobalist: Oh, really? Well, anyway, the exposure of the ATF “Fast And Furious” program is frustrating, but we’ll just ignore it like we always do. The Mainstream media will gloss it over. And within a couple of months, the majority of Americans will have forgotten about it completely. Pretty slick, eh…
Alt-Market: I suppose, but I’m going to have to ask you to take your hand off my leg…
McGlobalist: Ah, I just came back from Bohemian Grove. Sometimes I forget where I am. Are you a gun owner…?
Alt-Market: Yes.
McGlobalist: God damn it! Give me your guns!
Alt-Market: Uh, no…
McGlobalist: What if I give you coupons for groceries? Mmmm, food in your tummy…
Alt-Market: I think it’s about time to wrap up our interview…
McGlobalist: But I didn’t get to talk about all my hobbies, my dabbling in the occult, and you never asked me my favorite cuss word! I want James Lipton, now! (Turns to worshipful male aid) Get me James Lipton, or Regis! We’re redoing this thing! Doing it over! All over! And I want spring water served by little Tanzanian children who speak Swahili and dance! Bring me my skull goblet!
Interview ends abruptly.
Monday, July 04, 2011
What the 4th of July Made Possible
What the 4th of July Made Possible
by Bob Johnson
World Union of Deists THINKonline July 4, 2011
As we celebrate the 4th of July this year we should not only pay tribute to what America's Founders accomplished but also to what they made possible.
Prior to the American Revolution each colony had its own government recognized and established church. In some colonies it was the Congregational Church and in other colonies it could be the Anglican or Lutheran church. After the American Revolution this type of religious domination came to an end.
In the first part of Thomas Paine's indispensable work
The Age of Reason he wrote, "Soon after I had published the pamphlet Common Sense, in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion."
The success of the American Revolution made possible a revolution in religion. No longer were people subjected to the raw punishing power of the state at the command of the clergy. Freedom of thought and speech were now unshackled. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in one of his final letters regarding the 4th of July on June 24, 1826, just one and a half weeks prior to his death on the 50th anniversary of the 4th of July, "May
it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves . . . the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them."
As Deists the best way to show our "undiminished devotion" to the rights won for us at a very high cost of blood and treasure is to take advantage of the freedom to write and speak to others about Deism and to DO all we possibly can to promote the growth of Deism. Prior to the American Revolution this would have been illegal. Now, thanks to the courage and action of the American revolutionaries, we have that right and ability to openly get the word out about Deism. This is the best way to show our sincere thanks to all of those people and families who gave so much for freedom and progress. People like the Isaac Davis family. Isaac, who was only 30 years old at the time, and Hannah Davis had four young children by April 19, 1775 when government/British forces approached to enforce gun control at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. Isaac was a Captain of the Minutemen and went without hesitation to confront the enemy forces. He was shot through the heart and died at North Bridge in Concord. His four small children were left without a father and his wife was left without a husband. But his and their sacrifices, and similar sacrifices made by thousands of other revolutionaries, have paid the very high price required for our right to freedom of and from religion, of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. It is up to us to DO something meaningful with our hard-won freedoms they have given to us.
(Here's an article I wrote last year which contains some important talking points regarding the 4th of July which Deists and freethinkers can use to reach people who currently believe the Bible is the word of God.)
Friday, June 24, 2011
Exodus from the Cargo Cult
Exodus from the Cargo Cult
Perhaps you have heard of the Cargo Cults.If you’re going to pin your hopes of maintaining a military presence in the Pacific on a vast peninsular fortress like Singapore, the “Gibraltar of the East,” you might want to make sure Japanese soldiers can’t ride down the Malay peninsula on bicycles and turn off your water.
Singapore, provisioned for years, gave up on account of thirst in a matter of weeks. The British and Commonwealth troops were then stuck fighting their way north from Australia. The problem with that enterprise was a nasty piece of real estate called New Guinea.
The troops would trek in from the coast, enjoying all the local fauna from mosquitoes to leeches, and start to chop out a clearing on a high mountain plateau — while setting out guard posts in case the Japanese decided to arrive in force from the opposite side of the mountain range. In the center strip, angled to face the wind, the roots had to be dug out so they wouldn’t puncture aviation tires.
You can imagine the indigenous Stone Age inhabitants peeking out from the jungle’s edge, watching all this incomprehensible, ritualized labor with a mixture of puzzlement and outright hilarity.
But then it worked!
Their new nest properly prepared, there descended from the clouds the most wondrous, gigantic, roaring silver birds, which no man on earth had ever seen before. They landed, and sat patiently while allowing the white strangers to feed and care for them. Then, out of their bellies, they disgorged the most magical gifts. Not just wondrous weapons, but generators, radios, electric lights, phonographs, refrigerators . . . even cook stoves and exotic foods and . . . ice cream! Here were wonders unknown even to the ancient gods!
Before long it dawned on the Brits it might be smart to make some token gesture aimed at maintaining friendly non-culinary relations with the native headhunters, so at some point Prince Philip or some other spare royal would fly in, wearing an ostrich plume and some appropriate medals and ribbons, to meet with the head man of the local palm-frond village, passing out mirrors, trinkets, and other assorted gewgaws as tokens of his majesty’s undying friendship, etc.
Everything was going along swimmingly, but then came 1945, somebody nuked Nagasaki, bigger things were happening in Tokyo and Hong Kong; the British pulled out.
The natives waited. They kept the landing strips chopped clear, of course, watching, waiting, for the silver birds to return.
Nothing. So they went further.
As the old control towers and radio shacks and generator sheds and wind socks fell into decay, the natives built replacements. These didn’t actually function, of course. There was no working radio in the radio shack. It’s not even clear whether their bamboo imitation control towers would have held your weight if you’d tried to climb up in them. Instead, they were designed to look the same from above. They were trying to recreate the white man’s magic rituals, in hopes if they did it “just right,” Prince Philip and the Silver Birds would return.
And the new religion proved curiously persistent. Visitors stumbling on these villages decades later would find even the children of the founders of the cult — people who had never SEEN a silver bird — engaged in all kinds of half-remembered rituals based on the former air base operations, anxiously asking if the visitors had heard anything of the god from heaven they now worshiped, one Prince Philip, or if anyone in the next valley had spotted any of the silver birds returning.
When we first hear of the Cargo Cults we smile at the naivete of these primitive peoples. Arthur C. Clarke said any technology sufficiently advanced beyond our own will be perceived as magic. I believe they based a couple of “Star Trek” episodes on that.
The problem with the Cargo Cults is that if you think about them long enough, you start to recognize other Cargo Cults, much closer to home, based on equally touching and pathetic examples of the boundless faith of otherwise rational men in the efficacy of ritual, albeit denuded of its original substance and relevance.
WE THINK OF YOU, IRWIN
I have considerable sympathy for those who believe the federal income tax not only destroys our freedoms, but that it’s unconstitutional at heart, before we even get to the way the agents of the Internal Revenue Service — an outfit that admits it can find no Act of Congress ordering its own creation — violate their own code and statutes with regularity and aplomb.(Just for starters, why do the forms used to levy citizen’s bank accounts cite the authorizing statute on the back, starting with paragraph “B”? Answer: Because the missing paragraph “A” makes it clear Congress authorized the use of this technique only against FEDERAL EMPLOYEES with a tax liability. I looked it up. Do you think it’s now used only against “federal employees”?)
“How can the income tax be unconstitutional when there was a Constitutional amendment?!” ask the exasperated skeptics.
We simplify in the interest of brevity:
The authors of the Constitution, realizing the power for evil that lies in taxation, ordered that the central government shall raise money through only two types of taxation: indirect excises, and direct taxes capitated.
The Civil War debt was paid off through a direct, capitated tax. A bill was sent to each state, pro rated by population. Each state was then obliged to raise that sum by charging each person a head tax — everyone paying the same, from the richest to the poorest.
(That’s a little misleading. Since only landowners who paid taxes could generally vote — as makes perfectly good sense, if you want to avoid the collapse of another democracy once drunks and bums learn they can vote themselves wealth transfers from their more productive neighbors — the poorest, non-voting citizens probably paid nothing.)
A good example of the indirect federal excise, on the other hand, would be the federal tax on tires or gasoline. Someone who has applied for the “privilege” of entering one of these professions is responsible for collecting these excises and remitting them to the federal government. If it turns out the tire store from which I bought may last set of tires failed to collect and remit the proper excise on that purchase, can the federals come after ME for that unpaid tax? No. That’s what makes it “indirect.”The income tax amendment says the federals can collect a tax on incomes, without regard to the way direct taxes are collected, which involves sending a bill to the states, who have to collect the same amount from everyone.
The amendment is TREATED as though it says “The earlier edict that there shall be only two kinds of taxes is hereby repealed; instead there shall also now be a new, third kind of tax, which is a direct tax that each resident can be jailed for avoiding, but which need not be capitated, need not be apportioned equally, so that the socialist levelers can get busy transferring all the wealth from the rich until they quit or take their pathetic remaining capital elsewhere.”
But it doesn’t say that. Given that the previous edict is not repealed, the tax protesters insist all the amendment says is that the federal government can collect a tax on incomes, which must be collected as an indirect excise (the only other type of legal tax remaining) — that you can no more come after me directly if your registered excise agent didn’t collect and remit enough “income tax” on my behalf, than you can if the pumps at the gas station down the street malfunctioned and failed to charge me the federal excise tax the last time I filled up.
In this as in so many things, the tax protesters deserve an honest, detailed hearing — especially as the courts are supposed to embrace that interpretation which retains for the people as much liberty as possible, while being as restrictive as possible of government power and usurpation, regardless of any practical concern about “where they’re going to get the money they need.”
LIKE HAVING FAITH IN SOME INDIAN TREATY
But now watch. Because a government employee in a tax-funded youth propaganda camp taught them, decades ago in their youth, that the solution to any such problem is to take your case to court and explain it all to a government judge, who will parse the law and read your exhibits and submissions and then render justice, these poor saps — with whom I have great sympathy, mind you — spend years, lose their homes and savings, even end up in prison, as they quite purposely get themselves arrested in order to gain “standing,” and then laboriously, pathologically fine-tune their pleadings, based on precedents written by judges in an earlier and more innocent age, 60, 70, 80 years ago.With astonishing patience they wait, nodding and smiling in expectation, for the judge to finish reading their arguments and citations, expecting him at any moment to slap himself upside the head and exclaim “My God! When it’s all laid out in proper order like this, the conclusion is inescapable! Bailiff, release the defendant and issue him a formal apology from the court. Then go shackle those scurrilous IRS agents over there; we’re arresting them on charges of fraud, treason, misapplying their own statutes, and extorting payments under color of law!”
Try to tell them today’s federal judges aren’t going to read all those stacks of documents; that’s the LAST thing they want to do; they’re curiously incurious, well-schooled but actually mildly dull-witted political appointees who understand instinctively that their job is little different from the municipal judge in traffic court, giving you a minute to get it off your chest, then slamming down his gavel and saying “Nice try. Guilty. Pay your fine or go to jail.”
“But they HAVE TO read my exhibits and my pleadings,” these noble Quixotes will insist. “It’s their JOB. And when they do, they’ll see It’s all there, tracing the legal definition of “from any sources” and every other phrase, all the way back to 1913. They’re all ‘legal terms of art,’ like the difference between ‘traveling’ on the highways, for which they can’t make you get a license, and the excisable commercial activity defined as ‘driving.’ Once they’ve read these documents they CAN’T ignore them; they won’t have any CHOICE but to rule our way.”
“If we just finally get the geometric relationship of the bamboo control tower and the bamboo radio shack and the bamboo wind sock PRECISELY right, Prince Philip and the silver birds won’t have any CHOICE but to return. If men made them come in the past, why can’t we do it, too? We just have to keep trying till we get all the ritual geometry PRECISELY RIGHT.”
Your quasi-literate illegal Mexican hedge-trimmer can figure this one out in seconds: The judge is part of the ruling class; taxes are the way they loot us to keep themselves in power and luxury; you can’t win on their ball field with their referees; your only hope is to stay under their radar; grovel and back away and apologize when they seize your day’s pay; get up earlier tomorrow and go do it again.
And the irony is, those of us who did best at learning our lessons, got all “A”s and gold stars on our papers and reports, take the most years or decades to realize the silver birds ain’t coming.
Easy enough to feel superior to some of these addled, fixated tax protesters, too. Isn’t it?
But I’m not done, unfortunately. What if the Tea Party is a Cargo Cult? They vote for candidates who vow to go to Washington and slash spending and pay down the debt and rein in an out-of-control government regulators who are driving jobs offshore by the millions. What happens?
The mainstream lapdog press eviscerates Sarah Palin and Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell as dangerous, depraved witches. More than sufficient fear and doubt are sown among the half of Americans who are currently on the government dole. (If the government provides your children with free day care in a “public school,” you’re dependent on government wealth transfers, and will likely shriek like a baby deprived of its Popsicle if these handouts of stolen booty are threatened in any way. You really think the state and federal budgets can be balanced by closing the Tea Tasters’ Board while leaving all YOUR favorite disbursements of stolen loot in place?)
Yes, some “Tea Party” Republican politicians get elected, after making brave promises. Democrats proceed to announce they’re going to raise taxes and spending by 20 percent to hire 5,000 new Clean Water inspectors to throw people in jail for watering their lawns on Thursdays. “Tea Party” Republicans talk the brave talk about “holding the line against government waste and inefficiency.” Democrats wail that these agents of evil want “tax breaks for the rich” while the children starve. In the end, spending goes up by “only 5 percent — barely enough to maintain services at current levels.” Everyone declares victory.
(Read it again. Did you spot the “tell” which should have warned us what was coming? We don’t want government tyranny imposed “more efficiently and with less waste.” We want it blown up.)
Rolled like a drunken sailor, the Tea Party picks itself up from the gutter, brushes itself off, and tries again. After all, teacher said all I have to do is recruit a candidate who will tell me what I want to hear, volunteer to stuff envelopes . . .
SHALL OTHERS SUCCEED WHERE WE HAVE FAILED?
Politics is a Cargo Cult. It’s our masters’ large-scale equivalent of thanking the articulate and disruptive parent at the School Board meeting, hiring her to spend nine months “doing a report” on all the problems she’s pointed out, thanking her profusely, and locking the “report” in the closet. You just stroke her and keep her busy till she’s exhausted, her kids have moved on to high school or college, and she’s ready to go bother somebody else.I can urge people to READ the great Libertarians and Austrian economists, so they’ll understand the slow-motion train wreck as it happens. But I can no longer urge people to “get involved”; go paint yard signs; back a candidate; file an initiative petition. They’ve seen you coming. You’ve got about as much chance as that ex-Marine waking from a deep sleep and rushing to his front door with his AR-15 a few weeks back, making his stand to defend his wife and child hiding in the closet as the Tuscon cops busted in. He took, what, 71 rounds, and he still had his safety on?
Yes, the widow will win a six-figure settlement. Of which those cops will pay not a penny.
They have steamrolled the resistance. The happy taxers can dance in triumph for a few more years, maybe, before the once-mighty dollar collapses like the paper money of Zimbabwe or the Wiemar republic.
You can’t print more money to buy your own debt, any more than you can create wealth by kiting ever larger rubber checks, or maintain proper nutrition by eating your own feet.
But I sense I’m on the edge of a far more disturbing realization. That somehow, in attempting to voice a principled but polite resistance, we have helped them, like the unarmed man who keeps trying to voice soothing sentiments to the rhinoceros, unaware his voice is the only way the famously half-blind creature keeps finding and charging him, to his eventual extreme discomfiture.
When you respectfully debate a rhinoceros, carefully ordering your evidence, your arguments, your logic, his charge says “Is that all you got?”
I go back to reading the Bible, these days. A little. But nothing is quite the way I remember it. It raises more questions than it answers. Explain to me about the miracle of the loaves. You hand out three loaves and a fish. All say they are satisfied. When you pick up the leftovers, there’s enough bread to make up 16 loaves. Is it miraculous that a hundred people, hiking out into the wilderness for a day to hear some preacher conduct a revival meeting, hid away and carried along with them some of their own bread? I would. Why would Jesus and his guys try to feed them in the first place? If I go hear someone talk, I expect him to take up a collection for himself and the band, not feed me for free.
Or was Jesus handing out something else, something those who wrote down the tale in Greek a century later decided to alter, in keeping with the master’s reminder that he had a teaching for his disciples that was different from what they taught the masses? Was ours originally a mystery religion? If the kingdom of God is within us, how do we make it manifest? What is manna, that showed up with the morning dew but went bad if you didn’t eat it by noon? Why were the Israelites ordered to dry out samples and keep them in the Ark so their descendants could see what the stuff was? What was it that Jesus accused the priests of keeping secret from the people?
I digress, though perhaps only slightly. The passage I was thinking of involves that same nation of Israel wandering in the same desert where the manna showed up — wandering for a generation after Moses led them out of Egypt, till all the older generation who had sinned finally passed away, it being only then that the Lord would guide those blameless descendants to the promised land.
The Nanny/Police state is ascendant. We warn people what each more outrageous edict or development means, but our voices go unheard, or evoke only cackling, abuse and ridicule. Like Lot in Sodom, have we failed to turn up enough righteous men? Shall we dig our own graves, and sleep in them, till the last of the generation that deserved to end its days in this Desert of Lost Liberty shall finally have passed away? What was our sin? And how shall it be expunged?
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