AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

JTT wrote:

parados wrote:

No, I guess you don't understand a thing about the constitution. Something that is PART of the constitution can't be "illegal." the income tax is constitutional because it is right there in the constitution.

I don't think that any law can be 'illegal', can it, Parados? A law, duly passed by a legislative body can be unconstitutional where it's deemed to be in conflict with the Constitution but that doesn't make it illegal.

Yes, any law passed by Congress or any state legisture that is determined to be in conflict with the USA Constitution is illegal.

Quote:

USA CONSTITUTION Article VI
...
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

If any state or any county or any city, town, or village passes a law authorizing the owning of slaves, that would be an illegal law. "Unconstitutional" by its very definition means illegal.

Well, try passing a local ordinance absolving you from paying Federal income taxes and then not pay them. Or get a local law passed allowing slave ownership and go out and buy you a couple of those and see how it works out. We'll find out soon enough if you are right.

It isn't absurd at all. Illegal is illegal. Owning slaves is illegal anywhere in the United States as is stated in the U.S. Constitution and no amount of laws passed by states, counties, cities or any other jurisdiction will change that. I offer this only in rebuttal to your statement that a law cannot be illegal. It can. And if it goes against constitutional law, it is. If some renegade incorporated village or whatever attempted to pass such a law as a cover for a slave trade operation, they would probably be prosecuted for racketeering or worse.

Is somebody prosecuted for passing an illegal law? If it wasn't shown to be a cover for intentionally breaking the law, probably not. But once the court rules the law illegal, anyone attempting to enforce the law or practice within its authority would certainly be at risk for prosecution. Unconstitutional means illegal. You cannot have a law in violation of the Constitution that is legal.

If it isn't legal it is, by definintion, illegal.

Foxfyre wrote:

It isn't absurd at all. Illegal is illegal. Owning slaves is illegal anywhere in the United States as is stated in the U.S. Constitution and no amount of laws passed by states, counties, cities or any other jurisdiction will change that. I offer this only in rebuttal to your statement that a law cannot be illegal. It can. And if it goes against constitutional law, it is. If some renegade incorporated village or whatever attempted to pass such a law as a cover for a slave trade operation, they would probably be prosecuted for racketeering or worse.

Is somebody prosecuted for passing an illegal law? If it wasn't shown to be a cover for intentionally breaking the law, probably not. But once the court rules the law illegal, anyone attempting to enforce the law or practice within its authority would certainly be at risk for prosecution. Unconstitutional means illegal. You cannot have a law in violation of the Constitution that is legal.

If it isn't legal it is, by definintion, illegal.

Actually there are probably hundreds of laws that are, right this moment, unconstitutional, yet those laws are being used to charge and convict people.

We know this to be the case because people have been convicted of laws that were later found to be unconstitutional and therefore, null and void, but I don't believe that unconstitutional laws have ever been found to be illegal.

If they were deemed illegal, don't you think it should follow that those who perpetrated these illegalities, ie. the legislators, law enforcement, and the lower courts could/would all be subject to punishment? Should those same people be civilly liable?

Aside from the fine points, even minutia, of Constitutional law and intent, there is a larger principle at work here.

Whenever government forces the more affluent to support the less affluent, many of the less affluent have far less incentive to become affluent than would otherwise exist. A tax system that essentially punishes the high wage earner and rewards the lower wage earner is likely to be highly favored by the lower wage earner. And his vote counts just as much as the higher wage earner and there are a lot more of him.

If you tax a man with adjusted gross income of $1,000,000 at say 10%, he will pay $100,000 in taxes. If you tax a man with adjusted gross income of $10,000 at 10%, he will pay $1,000 in taxes. Even our staunchest numbnuts can see that the high wage earner is paying 99%more into the treasury than is the lower wage earner.

There is however no incentive for the lower wage earner to push for an increase in a flat tax because he will have to pay more right along with the higher wage earner. There will be incentive for the lower wage earner to become a higher wage earner as that is the only way he will be able to enrich himself. (That is also the most efficient way to increase the national treasury. Perhaps the only sustainable way.)

Further, a uniform tax rate, would again mean that each person's vote will have equal weight with our elected leaders who set the tax rate. When all Americans are affected uniformly and no large voting block can be designated to be benefiary of government policy while others are excluded, immediately our elected leaders become uniformly responsive to the will of all of the people. When govenrment is unable to favor one person over another, you remove most incentives for pandering and a good deal of opportunity for gross corruption.

Uniformity as Ican has been attempting to express it, and which I extrapolate to all decisions of government, is the best means of preserving all our freedoms and our Republic.

Consider what some of the great minds from history have always known:

Quote:

The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition is so powerful that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations. -- Adam Smith

Quote:

What is wrong with our age is precisely the widespread ignorance of the role which these policies of economic freedom played in the technological evolution of the last two hundred years. People fell prey to the fallacy that the improvement of the methods of production was contemporaneous with the policy of laissez faire only by accident. -- Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Quote:

Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist. -- John Adams

Quote:

It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder. -- Frederic Bastiat

And all is summed up here:

Quote:

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. -- William Boetcker

and finally here:

Quote:

When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. -- Benjamin Franklin

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house; thou shall not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's.

...
The truth inherent in each one of those quotes would make a great thread all by itself, but they all illustrate a pillar of modern Conservatism.

This is superb research and and a superb explanation, by you foxfyre!

Laws that discriminate on the basis of wealth are no less illegal than laws that discrimate on the basis of race, gender, or ethnicity. The sooner USA income tax laws that discriminate against the wealthier are declared unconstitutional, the better it will be for our country.


By the way, folks, lest we forget Exodus, Chapter 20, we have also had for quite a few years another authoritative statement on this subject:

Quote:

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house; thou shall not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's.

Appeals court tosses FCC's Super Bowl 'wardrobe malfunction' fine against
CBS

By Joann Loviglio, The Associated Press


PHILADELPHIA - A U.S. federal appeals court threw out a $550,000 indecency fine against CBS Corp., on Monday for the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson's breast-baring "wardrobe malfunction."

The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission "acted arbitrarily and capriciously" in issuing the fine for the fleeting image of nudity.

The 90 million people watching the Super Bowl, many of them children, heard Justin Timberlake sing, "Gonna have you naked by the end of this song," as he reached for Jackson's bustier.

The court found that the FCC deviated from its nearly 30-year practice of fining indecent broadcast programming only when it was so "pervasive as to amount to 'shock treatment' for the audience."

"Like any agency, the FCC may change its policies without judicial second-guessing," the court said.

"But it cannot change a well-established course of action without supplying notice of and a reasoned explanation for its policy departure."

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080721/entertainment/cbs_janet_jackson

Quote:

Appeals court tosses FCC's Super Bowl 'wardrobe malfunction' fine against
CBS

By Joann Loviglio, The Associated Press


PHILADELPHIA - A U.S. federal appeals court threw out a $550,000 indecency fine against CBS Corp., on Monday for the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson's breast-baring "wardrobe malfunction."

The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission "acted arbitrarily and capriciously" in issuing the fine for the fleeting image of nudity.

The 90 million people watching the Super Bowl, many of them children, heard Justin Timberlake sing, "Gonna have you naked by the end of this song," as he reached for Jackson's bustier.

The court found that the FCC deviated from its nearly 30-year practice of fining indecent broadcast programming only when it was so "pervasive as to amount to 'shock treatment' for the audience."

"Like any agency, the FCC may change its policies without judicial second-guessing," the court said.

"But it cannot change a well-established course of action without supplying notice of and a reasoned explanation for its policy departure."

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080721/entertainment/cbs_janet_jackson

The idiocy that is conservatism. They get all riled up over a breast but don't at all mind the deaths of half a million Iraqi kids or 100,000 innocent Iraqis.