Monday, March 22, 2010

What does the IRS have to say about the bill of rights?

Some interesting info is revealed by the new IRS HQ building located in Carrolton, MD.  In front of the building is a black pyramid with a white capstone which contains the Constitution minus the Bill of Rights:

Note to government from The Captain: OK guys, enough of the illuminati pyramids and other secret society symbolism on public buildings, please. It’s just getting old and tiring and, quite honestly, increasingly pathetic.  These age old trappings of elitism give you no more claim to this country than gangland “tagging” gives “the crips” or “the bloods” special ownership over “their” territory.  Just stop already with the pyramids, crossed square and compass, etc.  All it does is make people suspect that government has forgotten that it is the servant of the people and in fact it makes people worry that government believes it is actually in charge of the people as a rancher would own livestock or other property.  I assure you nothing could be further from the truth.

On a column next to this pyramid there is a plaque to explain the exclusion of the bill of rights from the constitution:
In case you having trouble reading it, the inscription says “"The Bill of Rights was not ordained by nature or God. It's very human, very fragile."

Please consider that none of these things happen by accident.  Someone thought long and deep about quoting Congressman Barbara Jordan (deceased but we still have to see her ungainly statue on the main floor of Austin Airport…).  It’s difficult to know if this was meant as a benevolent reminder to the people or as a malicious threat.  Perhaps a little of both.

First let’s give the benefit of doubt to whoever commissioned this inscription and explore the possibility that it was meant as a benevolent reminder along the lines of "freedom isn't free".  We all know that the Declaration Of Independence defines inalienable (the actual word used was "unalienable") rights to include (but not limited to) the right to “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness”.  But what does “inalienable”/”unalienable” actually mean in our legal system?  This is important to understand because while they are called “inalienable” rights they certainly are alienable.  For example, if the right to liberty were absolutely inalienable, if it could not be separated from you no matter what, then there would be no prisons.  Instead, 3.2% of the American population was in prison or on parole at the end of 2008.

A closer look at the term “inalienable/unalienable” shows that our founders declared that so called unalienable rights were given to us by The Creator and can thus only be given up willingly by the people.  One way to give up your inalienable rights is to violate the rights of others.  Thus, if you commit a crime you have willingly waived your inalienable right to liberty.  In death penalty states, you can also waive your inalienable right to life by murdering someone or committing some other capital offense. 

Having said all of that, nowhere in the bill of rights or anywhere else in the constitution do the words “inalienable” or “unalienable” exist.  Thus, it would seem, the Bill of Rights might not hold “inalienable” status in some people’s minds.  Online sources tend to dance around the subject a bit which is more evidence that people aren’t 100% sure on the matter (or they have a strong opinion which they don’t care to share…).  For example, the online Law Dictionary defines the Bill of Rights as “The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, that part of any constitution that sets forth the fundamental rights of citizenship. It is a declaration of rights that are substantially immune from government interference.”  As you can see, this definition does not hold the US Bill of Rights to be anything terribly unique or sacred because “any constitution” will obviously have such a section (of course they don’t, but say it 3 times and people will believe it).  Also, I don’t know what exactly “substantially immune” means but I do know that it doesn’t mean “inalienable”.  These are the weasel words of the elite which they will argue, with the backing of police and military, give them free reign to do whatever they want to with our rights should the need to protect their jobs and high positions arise.

Keep in mind that the declaration of independence, which does discuss inalienable rights, is not really a legal document according to many scholars and it has no legal power to imbue any rights or to define any obligations.  Its main purpose was to declare to the outgoing British government why it was fired and to warn/remind future governments under what conditions they can also reasonably expect to be fired.  So while it is a nice piece of wording and clearly inspirational there is nothing binding in it, just suggestions.  Perhaps in the future I will take the time to go through each of the grievances listed in that document to see how many of the government actions which can “reasonably” result in an overthrow have already occurred (at least in the minds of the founding fathers)…

Although it is an amendment to the constitution, the very name “BILL of rights” does not imply unalienablity but rather that it exists as a result of due process of the creation of laws which start off as bills. Even the name was taken from the English Bill of Rights of 1689 which was a British bill later enacted into law in Brittan.  Remember, inalienable rights come from The Creator and thus are supposed to be above changes in the law.  Just because something is law today doesn’t mean it will be law tomorrow.  Laws change all the time.  The ‘Lectric Law Library” says that the bill of rights was “included in the constitution as part of deal made so that the libertarian elements of the founding fathers, lead by Jefferson and others, would vote for ratification of the constitution.”   According to this account it was a negotiated process with the oligarchy who wanted to give up as little as possible to the people while the champions of the people (Madison, et al) wanted as many protections for the people as possible from government gone wild.  They could EASILY have created a section in the body of the constitution with a title such as “citizen’s unalienable rights” but instead the weaker title “Bill of Rights” was chosen, likely because a stronger set of people’s rights would have defeated the purpose of those who sought to become the new slave owners upon departure of the British.  Again, none of this was accidental, it was a negotiated settlement.

To net out the first argument, the IRS may simply be giving us a benevolent, up front reminder that breaking the law (which to them, of course, mainly encompasses failing to pay tribute to Caesar in the form of taxes which are spent in every manner except by the will of the people) is grounds for eliminating the bill of rights, and they can do it regardless of whether or not you think they are inalienable because even inalienable rights are waived by the commission of crimes.  Taken in a broader sense beyond the payment of taxes, the benevolent warning may be telling us that as long as we do as we are told then we will be treated as if we have these rights but if we complain too loudly or cause too much trouble then our masters reserve the right to suspend the freedoms that they have, in the past, so generously bestowed upon us.

Come to think of it, this does seem to be the type of “friendly reminder” you might expect to have appear in front of the IRS after significant, vocal factions of the people start calling themselves “The Tea Party” and suggesting the federal income tax is an illegal scam or that we are enduring taxation without representation.

The exploration of the other side of the coin -that of it being a blatant malevolent threat- builds upon the above and is thus simpler.  In essence, it could be warning us that the Bill of Rights never was inalienable.  In other words, there is no requirement that government wait for you to voluntarily waive your rights by committing a crime.  It could be taken to mean that the bill of rights exists purely at the convenience of the government and that we are within a few short years of having it yanked from us if it is in the interest of the government to do so.  Again, it is the sort of thing that a bankrupt government might need to resort to when the debt fueled vote-buying entitlements run out. When there is no more carrot to herd the flock, the stick is all that remains.

Unfortunately, both the benevolent and malevolent versions of this really amount to the same thing since government can just continue creating more laws until breathing incorrectly is an offense.  The one thing that speeds up the whole process, however, is consent of the rules by the public and the best way to get the public to acquiesce is to threaten the people (first in subtle ways but later on overtly).  Again, it is no coincidence that Madison wrote:, If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy“.  

In other words, even if the bill of rights are at some point ruled inalienable, people waive those rights when they consent to laws that violate those rights.  Of course, that is a huge overstep by government because majority rule cannot waive my inalienable rights and I cried loud and long about the Patriot act and the formation of the Department of the Fatherland (AKA Department of Homeland Security).  But if people see others buckling under to things defined in laws like the Patriot Act (overt violations of several elements of the Bill of Rights) then they begin to believe these things are law by precedent and each time they fail to stand up for their rights it constitutes consent.

Bottom line: our bill of rights is under daily attack.  Government lives in many cases by rule of precedent otherwise know as the law of “say it 3 times and if nobody objects then it must be true”.  By failing to understand our rights and by failing to demand that they be afforded us we are consenting to slavery which thus makes it legal.

Bloodless solution: AUDIT THE FED and then DISMANTLE IT.  Return, over time, to a system of honest money and get rid of fractional reserve banking.  Without the ability to create money from thin air, without the ability to pay for things with ever increasing debt, the power of the government to control us falls apart and is shown to be the sham that it always was.  People that know Ron Paul understand that his main concern is to protect the rights of the people and that all of this banter about fiat currency and fractional reserve banking and ending the Fed that he started in this country are simply the means to his end.  As convoluted as this strategy may initially appear, the ability to accrue massive debt is the Achilles heel of government gone wild.  Control the purse strings by controlling the creation of money from thin air and you control the whole shooting match, period.
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