169 comments on DrumBeat: April 8, 2007
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169 comments on DrumBeat: April 8, 2007
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What is not discussed are property taxes,
Or the system of taxation on any level. What does taxation mean when you have a debt-based system? What is the chance of understanding when the tax code is as big as it is.
As of 1999 it (the I.R.S. Manual) is more than 7,000,000 words.By comparison, the King James Bible contains only 773,000 words.(Per link on http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/dearIRS.php )Will anyone be able to own anything by the time the cheap energy party is over?
Does the nation move back to a weak central government when only the states and locals can deliver goods VS the money they collect in taxes?
What do cities/states cut to keep the mil rate the same when the price of housing drops? OR does an inflating currency take care of the numbers end, while the citizens all end up with less and less in their possession?
Who actually owns property?
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
Who actually owns property?
Most people who have mortgages and loans can be argued that you don't own the items under a loan/mortgage. In a world where the color of law (or just plain old force) can take what you have or restrict what you do via some zoning, the argument of 'nothing' can be made.
In a world where your DNA can be used in a medical product or others can make money off of your corpse while your estate can't sell parts of your corpse, it can be argued that you don't even own yourself.
I went to that site...www.serendipity.il
This was one click away from the home page and via a radio button at the top. Also lots apparently on TWA 800 and many other topics. This is sorta on the weird side of things. Not to say they are not interesting but kinda hard to take a whole website devoted to conspiracies. I don't see DC as the head of a enslaving corporation. People in DC are far more scatter brained that the rest of us. My son worked for a long time in DC and I spent some time there, quite a bit and was not too impressed. I noticed most preferred to live in the south(below the MasonDixon line in Virginia so they wouldn't have to put up with the situations in DC. At least they were that smart. I was looking for housing at the time in N. Va and eventually reason prevailed when I observed that this was the most insane place on the face of the earth. Conspiracy to enslave?
Hey they can't even stop spam and they have a big ass law about it. CAN-SPAM.
""Bramley was not interested in UFOs when he started researching the origins of human warfare. However, his research eventually led him to what he shares in this book: evidence that alien visitors have conspired to dominate humankind through violence and chaos since the beginning of time." — Greenleaf Books""
After that I sorta discounted the whole site.
Airdale...their conspiracy to enslave us wont' mean shit once that shit hits the impeller blades.
Airdale,
I must confess I don't know the site. The quote was used in an article posted on Thomas Paine's Corner, a site that I do know and value greatly:
The Big Lie
I wanted to track back to the original, not a quote from a quote.
Your Bramley quote is ... interesting. I saw they had an article on Maria Callas too, and I do want to go back and read that, since I'm a big fan. Now after reading your exploits I wonder if she was an alien too. Thanks, buddy.
Airdale,
First thanks for your posts. Especially the ag based one. My weakest link is my connection to the ground.
"their conspiracy to enslave us won't mean shit once that shit hits the impeller blades."
Actually it will mean 'shit' in the sense that they will be part of the problem and most generally will be getting in the way somehow or other. Most of our freedom is constained. The question becomes do you have enough room to move to accomplish what you want. From reading your posts for about 3 months I suspect you do so far. Some thing are simple.
Regarding conspiracy's in general. If ALL the pieces don't fit in the story, then at minimum there is lying going on and that is essential to a conspiracy.
Specifically about conspiracy's; I had my UFO experience in '71 as an 18 yo. In the '80's I argued with my Dad that Project Blue Book was a coverup. He informed me ADAMANYTLY that it was not, cause he had reviewed files on that project as part of his GS 14 system analyst in the SAC undergound in Bellevue. I never told him abut my experience.
I have butchered my own chicken and rabbit meat.I have a '83 FXSB in the garage waiting for the economic opportunity to get it repaired. That may be soon. Due to a manufacturing plant closing I got layed off. I am going to commute to a tech school 25 miles away for an HVAC/R program. This will be my second AAS. My first was thanks to my 5 year employment at Cushman in Lincoln NE when I got an AAS in electronics/computers.
Where IS that 'Theory of Everything' ?
Like any good and successful crime, the way in which corporations first attained legal recognition as "persons" under our Constitution is a rather astounding story.
It has it roots in the rise of wealthy and powerful railroad interests, and the political corruption that arose in the chaotic aftermath of the Civil War. In the same year, 1868, that the 14th Amendment was passed, legally enshrining "equal protection" for all American "persons," corporate lawyer were arguing before the Supreme Court, in Paul v. Virginia, that under the privileges and immunities clause, that corporations should be recognized as *persons/citizens* too. The SC rightly ruled that corporations are not citizens under Article IV, Section 2.
However, this failure didn't stop the corporations (primarily railroad ones) and their lawyers from trying over and over again in courts of law to get their way. Several more SC cases attest to this fact. In order to prevail they just needed the right case and the right set of railroad/corporate friendly judges to rule in their favor.
Well, in 1886, in Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad, they finally succeeded... sort of. The Chief SC justice presiding over this case, announced:
"The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to corporations. We are of the opinion that it does."
The funny thing is, of which there is a bit of confusion, the statement suggests the Chief Justice made this announcement before oral arguments were taken. Yet, the proceedings of the arguments tell a different story, in that both sides of the case gave vigorous testimony for and against this very same point. What apparently happened is that just prior to handing down their decision in this Santa Clara case is when the above statement was given.
Furthermore, this announcement, despite it's vast implications, had no bearing on how the case was settled. In fact, such an announcement outside of the actual decision in the case did not give it legitimate legal standing. But it opened the floodgates to further court cases which finally did.
The case which did finally establish corporate "person" status via its decision is known as Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad v. Beckwith, in 1889. And the details of this case are worth reviewing. (The actual case decision is a fascinating read but I will briefly outline it only.)
It revolved around a dispute involving the loss of three hogs which were run over by a Minn. & St. Louis Railroad train in Iowa. The farmer tried to get compensated for the value of his loss, to which he was legally entitled, amounting to $12. The railroad was served papers attesting to this claim, but since they didn't pay, further legal proceedings were undertaken, and a judgement was made in favor of the farmer for which the railroad was now required to pay $24.
On its surface its hard to believe this case wended its way through and up the various courts system to where it demanded the attention of the Supreme Court, but it did. (Imagining how many thousands of dollars it cost the railroad in legal fees to fight paying $24 is staggering!) And all along its way it was argued by the railroad lawyers that the fine doubling was an infringement upon their "property without due process of law," and "it denies to the company the equal protection of the laws..." as written in the 14th Amendment.
An amendment passed after the bloodiest conflict in history (over 650,000 humans) to secure the equal protection of the newly freed men, women, and children of slavery, and yet here it is being used to defend a corporation against paying an extra $12!
As if this wasn't enough of an affront, in their decision the SC ruled in favor of the railroad, and they did so by citing Santa Clara, which - apart from the non-binding published 'Head Note' of the Chief Justice's announcement proceeding the actual Santa Clara decision - otherwise offered no such binding legal distinction.
In short, citing Santa Clara as they did in upholding the railroad's status as a "person" was illegitimate. Yet, it worked.
Tragically, since then many other SC decisions have been rendered that only build off this fraud and illegitimacy. The lengths the SC sometimes goes to deal with this fact is often absurdly funny.
One particular reference I am fond of involves the First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti decision from 1978, in which Chief Justice Rehnquist, dissenting wrote:
"This Court decided at an early date, with neither argument nor discussion, that a business corporation is a 'person' entitled to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific R. Co."
Without coming right out and saying so, he nonetheless seems to acknowledge that something happened way back then, something that probably shouldn't have as it did. It's as if he realizes: Oh brother, look where this has got us now -- tied up in fits and performing unbelievable feats of legal gymnastics!
For he goes on to explain how, while we fudged this, we didn't really change that -- whatever that was. But, ultimately, as it doesn't really change anything here, nevermind.
Don't believe me?
Here's the rest of Rehnquist's dissent continued exactly where I left off above:
"Likewise, it soon became accepted that the property of a corporation was protected under the Due Process Clause of that same Amendment. See, e.g., Smyth v. Ames (1898). Nevertheless, we concluded soon thereafter that the liberty protected by the Amendment 'is the liberty of natural, not artificial persons.' Northwestern Nat. Life Ins. Co. v. Riggs (1906). Before today, our only considered and explicit departures from that holding have been that a corporation engaged in the business of publishing or broadcasting enjoys the same liberty of press as is enjoyed by natural persons, Grosjean v. American Press Co. (1936), and that a nonprofit membership corporation organized for the purpose of 'achieving ... equality of treatment by all government, federal, state and local, for the members of the Negro community' enjoys certain liberties of political expression. NAACP v. Button (1963).
"The question presented today, whether business corporations have a constitutionally protected liberty to engage in political activities, has never been squarely addressed by any previous decision of this Court..."
Basically, he's saying, Damn, this all just stinks to high heaven; and the safest thing is to register my dissent.
So, there you have it. A brief history of how corporations achieved Constitutional status as a "person." Along with proving truth is stranger than fiction, no matter how one slices this hog tale, it is one amazing feat of cold legal calculus.
“Given his distinguished background, and his having worked with James Taylor and Jay Cooke of the railroads in late 1860s, it’s hard to imagine that Davis would insert “corporations are persons” into the record of a Supreme Court proceeding without understanding full well its importance and consequences, even if he was encouraged to do so by Justice Field.
So here is the fourth and final possibility: John Chandler Bancroft Davis undertook to rewrite that part of the United States Constitution himself, for reasons that to this day are still unknown, but probably not inconsistent with his own personal political worldview and affiliation with the railroads, and that he did it with the encouragement of Fields.
Waite was so ill that he missed the entire session of 1885 Court, was very weak and sick in 1886 and 1887, and died in March of 1888: in all probability he never knew what Davis had written in his name.
Regardless how it happened - whether it was a simple error by Davis, or Davis was bending to pressure from Fields, or if Davis simply took it upon himself to use the voice of the Supreme Court to modify the United States Constitution - the fact is that an amendment to the Constitution which had been written by and passed in Congress, voted on and ratified by the states, and signed into law by the president, was radically altered in1886 from the intent of its post-Civil War authors.
And the hand on the pen that did it was that of J. C. Bancroft Davis.”
The Theft of Human Rights http://www.thomhartmann.com/theft.shtml
you can own property, but you still have to pay rent (via property taxes) in the state in which i reside the rate is about 0.02 * of market value per year, meaning that you buy the property from the state (and county) every 50 yrs
* every time i visit the burbs (which is no more often than absolutely necessary) i always remind them that i am getting tired of educating their idiot tax abatement assed kids !!!!!
In a way it doesn't matter what the mil rate is. We can do so much now because of cheap energy. If oil were scarce then some things might not be available at any price. It is reminiscent of how water is alloted from a river. They don't give away fractions of a yearly flow, they (generally) allot a certain number of acre-feet to each owner. If a drought occurs some don't get their allotment of water, regardless of what their piece of paper says.