The Wonder of Words | Strike-The-Root: A Journal Of Liberty

http://www.strike-the-root.com/wonder-of-words

Column by Paul Hein.

Exclusive to STR

Increasing numbers of Americans are becoming aware that things are not as they should be in America. It is not the country of our fathers, and certainly not of our grandfathers. This is particularly true where it is most intensely felt: the economy. A recent survey reveals that 57% of Americans have only about $1,000 in a savings account, and 39% have no savings at all. Such individuals may receive government benefits, but probably pay little or no taxes, whereas the more affluent must pick up the tab. A candidate for governor in a neighboring state promises to make the rich pay “their fair share,” but the top 1% of income earners already pay almost half of the income tax revenue, so exactly how much is “fair”? A number of wealthy Americans are leaving the country, with the numbers increasing yearly. Our rulers' power to tax--a power which they bestowed upon themselves--imposes a tremendous burden upon the productive who, in the foreseeable future, may decide to shrug it off. The power to tax is, truly, the power to destroy, which makes the subject of taxation an interesting matter to contemplate.

Have you ever gotten a letter from the IRS? If so, it almost certainly began with the salutation “Dear Taxpayer:” words to which you attached no importance as you fearfully looked to the substance of the letter. In a very real sense, however, that greeting may have contained the most important word in the message. That word, of course, is “taxpayer.” Did you assume that the word simply meant anyone who pays taxes? You assumed wrongly. This is its definition:

26 USC 7701(14) Taxpayer
The term “taxpayer” means any person subject to any internal revenue tax.

If the IRS refers to you as a taxpayer, it is because they believe you are subject to the Internal Revenue Code, or, in practical terms, subject to them. Do you question that? If not, your silence is accepted as acquiescence: you ARE a taxpayer! Certainly if they had addressed you as “Your Eminence,” or “Dear Chancellor,” you would have corrected them. Your silence is interpreted as your acceptance of taxpayer status. What, exactly, does that mean?

The answer lies in the phrase “subject to.” Black’s Law Dictionary, 4th Edition, says that phrase means “subservient, inferior, obedient, subordinate.” As a taxpayer, therefore, you are subservient, inferior, obedient, and subordinate to the tax authorities. How did that come about? Were you born in that state? When a sovereign citizen becomes subordinate, inferior, and obedient to his public servant, it is a truly remarkable event. Did you sleep through it?

You may be told that if you live in State X, you are thereby under the authority of State X (which means, of course, the people calling themselves the State). That is an almost universally held opinion, but it is just that: an opinion. The slave on the plantation was not subordinate, inferior, subservient and obedient to the master because it was the master’s opinion. He had a bill of sale. The slave was bought and paid for; he was his property. (The master also had guns and overseers.)

The people calling themselves “taxing authorities,” or “the state,” or the “Department of Revenue” cannot, of course, produce a bill of sale proving you are their property. Nor can they provide any factual evidence, as opposed to their self-serving opinion, that you have, somehow, become “subject to” them; indeed, they won’t even try, regarding your question as “frivolous,” and thus earning you a penalty for having raised the question. They will repeat, ad nauseam, that you are under their authority because you live in their jurisdiction, while regarding as too absurd to respond to, the charge that since they live within the diocese of the bishop, that they are under his authority.
Persist in questioning your taxpayer status, and you will discover soon enough how you came to that condition. Your subservience, subjugation, inferiority and obedience arise from the fact that your “owners” have the police, the guns, the courts, and the judges. All of them want, and need, your money, and that of everyone else they term “taxpayer.”

Most Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck, and couldn’t pay cash for a root canal, or a new transmission. That’s because being a patient, or a motorist, doesn’t make you subservient, inferior, obedient, or subjugated to dentists or mechanics. But you are a “taxpayer,” and don’t you forget it! (If you do, they’ll remind you.)