Sonny Tufts
Member

To say that Nixon was the most popular President in US history based solely on his margin of victory in the popular vote is BS. If you look at the percentage of the popular vote of the winning candidate Nixon's second term (60.7%) comes behind Lyndon Johnson (61.1%) and FDR's second term (60.8%). Of course even that is misleading since it doesn't take into account all the people eligible to vote who didn't vote. Given that Nixon's opponent in 1972 was George McGovern, it's reasonable to assume that many didn't want to vote for either. Carlson makes it sounds as if Nixon and Agnew didn't do anything wrong and were simply forced out by the "Deep State". What hogwash.

You're delusional. I am not nor have I ever been a Democrat, and I would never join a party that had people like AOC, Bernie Sanders, Maxine Waters, or Elizabeth Warren in it. By the same token, I wouldn't join one that had creeps like Lindsey Graham, Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Green, or George Santos in it, either.

If the GOP should hold anyone accountable, it's George Santos. But at least for the last seven years the GOP leadership has demonstrated that they believe power is more important than principle.

If this were true, then why should Congress have the discretion to vary the due date for the States to pay their shares? Why not just say that payment will be due by the end of the nation's fiscal year? You are also making the extremely dubious assumption that all state legislators will act rationally. I note you failed to address the fact that if a sufficient number of States paid on time they would receive a discount, thereby resulting in a deficit.

t have previously explained that this so-called "balanced budget" amendment would do no such thing. Section 4 allows Congress to set a date in the future by which the States are to pay their shares of the direct tax, thereby allowing Congress to do what it always does -- kick the can down the road and end up with a deficit. Even if every state comes up with their share of the tax, the discount will obviously result in a deficit. As a practical matter, however, it will nor be possible for all of the States to come up with their shares of the direct tax in the same fiscal year that Congress imposes it. Some legislatures don't meet annually, and it's a delusion to think that a State could decide how to raise its share of the tax and actually collect it in one year. The Founders' original tax plan was to give Congress the discretion to determine when and what to tax. There were only three restrictions on the taxing power spelled out in the original Constitution: direct taxes must be apportioned, duties, imposts, and excises must be geographically uniform, and Congress can't tax exports. The Supreme Court has added a fourth: Congress can't tax certain functions of a state or local government (this is the intergovernmental tax immunity doctrine that is based upon the federalism structure under the Constitution). That's it. Given that 6 of the original 13 colonies had had some form of income tax it's absurd to think that the taxing power given to Congress in the Constitution wasn't broad enough to cover income taxes. Finally, the idea that the "original tax plan" didn't include the power to tax inheritances is nonsense, given that the first federal inheritance tax was imposed in 1797. See http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?516880-President-Trump-gives-up-on-tax-reform-and-embraces-income-tax-manipulation/page2&highlight=johnwk

But you claim that the State's sacrificing is done solely to preserve itself. Others could argue that it's done because what the perpetrator did was a crime and wrong and that he is being punished just as anyone else who had committed the same act would have been. The defense of sovereign immunity can be limited or eliminated entirely by the people through their elected representatives. This has already been done to some extent by the federal government and many states via legislation.

I think Derek Chauvin and the other cops convicted in the George Floyd case would take exception to your "without repercussion" claim.

If it was so understood and agreed it's puzzling why it wasn't spelled out in the Constitution. One reason may have been that to do so would have jeapordized the chances of ratification. Another, which the author seems to assume, is that the States already had the right to secede and there was no need to address it. But it can be argued that the States had already surrendered their sovereignty with respect to secession, since the Articles of Confederation provided that the union created by that instrument was to be perpetual. In other words, under the AOC no State could unilaterally secede. This undercuts the argument that the right to secede was retained by each State under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. The parties to the AOC did. Of course if all of the parties to a contract agree that it is no longer binding, then it isn't. And that's what happened to the AOC -- the States that were parties too it abandoned it and adopted the Constitution.

All law is based on force or the threat of force. And if you think that there would be less brute force in an anarchic society (an oxymoron) you're mistaken, because men are not saints. Wouldn't your objection to an income tax also apply to tariffs and excises? Does the government have the right to tax your voluntary transactions with a willing buyer or willing seller, especially if engaging in those transactions is how you earn a living? Oh, excuse me. I thought you were interested in what the law really is, rather than your uninformed misinterpretation of it. Recall, it was you who brought up the Uniformity Clause.

Consider what Jefferson said about the taxing power the Constitution gave Congress. Writing to Francis Hopkinson in 1789 he said, " I approved from the first moment, of the great mass of what is in the new constitution, the consolidation of the government, the organisation into Executive, legislative and judiciary, the subdivision of the legislative, the happy compromise of interests between the great and little states by the different manner of voting in the different houses, the voting by persons instead of states, the qualified negative on laws given to the Executive which however I should have liked better if associated with the judiciary also as in New York, and the power of taxation. I thought at first that the latter might have been limited. A little reflection soon convinced me it ought not to be." https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-14-02-0402 The Supreme Court held in 1900 that the Uniformity Clause refers only to geographic uniformity (e.g., rates must be the same in each state), not to so-called intrinsic uniformity (e.g., no progressive rates). See Knowlton v. Moore, 178 U.S. 41 (1900). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/178/41/

I don't understand why you think so. I am saying that people have the freedom to do some things that others find intolerable. The concept of "toleration" that I thought TheTexan was referring to means that the behavior is permitted only by the good grace of the majority, who may revoke such permission at any time because nonconformists have no inherent right to engage in behavior the majority thinks does not conform with their shared values. After all, that's what the word "tolerate" means: "allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference." https://www.google.com/search?q=tolerate+definition&rlz=1C1GGGE_enUS452&oq=tolerate&aqs=chrome.4.69i57j0i433i512l4j46i433i512j0i512l4.5359j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 I'm also suggesting that having a society where people have different viewpoints and tastes is a good thing, not something to be "tolerated". Yes, there needs to be a certain level of shared values so that the society can exist without having people constantly using force to settle differences of opinion. But beyond this, a society can exist just fine even if it includes people with unconventional thoughts and behavior.

Not quite. The nation's first income tax, passed in 1861 and reenacted several times during the Civil War, was authorized by Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution, the original grant of the taxing power. The tax was upheld by a unanimous Supreme Court in 1881. The only reason the 16th Amendment was necessary was to overturn a 1895 SCOTUS decision that had held that taxes on investment income (e.g., rents, dividends, interest, and royalties) were direct taxes that had to be apportioned. Taxes on other types of income (e.g., wages) were acknowledged as valid. "The only thing that has ever worked is surrounding yourself with people of a similar culture & values, to limit how much "tolerating" is actually necessary."

I'm not surprised you're still clueless. What the hell does "limiting toleration" mean to you? If you don't tolerate something (which is different from merely disliking something) what are you going to do about it? Will you allow the person the freedom to engage in whatever conduct you find intolerable, or will you take steps to limit his freedom?

Taxation is a constitutional orthodoxy only in the sense that the Founders deliberately gave Congress a broad taxing power. How the revenue is spent was deliberately left up to Congress, with one exception (exports). And Congress makes some incredibly stupid decisions in that regard. He spoke of limiting tolerance. There is obviously some minimum level of shared values and taboos that must exist in order for a society to function. My point was that if you limit tolerance too much because everyone around you (especially those in power) shares similar values and biases (btw, the difference between "similar" and "the same" is only a matter of degree), you may soon find that nonconformity will be suppressed by force. Why in the world would you think I would? Let the market decide. If the Amish don't like jazz then any fool who sets up a club in their community will soon be out of business.

This runs the risk of much less toleration and much more coercion. Limiting toleration inevitably leads to stronger measures because nonconformists stand out and make people and their leaders nervous. As Justice Robert Jackson explained in a case invalidating a law requiring public school children to salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance: How would you like to live in a society where there was no Tex-Mex food (too Messkin), no jazz (too Black), no Stanley Kubrick or Guillermo del Toro movies (too far out), no Johann Sebastian Bach (too German), no Monty Python (we can't have any lampooning of "shared values", can we?) and where all the art and architecture look like the crap that came out of the Soviet Union?