@joefromchicago,
joefromchicago wrote:
Foxfyre wrote:Money that is legally and ethically earned or acquired is private property. Mandatory taxes--that which we are required to pay and for which there are material consequences if we do not pay--is a confiscation of our property. It is evenmoreso confiscation when our employer is required to withhold it and we never have use of it.
Your taxes aren't
seized by the government. As a citizen, you've implicitly agreed to pay them. How can it be a "confiscation" if you've agreed to it?
It is confiscation whether I or anybody else agrees to it if the government has the power to take my property and exercises that power. The only way to avoid having our tax money confiscated by the government is to break the law. I agree to the social contract implied in the Constitution which secures our liberties, promotes the general welfare, and provides for the common defense and do not object to my taxes being confiscated for those purposes.
I do not agree for my property to be confiscated to give to some enterprising person to study whether pigeons follow the same economic principles as humans. (Yes, our tax dollars, more than a hundred thousand of them, went to such a study.) I do not agree for my property to be confiscated so that somebody who does not choose to work doesn't have to. I do not agree for my property to be confiscated to fund or favor people, organizations, projects, and/or programs that are targeted for tax dollars so that the fame, fortune, power, job security, and finances of government leaders are increased but which do not benefit most Americans and in fact may be contrary to their legitimate interests.
Quote:Foxfyre wrote:We're in a gray area here because of common understanding and practice over a long period of time in which there was no serious challenge from the people or the courts. Based on the language and intent of the Constitution as defined by the Founders, I believe they saw no Constitutional authority to confiscate and expend the Taxpayers' money in a way that benefitted any individual or targeted group. The language is clear that they saw such as an immoral and corrupting influence on government and what would put our hard fought freedoms and liberties at risk.
What clause or section of the constitution prohibits the federal government from expending taxes in a way to benefit any individual or targeted group?
The Tenth Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
There is no way that the study of pigeons and economic prinicples can be said to promote the general welfare or provide for the common defense or is necessary for the administration of required functions of government. Therefore, within the strict interpretation of the Constitution, that study was an illegal disbursement of the people's monies.
Quote:Foxfyre wrote: Conservatives do not object to government regulation necessary to promote the general welfare--that regulation that is necessary to keep us from doing violence to each other.
Actually, quite a few conservatives object to the kind of government regulation that you seem to endorse. Are you saying that they're not conservatives?
You would need to provide specific examples to make a judgment like that. All conservatives do not see eye to eye on every single subject nor are all conservatives MACs as we have defined that. The fact that everybody does not march in lockstep on any specific issue does not negate the validity of the issue or the implications of Constitutional interpretations.
Quote:Foxfyre wrote:As the federal government, in the interest of the general welfare, is given the sole ability to print and distribute currency, it is absolutely necessary to regulate banks that receive the peoples' money or there can be no trust in the banks and the system can't work. There is nothing laissez-faire about that.
Where in the constitution does it say that the federal government can print currency?
Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution enumerates the powers of the government. It reads in part:
The Congress shall have Power . . .
To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States; . . .
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; . . . --And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Quote:Foxfyre wrote:I have no idea what Pat Buchanan has said about it.
You quote and link to an article by Pat Buchanan and then claim you have no idea what he has to say? Even for you that's preposterous.
I did? I have in the past I know when I thought he made a salient point. I was unaware that I had done so within the scope of this discussion. It was not my specific intention to do so.
Pat Buchanan is a smart man and despite the fact that I disagree with him on various points--for instance I am not anywhere near the isolationist that he is and I think he does hold some prejudicial views that I do not share--I can acknowledge when somebody is right about something whether it is Pat Buchanan, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, or pick a name.
