To say "everyone owes the U.S. income tax" is palpable nonsense. Millionaires living in Tashkent and earning their incomes entirely in Uzbekistan do not owe it. So questions of jurisdiction must apply. But what is it we must thus situate for purposes of determining jurisdiction: the wage-earner, the income, or the "source"? And what do the relevant statutes actually say, on the subject of what areas "The United States" shall include, "for purposes of this statute"?
But the central question today is not whether all -- or even any -- of these arguments are correct. The first amendment means nothing if it means we are "free" to say only those things which have won the government's prior stamp of approval.
his freedom of speech must be protected, lest the freedom of all of the rest of us to question and challenge this government and its bureaucrats, on any number of other matters, be silenced as well.
No matter how tedious it may seem, the correct way for government agents to answer Mr. Schiff's questions and assertions in a free society is to do just that -- to answer them, substantively, point by point, in public, in a free-wheeling debate.
The IRS has arrested and jailed this man, again and again, for asking his pesky questions and acting on his beliefs. He has peacefully and willingly paid that price for continuing to speak what he believes to be the truth. When that didn't work, they have attempted to run him out of business by seizing his books and files. But even that was not enough. The mosquito just kept on buzzing. So now, the G-men further seek to silence this gadfly by dragooning the courts into ordering a free American to just shut up. And surely that is where we must draw the line.
