COLUMN: Congress Under Democratic Control = Democratic Controlled Legislation = Corrupt Machiavellian Law: Is The Inevitability of This Formula Finally Sinking In? In this posting, we will discuss the following topics:
1. THE SOCIALISM OR SOCIALISTIC IDEALISM OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
2. THE MACHIAVELLIAN PHILOSOPHY OF DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL PRACTICE
3. THE DEMOCRATIC MACHIAVELLIAN PLOT BEHIND THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT
The Apparent Intent of the Sixteenth Amendment
The Hidden Democratic Machiavellian Intent
4. THE LEGISLATIVE vs. JUDICIARY CONFLICT OVER 16TH AMENDMENT MEANING
The American voting public is indeed much to be pitied, forever bounced, as it appears, from pillar to post. If they’re not being hit by self-righteous right-wingers among Republicans, they are getting hammered by the idealist Democratic left, which along with Obama, is now in control of Congress.
Just when many Americans had thought they’d been rescued by Democratic heroes, like Obama, Pelosi, and Reid, from George Bush’s brand of right-wing Republicanism, they were suddenly jolted into another harsh reality by the brazen, left-wing Senate Democratic corruption in health care legislation. For the reader’s reference here, this article is being written in December 2009 just after the U.S. Senate passed its version of health care legislation, and before this was to be taken to a conference committee to reconcile with the House version.
The American public as a whole has of course by now heard of how Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has described the Democratic Senate health care legislation. In a recent POLITICO posting online (December 20, 2009), Sen. Coburn was quoted as saying, “This [health care legislation] process is not legislation. This process is corruption. And it’s corruption that’s obvious to the average American in this country, and it’s a shame that the only way we can come to consensus in this country is to buy votes [in other words, rely on bribery or graft, which has been defined as “the practice of offering something (usually money) in order to gain an illicit advantage].” Apparently, Coburn had in mind what POLITICO described as “the internal Democratic negotiations – which included expensive provisions [ultimately to be paid by taxpayers] aimed at winning over Democratic holdouts.”
If Americans have believed blindly that the Democratic Party is the perfect antidote for self-righteous Republicanism simply because Democrats have traditionally claimed to be champions for the interests of the “common citizen” and of minorities, they have a lot to learn about Democratic Party political philosophy.
THE SOCIALISM OR SOCIALISTIC IDEALISM OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
The political philosophy of the Democratic Party is essentially socialistic-leaning if not a full-blown socialist philosophy. What this means is that in a key aspect of what makes the Democratic Party what it is, this Party maintains, virtually as a tradition now, an idealistic vision of a godless secular “one world” where all the people of the world (queer, weird, or straight; black, white, yellow, red, or brown) are free to come and go across borders and live together in peace helping one another, kind of what John Lennon had in mind in his atheistic anthem that he called “Imagine.” In this socialist, godless, and utopian Democratic vision, peace and the “brotherhood of man” will prevail; violence will cease; hunger and sickness will be conquered; and no one will suffer want of any kind anymore.
At its height of idealism, this is somewhat the state of political well-being that the communist Soviet Union had tried to bring about for humanity, until everyone discovered that, as beautiful as this utopian vision is and sounds, practically, it never works in real life. It never works because man, or humankind, is not ruled solely by what is rational within him; it is ruled as well, and with a greater overwhelming power, by what is non-rational within; as one tiny example, look at the tragic and distressing ending of Tiger Woods’ bright golfing career.
As such, humankind remains forever its own worst enemy, paradoxically always messing, or defecating (figuratively speaking), on the very clean, cozy utopian nest that in his rational side he tries to build for himself. As nature abhors a vacuum, with everything outside of it ever pushing to extinguish it, so all the utopias that socialism tries to build, eventually comes to ruin. This happens because all the crappy human stuff that such utopias try to be rid of and avoid, in the end comes rushing in to destroy it. Such is an iron law of life: after everything is said and done to make things perfectly right, the human crap always comes in to stink up and mess up the place. Like “Murphy’s Law,” the non-rational wins in the end every time.
THE MACHIAVELLIAN PHILOSOPHY OF DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL PRACTICE
The Democratic Party is also essentially Machiavellian in its political practice. Machiavellianism is a political doctrine named after its Italian founder, Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527 A.D.). It has been said about Machiavelli that in order to be successful in political practice, Machiavelli taught that it was necessary and quite essential for politicians to use a cynical approach to power where cunning and deceit are the only things that effectively yield results. Since its beginning, the Democratic Party, as well as every Democratic politician, have known all too well about the teachings of Machiavelli. In fact, Democrats have historically become masters at applying Machiavellian doctrine in the cynical and deceptive way they typically carry out their political practice.
So the major problem in trusting Democrats, first of all, is that their left-wing, idealist, and socialistic utopianism fails realistically and appropriately to take into account the inevitable human flaw referred to above. But worse yet is the Democrat penchant for doing, in classic, cynical Machiavellian style, “whatever it takes,” even working out shady deals in the legislative process, or brazenly tricking and betraying the vital interests and will of the voting public if they have to, to bring their idealistic agenda to reality. They justify all their cunning and deceit on the principle that “the end justifies the means.” In other words, it the political end you seek is worthy in your own eyes, you are then justified to use whatever trick and deceit you must to accomplish your idealistic agenda.
But, in the end, the Democratic idealistic agenda-turned-reality becomes a nightmare hardly anyone can stand, however good and beautiful Democrats made it sound in the beginning. Yes, with their idealistic rhetoric and words, Democrats like Obama, Pelosi, and Reid, suck in the public to vote for them; that’s the left side of their mouth. But with the other (or Machiavellian) side, they go on shamelessly to betray the very same public they sucked in with lofty and deceptive rhetoric.
Hence, from all media reports coming in, it appears that the whole country has come to feel violated and outraged by the graft and corruption Democrats in the Senate have openly carried out to get health care legislation passed, Machiavellian-style, and to give this corrupted body of “law” to a happily expectant Obama as a “Christmas” gift they won for him. Obama will of course sign this corruption into law, referring to it as some noble thing, and thereby begin the institutionalizing process of the corruption until it becomes the new and accepted “normal” for all Americans and the taxpayers will get the bill to pay for it.
In the final analysis, and from what is said in POLITICO, we might as well understand that Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, called this Democratic, Machiavellian legislative process of turning corruption into institutionalized law, where senators are bribed to win their votes, “a normal part of the legislative process.” There you have it folks, from the mouth of a Democrat who knows what genuine Democratic legislative process is; that’s the distinguishing brand of what is known as the Machiavellian or Chicago style Democratic Party political practice. Now we turn our attention to another Democratic Machiavellian trick on taxpayers that took place in the early 1900s but its impact on all working Americans remains very much in force to this today.
Now, it’s a long way since 1913 when, as now, the Democratic Party was also dominant in Congress, and so was their unwavering idealism and handy knowledge of Machiavellian doctrine. The Democratic “average” or “common man” of that early 20th century that the Party was ostensibly seeking to rescue had been unfairly burdened for years with regressive consumption taxes, while the fat income of the rich was not being dipped into at all by government thorough income tax. This was due to the fact that the income tax had not existed since 1895 because, on that year, the U.S. Supreme Court had struck it down as unconstitutional in the case of Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company, 157 U.S. 429 (1895).
With a new composition of Justices, the U.S. Supreme Court later on was to express that its composition of Justices in 1895 acted in error when they struck down the income tax. They referred to the doctrine on which the 1895 Court based its decision against the income tax as “a mistaken theory” [See Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co. 240 U.S. 103 (1916) at 113].
The essential reason (or, according to Stanton, “mistaken theory”) why the 1895 U.S. Supreme Court struck down the income tax as unconstitutional was that, in its opinion, while the income tax had always been understood and accepted by the courts and Congress as an excise tax that did not require apportionment among the states based on their populations, in practice, the income tax came to act (or have the effect) of a direct tax on the property source from which the income was derived.
Since the U.S. Constitution does in fact require that all direct taxes be apportioned among the states according to population, and the income tax then in force was not so apportioned, the 1895 Supreme Court ruled that this tax, which they viewed as a direct tax in its practical effect, was unconstitutional, at least in its practical effects as a direct tax if not in its true nature as an excise.
But in the face of this roadblock thrown in the path of the Democratic Party’s idealism by the Supreme Court, such Democratic Party idealism was unstoppable; it was hell-bent on rescuing the common working person from the heavy load of consumption taxes by hitting the rich with an income tax that, by hook or by crook, their Machiavellian ways would have to achieve, notwithstanding the opposing Supreme Court opinion.
THE DEMOCRATIC MACHIAVELLIAN PLOT BEHIND THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT
It is historically accurate to say that, in the beginning, the Democratic Party made the income tax they sought to secure, sound rosy to the average citizen by leading them to think and believe that such a tax was intended to be applied only to the rich, not to everybody. It was to be truly, and strictly, a class tax from the start. Here is where the Democratic Machiavellian plot begins to unfold with the makings of the Sixteenth (or Income Tax) Amendment. The Machiavellian plot begins by first sucking in the masses, seeking to convince one and all that what you’re trying to do for them is just, rational, and good for all.
No one at the time had any inkling that in a relatively short period of time, this Machiavellian corrupt deception called a class tax was going to be turned by the coming Democratic administration of F.D. Roosevelt into a mass tax imposed on everybody. In his book, “The Fair Tax,” Democratic Senator Bill Bradley admits these events under the Democratic administration of Roosevelt when he said that under Roosevelt, “the federal income tax was changed from a ‘class tax,’ applicable only to the most well-off, into a ‘mass tax'” (p. 80).
Hence, by the time Roosevelt the Democrat got through with the income tax, the Machiavellian political process of the Democratic Party had become complete. The unsuspecting taxpaying public then became totally screwed and there was not a thing they could do about it except to say “thank you” as the masochists that many Americans in the past have shown themselves to be.
But to return to the starting point, under the leadership of the Democratic Party, the language for a prospective Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was crafted in Congress to defeat the ruling of the 1895 U.S. Supreme Court on income tax. Once ratified by the states, this Amendment language would forever prevent any federal court in the future from striking down an income tax as unconstitutional on the grounds that is was a direct tax lacking apportionment. To achieve this, the language of the Amendment had to be crafted in such a way that would undermine everything the 1895 U.S. Supreme Court had said that the income tax did that was wrong. So with the Machiavellian Democrats in Congress leading the way, the following language for the prospective new Sixteenth Constitutional Amendment was crafted:
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”
Please notice that in this piece of concise language, in the phrase, “The Congress shall have power,” Congress, under the lead of Machiavellian Democrats, appears to be crafting for themselves a new power never before held by Congress under the Constitution. Quickly below, we shall see how the U.S. Supreme Court rejected this notion, saying that the Sixteenth Amendment had not given Congress any new power it did not previously possess.
Please notice also that the proposed Amendment language effectively counters every major reason the 1895 U.S. Supreme Court gave for striking down an income tax. Since the 1895 Court had said that the income tax was unconstitutional because, in practice, it acted as a direct tax on property that required apportionment, the Democratic-approved language said that the income tax was to be upheld as constitutional regardless of whether or not it was apportioned and regardless of what the taxpayer’s property source was from which the income was derived (hence it is said in the proposed language that the income tax is constitutionally valid regardless, or “from whatever source [it is] derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration”).
But you as the reader should also note something else about this Democratic-approved language. Though it is not apparent on its face, the language nevertheless contains a hidden Democratic Machiavellian deception. In fact, there was behind this Democratic-approved language both an apparent (or openly declared) and a hidden Democratic intent or agenda which did not become apparent until shortly after the ratification of this language by the states and the U.S. Supreme Court got a chance in two 1916 cases to voice its view on just what the Sixteenth Amendment was about and what it was not. But to really grasp the significance of this, we need to know the following
Both Congress and the federal courts in 1913 knew well that the income tax had repeatedly been upheld as an excise (or indirect tax) in the past and not as a direct tax. Consequently, that’s the only way that the income tax had always been imposed in the past (as an excise and not as a direct tax). But Congress also knew that, with constitutional amendments, the legislative branch of federal government can create anything it wants; and if it succeeds in getting the states to approve it, the new creation is made constitutional if it was not constitutional before.
The Apparent Intent of the Sixteenth Amendment
Insofar as what the expressed and open Democratic intent could be discerned behind the reason for proposing the Sixteenth Amendment, it had to do with seeking to overcome any possible future event where a federal court could strike down the income tax on the basis of apportionment.
The Hidden Democratic Machiavellian Intent
What was not immediately apparent or obvious about the Sixteenth Amendment proposed language, was the Democratic Machiavellian hidden intent to craft the language with the implicit (or hidden) understanding that such language, once ratified by the states, would provide Congress with a new kind of tax, a new Congressional power, and a new Congressional authority that up to that point had never existed, and the Constitution had never granted. This new kind of tax and Congressional power would involve Congress having the power to impose a new kind of excise income tax that could be enforced as a direct tax that did not require apportionment.
Now taxes are normally either indirect taxes on property called “excises” (such as fees charged for a license to drive a car, to practice medicine, or to run a business) or they are direct taxes (such as are taxes on real estate). But normally, there is no such thing as a tax that is, at the same time, both an excise tax and a direct tax; the Federal Constitution does not allow for such a thing. However, as I pointed out, it was the Democratic Machiavellian hidden intent to craft such a combined excise-tax/direct-tax and add it to the Constitution through the Sixteenth Amendment as a valid tax.
We will soon discover how the U.S. Supreme Court reacted and rejected this Machiavellian-inspired Democratic hidden intent behind Sixteenth Amendment language and how Congress to this day continues to ignore this U.S. Supreme Court opinion and follow its own independent interpretation of the Sixteenth Amendment.
THE LEGISLATIVE vs. JUDICIARY CONFLICT OVER 16TH AMENDMENT MEANING
Direct taxation on property is the easiest and most simple form of taxation for a government to impose. But the Federal Constitution forbids this kind of tax to Congress unless Congress apportions it among the states according to state populations. However, such a condition of apportionment in taxation is difficult for Congress to work out. The Democrats knew this. But they also knew that if they could get constitutional power to impose an income excise tax as a direct tax that was exempt from the apportionment requirement, they would then have the “ideal tax” to powerfully fund and pursue their socialistic utopian agenda.
Through the final ratification of the Democratic Sixteenth Amendment language by the states, the Democratic direct tax wish became a reality, or so they believed. This is how the Democratic Machiavellian makings of the Sixteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution came about. In this Amendment, the Democratic Party assumed it got what it wanted: an excise income tax that could be imposed as a direct tax not needing apportionment, and this is just what they began to impose in 1913. Such an income tax imposed originally in 1913 as a direct tax without apportionment is what we have to this present day.
However, at the very point of modern income tax beginning, one huge dilemma that arose for Congress was that U.S. Supreme Court in 1916 did not agree with the Machiavellian Democratic understanding of what the Sixteenth Amendment accomplished. In fact, right up to our present day, the U.S. Supreme Court, based on its 1916 rulings on the subject, which have never been overturned, has never agreed that the Sixteenth Amendment gave Congress a presumed new power to convert the income tax from the excise the court had always understood this tax to be to that of a direct tax. Read, for example, how the U.S. Supreme Court expressed this ruling on the income tax being an excise tax and not a direct tax, and of Congress not having the power to make the conversion it did when it converted the income tax from the category of an excise (or indirect) tax to that of a direct tax:
“The provisions of the Sixteenth Amendment conferred no new power of taxation but simply prohibited the previous complete and plenary power of income taxation possessed by Congress from the beginning from being taken out of the category of indirect [or excise] taxation to which it inherently belonged and being placed in the category of direct taxation subject to apportionment.” See, Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co. 240 U.S. 103 (1916) at 112-113. This 1916 Supreme Court ruling has never been overturned. It is still in force today; it is good law.
Notice how blunt and straightforward the U.S. Supreme Court in this case indirectly rebukes the Congressional Democrats and their Machiavellian hidden motive to craft a new, unprecedented tax and thereby gain for themselves a new added power as well. The Court’s language is very plain and to the point: “The provisions of the Sixteenth Amendment conferred no new power of taxation.”
There you have it; the Court in effect said indirectly and succinctly to the Machiavellian Democrats who plotted this, “If you think that through the Sixteenth Amendment you got yourself a new kind of tax and a new kind of power to go with this presumed new tax, we reject such a notion. You haven’t received a power of income taxation AFTER the Sixteenth Amendment that you didn’t have BEFORE the Sixteenth Amendment. All you got was the removal of the requirement for apportionment to protect against any court in the future from turning the income tax, which is an excise, into a direct tax that needs apportionment. Furthermore, you have no Constitutional right to convert the income tax into a direct tax that is not subject to apportionment.”
In a case just immediately prior to the Stanton case, the Court elaborated on the reason why the Constitution, in all and under any circumstance, prohibits a direct tax imposed by Congress that is not made subject to the apportionment requirement, notwithstanding any Sixteenth Amendment provision. This prior case was the case of Brushaber vs. Union Pacific Railroad, 240 U.S. 1 (1916). In this Brushaber case, the U.S. Supreme Court had already begun its indirect rebuke of the Democratic Machiavellian hidden intent. Following is how the High Court went on to declare this:
“[The] conclusion reached in the Pollock Case did not in any degree involve holding that income taxes generically and necessarily came within the class of direct taxes on property, but, on the contrary, recognized the fact that taxation on income was in its nature an excise entitled to be enforced as such unless and until it was concluded that to enforce it would amount to accomplishing the result which the requirement as to apportionment of direct taxation was adopted to prevent, in which case the duty would arise to disregard form and consider substance alone, and hence subject the tax to the regulation as to apportionment which otherwise as an excise would not apply to it.” See, Brushaber, at 16-17.
In essence and effect, the U.S. Supreme Court said here that the Pollock Case never said that the income tax was a direct tax on property. On the contrary, the Court in Pollock recognized THE FACT that an income tax is an excise tax that needs to be enforced as what it is, an excise tax. It is only when and if an income tax as an excise effectively brings on “the result” (or condition) that the Constitutional requirement for apportionment was designed to prevent, and any direct tax, pre- or post- Sixteenth Amendment, does create this result or condition, that such an income tax, as a matter of obligated duty, has to be subjected to “the regulation as to apportionment which otherwise as an excise would not apply to it.”
Just as it is true with the Stanton decision, this Brushaber Supreme Court ruling of 1916 has never been overturned. It is still in force today; it is good law.
So, now, with this Brushaber ruling in mind, when a Machiavellian, Democratic-led Congress began in 1913 to impose the income tax as a direct tax, according to Brushaber, it created a result or condition that the Constitution prohibits and seeks to prevent through its requirement for apportionment. Since all direct taxes, pre- or post- Sixteenth Amendment, create this constitutionally prohibited result or condition, the Constitution, according to Brushaber, demands that an income tax imposed as a direct tax must be subjected, as a matter of obligated duty, to apportionment for it to be constitutionally valid.
But, as already noted, the huge problem here is that Congress has never bothered to exercise this obligated constitutional duty of subjecting the income tax it is now imposing as a direct tax to the rule of apportionment. Hence, the only way Congress can now rectify this unconstitutional imposition of the income tax would be to start imposing the income tax as the excise tax that it is and not as a direct tax.
But in the meantime, untold damage and ruin has been caused to a horrific number of taxpaying American citizens because of this despicable Congressional disobedience and disregard of constitutional law, and it was the Machiavellian Democrats who led and started all this and who continue to be the chief defenders of our corrupt system of unconstitutional income tax.
It is important to note that the High Court in 1916 expressed what it did based on the open (or apparent) intent that Congress expressed and recorded as to why the Sixteenth Amendment was proposed; this openly declared and recorded intent was to prevent courts in the future from interpreting the income tax as a direct tax. As already indicated, to put in place this protection of the income tax as an excise, the Sixteenth Amendment removed the requirement for apportionment that is applicable only to direct taxes and not to the income tax as an excise.
On the other hand, the Supreme Court could not expressly or directly pass judgment on a “hidden agenda” or “implicit intent” because it can only do so on the basis of an intent that is expressly made and exists on the record. Nonetheless, through its support of the recorded Congressional intent, in the precise, qualified manner it expressed that support; the 1916 Supreme Court in effect (or automatically) rebuked the Democratic Machiavellian hidden intent.
So what was the Machiavellian Democratic reaction to these U.S. Supreme Court rulings of 1916? Simply stated, it was to disagree with them and ignore them. The Machiavellian Democrats believed they had acquired a new kind of tax and a new kind of power through the Sixteenth Amendment. As a branch of Federal Government equal to and not inferior to the Judiciary, Congress under Machiavellian Democratic control felt it could go on and interpret the Sixteenth Amendment according to its own independent view of it. The Democrats, as they saw it, had worked hard, Machiavellian style, to achieve this phenomenal gain of new taxing power, and they were not about to allow the U.S. Supreme Court to spoil their Machiavellian masterpiece.
It is through the 1916 U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the meaning of the Sixteenth Amendment that we see the 1913 Machiavellian corruption of the Democratic Party and of the modern income tax it started on that year; and this is why the income tax we have today is so corrupt, it has no respect for what the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled is constitutional. Congress since 1916 has been ignoring this ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court, and in doing so, has in effect said that it does not agree with the interpretation of the High Court, thus creating a presently existing huge constitutional conflict between these two equal but separate branches of government that has yet to be resolved.
In a personal campaign I undertook to bring these issues for court resolution, I sued the government and brought the matter before the U.S. Supreme Court twice, and in both cases the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review and hear my case. The facts and law behind these events are found documented in my book on the income tax.
Since my failed attempts before the U.S. Supreme Court, the I.R.S. has been touting these Supreme Court refusals of my petitions for review as “proof” that the U.S. Supreme Court is in favor of the way Congress is imposing the income tax. But any novice lawyer or savvy law school student knows that a refusal by the U.S. Supreme Court to review a case does not necessarily mean that this Court endorses or opposes any given view presented by the litigants in the case; it just simply means that, at that particular point in time, the Court chooses not to rule on the issue, without being obligated to state any reason why it so chooses.
But, actually, the fact remains that this High Court has already ruled on the subject in the two 1916 cases referred to above, which this Court has never overturned. The Court’s judgment there, as we have seen, is that what Congress has been doing up to now with the income tax is against the principles of taxation established by the Federal Constitution.
Through all the nine-plus decades since 1913, as several generations have replaced themselves in that span of time, the recollection of Democratic Party-led income tax corrupt legislation that was enacted at that time has virtually disappeared from our American collective memory. Instead, this Democratic tax corruption has been accepted and institutionalized as “normal” with the majority of working citizens who peacefully accommodate themselves to cooperate and play the income tax game willingly. They do this either not realizing, or perhaps not caring, that this system, invented in America primarily by the Machiavellian Democratic Party, corruptly steals millions of dollars each year from American worker-employees because of the way it is imposed as a direct tax without apportionment.
But now, with the Senate passage of corrupt health care legislation this month of December 2009, that long-forgotten and collective American memory of the 1913 Democratic income tax legislative corruption has suddenly resurrected. Under Democratic control of the Senate, as it happened in 1913, every American has now had a real live opportunity to see and hear directly how reckless, dangerous, and costly is the potential result to every taxpayers’ economic interests when a Congress, under predominant control by the Machiavellian Democratic Party and its penchant for Machiavellian, Chicago-style political graft and corruption, can get unhindered power to pass whatever it wants. McCain warned of this. So don’t blame me! I didn’t vote for Obama or for any other Machiavellian Democrat.
