The 16th Amendment

Watching a nation die is painful, especially when the hopes and aspirations are grounded in the concept of freedom from government and the associated liberty to function as a law abiding citizen following God and his principles. At the outset of this part, suffice it to say that those who don’t believe in God are blessed by the same principles of God as the saved, except the living hope and belief of eternal life found in Jesus Christ; for the scriptures tell us for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.  (Matthew 5:45) The materialistic blessings aren’t contingent upon being a believer or being saved and the founders knew that very well. Thus no reference to God or Christ is found in the Constitution, but it does contain the principles found in the Bible. And the Declaration of Independence points to the scriptures and the intent of the founders when they wrote the Constitution.

Our founders created a republic which is representative government guided by the Constitution and the rule of law; meaning laws which are made in conformance to the U. S. Constitution and the constitutions of the individual states. Anything that is outside those constraints destroys the pattern for representative government of and by and for the people. Over the years there have been actions which are not in conformance with U.S. Constitution and the result is a nation whose representative republic is dying a slow death. 

Three events took place in 1913 when Woodrow Wilson, the first socialist, big government man, was President. The first was the federal income tax; the second was the direct election of senators, (17^th Amendment); and the third was the creation of the Federal Reserve to manage the money supply. All three have been nothing but disasters for the republic.

We’ll look at the 16^th Amendment first. (This article won’t dwell on the issue that it is not a valid amendment; that will be left for another time.) The amendment opened the door to the wallets of the citizens. Because of it, the wealth of the citizens has been raided by the government through the IRS and no one in government will stop the theft.

Originally, the tax was levied to pay for WWI and amounted to one percent on the wealthy or upper income class. The thinking was that they could afford it since they had plenty of money. That thinking is pure Marxist in that it took from those who had more to give to those with most need, namely the government. Thus the door opened for the taxation of wealth which began in earnest when FDR began to tax everyone to pay for WWII. That tax was supposed to cease when the wear ended, but you know the outcome of that idea.  

FDR used the income tax to pay for his New Deal programs. The realization is that it was the beginning of income and wealth redistribution by the government through unconstitutional laws. That there isn’t any such provision in the Constitution didn’t matter to FDR. Such give away programs paved the way for his election for three more terms. “Free” money always helps elect the givers and those receiving it do not care that they morally and legally have no claim to the livelihood of others. Actually, government give away programs are nothing but theft of another’s property through the force of law. There is no free lunch; someone has to pay for the lunch.

The next article will examine the 17^th Amendment (direct election of senators) and how that has allowed the government to have the power and the means to fill the appetite of the federal monster. The 17^th became the engine that drives the continuation of the 16^th and the demise of the nation.

   © 09-17-2007 DEC

          Next Article Marching To Communism Part II, the 17th Amendment.