Subject: Edwin Vieira: Gangster Government
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Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2011 16:05:34 -0800

Transcript of Dr. Edwin Vieira's Presentation at the National
Press Club, June 29, 2000

[Bob Schulz introduction] Dr. Edwin Vieira is a graduate of Harvard College,
the Harvard Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and Harvard Law School. He is
an attorney specializing in constitutional law; he is the author of Pieces of
Eight, the Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States
Constitution, published in 1983, and a revised version of Pieces of
Eight is scheduled for publication later this year. Let's welcome Dr. Edwin
Vieira.

(Dr. Vieira) Thank you, Bob, ladies and gentlemen. My pleasure to be here.
I'm billed, on your program, with talking about the money issue. But I've been
talking about the money issue and writing about the money issue for so long that
I'm thoroughly bored with it. And when this book, this revised book comes out,
if you pick that up at the library, if I can somehow wangle libraries into
putting it on their shelves, and you read it, you'll be mightily bored with the
issue too.

So, I'm not going to talk about that, I'm going to talk, in general, about
some of the problems that I see from a constitutionalist's perspective with the
"16th Amendment" and the wonderful work that Bill Benson has done, and that
Larry Becraft and others have followed up on.

Now, one of the things, though, that I would like to raise as an issue, for
your consideration, is a peculiarity that I see between the two subject matters;
one, the money issue, the Federal Reserve, if you will, on the one hand, and the
income tax on the other hand. I've studied the money issue, case law, statutory
law, historical descriptions of what went on, from, I don't know, the Middle
1600's in England up until now. And one of the things you discover, or at least
I have discovered, going through all of that, is that the powers that be, very
systematically changed the laws as they went along, or they wrote the court
opinions in such a way as to rationalize, perhaps not justify, but at least to
rationalize, what they were doing.

So you can see a kind of logical progression or degeneration in the statutory
and case law from the early days, from the Constitution, from 1789, up until the
present time. And they really didn't hide any of this. It's there if you're
willing to look. Fascinating thing is, most people aren't willing to look. But,
it's not a deep, dark secret.

Whereas, in the area of the income tax, there seems to be, at least to my
mind, an anomaly. That is, if I were in charge, politically, of this system, and
I had a vast mass of people out there believing that they had to pay these taxes
and they had to file these forms and keep these records and perform all of these
various functions, even if I knew that the "16th Amendment" hadn't been ratified
or that there was some other basic constitutional flaws in what I was doing, it
really wouldn't bother me too much, to write the tax statutes and regulations
consistently with what the masses of people thought those statutes and
regulations said. Why would I care? It's all a con game anyway, right? I'm lying
left and right. I can lie in this statute as well I lie in that statute. What
difference does it make? Why would I not write the tax code and the tax
regulations in the way everybody believes the tax code and the tax regulations
are already written?

And I leave that with you, because I think that's a fascinating psychological
problem.

The more interesting psychological problem, and I think it's a problem also
of political philosophy, that I want to talk about today, is why we are even
bothering to be here. Why Bill Benson had to bother, trudging all over the
country, to collect those, what, 17,000, plus or minus -- probably plus,
probably a low estimate -- 17,000 certified pages of public records. It seems to
me that, if we're all not embarked on a kind of fool's errand, that, certainly,
this group has undertaken a task that, in any kind of free and rational society,
it should never have been called upon to start, and certainly shouldn't have to
complete.

None of the business that the various speakers this morning have laid on the
table before you folks, would be necessary, if all of those foxes in charge of
the henhouse in Washington and the state capitols, all of those years since
1913, had been acting according to their legal duties, instead of behaving
according to their political natures. Now, I know, just as everyone else here,
that I really swoon with patriotic ardor, and swell with party pride, when I
hear the revered names of our leaders, past and present.

Nevertheless, it seems to me, that the conclusion to which I come, from
history, at least, is that all of them, to the last man and woman, minus one or
two exceptions, haven't done their duty, they're not doing their duty, they have
no intention of doing their duty, and no reality, no piling up of petitions, or
pleas or kowtowing or begging, will ever cause them to do their duty, or to
accomplish anything other than aiding their critics to establish a record of
their willful and persistent derelictions of duty. Now, some of you may blanch
at that, the severity and the sweep of this indictment, for lawyers are good at
making indictments. But, I'll let you be the judges.

Now, I just should backtrack once, because I always tell some kind of a story
about lawyers, being one, for my sins.

Plane goes down, in the Caribbean. Three survivors. Dr. Kildare, Lawyer
Mouthpiece, and Father O'Flaherty. And they swim to this little island. Get
there, they're completely dog tired. And there's nothing, just sand and rock.
But, across a little lagoon, there's another island, and it has palm trees, and,
apparently, fresh water. Well, they have to get to it. And they see that one of
the rafts from the plane has washed up on that island. Now that ... but they're
too tired to swim, so they say "One of us has got to go and get that raft." But
the water is full of sharks. Well, Dr. Kildare, he's really the strongest of the
three, says "I'll go." The other two say, "No, Doctor, no, you know if things
come, bad comes to worse, we're going to need you." Father O'Flaherty says
"Well, it's really my responsibility, my sons, I'll go." They say, "No, Father,
if things really come worse to worse, we may need you even more than Dr.
Kildare." So that leaves, of course, the lawyer. Nobody can figure out a reason
why he shouldn't go. So, he goes off and plunges into the water, and all of a
sudden, instead of devouring him, the tiger sharks line up and form a bridge and
he can actually walk right across to the other side. And Father O'Flaherty looks
at Dr. Kildare and says, "It's a miracle, a miracle." And Dr. Kildare turns back
and says, "No, just professional courtesy." (Audience laughter and
applause.)

Well, let me be a little shark-like in terms of analyzing this situation,
historically. You know, with all deference to Bill, the question of the
invalidity of the "16th Amendment" wasn't broached yesterday, it wasn't even
broached in 1985, really. Because all of the primary evidence has been a matter
of public record since 1913. 1913, until the early 1980's, well before Bill
Benson and Red Beckman ever started out on their trek, it was there. Now, Bill
published that book, The Law That Never Was, 1985, (Bill, in background
saying "April 4th") okay, April 4th, 1985, 15 years ago. The evidence that was
catalogued and reproduced in The Law That Never Was was filed and the
argument against the "16th Amendment" was presented in numerous Federal court
income tax cases, or at least they tried to present it. I remember one of those
was in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I was there testifying on another subject, on the
money issue. Bill was there, Larry Becraft was there, and there was Judge
Enslen, who was the ringmaster in that little circus. And what was interesting
in that case, just as an aside, they were so afraid of having the money issue,
forget the "16th Amendment", they were so afraid of having the money issue
presented to the jury, that they had to have my testimony off the record, at
night, in the court house, with no one present, other than the lawyers, and the
court clerk and the judge, and the poor witness. That was Judge Enslen. Fine
example.

Bill Benson and Larry Becraft, as I understand, sent copies of The Law
That Never Was to every member of Congress. (In the background, Bill said "I
did.") You did, okay, and that was when, the middle 1980's? (Bill in background
"'87, and their names were embossed on the bottom of the book in gold, just like
the book is [couldn't understand Bill's last word here]") Okay, 1980, 1987. And
subsequently, and even to this very day, the charge that the "16th Amendment" is
invalid has appeared in all sorts of publications, and you can find it spread in
the global village on the Internet. People in Bangladesh know this. Alright. And
of course, very recently, this group, Bob Schulz, presented the issue to the
White House, right, with the results that you all know. But nothing has been
done, in all these years, by all of these people in authority. And, there is the
interesting question, "Why not?".

Well, to answer that question, I think you first have to investigate how
these people have shirked their duties and failed their country, and, if
Shakespeare's ghost will forgive me, I would ask the question, "How do I fault
thee? Let me count the ways."

First, the judiciary. Ah, the judiciary. The inferior Federal courts, I'm not
saying that to be derogatory, that's the constitutional term, right? The
inferior courts ... say that the invalidity of the "16th Amendment" raises a
"political question" which is not justiciable, but belongs exclusively to
Congress. Well, that's rather a highly questionable, you know, or even
question-begging conclusion. As many as you probably know, the term "political
question", or even any words or phrases that intimate that kind of a doctrine,
do not appear in the Constitution. The doctrine of political questions is
another of those rather imaginative patterns that the courts have cut from whole
cloth in order to avoid being confronted with issues that they would rather not
hear.

Now, in some very narrow context, that idea may serve a practical purpose.
But in this particular context, it makes no sense at all. If you recall, the
theory of judicial review, which is the basis for the Supreme Court and the
other courts deciding on the constitutional questions of statutes that come
before them, that was first excogitated in the case of Marbury v. Madison
by John Marshall, long, long, ago [5 U.S. 137, 173, 176 (1803)], and it says
that because of their oaths or affirmations of office to support this
Constitution, in any case or controversy that comes before the judges, they must
put the Constitution ahead of any mere statute or other action by public
officials.

So, no matter what Congress or the President or the States may say some
provision of the Constitution means to them, the judges must decide the matter
for themselves. In fact, they have a saying, which is attributed usually to
Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes that encapsulates this sort of unbridled
power that they have: "The Constitution is what the judges say it is." Well, of
course, that's nonsense! But let's take them at their word, and see where that
leads. If the judges' oaths or affirmations require them to decide for
themselves what some provision of the Constitution means, why then do those same
oaths or affirmations not equally compel them to decide the even more
consequential matter of whether some alleged provision of the Constitution
actually exists? Alright? Existence usually precedes meaning, one would hope. No
matter what Congress or the Secretary of State or the President or the States
may say, or not say.

Are we supposed to believe that this doctrine of judicial review is so
inconsistent in its logic, and so porous in its coverage, that, on the one hand,
the courts will not suffer Congress, the President or the States, to make the
least little mistake about some provision or amendment of the Constitution, what
those mean, let alone to lie about it? But, on the other hand, the courts will
allow Congress, the Secretary of the State, the President, the States, whomever,
to lie or to make glaring mistakes about whether a particular amendment actually
exists? -- is rather implausible theory.

Are we further to believe that the courts will not allow Congress to lie or
to make a glaring mistake about whether an Amendment actually exists, but then
will also suffer themselves to be perverted as willing tools to convict, fine,
or incarcerate people, who, if the Amendment doesn't exist, are innocent of any
crime? That strikes me as even less likely.

Now, it's possible that judges with straight faces, and maybe quiet
consciences, might refuse to hear the argument that the "16th Amendment" was not
validly ratified. If Congress, the Secretary of State, the President, and the
States that supposedly ratified the Amendment, had all affirmatively passed on
that question in light of the evidence that has now been exposed through Bill
Benson's work. But as every judge in this country knows, neither Congress, nor
the Secretary of State, nor the President, nor any of the States that supposedly
ratified that Amendment, have, in fact, passed on the deficiencies that Bill has
cataloged. And these deficiencies quite glaringly show that the Secretary of
State and the state legislatures that supposedly ratified the Amendment knew, or
should have known, from the very beginning, that those ratifications were highly
questionable. But they did nothing.

So, it strikes me that no judge can honestly say that this is a matter that
Congress or other political branches of the government, national or state, have
somehow put to rest. Neither can any judge say that this is a matter that only
Congress can or should put to rest. Or at least no judge can say this, when a
defendant stands before him charged with some criminal violation of a statute,
the validity of which depends on the existence of the Amendment. Self-evidently,
if Congress, the Secretary of State, the President, and the States, refuse to
come to grips with the issue, the obligation to decide the invalidity of the
"16th Amendment" necessarily falls back on each individual judge, in each case
that comes before him, perforce of Marbury v. Madison. Their own Supreme
Court is telling them to do this.

Now, whether the ratification of the "16th Amendment" arose out of a fraud
perpetrated by Philander Knox, at least in my view, is not the controlling issue
in this kind of analysis. Although, obviously, a charge of fraud renders the
matter that much more serious. The Amendment would be unconstitutional even if
Knox's certification of its supposed ratification, had resulted from his merely
honest stupidity, insouciance, or blunders. Either the Amendment was ratified in
the form required by law in 1913, or it was not. If it was not so ratified, it
did not then become, and is not now, and cannot be, part of the Constitution, no
matter how many mistakes office holders may have made in good faith in saying
the opposite.

We the People's lives, liberty, and property cannot be held hostage to our
representative's negligence. And any judicial doctrine that holds otherwise, is
itself such a [sound interrupted for approximately 7 seconds ]. But I don't
believe an honest mistake explains why judges so readily employ their doctrine
of political questions. [sound interrupted for 13 seconds] alleged Amendment,
and its invalidity would be a political question if it dealt, not with the
income tax, which is a cornerstone of the modern administrative state, but with
some other matter that threatened the establishment's power.

Imagine, for instance, that for ... as they used to say in Camelot, a single
shining moment occurred, and We the People actually gained control of Congress
and the state Legislatures and pushed through a new amendment. A new patriotic
amendment, that cut back on the, for instance, the judiciary's wild
misinterpretations of the First Amendment. An amendment that allowed states and
localities to ban pornographic writings, theatrical performances, movies, lewd
displays, whatever. I don't have to specify any more. All the elements of the
sexually degenerate cutting edge of the cultural revolution that the
Establishment is waging against this country. Would the courts interpose the
doctrine of political questions to prevent the peddlers of smut from stripping
that Amendment of its validity if they had the evidence that Bill Benson
produced against the "16th Amendment"?

Or imagine that this new Amendment allowed or even required the states to ban
abortion. Uh! God forbid! Would the courts energize the doctrine of political
questions to suction the abortions out of the courtroom doors?

Or imagine this new Amendment prohibited the national government from owning
any wilderness areas, parks, or other lands or facilities, other than those
specified in Article I, Section 8, Clause 17, of the Constitution, and required
the government to sell what it holds to the private sector. Would the courts
snarl at the radical environmentalists to stop badgering the judges and instead
hunt for relief from Congress?

Or imagine that this Amendment reaffirms, in utterly clear terms, that the
Second Amendment absolutely guarantees and protects the private ownership of all
types of firearms suitable for people's militia, from handguns to fully
automatic rifles and submachine guns. Would the courts unholster the doctrine of
political questions to shoot down the lawsuits of the gun control fanatics?
Would Rosie O'Donnell be told to go to Congress, or some other place where she
ought to go? [Audience laughter and applause]

Could anyone here believe for one minute, for one second, that in each of
these situations, the Establishment's courts would not leap into the legal fray
and declare any of these supposed Amendments invalid, notwithstanding all the
arguments about political questions that the proponents of the Amendments might
make? Well, I leave that you, that's rather self-evident.

Now, let's look at the Department of Justice, so-called. If judges are
responsible for whatever injustices are being perpetrated under the "16th
Amendment" because the courts serve as the venues for prosecutions, certain
people of the Department of Justice, perhaps are even more culpable, because
they bring those prosecutions in the first instance. Now, doubtlessly, the
government attorneys involved in the initial cases in which was introduced
evidence from The Law That Never Was, reported all of this back to their
superiors. Then what did they, their colleagues, and their superiors do? Well,
there's a division in the Department of Justice that decides whether or not to
pursue each and every income tax prosecution, at least that used to be the law.
In making those decisions in the cases that followed publication of The Law
That Never Was, did the responsible officials or the prosecuting attorneys
or anyone else in that bureaucratic rabbit warren investigate the invalidity of
the "16th Amendment"? Did the Attorney General, who is ultimately responsible
for everything that transpires in the Department of Justice, do anything?

If they did, what did they do? What did they discover? What did they
determine? If it was that the "16th Amendment" was validly ratified, why has
someone at the Department of Justice not communicated this conclusion in
eighteen point type to the American people, so the matter could finally be
closed? What would cause the people in that department to keep such a congenial
conclusion secret? Surely not their personal self-interests, or the
self-interests of the political machinery in which they are the cogs. On the
other hand, if they did not investigate, why not? Did they act then? Are they
acting now, in reckless disregard of what an investigation would prove? Well
now, you know most of these machinskies are attorneys. They're members of the
bar, and officers of the courts. As such, they have certain ethical -- believe
it or not -- they have certain ethical obligations, in addition to the legal
responsibilities that their bureaucratic positions impose on them.

Now, those of you who are attorneys or might have had the misfortune to deal
with attorneys, should ponder the following little scenario that I've drawn up,
and the questions that might be used at what we lawyers call "a continuing legal
education seminar on lawyers' ethics." And here's the scenario: Attorney Shyster
represents a major corporation that has a number of lawsuits being threatened
and prosecuted against it. During the first of these cases that goes to trial,
the CEO of Shyster's client provides him with a document that, the CEO says,
will win the case. Well, dutifully Shyster introduces the document as evidence.
Over the opposing party's objection, Judge Goofball accepts it. On the basis of
this evidence, Shyster's client prevails. Later, information comes to Shyster
showing that the supposed evidence is, or very well may be, in fact, false, and
perhaps even fraudulent.

Question. Does Shyster have an ethical obligation to investigate the matter?

Question. Until that investigation is completed, has been completed, may
Shyster ethically introduce the document in other trials, simply because Judge
Goofball was possibly deceived in the first trial by Shyster himself?

Question. What if the CEO of Shyster's client orders Shyster not to
investigate, but to cover up the whole matter, and to continue to use the phony
evidence in other trials? Should Shyster refuse or merely raise his fee?
[Audience laughter]

Question. Would your answer to the preceding question be different if the CEO
also promises to use his political influence to see that Shyster is appointed to
a Federal judgeship?

Well, one need not be an expert in legal ethics or even a lawyer to know how
to answer these questions, especially the last one. But the question is really,
which way should they be answered?

Well now, let's take a look at Congress. Congress's responsibility for this
state of affairs is multi-fold.

Number one. Congress originally accepted Philander Knox's certification that
the "16th Amendment" had been validly ratified, without, as far as we know, any
legislative investigation of the accuracy or good-faith of his certification.
Correct? Didn't even look at it! Well if this was culpable negligence, at that
time, is open to debate. No longer arguable is that such uncritical acceptance
today sinks to a level far below mere negligence.

Second. Based on its original uncritical acceptance of the "16th Amendment",
since 1913 Congress has enacted numerous income tax statutes and licensed the
IRS to promulgate countless regulations under color of which trillions of
dollars of wealth have been extracted from the American people, and who can say
how many individuals have been fined, imprisoned, or otherwise penalized and
punished for violating various code provisions or regulations. This looting and
persecution continues unabated, not only within Congress's view, and not only to
its financial benefit, but also with its acquiescence, approval, and no less
than aid and comfort.

For point three, Congress has always enjoined the constitutional power, and
faced with the documentation that the "16th Amendment" was not lawfully
ratified, has the constitutional duty to initiate an inquiry into the legal
basis for the present income tax statutes and regulations. It doesn't need Bill
Benson to petition it. Doesn't need this group of people to meet here. It's
always had that responsibility and that power. And not in some vaguely
theoretical way either. Because court after court, in the last few years, has
actually held, not merely suggested, that whether the "16th Amendment" was
validly ratified, is a political question for Congress alone to decide. So the
judiciary has officially dumped this issue in the Legislature's lap. And every
American knows how punctilious and scrupulous Congress is in following judicial
decisions.

Which brings me to point four. If Congress would've determined that officials
in the Judicial and Executive branches of the government have convicted and
imprisoned innocent individuals under color of tax statutes, notwithstanding
that those officials were on notice, and knew, or should have known, of the
invalidity of the "16th Amendment", then it seems that Congress would be at
least morally required to impeach and remove from office each and every one of
those officials, preliminary to the imposition of more drastic punishments.

Well, Congress has done none of those things either. That brings us to the
Secretary of State. Now the present Secretary of State ... and I should
backtrack one step. The law has changed. The Secretary of State no longer
certifies the ratification of constitutional amendments. But, in this particular
case, I believe the present Secretary of State, the sitting Secretary of State,
retains responsibility because her predecessor, Philander Knox, certified the
"16th Amendment" had been validly ratified. And if Knox's act under color of his
position of Secretary was erroneous, or worse yet, fraudulent, it would appear
legally incumbent, as well as morally compulsive, upon Knox's successor in
office, to correct the error or expose the fraud, because that really was an
error of the Department of State. Of course, nothing's being done there now, the
present Secretary of State is more interested in bombing wogs and fuzzy wuzzys
in foreign countries than in dealing with issues of freedom of the American
people.

Well, that brings us to the President, or as they like to say, this President
[audience laughter], to distinguish him from all the other Presidents [more
laughter], for whatever reason may strike your fancy, this President.

On entering his office, even this President swore or affirmed that he, quote
"will, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the
Constitution of the United States," and it may be true that he's doing it to the
best of his ability [audience laughter and applause]. Because if Congress won't
call him a perjurer, I certainly don't want to. And among this President's
duties is the requirement that, quote, "he shall take care that the laws be
faithfully executed." No doubt depending on what he thinks "faithfully" means
[audience laughter], because we know how he interprets that word in other
contexts [more laughter].

How can anyone fulfill these mandates who does not know, or worse yet, does
not care, what the Constitution actually prescribes? So, now that the President
does know, along with everyone else in the global village, for which we can
thank Al Gore, right? [audience laughter]. As long as he knows that the
ratification of the "16th Amendment" may have been false or fraudulent, his
duties should be diligently to inquire into the matter so that he could be sure
of what the laws are, that he must take care to faithfully execute. And while
the investigation proceeds, he could also order the Department of Justice not to
prosecute any more criminal income tax cases, let them be put on hold, for
heaven's sakes. And he could even pardon those people who were convicted while
the courts and everyone else in positions of authority in the Federal apparatus
refused to address this issue. He could, but he isn't, and he hasn't, and he
won't.

Well, that brings us to the states. Glory be, the 10th Amendment, the states.
The states that claimed to Secretary of State Knox that they had ratified the
"16th Amendment" obviously share an especially weighty responsibility for
everything that has transpired since 1913. Partly because they, perhaps more
than anyone else, are, or should be, aware of the many manifest and arguably
fatal deficiencies of their supposed ratifications. So now that this question
has been squarely presented, the Legislatures of those states should conduct
their own investigations into the sufficiency of their ratifications. And
perhaps their courts should entertain lawsuits to test that sufficiency.
Moreover, what about those three solitary states, the three musketeers of
constitutionalism, that refused to ratify the 16th Amendment? Connecticut, the
Constitution state. Rhode Island, where they had the first incendiary tax
protest, they burned the Gatsby, British tax schooner. And Utah. Those states
could bring an action in the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court,
attacking the faulty ratification of the Amendment. And this would have the
inestimable value of forcing the "gang of nine" to take a public position, that
they will obviously never do because they will always deny writs of certiorari
in any of these tax cases that come up through the lower courts.

So, in sum, much could be done by many doers with legal and moral
responsibility for doing something, who all have some power to do it. But, in
fact, nothing has been done by the Judiciary, except to dodge the issue as a
"political question". And nothing has been done in any way, shape, or form, by
Congress, the Department of Justice, Secretary of the State, the President, or
the states. Now were this a matter, not of constitutional law, which is one of
my areas of interest, but of labor law, which is another of my areas of
interest, I might draw the conclusion that I would have to identify all of these
political deadbeats as charter members of Local Number One of the Shirkers,
Snivelers, Shovel-Leaners, and Standers-By International Union [audience
laughter and applause]. Any of you who have teen-age or near teen-age children
know about that union because I think children sign up for that at birth,
alright. Try to get them to do anything around the house.

Or, if this were a matter of criminal law, which in the fulness of time it
may yet become, the conclusion would be that as government officials, these
people knowingly, intentionally and wilfully have enforced an arguably invalid
Amendment with reckless disregard of its invalidity and therefore should be held
criminally liable as violators of American civil rights [audience applause].
Title 18, United States Code, section 241, seems to have been written with them
in mind. Perhaps more interestingly, though, to me at least, is to view this
spectacle through the lense of political science, or political philosophy. I
don't think this is much a matter of legal craft as it is of soul craft, if you
know my meaning.

The failure to act on the part of all of these individuals in high office for
so many decades, and especially during the last fifteen years, during which they
have been on repeated notice of the documentation compiled in The Law That
Never Was, must have had some reason other than mere sloth. For, according
to their own press releases, and their political propaganda, these people are
the very best and the brightest of all Americans. They are uniquely qualified by
their intellects, their experiences, their motivations, their qualities of
leadership, ad nauseam, to fill the highest offices of the land. That's why they
run for office, for heaven's sakes! And surely, political psychology tells us
that the most plausible reason for the inactivity of such men and women must be
their own self-interest, which, no doubt, they know better than anything
else.

Now, the American people must ask themselves, "What is the self-interest of
political officials sworn to support this Constitution, to preserve and protect
the Constitution, to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, what is the
self-interest of those individuals who would maintain this country in
subservience to an 'income tax amendment' they know, should know, and have every
good reason to know, was never ratified, and is therefore not part of the
Constitution, and not a law, to be faithfully executed or even to be executed in
any way, shape or form?"

Clearly, it is not the self-interest of true and honest agents of average
American men and women. For in no rational sense could such deceitful and
disloyal officials, behaving in such a lawless manner, be considered the
people's representatives. Then who or what have they been representing all of
these years? And more to the present purpose, who or what are they representing
now?

Realistic political science teaches that there are two, and only two, kinds
of government. One, is what the ancient Romans called, a res publica, a
"public thing", a government for the people. Not necessarily a democracy,
because ancient Rome was not a democracy. And not necessarily a republic,
because the ancient Romans from time to time appointed dictators, with good
reason. And one can even imagine an aristocracy or a monarchy that would put the
public interest, the general welfare, the common good of every citizen, ahead of
all narrow special interests. Well that's one form of government.

The other is a government of, by, and for a self-selected, self-perpetuating,
crew of elitists. This is not a res publica, a public thing. It is La
Cosa Nostra, "our thing." [audience laughter and applause]. That is,
gangster government. And such is precisely the nature of what passes for the
government today in Washington. And in the states, and the counties, and the
cities. It's just a different "family", depending on where you are.

This explains what is going on with the "16th Amendment" far better than any
legal mumbo jumbo such as the doctrine of "political questions". America's
gangster government does not give a rotten fig what the law actually is. Because
law is just a camouflage, or a cover story, for the gang's looting and
oppression of the rest of society [audience applause]. America's gangster
government operates under what it's legal mouthpieces called a "living
Constitution." That is, a Constitution, the meaning of which depends on the
interests of the big shots who happen to be living [audience laughter], and who
pull the legislative and judicial strings.

So, America's gangster government can function perfectly well under
Constitutional Amendments that were never ratified. Because whether an amendment
was ratified is far less important than whether it can be enforced. And I remind
you of the wisdom ... the man was not a Sicilian, he was a Neopolitan, but he
had tremendous wisdom in this area ... Alphonse Capone, one of the great
political philosophers in American history [audience laughter]. He said "You can
go a long way in life with a smile, but you can go a lot farther with a smile
and a gun." [audience laughter]. It's what you can enforce.

Now, what is the point, I might even ask what is the rationality of asking a
gangster government, or particular gangsters in the government, to investigate
and pass judgment on their own wrongdoing? Do you not already know what they
will say? And whatever they say, will you believe them? Do you believe what they
have told you about the Oklahoma City bombing? Do you believe what they've told
you about Waco? About TWA flight 800? About Mena, Miny, and Mo? [audience
laughter]. Well, that raises another question, though. What can common Americans
do about this gangster government? After all, it is the government! And it's
much more dangerous precisely because it's composed of gangsters.

Well, that's true. But also, this is a government around which hangs the
smell of the Nuremburg and Tokyo war crimes trials, which set the precedent for
prosecution of gangster governments. Looting a whole country for generations
under color of an unratified constitutional amendment, constitutes a crime
against the people, if anything does. That this crime is being committed by
individuals who happen to hold official positions in the government, Nuremburg
and Tokyo tell us, does not attenuate its criminality or immunize its
perpetrators. But with all due deference to Dostoevsky, crime is one thing, and
punishment is another. And these criminals will never be punished until they are
first pulled from office by an educated, disgusted, and incensed electorate
[audience applause]. But to strip them of their offices, they must first be
tried, and that in the court of public opinion, which is the only tribunal now
sitting that will give these charges a fair hearing.

So, in what I call "the program of the four I's," Investigate, Inculpate,
Indict, Incarcerate, [audience laughter] the first and most important step must
be investigation. The machinery of investigation should center around a
Citizen's Constitutional Investigatory Commission, composed of legal scholars,
historians, other qualified individuals who are capable of assessing and
arriving at correct conclusions from pertinent evidence. This Commission,
however, must not seek any governmental direction, assistance, or other
involvement. Public officials may appear before it as witnesses, and indeed many
should be summoned to testify and to submit documentary evidence. But otherwise,
no public official should be allowed to participate in such a Commission's work,
as any such connection would raise insoluble conflicts of interest.

The Commission should be empowered to investigate at least four issues.

First, whether the "16th Amendment" was validly ratified in 1913. That will
require an in-depth analysis of all the materials that have been collected in
The Law That Never Was and whatever else can be assembled and all of the
circumstances that led to the generation of those materials.

Second, if the Commission determines that the alleged "16th Amendment" was
not validly ratified, the Commission should then determine whether a tax on
incomes from individual's labor, professions, wages, and salaries, is a direct
tax or an excise tax, as those terms are used in Article I, Section 8, Clause 1,
and Article I, Section 9, Clause 4, of the Constitution. That's because, as one
of the speakers pointed out earlier today, there is some dispute among the
government, and also among constitutional scholars, as to what kind of tax an
income tax is. And we're going to cover all the bases, or this Commission should
cover all the bases. So such an investigation will entail an in-depth analysis
of direct and indirect taxes in English and American Colonial law in the century
or so preceding the War of Independence and ratification of the Constitution.
Because we want to know what those words meant in 1789, not what they mean today
to somebody in the Department of Justice or the Internal Revenue Service.

Third, if a tax on individual income from labor is held to be an excise by
the Commission, then the Commission should determine an issue that was also
broached earlier this morning, whether such a tax constitutes a badge or
incidence of slavery or involuntary servitude, and is therefore unconstitutional
under the 13th Amendment. I won't go into this in great detail, but you figure
it out. The premise of this tax is that the tax is generated by labor, labor
creates this tax. And the tax is taken, in principle, directly from the labor.
Which, of course, to the government, has no value except in so far as it
produces the wealth that can expropriated. This is precisely the master-slave
theory of wealth generation. And I think if one went back to the antebellum
American and Colonial literature, you would find a great deal of information on
that subject which would verify that interpretation. In any event, that
particular issue has to be settled.

And, finally, if the 16th Amendment was not validly ratified, if a tax on
incomes from individual labor is a direct tax, or if such a tax is a badge or
incident of slavery, then the Commission should determine why officials in all
branches of the national government have enforced this tax since 1913, and in
particular, why they have done so since publication of The Law That Never
Was and all the litigation on the findings in that book brought in public
view this issue.

One important aspect of such a Commission's work, would be a comprehensive
search for documentary evidence, Federal and state Freedom of Information Acts
could be used, national archives, state archives, Presidential libraries,
compilations of papers of public figures that are maintained in universities,
and so forth and so on, all of those need to be searched.

Another important aspect of the work must be public hearings, hopefully to be
held in various places throughout the country, during which testimony will be
taken and documentary evidence submitted. This, not only for the Commission's
immediate work, but for the purpose of educating people in the various locales
about what's going on and what these issues are.

And eventually the Commission should publish its findings, together with all
testimony and documentary evidence suitably printed and bound, what, forty,
fifty, sixty, a hundred, volumes, right? Reminds me of that wonderful work that
was produced in 1945-46, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, we could almost
use that title. These materials then should be presented immediately to
Congress, the Secretary of State, the President, the Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court, the Legislatures of the several states that were involved in the
ratification of the "16th Amendment". If the Commission's findings establish the
tax on individual income from labor is unconstitutional, each of these
governmental recipients should be instructed to take appropriate action. Now,
you note that the word I use is "instructed." Not, asked, petitioned, begged, or
implored. For, faced with findings that the income tax is unconstitutional,
theirs will be the constitutional duty to act. I presume, however, being
something of a cynic, ... you know people often call me a pessimist. And I like
to ask them, you know, what's the definition of a pessimist? A pessimist is an
optimist who knows the facts [audience laughter]. I've been in this business a
while. And it gets dirtier the deeper you dig. So, I presume, that no matter
what findings are presented to these public officials, they will not
disestablish the individual income tax on their own, anymore than they would
disestablish the Federal Reserve system, simply because someone such as myself
proves that the constitutional dollar is a silver coin, not a piece of paper
[audience applause]. Or any more than they will give up their fantastic dreams
for a New World Order simply because the Declaration of Independence establishes
the United States as a nation among nations, not as a satrapy of some global
empire [audience applause].

Rather, I anticipate that they will do everything within their power to
obstruct, obfuscate, and delay, if not derail entirely, the Commission's
investigation, and then to criticize, belittle, and ridicule the Commission's
findings. Because, let's face the facts, the income tax is one of the major
props of the power structure. Enough said! At that point, though, finally armed
with the whole truth on one side, and face to face with the political classes'
intransigence on the other, the American people will be forced to decide whether
they are sheep or men, whether they can mount a grass-roots political movement
to throw these elitists out of office once and for all and reassert
self-government in this country, or accept the other alternative.

It will be very interesting to see what happens. Thank you, ladies and
gentlemen [audience applause].