<invitation to cross-post declined>

"Melissa" <melissa@colorado.xxx> wrote in message
news:41eb3742$1_1@omega.dimensional.com...
> http://melissasliberty.blogspot.com/
>
> Sunday, January 16, 2005
> "A Serious Crime"?
>
> "Beware strong drink, it can lead one to shoot at tax collectors...and
> miss!" - Robert A Heinlein
>
> I was visiting a martial arts school recently and looking at their
> impressive lineage chart. Such charts can be extremely detailed, and can
> go
> back hundreds of years to the roots of the system that the school teaches,
> showing the line of teachers who taught other teachers, down to the
> present
> teacher.
>
> So I was looking at this chart and noticed that one of the lines was
> dashed, instead of solid. I asked why. Some of the students told me that
> the particular lineage line was now broken, because one of the teachers
> was
> being removed from the lineage of the school, kicked out of it. I asked
> why
> they would do that. They said, for dishonoring the school. It seems he
> committed a crime and was sent to prison. I asked if it was a big crime or
> a little crime, after all so many people are sent to prison for victimless
> "crimes" where no one was even harmed, like drugs, prostitution, gambling,
> drinking alcohol, etc.
>
> No, they said, this was a "serious crime", the teacher had committed tax
> evasion. I almost fell over. Tax evasion, a "serious crime"? These
> students
> apparently hadn't met the libertarians that I had, who consider taxation
> to
> be the moral equivalent of slavery and involuntary servitude and therefore
> a violation of the 13th Amendment.
>
> Amendment XIII.
>
> 1 Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for
> crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within
> the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 2 Congress
> shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
>
> You see, by forcing people to work against their will to support the
> government for an average of 40% of each year in this country, it amounts
> to involuntary servitude and slavery. Many libertarians feel that in a
> truly free country, there would only be as much government as people would
> voluntarily support, in other words the amount that could run solely on
> voluntary, optionally earmarked contributions.
>
> They feel that forcing people to support every whim of the government
> amounts to slavery and involuntary servitude, and that any amount of
> government that people wouldn't voluntarily support, doesn't deserve to
> exist.
>
> So many libertarians would see that teacher as the equivalent of someone
> living in a society where they had slavery, who was refusing to be
> enslaved, or "evading" slavery.
>
> A "serious crime"? Whew.
>
> For a minute there I thought the teacher had raped or murdered someone.

Seems a bit convenient that you, a believer in no taxation, just somehow
stumbled into this situation. Still, it worked to make this on-topic, you
sly gal, you. Watcha wearin'? Anyway.....

Lots of people here aren't from the USA. That never occurred to you, did it?

How you going to pay welfare or social security, fix roads, have a viable
defence system without taxes?

Wait for Donald Trump and Bill Gates to make donations?

GDS
 

"Rich" <rlancashire@hotmail.com> wrote
> I mean, their heart's in the right place, but to say that 40% tax is
> the moral equivalent of 20 weeks' indentured slave labour per year is
> shrill hyperbole, to put it kindly.

Nothing hyperbolic about it- particularly when some income generating
entities are untaxed, and others are saddled with their burden.

> Not least because the salaries that
> are paid are paid within the strictures of the tax system; the 'market
> value' of the job accounts for taxation already.

Many people don't work for 'salary'- and their taxes are set to the standard
of those paid by entities that can claim that salary as an exempt cost of
doing business.
Corporations are people- that's what it means. There is not some basis for
exemption for an entity that exists for no other reason than to do
commercial transaction- and burden a *real* person with the costs of
supporting them.

Chas

"Rich" <rlancashire@hotmail.com> wrote
> The extreme libertarian stance on which everything rides on money seems
> to be a very rarefied, pure fascism - meant in the true sense, rather
> than invoking Godwin's law here - that there is no society, only power.

There is a faction of Objectivists that make a virtue of selfishness- kind
of a bleak world-view in my opinion, and often targeting the wrong
people/class. They're primarily property oriented, and I feel that misses a
huge set of problems regarding government intrusion into one's personal
life.
Hell; taxes aren't the main concern- imho.

Chas

Steve Gartin wrote:

> Sorry Rich, you are wrong:

Thanks for the extensive articles, Steve. Two points, however: firstly,
they seem to refer only to American constitutional history - and the
constitution is a set of axioms, not of facts. So, you could use this
to argue that the founding fathers would have been Libertarians, or
that income tax is unconstitutional, but it has no bearing on my
points. There is a world of 5 billion people outside the borders of the
US, as little as the people inside may hear of it. ;)

Secondly, the only argument presented outside of constitutionality was
from the 18th Century, that direct taxation led to the fall of the
Roman empire. Not really a very solid argument; the Roman empire
achieved its power through military conquest and extensive slavery and
fell apart due to all sorts of factors. In fact, appealing to the Roman
empire only strengthens the case for it being a fascistic system.
Best Regards
Rich
Steve Gartin wrote:
> "Rich" <rlancashire@hotmail.com> wrote

> Woops!  The power to tax gives governments the power to kill the
middle
> class in any society.  Our Founding Fathers vehemently resisted
taxation.
> The other 5 billion folks have a larger problem and no contract with
their
> governments to prevent the fiscal demise of the working People.
Sorry.

And yet somehow, from under the yoke of communist slavery, other
countries manage to have thriving middle classes, democratic elections
and even higher literacy rates and life expectancy. Who'd credit it?

> Those of us who still believe in America in spite of the *government*
need
> no other argument except the Constitution that we served in uniform
to
> Protect and Defend.  Sorry if we seem sort of uni-issue.

It's a noble attitude, Steve, and I commend you for it. Just pointing
out that it's an attitude, not an argument.

Best regards
Rich
"Rich" <rlancashire@hotmail.com> wrote
> And yet somehow, from under the yoke of communist slavery, other
> countries manage to have thriving middle classes, democratic elections
> and even higher literacy rates and life expectancy. Who'd credit it?

I'm not sure that I do.
Most of the 'thriving middle classes' are the minions of the government or
the government's evil helpers, the multi-nationals.
And the rest of us foot the bill.
Communism in action?

> It's a noble attitude, Steve, and I commend you for it. Just pointing
> out that it's an attitude, not an argument.

The attitude is the Rule of Law, not the tyranny of the enforcers.

Chas

Melissa wrote:
> "Rich" <rlancashire@hotmail.com>  wrote :
>
> > The big problem I see (besides crippling cash shortages preventing
> > anything useful being done on a national scale) is one of planning;
> > with no guaranteed income in any given year, anything requiring
> > long-term investment is out the window. A government doesn't
> > particularly have products or knowledge to sell, it is an
organising
> > body.
>
> What does government have to do with investment? Government spends
money.

And if a dam needs to be built, for how long do the contractors need
paying? If a communications network needs setting up, or a new warship
designed and built, you need large-scale programmes with dependable
incomes.

> > I mean, their heart's in the right place, but to say that 40% tax
is
> > the moral equivalent of 20 weeks' indentured slave labour per year
is
> > shrill hyperbole, to put it kindly.
>
> Forcing people to work for you is slavery and involuntary servitude,
is it
> not?

You have a choice to work, you are remunerated for your work. Your net
salary is ultimately that remuneration. You are not forced to work for
free, you are *taxed* after the fact. How do you draw a logical
equivalence?

> Taking money from people at gunpoint without their permission is the
> moral equivalent of armed robbery, is it not?

Only if that money is not owed; otherwise it's debt collection.
Withholding the money that society, and the government that that
society has elected, has deemed a fair contribution is also known as
tax evasion, and the moral equivalent of theft.

Just as the unexamined life is not worth living, the unexamined opinion
is perhaps not worth voicing.

Regards
Rich
lklaw...@my-deja.com wrote:
> Rich wrote:

> > You have a choice to work, you are remunerated for your work. Your
> net
> > salary is ultimately that remuneration. You are not forced to work
> for
> > free, you are *taxed* after the fact. How do you draw a logical
> > equivalence?
>
> It's pretty close, actually.  Remember, money is nothing more then a
> marker for goods or services; i.e. "work."  It's saying, "If you're
> going to work then we are going to take X amount of your work for our
> purposes."

No, "work leads to money" is not the same as "work is equivalent to
money". Food leads to energy, and you have to expend energy to put the
trash out (assuming you're legally obliged to do so by hygiene
regulations); does it therefore follow that the municipal authorities
who run the collection are stealing your food?

> Now since, realisticlly, most people *must* work to survive
> most people *will* have some portion of their work forced from them
by
> the government.  Sounds pretty close to "part time slavery" to me.
> Peace favor your sword (IH)

The less you work, the less you will pay. If you do zero work, you will
pay zero income tax; in most countries, there's even a lower threshold.
Your choice to work harder or smarter or less honestly and earn more is
still realisable, and you will receive more money for that, a fraction
of which is collected by the government.

You drive a car; there's friction in the system. If you stop, there's
no friction. If you speed up, there's more friction - *but you're still
going faster*. Now you can argue that there should be less friction,
the car should be better designed, and so on - but can you say that
you're effectively driving without friction for 36 minutes and then
friction is effectively stopping you for 24 minutes before you can
start up again? And even if you could, what would the purpose be,
besides a soundbite?

My problem is largely with the melodrama of such a meaningless
statement. And since real, nasty slavery existed in our countries and
still exists today elsewhere, for the rich middle classes of the most
pampered nations on Earth to start comparing their tax burdens to this,
while they decide which SUV or Playstation to buy next, is at the very
best a little tasteless.

Cheers
Rich
lklaw...@my-deja.com wrote:
> Rich wrote:

> > No, "work leads to money" is not the same as "work is equivalent to
> > money". Food leads to energy, and you have to expend energy to put
> the
> > trash out (assuming you're legally obliged to do so by hygiene
> > regulations); does it therefore follow that the municipal
authorities
> > who run the collection are stealing your food?
>
> I whole-heartedly *DISSAGREE*.  The entire *PURPOSE* of money is as a
> "stand-in" for work/goods.  The purpose of trash pickup is to pick up
> trash.  This is simply a bogus comparison.
>
> I mean, this is like the most *foundational* of economic theory.
> You're just screwing with me, aren't you?  Just arguing to argue,
> right?

Money is *not* 'work in paper form'. Money, at least as far as this
discussion goes, is an value system that everyone uses to comparing
relative 'values'; a way of finding the equivalent number of carrots
that a half-hour's carrot-picking is worth, in a fair and open way. The
carrots are not the picking, nor is the picking the carrots. They have
the same value, not the same property.

And I think you misunderstood the analogy: I meant the authorities that
require to to put out your trash, not the trash collectors themselves.
The 'collection' thing was misleading, sorry. An authority that
requires you to expend energy has the same effect on your food as an
authority that requires you to expend money has on your work.

> > The less you work, the less you will pay. If you do zero work, you
> will
> > pay zero income tax; in most countries, there's even a lower
> threshold.
> > Your choice to work harder or smarter or less honestly and earn
more
> is
> > still realisable, and you will receive more money for that, a
> fraction
> > of which is collected by the government.
>
> Yeah, sure.  And, um..., what happens when *everyone* decides, you
> know, this working thing is 100% optional?

The whole economy and system goes absolutely tits up. Collapses, it
would be utterly unworkable. So... about the same as what happens when
*everyone* decides they don't want to pay tax, this taxation thing is
100% optional, wouldn't you agree?

> It's *NOT* optional.  *Someone* HAS to work in order to support
people,
> even those who don't feel like working (or can't).  Sure your
> assumption works on the small scale but it can *not* scale up to all
of
> society.

Bingo!

> It may be "tasteless" to you, and I agree when one compares actual
> slavery and the abuses associated with that it seems trite to
complain
> about taxes.  There's always someone worse off.  Yet, it's still
> accurate to classify both a bruised elbow and a complete amputation
of
> an arm as "injuries."  The *both* are injuries.  Sure one is *way*
> worse then the other.  Forced taxation is the same thing.

They are both injuries, yes. So in line with the simile, and the 'tax
is slavery as they are both depriving you of money you've worked for'
claim:

Say we were to stick-spar for five minutes, and you used your skill and
practice to bruise my arm constantly with your shillelagh. More than
likely, I'm sure :P What equivalent time of our sparring session did
you spend amputating my arm?

Cheers
Rich
lklawson@my-deja.com wrote:
> Rich wrote:

> > And I think you misunderstood the analogy: I meant the authorities
> that
> > require to to put out your trash, not the trash collectors
> themselves.
> > The 'collection' thing was misleading, sorry. An authority that
> > requires you to expend energy has the same effect on your food as
an
> > authority that requires you to expend money has on your work.
>
> You see how that phrase you keep using ("An authority that requires")
> is incompatible with 100% Liberty?  *Someone else* is "requiring" you
> to do something.  Forcing you to do it.  Sound at all similar to the
> functional definition of slavery?  So what if it's not every second
of
> every day.  That makes it the equivalent of only part-time slavery,
> right?

Any system based around liberty must by necessity have rights *and
responsibilities*, I'm sure you'll agree. If people neglect their
responsibilities, things stop working, diseases spread, preventable
accidents happen and so on.

Now you can argue that these responsibilites, society's expectations,
impinge on your Liberty. To take an extreme example: you can't choose
to walk into a kindergarten naked and start taking potshots at anything
that moves. On a tamer note, you can't drive a vehicle that poses a
significant, immediate danger to other roadusers or pedestrians, so
authorities require you to periodically have your vehicle checked.

Since one can't rely on people to carry out all their responsibilities,
laws come into place to ensure that at least most people do most of the
time. You can't have a social legal system without authority, or no-one
will pay any attention to it. So this "100% liberty" is a myth; you are
required to interact with society, and society with you. You are forced
to live within certain boundaries; in return for this, you get a modern
industrial world, with more comforts and safety than any of your
ancestors dreamed. Seems fair to me; if you wish to live tax-free and
responsibility-free, there are tens of thousands of uninhabited islands
in the world, I doubt anyone would mind if you borrowed one.

So no, in summary, I would have to say that "someone else requiring me
to do something" sounds nothing like slavery; however, wanting no-one
to require anything from me sounds like an adolescent fantasy.

> I'm not arguing that all taxes should be done away with.  I
understand
> their worth.  What I am arguing is that if you're *required* to pay
> taxes you've lost some portion of your Liberty in the matter.
>
> Makes sense?

See above. The drive to work is stronger than the drive to pay taxes;
who *wants* to pay taxes? Enough people to maintain a standing army,
navy and air force? And an intelligence service? Some form of care for
the most disadvantaged members of society?

> > > It's *NOT* optional.  *Someone* HAS to work in order to support
> > people,
> > > even those who don't feel like working (or can't).  Sure your
> > > assumption works on the small scale but it can *not* scale up to
> all
> > of
> > > society.
> >
> > Bingo!
>
> And?

To quote a very wise man: "Sure your assumption works on the small
scale but it can *not* scale up to all of society."

Relying on enlightened self-interest to benefit the nation as much as
the individual has been tried before. There's a book all about it,
called Das Kapital.

> > What equivalent time of our sparring session did
> > you spend amputating my arm?
>
> I was doing that with the bowie in my other hand.  ;-)

:P
Rich
"Rich" <rlancashire@hotmail.com> wrote
> And if a dam needs to be built, for how long do the contractors need
> paying?

In the US, 'public service' is a privately owned company. It operates power
plants, ranging from coal fired to water turbine (generally at dams).
Why should tax-payers pay for the dam, or use our own coal, and pay for the
private, profit-making sale of that dam's product as well?

> If a communications network needs setting up, or a new warship
> designed and built, you need large-scale programmes with dependable
> incomes.

Then either put the government in the operation of such things, or get them
out of the operation of such things. The opportunities for graft and
corruption are so enticing, that one cannot trust an unaccountable entity,
the government, to deal with another unaccountable entity, an
in-corporation, to the benefit of the individuals who operate either of them
in the public trust.

>> Forcing people to work for you is slavery and involuntary servitude,
> is it not?
> You have a choice to work, you are remunerated for your work.

In any contract to work, you have a third party, the State. They regulate
everything about your work, including unlimited reporting of where you work,
doing what, and for what remuneration.
If you have any sources of income outside of 'work', they require you report
that also- including sources that aren't 'taxable'.

> Your net
> salary is ultimately that remuneration. You are not forced to work for
> free, you are *taxed* after the fact. How do you draw a logical
> equivalence?

Your restatement of the situation is in error.

>> Taking money from people at gunpoint without their permission is the
>> moral equivalent of armed robbery, is it not?
> Only if that money is not owed; otherwise it's debt collection.

Grabbing your money and spending it, much less borrowing into the future,
isn't 'incurring debt', it's far nearer to continuous armed robbery.

> Withholding the money that society, and the government that that
> society has elected, has deemed a fair contribution is also known as
> tax evasion, and the moral equivalent of theft.

Stopping by your house and stealing your furniture as a tribute to the
Bandit King isn't moral.
Unless you think 'tax liability' is somehow equivalent to Original Sin.

Chas


Chas wrote:
> "GreenDistantStar" <greendistantstar@bigpond.com> wrote
> > How you going to pay welfare or social security, fix roads, have a
viable
> > defence system without taxes?
>
> The way the Constitution describes how they'll pay for it; excises,
imposts,
> duties and levees.
> The 'income tax' was originally a tax on business- now 'business
expenses'
> are exempted and *wages* are taxed.

"Tax on business" is *always* a tax on income.  The actual cost of the
tax *is* considered just another "business expense" and passed along to
the consumer and the employee through higher product cost and lower
wages just as every other business expense is.  It's just the
government picking the pocket of the wage earner and the consumer...
just in a more circumspect manner.

Peace favor your sword (IH)

Chas wrote:
> <lklawson@my-deja.com> wrote
> > "Tax on business" is *always* a tax on income.
>
> nope- often a tax on process as well; and on fixed assets; and on
inventory.

Which *still* gets passed on to the consumer/employee.


> > It's just the
> > government picking the pocket of the wage earner and the
consumer...
> > just in a more circumspect manner.
>
> Gee; d'ya think?
> Those non-corporeal entities really stick together, hunh?

You're missing the point.  There IS NO TAX PAID BY ANYONE *OTHER* THAN
THE CONSUMER/WAGE-EARNER.  It *ALL*, 100%, every last dime of it, get's
trickled down to the consumer/wage-earner.  All of it.

No matter *what* tax you're talking about, where you claim it's
targeted, or what initial entry point you use, it *all* eventually gets
paid for by the consumer/wage-earner.

There *IS NO* "tax on business."  It's just a circumspect way of taxing
the consumer.  There *is no* "tax on property."  It eventually gets
passed on to the consumer/wage earner.  No "tax on doing business."  No
"tax on transactions."  It's *all* a tax on consumers.
Peace favor your sword (IH)
<lklawson@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1106075149.500506.210100@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
> Chas wrote:
>> <lklawson@my-deja.com> wrote
>> > "Tax on business" is *always* a tax on income.
>>
>> nope- often a tax on process as well; and on fixed assets; and on
> inventory.
>
> Which *still* gets passed on to the consumer/employee.
>
>
>> > It's just the
>> > government picking the pocket of the wage earner and the
> consumer...
>> > just in a more circumspect manner.
>>
>> Gee; d'ya think?
>> Those non-corporeal entities really stick together, hunh?
>
> You're missing the point.  There IS NO TAX PAID BY ANYONE *OTHER* THAN
> THE CONSUMER/WAGE-EARNER.  It *ALL*, 100%, every last dime of it, get's
> trickled down to the consumer/wage-earner.  All of it.
>
> No matter *what* tax you're talking about, where you claim it's
> targeted, or what initial entry point you use, it *all* eventually gets
> paid for by the consumer/wage-earner.
>
> There *IS NO* "tax on business."  It's just a circumspect way of taxing
> the consumer.  There *is no* "tax on property."  It eventually gets
> passed on to the consumer/wage earner.  No "tax on doing business."  No
> "tax on transactions."  It's *all* a tax on consumers.
> Peace favor your sword (IH)
>
What a sobering realization!

http://www.adl.org/learn/Ext_US/TPM.asp

http://gallatincomt.virtualtownhall.net/Public_Documents/GallatinCoMT_PropTax/00114610-000F8513-00114616

http://www.tax-freedom.com/ta01011.htm

http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/news/s/74/74890_war_tax_protest_lecturer_faces_the_bailiffs.html

Seems like folks have opinions about this topic.

Steve
www.yahsheua.com


Sucka wrote:
> >business."  No
> >> "tax on transactions."  It's *all* a tax on consumers.
> >> Peace favor your sword (IH)
> >>
> >What a sobering realization!
>
> Gee...only about 3 years after I first had this argument and said the
same
> thing to Chas.  And yet, he's still not listening.
>
> Trav

I've been saying this since like the mid/late 80's or so to anyone
who'll listen.  Since I know that some taxes are nessasary to fund
things that I want funded I've been arguing for some form of alternate
tax scheme for nearly as long.  Variations of Flat Tax or a National
Sales Tax as flat out replacements for all federal taxation have been
my favorite so far.

Peace favor your sword (IH)

Sucka wrote:
> >
> >I've been saying this since like the mid/late 80's or so to anyone
> >who'll listen
>
> Then it's very ironic that you only took it up here way after I said
it.

I may surprise you to know that I don't read everything you write much
less everything on RMA.

You may note that I've been campaigning for Tax reform here on RMA for
years also.

You may further note that just because I don't mention something on RMA
doesn't mean that I don't mention it elsewhere.


> >Variations of Flat Tax or a National
> >Sales Tax as flat out replacements for all federal taxation have
been
> >my favorite so far.
> >
> >Peace favor your sword (IH)
>
> That's because you don't spend a lot of time thinking.

OK, I'm willing to hear your ideas on an alternate tax plan.  Whataya
got?

Peace favor your sword (IH)
Sucka wrote:

> >You may further note that just because I don't mention something on
RMA
> >doesn't mean that I don't mention it elsewhere.
>
> That appears to be your claim.

I invite you to any of the numerous forums that I currently participate
in or have in the past.  :P


> We went over this already.
>
> When I correctly pointed out that a sales tax, to be non-regressive,
must make
> some exclusion for REAL cost-of-living and necesary staples, you
people started
> your 3 monkeys chanting.
>
> You don't really want to have a discussion, you want to impress us
all with
> your deep thinking.  The problem is, the thinking isn't all that
deep.  Sure,
> it's deeper than "things are great the way they are," or "we should
have NO
> taxes."  But it's not nearly deep enough to be taken seriously.
>
> Flat and sales taxes screw the poor.  Period.  If that's what you
want to do,
> then say so.
>
> Trav

Dude, if you'll recall, I agreed that this was a valid point and easily
addressed by a "Cost of Living Refund" or a "Cost of Living Deductable"
or one of several other easily implemented fixes that have been
suggested by the many people who have given the subject consideration.
Did you forget?

Peace favor your sword (IH)
"Sucka" <travisgod@aol.cominyrface> wrote
> Corporations are MADE UP OF THE LIVING, you retard.

No they're not- it's a legal fiction independent of it's 'living'
components.
I thought you would have known that, counselor.

Chas

><travisgod@aol.cominyrface> wrote
>> Corporations are MADE UP OF THE LIVING, you retard.
>
>No they're not- it's a legal fiction independent of it's 'living'
>components.

Can you READ?!?!

A corporation is MADE UP OF PEOPLE.  Officers and shareholders.

READ.

Trav
"Chas" <chasclementsSPOOF@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:zrSdnadAi8MYBnPcRVn-sw@comcast.com...
> "Sucka" <travisgod@aol.cominyrface> wrote
>>>> Corporations are MADE UP OF THE LIVING, you retard.
>>>No they're not- it's a legal fiction independent of it's 'living'
>>>components.
>> A corporation is MADE UP OF PEOPLE.  Officers and shareholders.
>
> No; a corporation exists independently of it's human component- that's why
> they call them 'in-corporations'. It is a legal fiction that there's an
> entity there- a corporeal substance of some sort.
> They exist for no other reason than to transcend the human lifespan.
>
> Chas
Actually, I think corporations exist in legal fiction to circumvent the Law
and create a jurisdictional nexus in Roman Private Law that has morphed into
our Admiralty/Maritime jurisdiction formed in 1938 and codified as the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that is mirrored in all the Civil Rules in
each of the compact STATES.  The 14th Amendment created the legal fiction of
"personhood" and assigned certain privileges somewhat parallel with the
Rights of the People guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.
Fiction of Law. The assumption that a certain thing is true, and which gives
to a person or thing, a quality which is not natural to it, and establishes,
consequently, a certain disposition, which, without the fiction, would be
repugnant to reason and to truth.

            It is an order of things which does not exist, but which the law
prescribe; or authorizes it differs from presumption, because it establishes
as true, something which is false; whereas presumption supplies the proof of
something true. Dalloz, Dict. h.t. See 1 Toull. 171, n. 203; 2 Toull. 217,
n. 203; 11 Toull. 11, n. 10, note 2; Ferguson, Moral Philosophy, part 5, c.
10, s. 3 Burgess on Insolvency, 139, 140; Report of the Revisers of the
Civil Code of Pennsylvania, March 1, 1832, p. 8.

            2.         The law never feigns what is impossible fictum est id
quod factum non est sed fieri potuit. Fiction is like art; it imitates
nature, but never disfigures it, it aids truth, but it ought never to
destroy it. It may well suppose that what was possible, but which is not,
exists; but it will never feign that what was impossible, actually is. D'Aguesseau,
Oeuvres, tome iv. page 427, 47e Plaidoyer.

            3.         Fictions were invented by the Roman praetors, who,
not possessing the power to abrogate the law, were nevertheless willing to
derogate from it, under the pretence of doing equity. Fiction is the
resource of weakness, which, in order to obtain its object, assumes as a
fact, what is known to be contrary to truth: when the legislator desires to
accomplish his object, he need not feign, he commands. Fictions of law owe
their origin to the legislative usurpations of the bench. 4 Benth. Ev. 300.

            4.         It is said that every fiction must be framed
according to the rules of law, and that every legal fiction must have equity
for its object. 10 Co. 42; 10 Price's R. 154; Cowp. 177. To prevent, their
evil effects, they are not allowed to be carried further than the reasons
which introduced them necessarily require. 1 Lill. Ab. 610; Hawk. 320; Best
on Pres. Sec. 20.

            5.         The law abounds in fictions. That an estate is in
abeyance; the doctrine of remitter, by which a party who has been disseised
of his freehold, and afterwards acquires a defective title, is remitted to
his former good title; that one thing done today, is considered as done, at
a preceding time by the doctrine of relation; that, because one thing is
proved, another shall be presumed to be true, which is the case in all
presumptions; that the heir, executor, and administrator stand by
representation, in the place of the deceased are all fictions of law. "Our
various introduction of John Doe and Richard Roe," says Mr. Evans, (Poth. on
Ob. by Evans, vol. n. p. 43,) "our solemn process upon disseisin by Hugh
Hunt; our casually losing and finding a ship (which never was in Europe) in
the parish of St. Mary Le Bow, in the ward of Cheap; our trying the validity
of a will by an imaginary, wager of five pounds; our imagining and
compassing the king's death, by giving information which may defeat an
attack upon an enemy's settlement in the antipodes our charge of picking a
pocket, or forging a bill with force and arms; of neglecting to repair a
bridge, against the peace of our lord the king, his crown and dignity are
circumstances, which, looked at by themselves, would convey an impression of
no very favorable nature, with respect to the wisdom of our jurisprudence."
Vide 13 Vin. Ab. 209; Merl. Rep. h.t.; Dane's Ab. Index, h.t.; and Rey, des
Inst. de I'Angl. tome 2, p. 219, where he severely cesures these fictions as
absurd and useless.

____________________________________________


You'll find 'person' defined in each of the modern United States/STATES
codes that follows this language:

10-3-1102.  Definitions. As used in this part 11, unless the context
otherwise requires:
 (1)  "Commissioner" means the commissioner of insurance.
 (2)  "Insurance policy" or "insurance contract" means any contract of
insurance, indemnity, medical or hospital service, suretyship, or annuity
issued, proposed for issuance, or intended for issuance by any person.
 (2.5)  Repealed.
 (3)  "Person" means any individual, corporation, association, partnership,
reciprocal exchange, interinsurer, Lloyds insurer, nonadmitted insurer,
fraternal benefit society, and other legal entities engaged in the insurance
business, including agents, limited insurance representatives, agencies,
brokers, surplus line brokers, and adjusters.  Such term shall also include
medical service plans and hospital service plans regulated under parts 1 and
3 of article 16 of this title and health maintenance organizations regulated
under parts 1 and 4 of article 16 of this title.

Strawman:  A "front"; a third party who is put up in name only to take part
in a transaction.  Nominal party to a transaction; one who acts as an agent
for another for the purpose of taking title to real property and executing
whatever documents and instruments the principal may direct respecting the
property.  Person who purchases property for another to conceal identity of
real purchaser, or to accomplish some purpose otherwise not allowed.



Stramineus homo:  A man of straw, one of no substance, put forward as bail
or surety.



Person:  A statutory term that may include labor organizations,
partnerships, associations, corporations, legal representatives, trustees,
trustees in bankruptcy or receivers.  Scope and delineation of term is
necessary for determining those to whom Fourteenth Amendment of Constitution
affords protection since this Amendment expressly applies to "person."
ARAPAHOE COUNTY is a "person" pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

 ____________________________________________

"The global economy has become like a malignant cancer, advancing the
colonization of the planet's living spaces for the benefit of powerful
corporations and financial institutions. It has turned these once useful
institutions into instruments of a market tyranny that is destroying
livelihoods, displacing people, and feeding on life in an insatiable quest
for money. It forces us all to act in ways destructive of ourselves, our
families, our communities, and nature. Human survival depends on a
community-based, people-centered alternative beyond the failed extremist
ideologies of communism and capitalism. This alternative is already being
created through the initiatives of millions of people around the world who
are taking back control of their lives and communities to create places
where people can live and grow in balance with the living earth. When
Corporations Rule the World provides an agenda of national and global
reforms by which we may reclaim our power to localize our economies while
globalizing our consciousness." -David C. Korten


Based on excerpts from When Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten
Kumarian Press and Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1995

http://deoxy.org/pc.htm



>
>The way the Constitution describes how they'll pay for it; excises, imposts,
>duties and levees.

They amended the Constitution, you fking idiot.

>The special interests, primarily of
>corporations, were able to buy their way out of taxation through our
>politicians.

Moron.  We've been over this before.

>And, by the way, Social Security is separate from taxation, and roads are
>fixed by separate funds as well.
>
>Chas

No, they aren't.

Trav
"Melissa" <melissa@colorado.xxx> wrote in message
news:41ef3a87$1_4@omega.dimensional.com...
> "Chas" <chasclementsSPOOF@comcast.net>  wrote :
>
>> "GreenDistantStar" <greendistantstar@bigpond.com> wrote
>>> How you going to pay welfare or social security, fix roads, have a
>>> viable defence system without taxes?
>>
>> The way the Constitution describes how they'll pay for it; excises,
>> imposts, duties and levees.
>> The 'income tax' was originally a tax on business- now 'business
>> expenses' are exempted and *wages* are taxed. The special interests,
>> primarily of corporations, were able to buy their way out of taxation
>> through our politicians.
>> Nothing about the income tax is legal or Constitutional.
>
> Gosh you almost sound like a libertarian sometimes.
>
>
>
> --
> Yours In Liberty,  Melissa  - Colorado, U.S.A.
> http://melissasliberty.blogspot.com/
>
> The last best hope for liberty, to give the world its first Bill of
> Rights:  http://www.UPAlliance.org/billofrights.htm
Why Taxes Really Are a Bad Thing
by Tibor R. Machan
      This is one of my favorite topics because I like to tell it like it is
even when so many fashionable folks think I am way off base. You've heard it
before, I am sure - taxes are the price we pay for civilization. Bunk -
that's a ruse someone who loved big government dearly tried to perpetrate
and, yes, one with which he managed to fool quite a lot of people. Millions
still believe that taxes are necessary just to have a decent community.

      Well, here is what's wrong with that. Even the most vital services
governments provide can be bought instead of extorted from us. There is no
free rider problem - meaning, because some pay for something others can use,
others will stubbornly refuse to contribute - and even if there were one, it
wouldn't justify extortion.

      What folks don't seem to understand is that a truly just society is a
place where people can live without having to deny their basic humanity. And
our humanity consists primarily in needing to be free of other people's
oppression. That is why slavery was such a vicious institution. That is why
oppression is so terrible, be it by one bloke, a party, or a majority. That
is why any kind of coercion must be banned. People require, for their
flourishing, to be free to choose and when this freedom is impeded, even
just a little bit, their humanity is being assaulted.

      The fact that in most of human history people lived under oppression
doesn't in the slightest undermine the moral point I am making here.
Throughout history there has also been theft, rape, robbery, murder, assault
and all kinds of related evils, yet no one would seriously argue that those
are just part of the price we pay for civilization. That's because it is
clear cut enough that these practices are evil.

      Yet what is taxation but imposing an ongoing, heavy burden on persons
without their consent, just so that they may be allowed to make a living,
own property, and buy and sell goods in the market place.

      Sure, there are services that make working free of intrusion more
likely and these services cost something. But we should only have to pay and
get these services if we choose to do so. That is what civilized life
requires. We should be able to try doing without the services and suffer the
consequences.

      But most of us would not try to live without cops, courts, and the
military, all of which make working, owning property, trading things and
stuff more convenient. And we can arrange to obtain these services without
deploying any kind of coercive force, contrary to those who try to peddle to
us the notion that extortion and coercion are needed so as to reduce, well,
extortion and coercion. That is just nonsense.

      OK, so it hasn't been tried too often to get the legal services that
governments provide without extracting funds for this coercively, at the
point of a gun. Taxes are common, so they are widely thought to be
necessary, but this is where the big mistake lies.

      Why, however, would so many bright enough people insist that taxation
is necessary and moral?

      In her first novel, We The Living, Ayn Rand has one of her characters
ask, "And what is the state but a servant and a convenience for a large
number of people, just like the electric light and the plumbing system? And
wouldn't it be preposterous to claim that men must exist for their plumbing,
not the plumbing for the men."

      Yes it would be, but there are many, many people who love the idea of
ripping off the rest so as to get greater control of the world around them,
including of other people. And these folks want to peddle the idea that
someone must be authorized to extract from the rest of us funds and labor
time and goods and services so as to do certain kinds of good things.

      They start by saying, "Well, we must have such extractions so as to
provide us with the police, the military and the courts." But they never end
there. Once they have gotten millions of us to say, "Oh, yes, those things
are vital, so you go ahead and use coercion to get them," they proceed to
say, "Well, now that we have the authority to use coercion, why not use it
for all kinds of purposes other than providing security?" And the state then
grows and grows and grows and the moral argument for the original extraction
has been lost.

      As I said, the whole thing is a ruse and it is about time for folks to
recognize it. The main reason taxation actually prevails is that we haven't
yet fully grasped the implication of asserting individual rights and
rejecting the divine rights of kings and the supremacy of government. We
need, in other words, to extend the American revolution to its logical
conclusion.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------

      Machan, who teaches at Chapman University in Orange, California,
advises Freedom Communications, Inc., on public policy matters. His most
recent book is The Passion for Liberty (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). His
email address is Machan@chapman.edu.

      -30-

GreenDistantStar wrote:
> <invitation to cross-post declined>

> Seems a bit convenient that you, a believer in no taxation,

Many of us libertarian types would settle quite happily for a taxation
that didn't include welfare, was more fairly distributed, and more
fairly administered.


> just somehow
> stumbled into this situation. Still, it worked to make this on-topic,
you
> sly gal, you.

On Topic?  HEY NOW!!!!


> Watcha wearin'? Anyway.....

Crotchles Leather Hakama, why?

...oh... You mean what's Melissa wearing.  My bad...


> Lots of people here aren't from the USA. That never occurred to you,
did it?

Ideally we'll get you all to join as states and then be able to enjoy
the same enumerated rights as we do.  First, Second, etc...

The States of Canada, Mexico, England, Australia, etc.  (New Zealand
seems to be mostly getting by so I guess we'll make their joining
"voluntary"...)


> How you going to pay welfare or social security,

You won't.  That's be personal responsability or from truely freely
chosen charitable donation.


> fix roads,

Historically, private concerns took care of their own roads.


> have a viable defence system without taxes?

Historically private concerns covered this.  Well, for a short while
anyhow.  Did you know that at first U.S. soldiers (well, Contenental
Army) were required to provide their own firearms?


> Wait for Donald Trump and Bill Gates to make donations?

I have no doubt that Bill Gates would fund his own army if A) He could
legally do so  B) He thought it would help his business.
Peace favor your sword (IH)
"Badger North" <young_forest@REEEMOVEhotmail.com> wrote in message
news:kvcqu0d1e45nepv98bulkt6bsprre2gkd1@4ax.com...
> On 18 Jan 2005 06:45:20 -0800, lklawson@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>>The States of Canada, Mexico, England, Australia, etc.  (New Zealand
>>seems to be mostly getting by so I guess we'll make their joining
>>"voluntary"...)
>
> I was reading something the other day that opined that if the US
> hadn't attacked us during the War of 1812, it is doubtful that there
> would have been the rise in nationalism that culminated in our
> confederation as a country in 1867.  We would probably have become
> part of the US.
>
> Badger Jones
> www.youngforest.ca

I've noticed that our *government* has a penchant for alienating everyone
else on the planet.  The War of 1812 was the one where the Lawyers took
over.  Everything went to hell in a handbasket after that.  Once a lawyer
was elected president, America has been in a continual state of emergency
and war.  Count your blessings.
http://users.frii.com/gosplow/13th.html

Steve Gartin
www.docslaw.com/RICO.pdf


"GreenDistantStar" <greendistantstar@bigpond.com> wrote in message
news:b56Hd.123227$K7.75223@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> <invitation to cross-post declined>
>
> "Melissa" <melissa@colorado.xxx> wrote in message
> news:41eb3742$1_1@omega.dimensional.com...
>> http://melissasliberty.blogspot.com/
>>
>> Sunday, January 16, 2005
>> "A Serious Crime"?
>>
>> "Beware strong drink, it can lead one to shoot at tax collectors...and
>> miss!" - Robert A Heinlein
>>
>> I was visiting a martial arts school recently and looking at their
>> impressive lineage chart. Such charts can be extremely detailed, and can
>> go
>> back hundreds of years to the roots of the system that the school
>> teaches,
>> showing the line of teachers who taught other teachers, down to the
>> present
>> teacher.
>>
>> So I was looking at this chart and noticed that one of the lines was
>> dashed, instead of solid. I asked why. Some of the students told me that
>> the particular lineage line was now broken, because one of the teachers
>> was
>> being removed from the lineage of the school, kicked out of it. I asked
>> why
>> they would do that. They said, for dishonoring the school. It seems he
>> committed a crime and was sent to prison. I asked if it was a big crime
>> or
>> a little crime, after all so many people are sent to prison for
>> victimless
>> "crimes" where no one was even harmed, like drugs, prostitution,
>> gambling,
>> drinking alcohol, etc.
>>
>> No, they said, this was a "serious crime", the teacher had committed tax
>> evasion. I almost fell over. Tax evasion, a "serious crime"? These

http://www.givemeliberty.org/WTP-tv/default.htm  ~ go down to the free link
for *video #1*  It's about an hour and a half of interesting information for
folks who don't know the truth about *income* taxes.

>> students
>> apparently hadn't met the libertarians that I had, who consider taxation
>> to
>> be the moral equivalent of slavery and involuntary servitude and
>> therefore
>> a violation of the 13th Amendment.
>>
>> Amendment XIII.
>>
>> 1 Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for
>> crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist
>> within
>> the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 2 Congress
>> shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
>>
>> You see, by forcing people to work against their will to support the
>> government for an average of 40% of each year in this country, it amounts
>> to involuntary servitude and slavery. Many libertarians feel that in a
>> truly free country, there would only be as much government as people
>> would
>> voluntarily support, in other words the amount that could run solely on
>> voluntary, optionally earmarked contributions.
>>

Our Constitution provides for government funded by impost and excise tax on
foreign trade.
Section 8.


The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and
Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general
Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be
uniform throughout the United States;


>> They feel that forcing people to support every whim of the government
>> amounts to slavery and involuntary servitude, and that any amount of
>> government that people wouldn't voluntarily support, doesn't deserve to
>> exist.
>>
>> So many libertarians would see that teacher as the equivalent of someone
>> living in a society where they had slavery, who was refusing to be
>> enslaved, or "evading" slavery.
>>
>> A "serious crime"? Whew.
>>
You think that is outrageous, *they* threw Chas and I in jail for a First
Amendment Petition for Redress of Grievance.
www.docslaw.com/images/AndersonCharges.pdf

>> For a minute there I thought the teacher had raped or murdered someone.
>
> Seems a bit convenient that you, a believer in no taxation, just somehow
> stumbled into this situation. Still, it worked to make this on-topic, you
> sly gal, you. Watcha wearin'? Anyway.....
>
> Lots of people here aren't from the USA. That never occurred to you, did
> it?
>
> How you going to pay welfare or social security, fix roads, have a viable
> defence system without taxes?
>
> Wait for Donald Trump and Bill Gates to make donations?
>
> GDS
>
Simple ~ instead of giving tax breaks and foreign aid to multiNational
corporations, allow them to pay the taxes that *ARE* authorized by the
United States Constitution.

Steve Gartin
www.jointterrorismtaskforce.com


<tN.O-S.P_A*Mwest@reasontofreedom.com> wrote in message
news:1105997318.827460.25050@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> These crimes that are not crimes cause a huge amount of damage, far
> greater than the tsunamis of the world.  I like the Rational Review
> approach to enforce the Bill of Rights.  Any official who violates the
> BOR gets prosecuted for a high crime.
>
> http://www.rationalreview.com/guest/090804.shtml
>
> Truman West
> Writer
> from Reason to Freedom
> http://www.ReasonToFreedom.com/
>
Freneau -- How did he know all this 200 years ago?


Volume (?)
1784-1796

Organizing the New Nation

THE ANNALS OF AMERICA
---------------------
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.

100

Philip Freneau
Rules for Changing
a Republic [into a Democracy, then] into a Monarchy

Those who had opposed the constitution thought their fears justified by the
conduct of the government that began to function in 1789. Under the
aggressive leadership of Alexander Hamilton, the secretary of the treasury,
economic measures were taken that favored the few, while a effective party
machine was organized and the army strengthened in such a way as to suggest
an intent to control rather than to represent the many. The whole tone of
Washington's administration was aristocratic, favoring as it did the
educated, the wealthy, the clergy, and the press, who were fearful of "mob
rule" and preferred to see what Hamilton called "gentlemen of principle and
property" in command. As Hamilton had at his service a newspaper - John
Fenno's Gazette of the United States - to support his policies, his
opponents, led by Jefferson and Madison, decided to establish a rival
newspaper, the National Gazette. Philip Freneau, an experienced journalist
of known democratic leanings, was chosen to edit the paper. The editorial,
reprinted here, is typical of those in which Freneau criticized the
Hamiltonian program from 1791 to 1793.

Source: American Museum, July 1792: "Rules for Changing a Limited Republican
Government into an Unlimited Hereditary One."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rules for changing a limited republican government into an unlimited
hereditary one.
1. It being necessary in order to effect the change, to get rid of
constitutional shackles and popular prejudices, all possible means and
occasions are to be used for both these purposes.

2. Nothing being more likely to prepare the vulgar mind for aristocratical
ranks and hereditary powers than titles, endeavor in the offset of the
government to confer these on its most dignified officers. If the principal
magistrate should happen to be particularly venerable in the eyes of the
people, take advantage of that fortunate circumstance in setting the
example.

3. Should the attempt fail through his republican aversion to it, or from
the danger of alarming the people, do not abandon the enterprise altogether,
but lay up the proposition in the record. Time may gain it respect, and it
will be there always ready, cut and dried, for any favorable conjuncture
that may offer.

4. In drawing all bills, resolutions, and reports, keep constantly in view
that the limitations in the Constitution are ultimately to be explained
away. Precedents and phrases may thus be shuffled in, without being adverted
to by candid or weak people, of which good use may afterward be made.

5. As the novelty and bustle of inaugurating the government will for some
time keep the public mind in a heedless and unsettled state, let the press
during this period be busy in propagating the doctrines of monarchy and
aristocracy. For this purpose it will be particular useful to confound a
mobbish democracy with a representative republic, that by exhibiting all the
turbulent examples and enormities of the former, an odium may be thrown on
the character of the latter. Review all the civil contests, convulsions,
factions, broils, squabbles, bickering, black eyes, and bloody noses of
ancient, middle, and modern ages; caricature them into the most frightful
forms and colors that can be imagined, and unfold one scene of horrible
tragedy after another till the people be made, if possible, to tremble at
their own shadows. Let the discourses on Davila then contrast with these
pictures of terror the quiet hereditary succession, the reverence claimed by
birth and nobility, and the fascinating influence of stars, and ribands, and
garters, cautiously suppressing all the bloody tragedies and unceasing
oppressions which form the history of this species of government. No pains
should be spared in this part of the undertaking, for the greatest will be
wanted, it being extremely difficult, especially when a people have been
taught to reason and feel their rights, to convince them that a king, who is
always an enemy to the people, and a nobility, who are perhaps still more
so, will take better care of the people than the people will take of
themselves.

6. But the grand nostrum will be a public debt, provided enough of it can be
got and it be medicated with the proper ingredients. If by good fortune a
debt be ready at hand, the most is to be made of it. Stretch it and swell it
to the utmost the items will bear. Allow as many extra claims as decency
will permit. Assume all the debts of your neighbors - in a word, get as much
debt as can be raked and scraped together, and when you have got all you
can, "advertise" for more, and have the debt made as big as possible. This
object being accomplished, the next will be to make it as perpetual as
possible; and the next to that, to get it into as few hands as possible. The
more effectually to bring this about, modify the debt, complicate it, divide
it, subdivide it, subtract it, postpone it, let there be one-third of
two-thirds, and two-thirds of one-third, and two-thirds of two-thirds; let
there be 3 percents, and 4 percents, and 6 percents, and present 6 percents,
and future 6 percents. To be brief, let the whole be such a mystery that a
few only can understand it; and let all possible opportunities and
informations fall in the way of these few to cinch their advantages over the
many.

7. It must not be forgotten that the members of the legislative body are to
have a deep stake in the game. This is an essential point, and happily is
attended with no difficulty. A sufficient number, properly disposed, can
alternately legislate and speculate, and speculate and legislate, and buy
and sell, and sell and buy, until a due portion of the property of their
constituents has passed into their hands to give them an interest against
their constituents, and to ensure the part they are to act. All this,
however, must be carried on under the cover of the closest secrecy; and it
is particularly lucky that dealings in paper admit of more secrecy that any
other. Should a discovery take place, the whole plan may be blown up.

8. The ways in which a great debt, so constituted and applied, will
contribute to the ultimate end in view are both numerous and obvious. (1)
The favorite few, thus possessed of it, whether within or without the
government, will feel the staunchest fealty to it, and will go through thick
and thin to support it in all its oppressions and usurpations. (2) Their
money will give them consequence and influence, even among those who have
been tricked out of it. (3) They will be the readiest materials that can be
found for a hereditary aristocratic order, whenever matters are ripe for
one. (4) A great debt will require great taxes; great taxes, many
taxgatherers and other officers; and all officers are auxiliaries of power.
(5) Heavy taxes may produce discontents; these may threaten resistance; and
in proportion to this danger will be the pretense for a standing army to
repel it. (6) A standing army, in its turn, will increase the moral force of
the government by means of its appointments, and give it physical force by
means of the sword, thus doubly forwarding the main object.

9. The management of a great funded debt and a extensive system of taxes
will afford a plea, not to be neglected, for establishment of a great
incorporated bank. the use of such a machine is well understood. If the
Constitution, according to its fair meaning, should not authorize it, so
much the better. Push it through by a forced meaning and you will get in the
bargain an admirable precedent for future misconstructions.

In fashioning the bank, remember that it is to be made particularly
instrumental in enriching and aggrandizing the elect few, who are to be
called in due season to the honors and felicities of the kingdom preparing
for them, and who are the pillars that must support it. It will be easy to
throw the benefit entirely into their hands, and to make it a solid addition
of 50, or 60, or 70 percent to their former capitals of 800 percent, or 900
percent, without costing them a shilling; while it will be difficult to
explain to the people that this gain of the few is at the cost of the many,
that the contrary may be boldly and safely pretended. The bank will be
pregnant with other important advantages. It will admit the same men to be,
at the same time, members of the bank and members of the government. The two
institutions will thus be soldered together, and each made stronger. Money
will be put under the direction of the government, and government under the
direction of money. To crown the whole, the bank will have a proper interest
in swelling and perpetuating the public debt and public taxes, with all the
blessings of both, because its agency and its profits will be extended in
exact proportion.

10. "Divide and govern" is a maxim consecrated by the experience of ages,
and should be familiar in its use to every politician as the knife he
carries in his pocket. In the work here to be executed, the best effects may
be produced by this maxim, and with peculiar facility. An extensive republic
made up of lesser republics necessarily contains various sorts of people,
distinguished by local and other interests and prejudices. Let the whole
group be well examined in all its parts and relations, geographical and
political, metaphysical and metaphorical; let there be first a northern and
a southern section, by a line running east and west, and then an eastern and
western section, by a line running north and south. By a suitable
nomenclature, the landholders cultivating different articles can be
discriminated from one another, all from the class of merchants, and both
from that of manufacturers.

One of the subordinate republics may be represented as a commercial state,
another as a navigation state, another as a manufacturing state, others as
agricultural states; and although the great body of people in each be really
agricultural, and the other characters be more or less common to all, still
it will be politic to take advantage of such an arrangement. Should the
members of the great republic be of different sizes, and subject to little
jealousies on that account, another important division will be ready formed
to your hand. Add again the division that may be carved out of personal
interests, political opinions, and local parties. With so convenient an
assortment of votes, especially with the help of the marked ones, a majority
may be packed for any question with as much ease as the odd trick by an
adroit gamester, and any measure whatever carried or defeated, as the great
revolution to be brought about may require.

It is only necessary, therefore, to recommend that full use be made of the
resource; and to remark that, besides the direct benefit to be drawn from
these artificial divisions, they will tend to smother the true and natural
one, existing in all societies, between the few who are always impatient of
political equality and the many who can never rise above it; between those
who are to mount to the prerogatives and those who are to be saddled with
the burdens of the hereditary government to be introduced - in one word,
between the general mass of the people, attached to their republican
government and republican interests, and the chosen band devoted to monarchy
and Mammon. It is of infinite importance that this distinction should be
kept out of sight. The success of the project absolutely requires it.

11. As soon as sufficient progress in the intended change shall have been
made, and the public mind duly prepared according to the rules already laid
down, it will be proper to venture on another and a bolder step toward a
removal of the constitutional landmarks. Here the aid of the former
encroachments and all the other precedents and way-paving maneuvers will be
called in of course. But, in order to render the success more certain, it
will be of special moment to give the most plausible and popular name that
can be found to the power that is to be usurped. It may be called, for
example, a power for the common safety or the public good, or, "the general
welfare." If the people should not be too much enlightened, the name will
have a most imposing effect. It will escape attention that it means, in
fact, the same thing with a power to do anything the government pleases "in
all cases whatsoever." To oppose the power may consequently seem to the
ignorant, and be called by artful, opposing the "general welfare", and may
be cried down under that deception.

As the people, however, may not run so readily into the snare as might be
wished, it will be prudent to bait it well with some specious popular
interest, such as the encouragement of manufactures, or even of agriculture,
taking due care not even to mention any unpopular object to which the power
is equally applicable, such as religion, etc.. By this contrivance,
particular classes of people may possibly be taken in who will be a valuable
reinforcement.

With respect to the patronage of agriculture there is not indeed much to be
expected from it. It will be too quickly seen through by the owners and
tillers of the soil, that to tax them with one hand and pay back a part only
with the other is a losing game on their side. From the power over
manufactures more is to be hoped. It will not be so easily perceived that
the premium bestowed may not be equal to the circuitous tax on consumption
which pays it. There are particular reasons, too, for pushing the experiment
on this class of citizens.

(1) As they live in towns and can act together , it is of vast consequence
to gain them over to the interest of monarchy. (2) If the power over them be
once established, the government can grant favors or monopolies, as it
pleases; can raise or depress this or that place, as it pleases; in a word,
by creating a dependence in so numerous and important a class of citizens,
it will increase its own independence of every class and be more free to
pursue the grand object in contemplation. (3) The expense of this operation
will not in the end cost the government a shilling, for the moment any
branch of manufacture has been brought to a state of tolerable maturity the
exciseman will be ready with his constable and his search warrant to demand
a reimbursement, and as much more as can be squeezed out of the article. All
this, it is to be remembered, supposes that the manufacturers will be weak
enough to be cheated, in some respects, out of their own interests, and
wicked enough, in others, to betray those of their fellow citizens; a
supposition that, if known, would totally mar the experiment. Great care,
therefore, must be taken to prevent it from leaking out.

12. The expediency of seizing every occasion of external danger for
augmenting and perpetuating the standing military force is too obvious to
escape. So important is this matter that for any loss or disaster whatever
attending the national arms, there will be ample consolation and
compensation in the opportunity for enlarging the establishment. A military
defeat will become a political victory, and the loss of a little vulgar
blood contribute to ennoble that which flows in the veins of our future
dukes and marquesses.

13. The same prudence will improve the opportunity afforded by an increase
of military expenditures for perpetuating the taxes required for them. If
the inconsistency and absurdity of establishing a perpetual tax for a
temporary service should produce any difficulty in the business, Rule 10
must be resorted to. Throw in as many extraneous motives as will make up a
majority, and the thing is effected in an instant. What was before evil
would become good as easily as black could be made white by the same magical
operation.

14. Throughout this great undertaking it will be wise to have some
particular model constantly in view. The work can then be carried on more
systematically, and every measure be fortified, in the progress, by apt
illustrations and authorities. Should there exist a particular monarchy
against which there are fewer prejudices than against any other, should it
contain a mixture of the representative principle so as to present on one
side the semblance of a republican aspect, should it, moreover, have a
great, funded, complicated, irredeemable debt, with all the apparatus and
appurtenances of excises, banks, etc., upon that a steady eye is to be kept.
In all cases it will assist, and in most its statute books will furnish a
precise pattern by which there may be cut out any moneyed or monarchical
project that may be wanted.

15. As it is not to be expected that the change of a republic into a
monarchy, with the rapidity desired can be carried through without
occasional suspicions and alarms, it will be necessary to be prepared for
such events. The best general rule on the subject is to be taken from the
example of crying "Stop thief" first - neither lungs nor pens must be spared
in charging every man who whispers, or even thinks, that the revolution on
foot is meditated, with being himself an enemy to the established government
and meaning to overturn it. Let the charge be reiterated and reverberated
till at last such confusion and uncertainty be produced that the people,
being not able to find out where the truth lies, withdraw their attention
from the contest.

Many other rules of great wisdom and efficacy might be added; but it is
conceived that the above will be abundantly enough for the purpose. This
will certainly be the case if the people can be either kept asleep so as not
to discover, or be thrown into artificial divisions so as not to resist,
what is silently going forward. Should it be found impossible, however, to
prevent the people from awaking and uniting; should all artificial
distinctions give way to the natural divisions between the lordly minded few
and the well-disposed many; should all who have common interest make a
common cause and show a inflexible attachment to republicanism in opposition
to a government of monarchy and or money, why then.....



"GreenDistantStar" <greendistantstar@bigpond.com>  wrote :

> Seems a bit convenient that you, a believer in no taxation, just somehow
> stumbled into this situation. Still, it worked to make this on-topic,
> you sly gal, you. Watcha wearin'? Anyway.....

Nothin'. :)


--
Your Very Superior Denver Mistress

> How you going to pay welfare or social security, fix roads, have a viable
> defence system without taxes?
>
By putting the homeless to work.
>

On 18 Jan 2005 06:45:20 -0800, lklawson@my-deja.com wrote:

>The States of Canada, Mexico, England, Australia, etc.  (New Zealand
>seems to be mostly getting by so I guess we'll make their joining
>"voluntary"...)

I was reading something the other day that opined that if the US
hadn't attacked us during the War of 1812, it is doubtful that there
would have been the rise in nationalism that culminated in our
confederation as a country in 1867.  We would probably have become
part of the US.

Badger Jones
www.youngforest.ca
"Melissa" <melissa@colorado.xxx> wrote
> Gosh you almost sound like a libertarian sometimes.

I am a 'libertarian', just not an 'objectivist'.
The reason for a social contract is to enable and benefit, not to isolate
and reject. I'm a domestic liberal and a foreign policy conservative
(kinda).

chas

"Chas" <chasclementsSPOOF@comcast.net>  wrote :

> "GreenDistantStar" <greendistantstar@bigpond.com> wrote
>> How you going to pay welfare or social security, fix roads, have a
>> viable defence system without taxes?
>
> The way the Constitution describes how they'll pay for it; excises,
> imposts, duties and levees.
> The 'income tax' was originally a tax on business- now 'business
> expenses' are exempted and *wages* are taxed. The special interests,
> primarily of corporations, were able to buy their way out of taxation
> through our politicians.
> Nothing about the income tax is legal or Constitutional.

Gosh you almost sound like a libertarian sometimes.



--
Yours In Liberty,  Melissa  - Colorado, U.S.A.
http://melissasliberty.blogspot.com/

The last best hope for liberty, to give the world its first Bill of
Rights:  http://www.UPAlliance.org/billofrights.htm
>
>"Tax on business" is *always* a tax on income.  The actual cost of the
>tax *is* considered just another "business expense" and passed along to
>the consumer and the employee through higher product cost and lower
>wages just as every other business expense is.  I

The only exception would be if the government siezed the production assets of a
corporation, such as oil, coal, gas, or timber, or some other "new wealth"
commodity and sold it themselves for market prices.

This would not be passed onto the consumer as it would not affect the supply of
the good.  However, adding a levy on top of the existing supply, "taxing the
corporation," DOES get passed onto the consumer as an inherent cost unless
their are corporations which do not pay the tax (they all do).

The government has to appropriate profits if they're going to not tax
consumers.  Yes, this will end up costing employees money, but for heavily
automated businesses, the costs are mitigated.

At some point, some population of people ends up paying for everything cuz
we're the only THINGS working around here.  Soon as robots have bank accounts,
we can tax them.

Trav

Trav
"Sucka" <travisgod@aol.cominyrface> wrote
>>> Corporations are MADE UP OF THE LIVING, you retard.
>>No they're not- it's a legal fiction independent of it's 'living'
>>components.
> A corporation is MADE UP OF PEOPLE.  Officers and shareholders.

No; a corporation exists independently of it's human component- that's why
they call them 'in-corporations'. It is a legal fiction that there's an
entity there- a corporeal substance of some sort.
They exist for no other reason than to transcend the human lifespan.

Chas

"Chas" <chasclementsSPOOF@comcast.net> wrote in message
> "Sucka" <travisgod@aol.cominyrface> wrote
>> Corporations are MADE UP OF THE LIVING, you retard.
>
> No they're not- it's a legal fiction independent of it's 'living'
> components.
> I thought you would have known that, counselor.
>
> Chas

"The Tax Code represents the genius of legal fiction...The I.R.S. has never
really known why people pay income taxes...The IRS encourages voluntary
compliance, through fear."

--Jack Warren Wade Jr., former IRS officer in charge of the IRS' nationwide
Revenue Officer training program.

http://www.civil-liberties.com/pages/legal_fiction.htm

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

  I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes
me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . Corporations have been
enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the
money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working
upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few
hands and the Republic is destroyed.
  -- Abraham Lincoln (quoted in Jack London's "The Iron Heel")


http://www.ratical.org/corporations/TransNCnotes.html

 http://www.detaxcanada.org/intro.htm
http://www.afd-minnesota.org/action/gathering/dcobb.htm

http://www.bc.edu/schools/law/lawreviews/meta-elements/journals/bcealr/28_4/11_TXT.htm

http://www.wilpf.int.ch/economicjustice/rasmussen.htm

http://www.thevoicenews.com/News/2003/0111/Front_Page/002.html

http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/lawj/law_review/V2_full_text.htm

http://www.foundation.bw/IsAmericaFascist.htm

http://www.iridis.com/tzsb/Person



Flesh and blood man (male or female) with free will status - unlimited
liability/absolute rights of life, liberty and property, and the rights and
liberties in law that are declared within the Magna Carta 1215/1225, are not
"legal identities" called "persons".

"Person" - in law, a legal fiction - a fictional character or a living man
without a controlling volitional (free will) mind. As with an Also Known As,
you can call your own body "my person" with full understanding that it is
totally under the control of your own mind. However, as with an AKA, ONLY
you can assign your body as a "person". No one else, except a jury of your
peers can so do where there is proof that your mind is not functioning in a
moral (lawful) manner, or you knowingly and willingly make a contract with
the Crown to do so; however, such contract with the Crown is only as a
limited liability "person".



The Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) is making this "Model
Legal Brief to Eliminate Corporate Rights" available to help citizen groups
create winning organizing strategies--by stripping constitutional
protections from corporations and preventing them from governing their
communities.
Richard Grossman, co-founder of POCLAD, authored the brief with Thomas
Linzey, Esq., president of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund,
(CELDF) a public interest law firm in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Dan
Brannen, a Santa Fe attorney.
Hyperlink references courtesy of Dave Ratcliffe www.ratical.org.

Preface

This Brief is intended to assist communities organizing to challenge the
United States government's gift of constitutional powers to property
organized as corporations. Accordingly, this Brief is NOT about corporate
responsibility, corporate accountability, corporate ethics, corporate codes
of conduct, good corporate "citizenship," corporate crime, corporate reform,
consumer protection, fixing regulatory agencies, or stakeholders.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
  ___________ DISTRICT OF _____________

  [CASE CITATION]

  DRAFT -- NOT FOR QUOTING OR REPRINTING WITHOUT PERMISSION
  OF THE AUTHORS.

  BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE

  THE COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL DEFENSE FUND, INC.,
  THE PROGRAM ON CORPORATIONS, LAW, AND DEMOCRACY, and
  RICHARD L. GROSSMAN

  SUPPORTING [PARTIES]

              Thomas Alan Linzey, Esq. [1]
              Daniel E. Brannen, Jr., Esq., Of Counsel
              Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, Inc.
              2859 Scotland Road
              Chambersburg, Pennsylvania 17201

              Counsel for Amici Curiae Community Environmental
                          Legal Defense Fund, Inc. and The Program
                          On Corporations, Law, and Democracy

              Richard L. Grossman, pro se




  Table of Contents



  Table of Authorities     [omitted]

  Summary of the Argument

  I. It is Axiomatic That People Secure and Protect Their Inalienable Rights
to Life, Liberty, Happiness, and a Republican Form of Government Through the
Institution of Democratic Governments

  II. Corporations are Created by State Governments as Subordinate, Public
Entities Through the Chartering Process, and Thus Cannot Act to Deny
People's Rights to Safety, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness, or a
Republican Form of Government Within this Nation's Frame of Governance

  III. Over the Past 150 Years, the Judiciary Has "Found" Corporations
Within the U.S. Constitution, and Bestowed Constitutional Rights Upon Them

            A.    "Finding" Corporations in the Fourteenth Amendment


            B.

        Corporations and the Bill of Rights


    (1). "Finding" Corporations in the First Amendment

    (2). "Finding" Corporations in the Fourth Amendment

    (3). "Finding" Corporations in the Fifth Amendment

    (4). "Finding" Corporations in the Contracts and Commerce Clauses
  IV. Corporations Illegitimately Wielding Constitutional Rights of Persons
Against People and Communities Regularly Deny the People Their Inalienable
Rights, Including Their Right to a Republican Form of Government

            A.    Corporate Personhood and the Denial of People's
Inalienable Rights


            B.

        Corporate First Amendment Rights and the Denial of People's
Inalienable Rights


            C.

        Corporate Privacy Rights and the Denial of People's Rights to
Safety, Security, Health, and Welfare


            D.

        Corporate Fifth Amendment Takings and the Denial of People's
Inalienable Rights


            E.

        Corporations Wielding the Contracts and Commerce Clauses Interfere
With the People's Inalienable Right to Life, Liberty, and a Republican Form
of Government

  V. This Court Must Dismiss All Constitutional Claims Brought by [X]
Corporation Against [Y] Government Because the Assertion and Validation of
Those Rights Denies the People's Inalienable Rights, Including Their Right
to a Republican Form of Government

  VI. Conclusion

  Footnotes





  Summary of Argument

            The people of these United States created local, state, and
federal governments to protect, secure, and preserve the people's
inalienable rights, including their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness. It is axiomatic that the people of these United States -- the
source of all governing authority in this nation -- created governments also
to secure the people's inalienable right that the many should govern, not
the few. That guarantee -- of a republican form of government -- provides
the foundation for securing people's other inalienable rights and vindicates
the actions of people and communities seeking to secure those rights.
             Corporations are created by State governments through the
chartering process. As such, corporations are subordinate, public entities
that cannot usurp the authority that the sovereign people have delegated to
the three branches of government. Corporations thus lack the authority to
deny people's inalienable rights, including their right to a republican form
of government, and public officials lack the authority to empower
corporations to deny those rights.
             Over the past 150 years, the Judiciary has "found" corporations
within the people's documents that establish a frame of governance for this
nation, including the United States Constitution. In doing so, Courts have
illegitimately bestowed upon corporations immense constitutional powers of
the Fourteenth, First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments, and the expansive
powers afforded by the Contracts and Commerce Clauses.
             Wielding those constitutional rights and freedoms, corporations
regularly and illegitimately deny the people their inalienable rights,
including their most fundamental right to a republican form of government.
Such denials are beyond the authority of the corporation to exercise.
             Such denials are also beyond the authority of the Courts, or
any other branches of government, to confer.
             Accordingly, the constitutional claims asserted by the [x
corporation] against [y government] must be dismissed because those claims
deny the people's rights to life and liberty, and their fundamental right to
self-governance.

  Argument

  I. It is Axiomatic That People Secure and Protect Their Inalienable Rights
to Life, Liberty, Happiness, and a Republican Form of Government Through the
Institution of Democratic Governments.
             If there is one bedrock principle upon which the people of
these United States established local, state, and federal governments, it is
that governments are instituted to secure and protect the people's
inalienable rights, including their right to a republican form of
government.
             As eloquently proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence,
                         We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Happiness -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among
Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. [2]
              THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE para. 1 (U.S. 1776).


             That principle, echoed by this nation's colonists throughout
the Resolves of the Continental Congress, [3] early state Constitutions, [4]
and the Articles of Confederation, [5] is reflected throughout the writings
of Locke, Hume, Montesquieu [6] that the early colonists used to deepen and
strengthen the American Revolution -- to frame their dispute as one in which
the King and Parliament were incapable of providing a remedy premised on
self-governance. [7]
             The Revolution thus reflected the understanding that people,
otherwise existing in a state of nature, do not relinquish their inalienable
rights when governments are instituted, but that governments are instituted
specifically to guarantee and protect those freedoms and rights. Thomas
Gordon once summarized that fundamental principle in the form of a question,
asking:
                         What is Government, but a Trust committed by All,
or the Most, to One, or a Few, who are to attend upon the Affairs of All,
that every one may, with the more Security, attend upon his own?
              Thomas Gordon, CATO'S LETTERS, No. 38, July 22, 1721.


             Early Americans used the U.S. Constitution to codify that
understanding by declaring that a federal government would be formed by the
States to protect and preserve people's rights, stating that:
                         We the people of the United States, in Order to
form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the
Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish
this Constitution for the United States of America (emphasis added).


             People struggling to drive civil rights for newly freed slaves
into the Constitution following the Civil War fashioned the Fourteenth
Amendment, which refers to inalienable rights as "privileges and immunities"
of citizens. Through that Amendment, they sought to further guarantee the
underlying principle -- that governments are instituted by people to protect
rights -- by declaring:
                         No State shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor
shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.
              U.S. CONST. amend. XIV.


             Through the Fourteenth Amendment, the abolitionists
constitutionalized the people's inalienable rights to life, liberty, and
happiness, driving the principles of the Declaration of Independence into
the Constitution. [8] As scholar Robert J. Reinstein explained:
                         [A] national political movement brought the
Declaration of Independence "back into American life." The Declaration was
the secular credo of the abolitionists. The Declaration not only supported
their moral and political assaults on slavery but was the foundation of
their constitutional theories. [9]


             Thus, the founding documents of the States and the United
States codify the understanding that governments are instituted to secure
inalienable rights possessed by people, including their right to enjoy life
and liberty, and the right to pursue and obtain happiness and safety.
Underlying that principle is the belief that securing those freedoms and
rights requires the institution of a republican form of government, and that
the right to a republican form of government is a separate guarantee. [10]
That right guarantees that the powers of governance are vested in the
majority, not in the hands of a privileged minority who might seek to use
government to attain private goals. [11]
             In the words of delegates writing the first Massachusetts
Constitution, "[n]o man, nor corporation, or association of men, [shall]
have any other title to obtain advantages, or particular and exclusive
privileges, distinct from those of the community" and that if governments
are subverted for the "profit, honor, or private interest of any one man,
family, or class of men," then the fundamental principle underlying the
institution of governments is usurped. [12]


  II. Corporations are Created by State Governments as Subordinate, Public
Entities Through the Chartering Process, and Thus Cannot Act to Deny
People's Rights to Safety, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness, or a
Republican Form of Government Within this Nation's Frame of Governance.
             The cause of the American Revolution was the systemic
usurpations of the rights of colonists by the English King and Parliament.
[13] Those usurpations occurred primarily through the King's empowerment of
eighteenth century corporations of global trade -- such as the East India
Company -- and through Parliamentary Acts taxing colonial trade. Oft-cited
as the final spark of the Revolutionary War, the Boston Tea Party was the
direct result of colonial opposition to the East India Company's use of the
English government to enable the Company to monopolize the tea market in the
colonies. [14]
             The signing of the Declaration of Independence transformed
crown corporations and royal proprietorships into constitutionalized states.
Elected State legislators, possessing personal knowledge of the power of
English trading corporations, [15] worked to ensure that corporations within
the new nation would be controlled and defined exclusively by legislatures.
[16]
             Accordingly, people made certain that legislatures issued
charters, one at a time and for a limited number of years. [17] They kept a
tight hold on corporations by spelling out rules each business had to
follow, holding business owners liable for harms or injuries, and revoking
corporate charters. [18]
             Side by side with control and authority over corporations -- 
exercised through their elected legislators -- the people experimented with
various forms of enterprise and finance. Artisans and mechanics owned and
managed diverse businesses; farmers and millers organized profitable
cooperatives; shoemakers created unincorporated business associations. [19]
Towns routinely promoted agriculture and manufactures. They subsidized
farmers, public warehouses, and municipal markets, protected watersheds, and
discouraged overplanting. [20]
             Legislatures also chartered profit-making corporations to build
turnpikes, canals, and bridges, declaring that corporations could only be
chartered for "public purposes." [21] By the beginning of the 1800's, only
some three hundred such charters had been granted.
             Many people argued that under the Constitution no business
could be granted special corporate privileges. Others worried that once
incorporators amassed wealth, they would control jobs and markets, buy the
newspapers, and dominate elections and the courts. [22]
             Premised upon the widespread public knowledge of the powers
wrought by English corporations and the people's opposition to them, early
legislators granted few charters, and only after long, hard debate.
Legislators usually denied charters to would-be incorporators when
communities opposed the proposed corporation. [23]
             People shared the belief that granting charters was their
exclusive right. Moreover, as the Supreme Court of Virginia reasoned in
1809, if the applicants'
                         object is merely "private" or selfish; if it is
detrimental to, or not promotive of, the public good, they have no adequate
claim upon the legislature for the privileges.
              Morton J. Horwitz, THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN LAW,
1780-1860 112 (1977).


             States limited corporate charters to a set number of years.
Maryland legislators restricted manufacturing charters to fifty years, and
most others to thirty. Pennsylvania limited manufacturing charters to twenty
years. Unless a legislature renewed an expiring charter, the corporation was
dissolved and its assets divided among shareholders.
             Citizen authority clauses dictated rules for issuing stock, for
shareholder voting, for obtaining corporate information, for paying
dividends and keeping records. They limited capitalization, debts, land
holdings, and sometimes profits. They required a company's accounting books
to be turned over to a legislature upon request.
             Interlocking directorates were outlawed. Shareholders had the
right to remove directors at will. Some state laws required banks to make
loans for local manufacturing, fishing, and agricultural enterprises, and to
the states themselves. Banking corporations were forbidden to engage in
trade. Most state legislatures provided that directors and stockholders
remained personally liable for debts and harms caused by their corporations.
One corporation could not own another, or own shares in other corporations.
In short, corporations were nothing more than what the people defined them
to be through legislation, and possessed only those rights granted by such
legislation. [24]
             The people of these United States did not want business owners
hidden behind legal shields, but in clear sight. As the Pennsylvania
legislature declared in 1834:
                         A corporation in law is just what the incorporating
act makes it. It is the creature of the law and may be moulded to any shape
or for any purpose that the Legislature may deem most conducive for the
general good.
              Carter Goodrich, THE GOVERNMENT AND THE ECONOMY, 1783-1861 374
(1967).


             People believed that when a corporation subverted the
fundamental purpose for which governments were instituted, legislatures
should dissolve the corporation. Accordingly, all states adopted corporate
charter revocation laws to codify the common law writ of quo warranto ("by
what authority") -- not only to revoke the charters of specific
corporations, but to recognize that a corporation exceeding its limited
authority injures the entire body politic. [25]
             This short history of corporations in these United States
reveals that corporations -- because of the American revolutionaries'
successful resistance to illegitimate rule -- were chartered as merely one
of many subordinate, public entities used by the people to achieve the
fundamental purposes for which governments were instituted.
             It is well settled law that corporations are creations of the
state. [26] The United States Supreme Court has reaffirmed the principle
that corporations are "creatures of the state" in at least thirty-six
different rulings. [27] It is also well-settled law that the Constitution
not only protects people against the "State itself," but also against "all
of its creatures." See West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette,
319 U.S. 624, 637 (1943).
             As public creations, corporations lack any authority within
this nation's frame of governance to deny people's inalienable rights to
life, liberty, safety, security, health, and freedom, or to interfere with
the operation of the people's republican governments.


  III. Over the Past 150 Years, the Judiciary Has "Found" Corporations
Within the U.S. Constitution, and Bestowed Constitutional Rights Upon Them.
             Over the past 150 years of existence of the United States, the
judiciary has conferred constitutional protections -- once intended to
protect only natural persons -- upon corporations. The method by which the
judiciary has conferred rights upon corporations has consisted of "finding"
corporations in the Fourteenth Amendment, the First Amendment, the Fourth
Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and Contracts and Commerce the Clauses of
the Constitution. [28]

             A. "Finding" Corporations in the Fourteenth Amendment
             After political expedience convinced Abraham Lincoln to use the
Civil War to outlaw slavery, people forced the federal government to pass
the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and constitutional amendments to give rights to
newly freed slaves, which the drafters of the Constitution failed to define
as "persons." [29] Adopted in 1868, Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment
says:
                         All persons born or naturalized in the United
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce
any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.


  The guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment have been expanded to include a
litany of personal liberty rights. [30]
             Working for corporate clients enriched and empowered by the
Civil War, lawyers began persuading judges to use the language of the
Fourteenth Amendment to overturn state legislation originally intended to
subordinate corporations. Their efforts led to a transformation of the law,
undermining the republican frame of governance. As Justice Brennan has
declared, "by 1871, it was well understood that corporations should be
treated as natural persons for virtually all purposes of constitutional and
statutory analysis." Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of
New York, 436 U.S. 658, 687 (1978).
             In San Mateo v. Southern Pacific R. Co., 13 F. 722 (C.C.D. Cal.
1882), corporate lawyers attacked a provision of the California constitution
that assessed property taxes against railroad corporations differently from
assessments for non-corporate properties. Attorneys for the railroad
companies argued that by taxing their property differently from the property
of natural persons, California violated corporate "rights" secured by the
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
             When the case reached oral argument in the Supreme Court in
1885, Roscoe Conkling, a former member of the joint congressional committee
that had crafted the Fourteenth Amendment -- and lawyer for the Southern
Pacific Railroad Company -- suggested to the Court that the committee had
corporations in mind when it put pen to paper in 1866: "[a]t the time the
Fourteenth Amendment was ratified," Conkling alleged, "individuals and joint
stock companies were appealing for congressional and administrative
protection against invidious and discriminating State and local taxes."
Conkling then intimated that the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment had
purposely used the word "persons" -- instead of "citizens" -- to
specifically shield corporations from those State and local taxes. [31]
             The parties settled San Mateo before the Supreme Court
announced a decision. During oral argument in another California railroad
taxation case several years later, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific
Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886), Chief Justice Morrison Waite accepted
Conkling's proclamation, declaring:
                         [t]he Court does not wish to hear arguments on the
question whether the provision of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution
which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws, applies to corporations. We are all of the
opinion that it does. [32]


             Three years later, the Court "found" corporations in the Due
Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and bestowed Due Process
protections upon corporations. Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Company v.
Beckwith, 129 U.S. 26 (1889). The inclusion of corporations within the Equal
Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, however, has
been challenged by even Supreme Court jurists. [33]
             Thus, at least from the standpoint of Supreme Court caselaw,
did corporations become "persons" under the Constitution, empowered to wield
corporate Due Process and Equal Protection rights under the authority of the
Fourteenth Amendment, just like natural persons. Attempts by the legal
community to justify those conferrals paralleled those judicial
developments. [34]

             B. Corporations and the Bill of Rights
             Prior to the submission of the to state legislatures for
ratification, eight states had already prefaced their own Constitutions with
a Bill of Rights. Accordingly, many states conditioned their ratification of
the Constitution upon the addition of a Bill of Rights to the document. [35]
In 1789, state delegates succeeded in amending the U.S. Constitution with a
Bill of Rights that prohibited the federal government from interfering with
crucial individual freedoms, including the freedoms of speech, assembly, and
petition, protection from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the right
to due process in criminal trials.
             As Franklin Delano Roosevelt once keenly observed, "the Bill of
Rights was put into the Constitution not only to protect minorities against
intolerance of majorities, but to protect majorities against the
enthronement of minorities." The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D.
Roosevelt 366 (1941).

             (1). "Finding" Corporations in the First Amendment
             The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares, in part,
that governments shall "make no law. . . abridging the freedom of speech."
U.S. CONST. amend. I.
             In First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765
(1978), the Supreme Court "found" corporations in the First Amendment when
the Court threw out a Massachusetts law that prohibited corporations from
spending money to influence legislation unrelated to their business. The
ruling nullified the laws of thirty states that had adopted similar
legislation. [36]
             Dissenting in Bellotti, Justice White described the impact of
this decision:
                         It has long been recognized, however, that the
special status of corporations has placed them in a position to control vast
amounts of economic power which may, if not regulated, dominate not only the
economy but also the very heart of our democracy, the electoral process . .
. . The State need not permit its own creation to consume it.
              Bellotti, 435 U.S. at 809 (White, J., dissenting).


             Courts since Bellotti have explored the contorted metes and
bounds of political, [37] commercial [38] and negative corporate [39] speech
rights without revealing why or how the Constitution compels the conclusion
that corporations must be empowered by the First Amendment. [40] They have
also avoided any discussion of how the exercise of those rights by
corporations negates the ability of people to exercise their own First
Amendment rights -- thus preventing people from using their own free speech
to secure their inalienable rights to life and liberty.
             In addition, Courts have avoided the interrelated discussion of
how the conferral of First Amendment rights upon corporations involuntarily
subjects the majority to the blunt force of the speech of the corporate
minority -- enabled through the massive wealth of corporations -- thus
nullifying the fundamental guarantee of a republican form of government.

             (2). "Finding" Corporations in the Fourth Amendment
             The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares that
"[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated." U.S. CONST. amend. IV.
             The Supreme Court "found" corporations in the Fourth Amendment
in Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43 (1906). There, the Court nullified a grand
jury subpoena issued under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act during an
investigation into unlawful trade and price fixing actions of tobacco
corporations. The subpoena ordered those corporations to produce documents.
The Court quashed the subpoena, ruling that it constituted an "unreasonable
search and seizure" of the corporations in violation of the guarantees of
the Fourth Amendment.
             As with its First Amendment decisions, the Supreme Court -- in
this case and subsequent cases -- has collaterally focused on the definition
o