“No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas! is all too inadequate).”

Shame he isnt chief justice

Such justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic are all absent from the despotic government that now infects this nation. Legal plunder is now the government's heart beat - to stop the plunder would be to kill the beast.

Bastiat's "The Law" is an excellent read and can be found on line. It's pretty easy to see why Bastiat isn't taught in the government's indoctrination centers they call public schools.

Taxes, for whatever purpose, are nothing more than legalized extortion.

Let pragmatism be our guide. Wealth comes from the "poor", if the "poor" have more money the "rich" will find ways to get it. In my town we are a southern town of a few industrialists and old wealth and a lot of "lower class", If it were not for the lower classes we would not have the top feeders. Legal plunder is just another form of plunder and different only in perspective from the plunder the "classes" inflict upon each other and is probably a way to keep the system going for the benefit of all concerned. Were taxes to stop piracy and plunder at sea a form of legalized extortion? Are the Somali pirates within their rights to continue their trade without interference from tax supported (plunder supported) governments interfering?

The poor generally choose to be poor. If you don't want to be poor, don't get pregnant in high school, finish high school, don't get a credit card, and get a job. Anybody can become wealthy if they want to work for it. Anybody. Who are the "wealthy" in America? They are the small business owners, most of whom have only a high school education and don't come from old money. They do have one thing in common: they are willing to work 80 hours a week to get their business off the ground, they are willing to take risks, and they are willing to risk failure. Those are the people who will be taxed so that 95% of the American people can get a tax cut. In fact that "tax cut" is welfare in the form of a refundable tax credit to half of those 95% who don't and never will pay taxes. They are the lazy and unindustrious that the rest of us are going to be forced to support. Subsidize something and you get more of it: more laziness, more foolish, stupid decisions, more "poor" people. Let's just break a few more windows, then everybody can have a job.

Bastiat's 'The Law' is a brilliant piece of work -- the link to it is above in the Source section. Waffler is incoherent as usual -- I doubt he has or ever will read 'The Law'.

Does anyone know whether or not corporations may have jurisdiction outside of their place of incorporation? Some on this site says that the IRS is incorporated in Puerto Rico and thus has no jurisdiction outside of Puerto Rico. Many US (all incorporated in one state or another since corporate law is under state law) and foreign corporations do business in the US and all over the world. Corporations of course have the same rights as individuals and as we know we are free to do busy anywhere. I don't know about the PR thing but the IRS Headquarters Bldg is in DC. Can anyone expound on this for the benefit of those who say that the poor IRS is stuck with just doing business in PR where there are about 2 million people.

Waffler, your IRS question is too expansive to give justice to in this blog format. For one explanation in a myriad of answers, the IRS is not registered anywhere in the US to do business. By way of example: A Nevada domiciled corporation must register in Arkansas before doing business there. Further, a government entity (real, quasi, or otherwise) must have an enabling act passed (that which defines it, gives it its duties, and authorizes it to do what it does - such as certain courts can hear certain cases because they are authorized to do such) before it commences operation. No enabling act has ever been passed for the IRS. (the Director yes, the Service no)

The uniqueness of the US was that it was based on law (Natural Law - by way of long term historical observation - making all men free) and not the fleeting, wavering or waffling opinions of man. The current manner in which income tax is perpetrated upon the once sovereign is tantamount to larceny, the plunder thereof making a society of slaves.

The absolute brilliance of Frederic Bastiat!
Sad, that we have so long been blanketed with a congress that comes no where near Bastiat's honed intelligence.

Waffler - Your asinine spittle is on IGNORE!

In the absence of Virtue, there exist no constraints on any vice, among which, "legalized" plunder.

As Americans get more "woke" about the 'transformation' of America from a nation of free sovereigns into a nation of indentured servants to a 'democratic' socialist state whose sole job now is to plunder and divide the spoils, the only question is really, how "woke" are people going to get? Where will we draw the line? The cause of our freedom or our servitude lies within the individual consciousnesses of ALL the people. What we believe, we receive. Know thyself, and take a stand.

Waffler, foundational to the Constitution was that instead of making an innumerable list of what the federal government could NOT do, it was decided to state specifically what the federal government COULD do (i.e., if the Constitution doesn't specifically say the federal government can do something, the federal government is legally and in all ways forbidden and bound from doing such perceived act(s) or thing). There is no provision for the federal government to create an extension(s) defined as a "corporation(s)". Thus Constitutionally, the IRS can not be a federal corporation. As I've stated above - neither has the IRS registered to do business in any State. The IRS is not a government agency or entity as there is no enabling or otherwise act authorizing its existence. I have personally been involved in court cases where the federal prosecutor has stipulated to the fact that the IRS was not, and does not now exist as a government entity. As to the second plank of the communist manifesto (legalized / immoral - antithetical to the "laws of nature and of nature's God" PLUNDER), the 16th Amendment was never legally or Constitutionally realized. Consequent SCOTUS decisions (firmly putting in place the gross illegality) has declared the original intent of the U.S. Constitution and later illicit acts - by edict, threat, duress, force and false nomenclature of "law of the land" - enslaving ALLl government chattel ("We The People") was to be legal plunder, is more egregious than words can describe or illuminate.