Responses are interlinear, since this is going to additional groups. Brian Holtz wrote: > Jon Roland writes: > > JR) First, the Wikipedia article misrepresents the arguments in > /The Law That Never Was/. It is a report on the findings of > investigators who researched the actual legislative records, the > most important of which are not about ratifying erroneous copies > of the amendment, but records that states that were reported to > have ratified it actually rejected it. For a summary of the > results see http://www.constitution.org/ica_ltnw.htm . (JR > > Your table suggests that 41 states were claimed as ratifying, which is > five more than necessary. So your case is only as strong as the > weakest of your best six states. However, your table only claims three > as "not ratified but reported as ratified", so to get three more you > would have to dip into the category of "missing or incomplete evidence > of ratification". That already sounds like a very suspicious standard > of proof. No. One of the main underlying principles of our constitutional republic is the presumption of nonauthority. http://www.constitution.org/9ll/schol/pnur.htm The burden of proof must always be on officials to prove their authority to do anything. The absence of evidence of ratification, or even debate on the amendment, when the records are otherwise complete on everything else, is sufficient grounds to find that ratification did not occur in those states. > When the Sixteenth Amendment was announced as ratified, was it not > widely noticed and reported in those six states that they had never > ratified the amendment? I have researched newspapers of the time and find almost no mention of it being ratified in any of them. That may seem strange, and even suggest a conspiracy, but I find that then as now journalists are generally not interested in things like that and don't think their readers would be. > The 27th Amendment was finally ratified in 1992, over 200 years > after states started ratifying it. How many amendments would meet > this "missing or incomplete evidence of ratification" standard? One can find the evidence, in the legislative records, of ratifications of the other amendments, such as that one, although I have not yet done a thorough investigation, state by state. However, you should note that ratification of the "27th" was not widely reported at the time. Interestingly, the reports came years later, mostly about the guy, Gregory Watson, who ramrodded it, as a human interest story. > > JR) As for the court decisions, they are corrupt, and no one > should respect any of their decisions. (JR > > Have you read Justice Thomas' concurrence in U.S. v. Lopez > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Lopez>, with its > ringing call to reconsider all Commerce Clause jurisprudence since the > New Deal? He doesn't strike me as somebody who would be a party to a > conspiracy of silence about an illegitimate and > unconstitutional expansion of federal power. Yes, I have read it, have it online at constitution.org at http://www.constitution.org/ussc/514-549c.htm . I wouldn't call it "ringing", but with more of a "stop us before we kill again" tone. It indicates he is afraid to go further without political support. > What about all the scholars in the Constitution In Exile > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_in_exile> movement? Count me as one, and I know most of the others personally. Most of them agree with me, in private, but are afraid to speak out on this and other issues, preferring to work within the system to make incremental improvements, rather than jeopardize their positions by being too candid. They are aware of what happened to Congressman George Hansen when he tried to do that. http://www.constitution.org/ghansen/ghansen.htm > What about Judge Janice Rogers Brown > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janice_Brown>, the relatively radical > libertarian D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals judge who calls the landmark > New Deal decisions of 1937 a "socialist revolution"? How many of > these hardcore federalist/textualist scholars and judges agree that > the 16th Amendment was not ratified? More than you realize, but only in private after they get to know and trust you and don't think they are being bugged. > > JR) On this subjects judges lie. They don't just make errors. This > is not about competence. It is outright, blatant lying. Why in the > world would a Libertarian ever think public officials tell the > truth, in court or anywhere else? (JR > > I don't assume that judges are always right, or even that they are > always sincere. But I don't believe in a conspiracy that can silence > judges like Janice Rogers Brown and scholars like Michael Greve on the > historical legitimacy of a watershed expansion of federal power. I actually spent a couple of years in Washington, DC, hobnobbing with such people. Granted, that was in the 1970-72 timeframe, for a previous generation, but what I found supports conspiracy theories, not as something monolithic and centrally-controlled, but a culture of corruption that casually conspires to commit crimes that everyone is so complicit in that no one dares to speak out, and most don't even care, thinking such corruption is normal. It really does resemble a Mafia, but only loosely organized. > > JR) Read and verify the evidence for yourself. Don't depend on > commentators with an agenda. (JR > > I depend on the marketplace of ideas. I have found that marketplace to contain much of value, but often buried under a lot of crap, and one should not depend on the emphasis or coverage of topics by the mainstream media as a guide to validity. Media that will bump a story about public corruption in favor of a story on Paris Hilton should be regarded with a high degree of skepticism. One of the most effective ways to prevent the truth from affecting public policy is to drown it under a lot of distracting trivia. > I have extensive experience in debunking conspiracy theories, e.g. > about the JFK assassination and 9/11. As do I. So far I do not find 9/11 conspiracy theories of government complicity to be convincing, but I have found the weight of evidence supports such conspiracies in the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations, the burnout of the Davidians, the Oklahoma City bombing, the deaths of Vince Foster and Ron Brown, the Flight 007 downing, and others. I have also found a clear pattern of disinformation involved. Whenever anyone tries to disclose what happened, a swarm of disinformation agents floods the channels with other conspiracy theories designed to bury and discredit the valid ones. It's a very effective technique. I have even overheard them discussing it among themselves. Some of them are remarkably open about it. > I know an agenda when I see one, and the tax protest movement > clearly has one. Yes, and it is about resisting usurpation. I know most of the leading protesters, and without exception they would be quite willing to pay an income tax if it were lawful. The money is not the issue. Legitimacy is. Of course that is not the way they are portrayed. Yes the mainstream media is controlled. I have gotten to know many journalists who admit it in private. For a while in 1995 they were the main contributors to my efforts, in cash and out or sight. > If their case was as strong as you suggest, then two things would be > very likely to have happened: 1) the tax protest movement would be > winning this debate in Wikipedia (or be able to point to blatant > editorial malfeasance against them), and 2) some fraction of > Constitution-in-Exile-type constitutional scholars would be on your side. Your faith in the neutrality of Wikipedia is touching, but I have engaged in a few debates within it myself and find it infested with Establishment trolls who are quick to stomp on words of dissent, especially on certain key topics. I may make a run at correcting that article (see below), but a presumption that court decisions are honest is definitely not a neutral POV (point of view). > > I'm sorry, but your characterizations of how and why the marketplace > of ideas has failed in this matter just doesn't fit into any of the > kinds of its failures that I recognize, and instead fits into a kind > of success that my experience with conspiracy theories has made very > recognizable. So I tell you what I tell Creationists -- meet me on > Wikipedia, and if either of us has evidence or arguments that haven't > been considered there, let's add them and see which can better > withstand scrutiny by the Wikipedia community. > > JR) I have done that for several states: California, Nevada, > Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Virginia, Maryland, New York, and > Massachusetts, and I found perfect agreement with the report of > Benson and Beckman. (JR > > Vouching to us here on LPplatform-discuss is not the best use of your > efforts to defend your thesis, given that anybody who researches your > thesis on Wikipedia will think that it's already discredited. > Instead, you should summarize the evidence for your six best states in > the Wikipedia article. It's easy, and if your verifiable statements > of fact get deleted by somebody with an agenda, there are plenty of > liberty-loving Wikipedians (like me and M Carling) who would rally to > your defense. Wikipedia is becoming an incredibly important resource > in the marketplace of ideas, and anybody who believes the truth is on > his side should be using the Wikipedia process to promote comparisons > of his ideas with the competition. Meet me on Wikipedia, then, and let's see what happens. Be prepared to be disappointed in the objectivity of the editorial process in that forum. > > > Jon Roland wrote: > > JR) the Income Tax Amendment, alleged to be the 16th, but which > evidence shows was not actually ratified. (JR > > Oh no, Jon, not you too. :-) > > If there really is such evidence, then please hurry up and put it into > Wikipedia at > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_protester_constitutional_arguments#Sixteenth_Amendment_ratification_arguments > and > see if it can withstand the collective scrutiny of the Wikipedia > community. The extensive case law currently cited there strongly > suggests that the not-actually-ratified argument is frivolous, and > makes me embarrassed for its proponents -- such as Aaron Russo.
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