Btw, a copy of
CtC from anywhere except the link above may not
be a current edition. CHECK. It matters. Also, there
ARE no e-book, Kindle or .pdf versions of
CtC. Don't get taken in by efforts to sell you--
or even give you for free-- any such thing.
*****
"The preservation of a free government requires, not
merely that the metes and bounds which separate
each department of power be invariably maintained, but
more especially that neither of them be suffered to
overleap the great barrier which defends the rights
of the people. The rulers who are guilty of such
encroachment exceed the commission from which they derive
their authority, and are TYRANTS. The people who
submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves
nor by an authority derived from them and are slaves….."
-James Madison
***
No one can guarantee
success in all they do in life. But anyone can
guarantee that they DESERVE success in anything they
do.
***
Why Charges Of MSM "Fake
News" Are Perfectly Valid
...along with accusations of MSM enmity
toward the People and their sovereignty...
A STORY ON NPR CAUGHT MY EAR the other
day. It was about a recently-erupted PR tussle between an
organization of doctors and the NRA.
The doctors argue that
"gun
violence" is a public health issue meriting
pre-emptive remediation (so-called "gun control"), with blithe,
if not hostile, disregard of the
Constitutional proscriptions on government action in
this area. The NRA says the doctors should
"stay in their own lane".
THE OVERALL ASSERTION is, of course,
nonsense, and is unsustainable both in principle and
for practical reasons. Institutional pre-emptive
"remediation" of bad behavior by people involving
the use of guns is no different in kind from
pre-emptive "remediation" of any other kind of bad
behavior.
Such pre-emptive measures rest on the notion of "prior
restraint"-- that is, an indefensible infringement
on the
rights of someone who hasn't actually done anything
bad, without any cause other than the fears of the
infringer (or the self-indulgent disinclination of
the infringer to prepare him- or herself for
personal defense against hazards which might arise).
Successfully implementing such
pre-emptions would require putting everyone in the
country in straitjackets or prison cells (and of
course the jailers of everyone else would still be
free to engage in bad behavior, but now with a
vastly more vulnerable group of victims in their
hands).
OF COURSE, the doctors attempt to
subvert these intellectual responses by suggesting
that bad behavior with guns is somehow uniquely bad, trading on the fact that
it involves injuries and death and therefore should
be exempt from analyses of mere principle and
pragmatism.
The bloody-shirt ploy is a good one. It's hard even for those not
directly affected to think and speak dispassionately
on a policy issue when doing so means disregarding
the anguish and passion of those who have been
directly affected. Our natural instinct is
to empathize with anyone affected by a crime like a
shooting (mass or otherwise).
But as good as this ploy is at muddying
the waters, it IS just a ploy, and with very little
surface tension in the face of any kind of rational
response. After all, injuries and deaths are
hardly unique to shooting incidents.
For instance,
bad behavior in cars (such as texting while driving,
driving while drowsy or intoxicated, speeding,
putting on makeup while driving, changing the radio
station while driving, driving in unsafe conditions,
etc., etc.) injures and kills far more Americans
each year than are injured or killed by gunshot
wounds.
Each of these millions (yes, that's
millions, with an "m") of annual vehicular
injuries and deaths are the result of bad choices
knowingly made-- and thus are, in every way
meaningful to the victims, survivors and society in
general, deliberate. And yet these unctuous doctors
are not calling for the elimination or restrictions
of motor vehicles.
Similarly, the United
States' prosecution of military aggressions abroad
produces enormous levels of injury and death. And yet
these unctuous doctors do not militate against these
aggressions.
One can't help but be led to the
suspicion that these doctors are not really
interested in preventing injuries and deaths per se.
One has to suspect that they simply can't stand the idea of products made
solely for the purpose of causing injury or death in
private hands, perhaps because they don't understand
(or reject)
the
necessity of such products and such distribution.
Perhaps these folks worship
the state as their god, in very much a religious
sense. If so, they would therefore mindlessly reject the fact
that, to be legitimate, state power must be entirely
and securely subordinated to individual sovereignty.
In turn, this would lead to a rejection of the utility and necessity of
products and circumstances meant to enforce that
subordination against a state their piety tells them
is incapable of error, or against which any
resistance, disrespect or prophylaxis is sinful.
That is, the religious-level worship of
the state by these folks would prevent them from
recognizing that voluntary delegations of individual
sovereignty are the only source of legitimate state
authority, and the only means by which an otherwise unconstrainable state can be so subordinated is by
retention in the hands of the people of the means
for enforcement.
To the blinkered view of these
state-worshiping ideologues, then, there really
could be no valid purpose behind the 2nd Amendment,
nor any for private possession of effective,
People-empowering weapons. In fact, both, in the
eyes of these besotted lunatics, would be actively
heretical notions...
BUT I DIGRESS. Though limning an
overall deceptive fog about the subject of gun
violence enthusiastically afforded a pulpit by MSM
fellow-travelers, none of the foregoing constitutes
the "fake news" with which this article is
concerned. It simply lays out of the context in
which several items of "fake news" were transmitted
for public consumption.
Here is one such item dished out within
the context of
this NPR broadcast: "Over a hundred lives are
lost every day to gun violence." This was declared
by Dr. Rebecca Cunningham of the University of
Michigan Medical School, who then followed this
dramatic assertion with a quick, "...two thirds of
which are suicides."
Well, Dr. Cunningham (and NPR), here's
the thing-- suicide is not "gun violence". So the
real statistic, embracing the unlikely
assumption that still more nonsense is not to be
found puffing the number, is "over 33 lives are lost
every day to gun-violence." Still a terrible thing,
but a long way from "over a hundred", the assertion
of which-- unchallenged in any way by the MSM
transmitter-- is fake news.
Cunningham later tried to rationalize
the deceptive inclusion of suicide stats in her fake
"gun violence" assertion by claiming that "suicide
attempt survivors" often later declare themselves to
have not really meant to kill themselves (or to be
happy that they did not succeed). This is meant to
suggest that it is only because gunshots are lethal
that so many suicides are accomplished, and if
people were denied access to guns, the suicide rate
would decrease.
But, of course, "attempted suicide
survivors" were axiomatically not really attempting
suicide in the first place. Anyone who actually
wants to suicide can find a rope and a rafter, or a
bridge abutment, or busy freeway overpass, or a toy
gun and a cop. Those who "attempt suicide" by
non-lethal means don't mean it, and their
perspectives are irrelevant to any question
concerning those who really do mean it.
Those who DO really mean it, and who
employ a gun to accomplish it, are simply making
sensible use of the most convenient effective means
available. That this is a cold thing to say is not
denied, but what is being discussed here is not the
tragic nature of suicide. Here we speak of the
tragic murder of truth in our public policy debates
by purveyors of fake news who pretend that over a
hundred lives are lost per day in America to gun
violence.
HERE IS THE OTHER fake news item to
arise and be flogged into public view consumption
during this particular 47-minute story on NPR last
week: that "ten children a day in America die by gun
violence". This was also asserted by the same
Rebecca Cunningham, and again, without a murmur of
challenge and demand for clarification by the
purported journalists putting out the story.
But of course, while ten children might
die each day by gunfire, this in no way means they
are victims of "gun violence" in the sense the
audience is meant to understand.
For one thing, some considerable number
of whatever is the actual statistic concerning child
deaths by gunfire are among the suicides previously
discussed. This takes that large chunk entirely out
of the category of "gun violence" deaths.
Further, although not expressly
revealed in this particular story (because the
interviewer apparently wasn't interested in such
clarifications), it has long been the practice of
those arguing the position of the deceptive doctors
to lump 18- and 19-year-old gang members killed in
drug-dealer's turf wars and other casualties of
similar voluntary endangerments into the category of
"children killed by guns". The label is meant to
invoke images of pre-teen victims of random
shootings perpetrated for no reason by lunatics
enabled by the presence of guns in private hands,
but the reality is very often quite a different
thing altogether, and the use of that label and
those stats without clarification is fake news.
INTERESTINGLY, THE SAME STORY in which
these (and other) items of fake news appeared
revealed the ill effects of the practice (albeit
without recognition of the reveal or the irony
attending it). A journalist interviewed as the
opener to the story admitted that even though
so-called "gun violence"-- even as meant in Rebecca
Cunningham's expansively-defined "fake news" way--
is now only half of what it was 25 years ago,
surveys routinely reveal that most Americans believe
the opposite.
How about that! Fake news works... and
public policy debate suffers accordingly.
Let's be clear. Gun violence for no
good reason is a tragedy, as is any violence
committed without a good reason. But violence to the
truth is worse-- much worse.
It is only by unflinching and utter
fidelity to the truth that free people can exercise
and secure their rights. Fake news, even for what is
imagined to be the best of intentions, is meant to
seize control of people and bend them to the will of
the propagandist. It is to impose a pernicious form
of slavery, and just as evil when done by private
parties and journalists as it is when done by organs
of the state (such as in the events discussed
here and
here).
***
SO, THE NPR STORY and the nonsense by
the 'American College of Physicians' and the
'Firearm Safety Among Children and Teens Consortium'
to which it gave a pulpit offer a couple of good
examples of why the MSM richly deserves the charge
of being purveyors of fake news. Here are a few
others, very much in brief, since this article is
already over-long:
ANY REFERENCE in any news story to
"Russian interference" in any election that doesn't
include the word "alleged". Such references are
intended to make readers or listeners believe that
"Russian interference" has been established, when
the fact is, no proof of interference by "Russia" of
any kind has been made. This even though
well-resourced massive institutions have purportedly
been struggling to come up with some for years-- a
fact which by itself serves strongly as evidence
that no such interference took place.
The best that can be said to have been
credibly alleged
(even while still untested in any courtroom) on
behalf of
this fake news proposition of "Russian
interference" is that a tiny number of social
media posts (i.e., 80,000 on Facebook, out of 33
TRILLION posts overall during the same period) were
made by some folks using ISPs geographically located
in Russia.
Further, these posts overall did not
favor any one candidate over any other, and many had
nothing to do with any candidate at all. In fact,
many were made after the election was over.
TREATING THE ACTS OF rock-throwing
Palestinians protesting their dispossession of land
and imprisonment in Gaza as the pugilistic
equivalent of the deadly sniping with high-powered
rifles conducted against them by Israeli soldiers,
by failing to fully acknowledge all the relevant
facts when "reporting" on either such event (if
"reporting" on such events at all).
IMPLYING A FORCIBLE Russian annexation of
Crimea and never acknowledging the
massive referendum vote by the Crimean people to
rejoin Russia after (and in response to) the
US-facilitated (and perhaps instigated) coup by
neo-Nazi Ukrainian thugs which violently overthrew
the duly-elected and Russian-friendly government in
2014.
TREATING THE PROPOSITION OF
human-caused "global warming" as a proven fact, even
though this is in no way proven. Indeed, it is not
even credibly alleged, in light of the very
well-established fact of planetary temperature
cycles.
PRETENDING THAT THE ASSAD REGIME used
chemical weapons in August, 2013, and since, in the
so-called "civil war" in Syria, and pretending that
the "White Helmets" in Syria are a non-partisan
aid-and-journalistic organization, rather than the
propaganda organ of the US-backed "rebel" side that
they really are.
PRETENDING THAT IRAN is a sponsor of
terrorism and in any way militarily aggressive in
its region (or elsewhere).
ETC., Etc..
BTW, don't let the fact that I am
pointing out the sins of the MSM on the fake news
front be mistaken as a defense or apology for the
equally pernicious fake news-- often the same
fake news, in fact, as in most of the examples
briefly described above-- spewing out of the
White House at a fierce pace (as has been the case
for decades). Both are to be denounced.
This article overall is just an expose
of MSM denunciations of Trump's accusations against
them for purveying fake news as themselves being
"fake news", if you are able to follow that
convoluted explanation. What a snake-pit is built by
infidelity to the truth, once it begins, right?!
We've just spoken about "fake news".
Now let's see what is done to those who share REAL
news, if the rest of us don't square up and defend
them.
Crucifying Julian Assange
by Chris Hedges
Julian Assange’s sanctuary in the Ecuadorian
Embassy in London has been transformed into a little
shop of horrors. He has been largely cut off from
communicating with the outside world for the last
seven months. His Ecuadorian citizenship, granted to
him as an asylum seeker, is in the process of being
revoked. His health is failing. He is being denied
medical care. His efforts for legal redress have
been crippled by the gag rules, including Ecuadorian
orders that he cannot make public his conditions
inside the embassy in fighting revocation of his
Ecuadorian citizenship.
Australian Prime Minister Scott
Morrison has refused to intercede on behalf of
Assange, an Australian citizen, even though the new
government in Ecuador, led by Lenín Moreno—who calls
Assange an “inherited problem” and an impediment to
better relations with Washington—is making the
WikiLeaks founder’s life in the embassy unbearable.
Almost daily, the embassy is imposing harsher
conditions for Assange, including making him pay his
medical bills, imposing arcane rules about how he
must care for his cat and demanding that he perform
a variety of demeaning housekeeping chores.
The Ecuadorians, reluctant to expel
Assange after granting him political asylum and
granting him citizenship, intend to make his
existence so unpleasant he will agree to leave the
embassy to be arrested by the British and extradited
to the United States. The former president of
Ecuador, Rafael Correa, whose government granted the
publisher political asylum, describes Assange’s
current living conditions as “torture.”
Do yourself and society a favor-- read
this to your kids.
THANKSGIVING DAY IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE
special days of the year, and not because of the
great food. The real virtues of this unique American
celebration lie in the lessons in humility and
maturity offered by its history.
The virtuous lessons to which I refer
are offered only by Thanksgiving's true history,
however. That true history is the exact opposite of
the bogus, "Thank God (sorry... politically
incorrect... make that, "Thank Fortuitous Random
Chance") we were saved from starvation by the
generosity of our neighbors-- see how wonderful
socialism can be!" nonsense which too many Americans
have been misled into imagining to be the truth.
In fact, the feast we commemorate on
the fourth Thursday of November had nothing
whatsoever to do with "generosity". What we actually
commemorate on Thanksgiving is the Plymouth Rock
colonists' recognition of the evils of socialism and
the goodness of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" of
profit-motivation unleashed by security in property
rights.
It was that 11th-hour epiphany after a
disastrous experiment with communitarian soulfulness
that saved the colony from starvation. Thanks be to
God, indeed, for that merciful and timely grant of
wisdom.
IN VERY BRIEF SUMMARY, the Plymouth
Rock colony began as a commune, organized under the
principle that the proceeds of every individual's
labors would be claimed of right by the community as
a whole, and then redistributed in equal measure to
every member. This system lasted for several years,
during which the colony grew ever more hungry and
impoverished.
Unable to keep the fruit of their
labors for themselves, and with the unproductive
receiving the same out of the communal resources as
those who worked hard, soon no one worked hard. To
do so was a fool's game.
The only competition un-smothered by
the communitarian rule was the race to the bottom in
the avoidance of labor. Every year the crops were
thinner; every year the shares distributed to each
colonist were more meager.
Finally, in 1623 and on the verge of
the colony's failure (that is, the death of all the
colonists), the feel-good socialist lunacy was
recognized as the deadly mental virus that it is.
The ruinous pretense that the community had a
rightful claim on the food produced by each member
was abandoned, and the colonist's rights to their
own production was secured.
As it was recounted (in third-person
format) in 1623 by William Bradford, Governor of the
Colony:
...so they began to think how they
might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a
better crop than they had done, that they might not
still thus languish in misery.
At length, after much debate of
things, the Governor (with the advice of the
chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set
corn every man for his own particular, and in that
regard trust to themselves; in all other things to
go on in the general way as before. And so assigned
to every family a parcel of land, according to the
proportion of their number, for that end, only for
present use (but made no division for inheritance)
and ranged all boys and youth under some family.
This had very good success, for it
made all hands very industrious, so as much more
corn was planted than otherwise would have been by
any means the Governor or any other could use, and
saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far
better content. The women now went willingly into
the field, and took their little ones with them to
set corn; which before would allege weakness and
inability; whom to have compelled would have been
thought great tyranny and oppression.
Thus, the deadly madness of socialism
was replaced with a pragmatic expression of two
natural laws: 1.
no
person (and no group of persons, acting under
whatever title or label or pretense it may) can
rightfully dictate the disposal of the product of
another's labor; and 2.
no society can violate a natural law without
suffering the harmful consequences. It was only then
that the colony had its first bountiful harvest, for
which the members properly gave thanks.
IT IS THE BENEFICIAL CONSEQUENCE of the
Plymouth Rock Colony's epiphany concerning the
destructive follies of socialism and the rewarding
virtues of natural law that we have celebrated on
Thanksgiving over the years. Here is William
Bradford again, expressing the lesson taken by these
ancestors of the American revolutionaries of a
century-and-a-half hence:
The experience that was had in this
common course and condition, tried sundry years and
that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince
the vanity of that conceit of Plato's and other
ancients applauded by some of later times; that the
taking away of property and bringing in community
into a commonwealth would make them happy and
flourishing; as if they were wiser than God.
Needless to say, the experience of the
Plymouth Rock Colony was firmly in the American
memory at the time that our founding principles were
spelled out. It is unsurprising that the colonists'
hard-won wisdom deeply informs the Declaration of
Independence, the principles enshrined in which are
declared to be the Laws of Nature and of Nature's
God.
THE VIRTUOUS LESSONS LEARNED by the
Plymouth Rock Colony's near-disastrous experiment
with a fancied and prideful "alternative" to the
basic reality of natural law is well-worth the
giving of thanks. So is the wisdom of our Founders
in taking those lessons to heart and hardwiring them
into our American legal structure.
With these things firmly in mind as the
real reasons for celebration, I wish you all a Happy
Thanksgiving. I hope that it finds you all well, and
leaves you all comfortably stuffed with the good
food and good cheer for which this holiday is
casually and warmly known.
But I also hope that you all dwell for
a few minutes on the more sober aspects of this
commemoration. I especially hope you see to it that
your children understand the truth (rather than the
warm fuzzy fictions that they have been taught in
their government schools and through the mindless
popular culture).
The real lessons of Thanksgiving are
very important lessons. Our societal well-being
depends on those lessons remaining embedded in our
American consciousness and institutions.
It has been famously and wisely
observed that those who allow themselves to be
ignorant of history lessons are doomed to repeat
them, and we don't want our children or
grandchildren to have to repeat this one. The good
Lord might not be so forgiving of their arrogance
the second time around.
A subject broad and deep in
misrepresentation and misunderstanding.
MUCH IN THE NEWS JUST NOW is the
subject of "birthright citizenship" allegedly provided for
in the 14th Amendment. As is true of so much law
when inconvenient to an unsupported agenda, the
language of the law itself is glossed over where it
fails to serve.
In this case, the phrase "or
naturalized" is the one conveniently disregarded, as
though its presence has no impact on the meaning of
the citizenship clause. But that phrase-- which translates as,
"or granted citizenship"-- is actually the key to
the meaning of the clause (or, at least, the key to
untangling misrepresentation or misunderstanding of
the clause).
Here is the complete language of the
amendment, in relevant part:
"Section 1. 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."
So, let's insert the translation of
"naturalized", which will make immediately obvious
that this amendment clause is not intended to grant
citizenship to anyone in any normal sense of the
term:
"All
persons born or granted citizenship in the United
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are
citizens of the United States and of the state
wherein they reside."
Obviously this language contemplates
and concerns persons already possessed of
citizenship by normal procedures-- either birth to
citizen parents, or having been granted it through
naturalization. Its purpose is not the granting of
United States citizenship. Instead its purpose is
the granting of state citizenship
to those already United States citizens.
FURTHER, THOSE TO WHOM THIS CLAUSE APPLIES are
the persons naturalized by the Civil Rights Act of
1866. That group consists of former slaves, and
expressly excludes anyone "subject to any foreign
power"-- that is, anyone born with allegiance to any
other country by virtue of the parents' citizenship.
("Subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in the 14th
Amendment is a restatement by other words of the
Civil Rights Act's earlier phrase, "not subject to
any foreign power". It was perhaps restated thusly
in order to pre-empt exceptions who might argue
their parents-- and thus themselves-- to not have
been foreign allegiant, but who nonetheless are
still not allegiant, by parental citizenship, to the
United States.)
THE REASON FOR THE PROVISION,
very briefly, is that after the slave population was
emancipated following the War to Suppress Southern
Independence, many states (North and South) refused
to treat freed slaves as citizens. The refusal found
expression particularly in the denial of voting
rights.
This denial of voting rights to the
freed slaves created a conundrum for the North. The
Northern state bloc faced the prospect of increased
Southern strength in Congress due to the entire
former slave population now being counted in full
(rather than at 3/5 each) for purposes of
determining the number of representatives in each
state's delegation. But with the freed slaves unable
to vote, the interests represented by the stronger
Southern delegations would likely remain just as
hostile to the Northern agenda as ever they had
been, simply with more power in their hands.
The solution was the 14th Amendment,
compelling every state to treat all United States
citizens living within their borders as citizens of
the states, as well. The expectation was that this
compelled citizenship would convey unabridged voting
rights.
Even so, the optimistic expectation of
proper state behavior was back-stopped. Recognizing
that even state citizenship might not be enough to
safeguard the Northern purpose against the acts of
what are, after all, sovereign states (and were
still thought of in that way, at that point), the
following fail-safe language-- which nicely
underscores the real and limited purpose of the
"citizenship clause" in Section 1-- was also
included in the amendment:
Section 2. Representatives
shall be apportioned among the several States
according to their respective numbers, counting the
whole number of persons in each State, excluding
Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any
election for the choice of electors for President
and Vice President of the United States,
Representatives in Congress, the Executive and
Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the
Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male
inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of
age, and citizens of the United States, or in any
way abridged, except for participation in rebellion,
or other crime, the basis of representation therein
shall be reduced in the proportion which the number
of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number
of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such
State.
A GREAT DEAL MORE COULD BE SAID about
the 14th Amendment overall. If I ever am able to be
done with my advocacy for
truth regarding the income
tax and can move on to finishing the analysis of the
Constitution with which I have been noodling for a
number of years now, I'll say it.
For now, though, suffice it to say that
Section 1 of the amendment in no way mandates the
granting of citizenship-- either union-state or
United States-- to any child of foreign parents who
happens to be born on American soil. And this is
especially true in regard to children of parents
illegally in the United States.
Even the construction of the
amendment's "citizenship" clause by the US Supreme
Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (169
US 649, 1898), which did (mistakenly) find its way
to affirming a 14th Amendment-based
citizenship-by-birth claim of a man born to Chinese
national parents who were long-time legal residents
in the United States, does not avail advocates of "birthright citizenship" for the
children of illegal aliens. In fact, Wong
defeats the advocates' argument.
In that case, the court only
found for Wong because of the status of those
parents as being in the United States by permission,
and under terms by which they were allegiant to the
United States during their time in the country. It
was during that period of allegiance and
jurisdictional submission that their son was born.
The Wong majority, as part of
the exhaustive explanation of its opinion, quotes
Justice Joseph Story in Inglis v. Sailors' Snug
Harbor (1833), 3 Pet. 99. There, Justice Story,
referring to Calvin's Case, Blackstone's
Commentaries, and Doe v. Jones, explains the basic
principle from which the Wong court proceeds in
finding that a child of
legal residents can acquire citizenship by
birth:
"Nothing is better settled at the
common law than the doctrine that the children, even
of aliens, born in a country while the parents
are resident there under the protection of the
government and owing a temporary allegiance thereto,
are subjects by birth." 3 Pet. 164. (Emphasis
added.)
The Wong court subsequently
extends the legal residence distinction directly to
its case at hand:
Chinese persons, born out of the United States,
remaining subjects of the Emperor of China, and not
having become citizens of the United States, are
entitled to the protection of, and owe allegiance
to, the United States so long as they are
permitted by the United States to reside here,
and are [thus] "subject to the jurisdiction thereof"
in the same sense as all other aliens residing in
the United States. Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), 118
U.S. 356; Law Ow Bew v. United States 144 U.S. 47,
61, 62; Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893), 149
U.S. 698, 724; Lem Moon Sing v. United States
(1893), 158 U.S. 538, 547; Wong Wing v. United
States (1896), 163 U.S. 228, 238. (Emphasis added.)
In the end this
distinction is directly rested upon in the narrow ruling
of the Wong court:
The evident intention, and the
necessary effect, of the submission of this case to
the decision of the court upon the facts agreed by
the parties were to present for determination the
single question stated at the beginning of this
opinion, namely, whether a child born in the United
States, of parent of Chinese descent, who, at the
time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of
China, but have a permanent domicil and residence
in the United States, and are there carrying on
business, and are not employed in any diplomatic
or official capacity under the Emperor of China,
becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the
United States. For the reasons above stated, this
court is of opinion that the question must be
answered in the affirmative.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark (169 US 649,
1898) (Emphasis added.)
Plainly, the children born to those in
the US illegally are in no way beneficiaries of even
the Wong court's expansive and mistaken
construction of the 14th Amendment's "citizenship
clause". Indeed, the express resort by the court to
the legal residence of the parents in finding for
Wong is the exclusion of all those not enjoying the
same distinction of circumstance, and thus a
left-handed ruling by the Supreme Court to the
effect that the children of illegals are not
entitled to any such "birthright citizenship".
(It is also worth observing-- for the
sake of good scholarship-- that while much in common
and ancient law might have once weighed on the side
of "birthright citizenship" on grounds outside the
provisions of the 14th Amendment, the very adoption
of that amendment with its explicit purposes and
provisions on the subject has arguably now settled
the question in the negative.)
DON DON LA VIGNE, a long-time warrior
and real American grown-up, shares a nice and inspiring
testimonial on what
CtC has done for him for over nine years now:
*****
"Like a muddied stream or a polluted fountain
is the righteous man who gives way before the wicked."
-Proverbs 25:26
"A nation of sheep begets a government
of wolves."
CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE how abysmally
stupid someone would have to be to continue to doubt
or deny that
CtC has revealed the actual, complete and insurmountable
truth about the income tax in light of the overwhelming
mountain of
historical,
legal,
practical and
logical evidence to the contrary? (Not to mention
the
outright lies and even
ludicrous hoaxes the executive and some corrupt
members of the judiciary have been caught at in desperate
efforts to conceal the truth...)
Plainly any such denier must either be
abysmally stupid or be an abysmally corrupt government
official or other person who sees him or herself as
benefitting from the lies about the tax by which America
has suffered for 75 years now.
Isn't this true?
An old joke, but in regard to this deceiver,
not a laughing matter at all.
““When principles that run against your
deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle
is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must,
at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions
bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your
faith.
Looking For A Litigator Who
Wants To Do Well While Doing Good
THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENT presents details
of a long-running (and still-ongoing) violation of the
speech, conscience and due-process rights of two Americans.
The offenses, in a nutshell, involve a federal district
court attempting to dictate to these two folks-- word
for word-- sworn "testimony" they are ordered to make
in a legal contest with the government.
Click the link below to read the brief.
You'll find it thoroughly supported with relevant testimony
by the chief perpetrator and other similarly unambiguous
exhibits.
"Power concedes nothing without a demand.
It never did and it never will. Find out just what any
people will quietly submit to and you have the exact
measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed
on them, and these will continue till they have been
resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The
limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of
those whom they suppress."
-Frederick Douglass
"It does not take a majority to prevail...
but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting
brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."
-Samuel Adams
*****
"A slave is one who waits
for someone to come and free him."
…The US may be
the only country in the world where people working
in the non-federal private sector must commit
perjury in order to owe and pay ‘God’s things
to Caesar’?
If you work in the
private sector, stop falsely swearing that your
private-sector earnings are federal “income”1.
Perjury is a crime. Exercise the law’s
provision for protecting your private-sector
earnings from the 154-year-old2 indirect
excise known as the federal income tax.
Rebut fraudulent allegations made by your payers
regarding the legal nature of your work and
the earnings derived therefrom, so that you
pay only your fair share. Join the hundreds
of thousands of honest, law-abiding Americans
who have been doing so for more than a decade.
Learn how for free at losthorizons.com.
1--“We must reject…
…the broad contention submitted in behalf of
the government that all receipts—everything
that comes in—are income…”.
United States Supreme
Court, So. Pacific v. Lowe, 247 U.S. 330, (1918)
2—The income tax in
the United States was first instituted into
law on July 1, 1862, during Lincoln’s presidency
under the excise laws of the United States.
The preamble to the 1939 Internal Revenue Code
traces its roots to this original income tax
law.
Trolls Against The Truth: A
Dis-Information Campaign
UNLESS YOU'VE LOOKED, you can have no idea
of the volume, intensity and mendacity deployed in the
government's efforts to discourage Americans from learning
what is revealed in
CtC. It's truly astonishing.
A lot of folks are aware of the show-trial
events in which my wife and I have received state-engineered
public beatings meant to scare people away from the
truth about the "ignorance tax" scam. But many are unaware
of the overall campaign. This is a shame, really, because
a focused propaganda effort like this one is a very
powerful acknowledgement of the significance of
CtC's revelations.
While the majority of Americans do not
yet know how
CtC protects them from the vampire state, the vampire
itself certainly does. Dis-information campaigns like
this one make that very clear.
FORMER CBS REPORTER SHERYL ATKISSON describes
some aspects of this sort of dis-information campaign
in the following video. Despite the annoying preliminary
15 seconds or so of advertising, her presentation is
very much worth watching:
(H/T to Greg Belcher for finding
and forwarding this great presentation.)
Losthorizons.com is one of those websites specifically-targeted
by the corrupt interests at Wikipedia described by Atkisson.
The behind-the-scenes folks at that site won't allow
links on their pages to anything posted at
losthorizons.com, nor even just text corrections
of misinformation in their pages about the income tax.
That's the least of it. Click
here for some specific discussion of the enormous
scare campaign that's been actively spreading false
information in hope of discouraging legitimate media
attention, as well as men and women simply seeking the
truth about the tax and liberty from the scourge of
the "ignorance tax".
PLEASE GIVE SOME SERIOUS THOUGHT to the
fact that YOU being secure in your own freedom rests
on others learning the truth as well, and recognize
that it falls to you to help overcome the dis-information
campaign. Post and share
your videos;
share your victories; help silence the agents-provocateur
and distraction-injectors whose nonsense is discussed
and debunked
here; and widely (and frankly, impatiently) share
this page,
this page and
this page, challenging everyone in your address
book to disconnect the phone and the TV for an afternoon
and get educated.
Doing these things will be what makes it
happen, Cap'n.
An Excellent New Video About
The Government Effort To Suppress
CtC Has Hit YouTube!
DEREK CUSHMAN HAS POSTED a powerful presentation
on government lies, propaganda and misinformation about
CtC designed to discourage more Americans from reading
the book and getting free of the misadministration of
the tax:
Watch it and share it, folks. This film
will help a lot of people who have been taken in by
the lies understand how they've been manipulated, and
prompt a proper desire to learn the truth about the
tax.
Well done, Derek!
P.S. If there were a thousand videos out
there debunking government lies and encouraging Americans
to learn the truth like this one does, the "ignorance
tax" scheme would collapse in a month. So,
where's yours?
Please Help losthorizons.com
Be As Effective As Possible!
OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS I've heard from
a number of folks that a firewall known as "Comodo"
blocks access to this website. This is apparently a
glitch in that program. This site is safe, as can be
seen by going
here.
Please share this info with others in your
own address book so it gets around-- obviously those
suffering the ill effects of this defect in Comodo won't
be able to see it here themselves until they go into
their firewall settings and manually whitelist
losthorizons.com.
I HAVE DONE MY BEST to lead this country
to liberty from the mis-applied income tax. I have labored
hard. I've shed a lot of sweat, a fair bit of blood
and more than a few tears. But I seem to be pretty poor
at that kind of work.
When I have asked all of you for what I
firmly believe is a necessary resource to move the ball
downfield and give all of us the best chance at justice
and an end to the assault on the rule of law-- simple
testimonial videos requiring nothing from any of you
but the phone in your pocket and three minutes of speaking
from the heart-- I have had only a handful of people
answer my call.
I CAN'T KEEP GOING THIS WAY. I have to
be able to turn my attention away from writing new persuasive
or skepticism-addressing articles week after week, and
toward research, analysis and educational presentations
that will benefit everyone already in this community.
I need time to do some suing, and to bring together
the resources and talent toward that end.
As said, it is my firm belief that your
testimonial videos are the resource that I need to make
big things happen, and they are unquestionably the thing
I need to allow me to turn my attention away from trying
to get horses to drink at the waterhole to which I have
led them. Your words, in your great numbers and all
in your own different ways, will do that better than
anything I write possibly could.
And yet, you are not providing them. This,
despite my having been asking you for them for many
years now.
Therefore, with enormous reluctance, I
am making portions of this website restricted access
only. People have been urging me to do this for years
now, telling me I should impose a charge to access my
work-product, so as to enable me to keep producing.
I have never been inclined to charge fees
for access. I ask for donations, and will continue to
do that, and if they do not come, then I will conclude
that my work is of no value to anyone, and I will close
shop.
But I now WILL charge a special something
for access to some key portions of that work-- testimonial
videos, as discussed, described and demonstrated
here.
SELECTED PAGES CONSTITUTING primarily "legal
resources" pages now require passwords for access, and
to get a password, I need your video. Similarly, if
an email comes my way asking for guidance or assistance,
it had best have a video attached, if I don't already
have yours posted.
I hate to play it this way, but I want
to win.
I'll tell you a story from when I was coaching
my kids in soccer. Both of my kids at a certain age
in their careers had run into a wall common to all but
the very exceptional. They had gotten to be pretty good,
and they wanted to enjoy the benefits of their hard
work. But the arrival of this interest coincided with
a new self-consciousness which made them reluctant to
risk failing and looking foolish. So, they were hanging
back from seizing the main chance when it appeared,
and driving for the goal.
My solution was to post on the wall of
our dining room a couple of simple points about self-discipline,
the chief of which is this: You can't score a goal if
you don't take a shot.
That's how it is here, too. If you don't
stand up, you are laying down, and you'll never score
that goal.
Here is what my kids live by now, in their
own version of that lesson. I hear it from them all
the time as they excel (accompanied by the sound of
a father's breast swelling with pride): Go hard,
or go home.
You, too. Go hard, or go home.
Send those videos.
Do I ask for a lot? I want your victories
to post, your financial support, your efforts at spreading
the word, and your beautiful faces and inspiring words,
too. It IS a lot.
But I'll let Thomas Paine explain:
"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered;
yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder
the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we
obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly. Heaven knows
how to put a proper price on its goods; and it would
be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as freedom
should not be highly rated.”
We each have our reasons, and our story.
It's time, and it's needed, for you to share yours with
the world.
"The day we see truth and do not speak
is the day we begin to die."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
What does it for you?
Is it simply because no moral and upstanding
person has any choice when it comes to telling the truth
over his or her signature, whether on tax forms or anywhere
else?
Is it recognition of the critical importance
of the rule of law, and the knowledge that if everybody
leaves its caretaking to someone else, it will soon
be lost to us completely?
Is it the money?
Maybe it's just simple respect for your
own rights as a human being, who is not and cannot be
not involuntarily subordinated to others?
Maybe it's just simple respect for your
general civic responsibility to be the grown-up and
enforce frugality and restraint on a big, powerful creature
of our own devising which otherwise is like a badly-raised
teenage boy given whiskey and car keys and let loose
on the road to wreak havoc?
Or is it, perhaps, a more acute anxiety
that if our bonfire of a state isn't damped, and quickly,
it'll soon burn down the house around us all?
What IS it that firms up your jaw and stiffens
your resolve?
It's time to take off the bushel and
share your light!
I would like you to think about what it
is that motivates you for a few moments (or all day,
if you like), and then send me your thoughts. I want
to put YOUR reasons to work inspiring folks who don't
yet understand what this is all about.
In this day and age, the most effective
way for you to share your thinking for the benefit of
others is to video-record yourself talking about how
you feel, and explaining what inspires and motivates
YOU.
All you need is a webcam or cell-phone
equipped with a camera. If you don't have, or know how
to use, one of these, have a friend help.
If needed, write a little script for yourself.
Better, though, to just speak extemporaneously, after
spending a little time sorting out your thoughts and
getting down into your heart. Perhaps make it a video
of someone in your family, or a close friend, interviewing
you.
Dress "business casual". Be well-groomed.
Keep yourself to no more than 2 or 3 minutes,
and keep in mind that the purpose is not to educate,
but to INSPIRE, ENCOURAGE and ENERGIZE. Your video will
be one of many to be shared.
You needn't feel any obligation to be profound,
and you shouldn't try to explain anything about the
law, other than to say that you have read it and you
know it's on your side. You just need to be sincere,
and uplifting. Your object is to make your audience
want to have what you have, and to be where you are
in your heart.
Keep in mind that you're speaking to an
audience that doesn't yet know ANYTHING about the subject,
and whose first reaction is, "This must be illegal;
this must be dangerous; this is too good to be true."
You want to pull that audience right past such things,
and straight to a focus on truth, morality, and our
American heritage of liberty and the rule of law.
Remember: INSPIRE, ENCOURAGE, ENERGIZE.
Speak about rights. Speak about morality,
and the obligation of a grown-up and responsible person
to speak the truth and to enforce the Constitution.
Speak about everyone's duty
to give to God what is God's, always, and to Caesar
only what is really Caesar's. Speak of your obligation
to respect yourself, and to look out for the current
and future well-being of your children and your fellow
citizens. Speak of
CtC, and what its information has done for your
understanding and resolve. Show the book.
If you have had victories, describe them.
Better still, show them, if possible.
Be clear about just what you accomplished:
EVERYTHING back-- Social Security, Medicare and all;
a "notice of deficiency" closing notice; an on-paper
agreement or acknowledgment that your earnings weren't
subject to the tax and everything withheld or paid-in
was an "overpayment"; a transcript showing all $0s;
or whatever happened.
When you speak of state victories, name
the state. If you had to overcome balkiness from a tax
agency before winning any victory, describe that, too!
If you're in a battle now, speak of your
resolve to uphold the law, come what may. If you haven't
yet begun to act, speak of your decision to do so, and
your plans.
Remember, your purpose is to INSPIRE, ENCOURAGE
and ENERGIZE.
If you're dealing with ongoing balkiness,
describe that, too, if you wish-- but be sure to explain
why you're not discouraged, and why you are not standing
down, not slinking back into the barn, and not choosing
to endorse the lies.
Mention what you do for a living, whether
you're a doctor, homemaker, lawyer, trucker, IT guy
or gal, or a retiree or student. Help people understand
that the company of grown-up activist Americans they
are being invited to join cuts across all demographics
and all interests-- with the common denominator being
respect for the law and love of the principles on which
this great country was founded.
This is your chance to get a LOT accomplished.
We've all had frustrating occasions of
trying to explain all this to a friend, neighbor, family
member or co-worker, only to pile up against the wall
of a mind not yet ready to listen and learn. Here is
your chance to address a self-selected audience of folks
who have themselves decided that it's time for them
to begin paying attention, and have clicked on your
testimonial for exactly that reason.
Further, think about this: You want judges,
bureaucrats, CPAs, lawyers, the HR people where you
work, your pastors, your neighbors and everyone else
to acknowledge the truth about the tax openly and straightforwardly.
How and why would these folks do this if YOU won't?
You want these folks to learn the truth.
Why would they even recognize that there is a truth
to be learned if you won't attest to having learned
it yourself? You've got to stand up, face forward and
chin up and tell these folks that you have studied and
checked and verified and seen the evidence and seen
the government evasions and you know that the tax is
not the capitation that the beneficiary government wants
everyone to think it is but a benign, but strictly limited
thing, and that they need to study and learn that, too.
Again, if you have victories to show, that's
nice, and powerful, too. But you don't have to have
victories to display in order to declare your knowledge
of what the law says. I've never flown around the world,
but I've seen the evidence and considered the arguments,
and I'm not hesitant to declare it a sphere...
Even those of you who haven't yet studied
CtC have surely read
this short document, and have verified everything
in it for yourself. You should therefore be declaring
its veracity and its message, loud and proud. Again,
if you won't say it, how can you hope that others will
ever even bother to look at the facts?
Be the change you want to see in the world,
or there won't be any change.
So, please make and send those videos
right away! You can share them with me via a cloud-based
drive space like OneDrive.Live.com or GoogleDrive, or
mail DVDs to me at 232 Oriole St., Commerce Twp., Michigan
48382, or even email to me if each file is no more than
20 megs (and you can break a video up if need be-- I
can reassemble them). Render as .mpg or mp4, if possible;
if not, send them how you have them and I'll make them
work.
Remember, the restoration of institutional
respect for individual rights and the rule of law depends
on enough individuals insisting upon it. Do your part
to let those starting to rub the sleep from their eyes
know that there is a community already waiting for their
fellowship with open arms and open hearts and shining
spirits.
See how some of your fellow warriors for
the truth have done their parts in videos sent over
the years, many of which are posted
here.
"It does not take a majority to prevail...
but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting
brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."
Getting Free Of The "Income" Tax Scheme Is As Easy As
Falling Off A Bike
To get an idea of how today's "income" tax scheme works,
try this little exercise:
Think of the federal government as a guy named Bob,
who lives down the street from you in a town that is
really big on bicycles. Bikes get used for commuting,
deliveries, shopping, etc.. In fact, other than walking,
bicycles are the exclusive form of transportation in
your town.
Your neighbor Bob has a by-the-mile bicycle-renting
business-- "Bob's Bicycles". Bob's Bicycles is far and
away the biggest business in town.
Part of Bob’s success is because he does a lot of contract
business. However, Bob doesn't just get paid by riders
who have signed an agreement with him, or even just
those using Bob's bikes. Bob gets something every time
anybody in town does any riding at all, through an odd
combination of circumstances that took many years to
come together.
Here's how it happened...
Bob's Bicycles was launched long ago by the great grandfather
of the present Bob (Bob IV). Great Grandpa Bob started
out not only with a main location for his contract business--
he also had the bright idea of setting up spots around
town where he parked some of his bikes for use by the
more occasional rider, on an "honor system". Anyone
could take and use one of these bikes, but they were
expected to keep track of their mileage, and send Bob
a "1040 Mileage Ridden/Rent Due Form" (and the appropriate
rent), periodically. The initial design of the form
was like this:
I, ______________,
rode a Bob's Bicycle a total of _____ miles
this year.
At Bob's rental
rate of $.15 per mile, I owe Bob $______
I said that Great Grandpa Bob planned to deal with these
occasional riders on the "honor system", and that's
true. But he liked his money, too, and didn't want to
miss anything that was due him. So, after setting up
the "self-serve" locations, Great Grandpa Bob went around
handing out "W-2, 1099 or K-1 Rider Reporting Forms"
to every other business in town. The forms-- accompanied
by notices that if Bob didn't get his rent from someone
riding a bicycle in connection with any business, he
would sue the company involved-- said:
You Can’t Fight Well When You Don’t Know
What You’re Fighting About
If you are having an argument
with the IRS or any other tax agency,
You are NOT being presumed to have made “corporate
profit”.
You are NOT being alleged to have received “foreign
income”.
You are NOT entangled in an invisible “adhesion
contract”.
You are NOT being obligated by a law whose subject
is never identified.
You are being targeted because REAL EVIDENCE exists
that YOU PERSONALLY HAD “INCOME” to which the revenue laws apply--
even though that evidence is almost certainly incorrect,
and CAN be corrected.
CtC WARRIOR SanDiegoScott has put together
a great little 20-question quiz to test your knowledge of the law
regarding the United States "income" tax. Test yourself, test your
friends and family! Test your accountant and tax attorney, and help
them learn the liberating truth!!
"Never must thou take up a false cry, or join hands
with the guilty by giving false witness in their favor. Never must
thou follow with the crowd in doing wrong, or be swayed by many
voices so as to give false judgment; even pity for the poor must
not sway thee when judgment is to be given."
-Exodus 23:1-3
Doing A Little High-Payoff Math
IF EACH PERSON receiving this newsletter each week distributed as
few as 100 of any of
the great outreach tools featured here to co-workers, friends,
neighbors and family members (or just strangers on the street, in
the mall, etc...), we could have SEVERAL MILLION new Americans
suddenly introduced to the liberating truth about the tax!
Just like that! In one week!
C'mon, people, let's roll on this!
“Most of the important things in the
world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when
there seemed to be no hope at all.”
When directed to a page by topic or link, read everything.
I know that this can mean the investment of a lot of time, attention
and effort, but although some may imagine otherwise, I don't write
as much as I do because I can't think of any other way to spend
my time...
Furthermore, when you encounter a hyperlink within, or associated
with, the text you are reading, follow it!
It is pretty common these days for web-based material to be littered
with hyperlinks. Sometimes the purpose is to provide definitions
or examples, in order to ensure that folks reading the original
material aren't presented with a word or reference which they don't
understand. Sometimes the links lead to illustrations pertinent
to the original text.
It is common-- and perfectly understandable-- for folks who are
confident that they are familiar with language or references within
the main text they are reading to get in the habit of skipping over
included links. I do it all the time, myself!
However, I very rarely include links for definitional or explanatory
purposes; and when I DO make a link out of text in one page it is
generally to another self-contained page, rather than merely illustrative
material. These other pages contain material the clear understanding
of which I deem highly important for the proper and complete understanding
of the original page. (Links to
CtC, the
Victories pages,
CtC Warriors and so on are obvious exceptions to this general
rule. On the other hand, a link to the victory
Highlights or 'Every
Which Way But Loose' pages, which might seem like such exceptions,
are not. The special selection of victories on those pages, and
the filed docs and tax-agency correspondences included therewith,
themselves constitute highly instructive material which merits careful
attention. Thus care needs to be taken in all cases.)
Please make a habit of clicking on all provided links and at least
looking briefly to ensure that the linked page is one with which
you are completely familiar from another study session.
Finally, please keep in mind that, annoying though it may seem at
first blush (but not, I trust, upon reflection), I constantly tweak
material already posted. Obviously this doesn't mean that every
page is in flux at all times, but it does mean that if you are directed
to a page that IS familiar, it's worthwhile to read it through again
if it's been a while since your last having done so.
