Donald Duck and the Income Tax Return of 1941

It's a long, long way from the War of 1812 to World War II. Many people who are interested in the one have no desire to delve into the other. The United States of 1942 is such a very different place from the United States of 1812. The biggest difference is the existence of the war machine, fueled by the income tax. And in case you don't think that the purpose of the income tax is to engage in war, listen to Donald Duck. Acting as the mouthpiece of the Federal government, he explains this very clearly.

In this film, an ominous looking radio represents the government, and Donald Duck stands for the ordinary citizen. When Donald hears that his help is needed to defend the country, his first thought is that he should join the militia. using the weapons he has around the house.

But the government explains to him that it does not want his puny weapons. It is planning to build much better weapons using the military industrial complex, and all Donald needs to do is pay his taxes. And it will be easy, because now there is this new simplified form.

Then the government reminds Donald Duck of all the freedoms his tax dollars and the weapons they buy will protect, among these the freedom to worship, and freedom of speech, but notably absent are the right to bear arms or the right to be free from searches and seizures. Economic freedom is not mentioned at all. The government wants to save democracy, but it does not seem to remember that the United States is not a democracy, but rather a constitutional republic. The radio voice lists a new "freedom" unheard of by the Founding Fathers: "the freedom from fear and want."

On April 27, 1942,  President Roosevelt said to Congress: "In this time of great national danger, when all excess income should go to win the war, no American citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000 a year." (Bank, Stark and Thorndike 2008.97)

Is there any doubt that we had a communist in the White House? And why exactly did Walt Disney collaborate with him? The Secretary of the Treasury had wanted the movie short to feature a generic taxpayer. It was Disney who insisted that the average citizen would find it easier to identify with Donald Duck.

Despite the new spirit of Donald Duck, Congress did not quite go along with President Roosevelt's plan in 1942 to put at cap on income at twenty-five thousand, but it did set the tax rate on the highest bracket at 82%, which is pretty close.

A government-financed military and a standing army go hand in hand with the loss of the majority of the rights secured by the constitution and in the bill of rights. The question is: when did the average American citizen become Donald Duck?

REFERENCES

Bank, Steven A., Kirk J. Stark and Joseph J. Thorndike. 2008. War and Taxes. Washington D.C.:The Urban Institute Press.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035120/

Rendering Unto Caesar

Separation of Church and State is a doctrine enshrined in the first amendment to the constitution and penned by James Madison. There are many today among the religious right in the United States who bristle against this doctrine and insist that the United States is a "Christian Nation."

But did you know that separation of Church and State is actually a Christian doctrine that predates the first amendment? Matthew 22:21 states:

 "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" (Ἀπόδοτε οὖν τὰ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι καὶ τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ τῷ Θεῷ).

 This quote is attributed to Jesus and is in the context of the question of whether it is proper for Judeans to pay taxes to their Roman overlords. One of the ironies of the New Testament was that Jesus purported to be the Messiah, which means the anointed King of Israel and the head of its secular authority, and that it was because of the hope of being freed from the Romans and their oppressive taxation system that many Judeans followed him. It was also for this reason that he was crucified.

It was the disciples in their gospels who then enshrined a view of religion as divorced from politics and national identity.

In the history of religion, this is a turning point, because up till then  each nation had its own gods, who were believed to intercede for that nation in divine battles, and the success of a conqueror was seen as the success of that nation's god in his battle with the defeated nation's god. To separate religion from patriotism seemed unthinkable.

In time, the Christian religion gained ascendancy in the Roman Empire, so much so that it became the official religion, quite in contravention of the doctrine of "Render Unto Caesar", and by the Middle Ages, all traces of separation of Church and State had pretty much disappeared in Europe. Of course, between the Renaissance and the emergence of the modern nation state a lot of changes did occur. One of the most interesting ones is the founding of the independent Vatican City State.

The Gardens from atop St. Peter's Baslica
Source: Wikipedia

Vatican City became a sovereign nation on February 11, 1929 under the Lateran Treaty signed by Benito Mussolini on behalf of King Victor Emmanuel the Third and by Cardinal Pietro Gaspari for Pope Pius XI.

The fact that the Pope is a foreign prince had been a problem for Catholic Americans for some time, especially when they wanted to run for public office, as people accused them of violating their citizenship by swearing their allegiance to the Pope. But this was also a very great boon to American nuns and priests imprisoned by the Japanese in China during World War II. In August of 1943 all American Catholic nuns and priests imprisoned at Weihsien Internment camp were released to be repatriated, because the Emperor of Japan accepted the argument advanced by the the Papal legate to Tokyo that they were citizens of a neutral sovereign: Vatican City. One has to wonder: when they returned to America, were they still allowed to vote?

Dual Citizenship is still a tricky topic today. In current American passports the following standard warning is printed:

LOSS OF U.S. CITIZENSHIP. Under certain circumstances, you may lose your U.S. citizenship by performing voluntarily and with intention to relinquish U.S. citizenship, any of the following acts: 1) Being naturalized in a foreign state; 2) taking an oath or making a declaration to a foreign state; 3) serving in the armed forces of a foreign state; 4) accepting employment with a foreign government; or 5) formally renouncing U.S. citizenship before a U.S. consular officer overseas.

Separating Church and State becomes very tricky once the Church you belong to is also a State. One can argue that this is only a problem if you are a Catholic. But dual citizenship is not strictly a Catholic problem. Many Americans are faced with this issue. A repeal of the Neutrality Act and related laws would resolve the problem  and would leave the constitutional rights of all Americans intact, regardless of their country of origin or religious affiliation.

Patterson and Ross Awarded Laffite-owned Property They Seized

This week on Historia Obscura there is a very significant article by Pam Keyes.

http://www.historiaobscura.com/john-dicks-letter-to-monroe-honoring-the-baratarians/

The article gives the background for a letter written by John Dick, the US District Attorney for Louisiana,  to James Monroe, the Secretary of State, on behalf of the Baratarian privateers. President James Madison had just signed a blanket pardon to the Baratarians for their evasion of the Customs Taxes of the day prior to the Battle of New Orleans. Dick was glad he did not have to prosecute any of the Baratarians, because of their indispensable service to the United States that helped defeat the British.

But despite the presidential pardon, Pam Keyes notes in her article that property belonging to the Baratarians, and the Laffites in particular, which had been seized in the Patterson-Ross raid prior to the Battle of New Orleans, was awarded by Congress to the raiders, Patterson and Ross,  to have and to hold and to spend as they pleased.

A couple of weeks before Dick wrote his letter, and after the Baratarian indictments were dropped, Ross left New Orleans in March 1815 for Washington, D.C. to petition Congress with the help of a Congressional friend for the monies from the Barataria raid. The bill for the relief of Ross and Patterson was read for the first time in Congress on April 1816, a month before the sickly Ross died at a relative’s home in Pennsylvania. Jean Laffite went to Washington, too, but not until December 1815, when he wrote a letter to President Madison on Dec. 27 seeking recovery of the raid monies. Madison’s response is unknown, but at that time, he was not in Washington. On Feb. 22, 1817, President Madison signed into law an amended bill supported by Congress that directed the secretary of the treasury to pay Ross and Patterson $50,000 from the proceeds of the Barataria raid.

 We have to ask ourselves who were the pirates in this transaction, and who was the aggrieved property holder.

The Argument Against Conscription and Confiscation

It is all well and good to stand for liberty, but if you  cannot fight to defend it, all your pretty words are meaningless. It is all very good to be a hawk in the protection of your country, but if you overlook the liberties you are fighting for in your eagerness to win the fight, then you are ultimately no patriot. It is a rare man who is both good at war and still remembers during the din of battle what he is supposed to be defending.

That Joseph Alston, as Governor of South Carolina during the War of 1812, was not a great leader of men is true. When he called up the militia, they came, but they refused to follow his orders, and eventually went home. And when he wanted to court martial their leaders, he was thwarted by a writ of habeas corpus that required him to let the men go.

http://www.historiaobscura.com/governor-joseph-alstons-record-in-the-war-of-1812/


Now, a charismatic man like Andrew Jackson would not have stood for that. He would have declared martial law, incarcerated the judge, put away any journalists who spoke up against his tyrannical actions, and created an armed camp out of the city he was visiting.

http://www.historiaobscura.com/andrew-jacksons-fine-and-the-place-of-martial-law-in-american-politics/

Though Alston was no great hero, and there is much to criticize in his handling of the war, he at least recognized the rule of law. Jackson was a good military leader, but he did not live by the rule of law, and so ultimately his actions served to undermine the constitution for which he should have been fighting.

Today, people on either side of the left/right divide argue about when it is necessary to force people at the point of the gun to contribute to the war effort, either through conscription or through taxation. But there is one great American hero from the War of 1812 who was in favor of neither: Jean Laffite.

http://www.historiaobscura.com/commemoration-of-a-hero-jean-laffite-and-the-battle-of-new-orleans/

Jean Laffite did not merely volunteer to fight for America and bring along with him many other volunteers that fought in the Battle of New Orleans. He also supplied artillery, gunpowder and flints without which the battle could not be won.

A real American, one who fights for our liberty, does so at his own expense and not by sacrificing the freedom of others. He obeys the constitution and respects the rights of others to their property and their persons. But he does disregard unconstitutional laws that result in confiscation and conscription. Because if the only way to save the country is to jettison the constitution, what is the point in fighting at all?

The Right to Resist Illegal Searches, Seizures and Arrests

Sometimes discretion is the better valor. Sometimes we cooperate with an authority figure or an armed robber or a bully in order to avoid the immediate bodily injury that would ensue if we didn't. That's a choice that every person has the right to make based on the circumstances, and it is not a good idea to judge other people on their failure to put up a fight when they had every right to. Not everybody is equally as brave. Not everybody is equally as good at martial arts. Not everybody can resist. And besides, it is wrong to blame the victim. But what about the other side of the coin? What if someone does stand up to the bully, the robber or the authority figure acting outside the law? Shouldn't we have that right? And shouldn't the law reviewing the case after the fact come down on the side of the resister using force to protect his or her constitutional rights? If we are not allowed to use force and arms to protect our rights, what good are they, anyway?

In the wake of the Sandra Bland incident, Lew Rockwell had the following "legal" advice to give:

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/07/steve-silverman/be-prepared-to-flex-your-rights/

The advice boils down to this: you should not consent to an illegal search, you should voice your lack of consent clearly, but you should also not resist the search. This is about the same as telling a rape victim that she should loudly proclaim her lack of consent while passively submitting to a rape.

One of the reasons this advice is given is in order to later help exclude evidence found during the search.

If police search your car and find illegal items despite your refusal, your lawyer can file a motion to suppress — or throw out — the evidence in court. If the judge agrees that the officer’s search violated the 4th Amendment’s probable cause requirements, she’ll grant the motion. Unless the prosecution has other evidence, your charges would be dismissed.

But what if your objection to the illegal search has nothing to do with any contraband in your possession or evidence of a crime? What if you really have nothing to hide, except that you want your right to be free from illegal searches and seizures upheld? What if you're shy, and you don't want other people to see your stuff? What if being searched makes you feel violated?

The rules set down in the constitution and in the bill of rights were not meant to be some kind of technicality to get criminals off the hook in a trial. They were not meant as a legal trick to nullify bad drug laws. They were supposed to help citizens feel secure in their persons and their property . They were meant to guarantee that Americans would not be bullied and harassed in their own homes or their own turf by their government, in the way that they had been before by the redcoats. That was the purpose. Unless these rights can be protected by force of arms, they don't really exist.

I dealt with this issue in the wake of the Le Brave case in Theodosia and the Pirates: The War Against Spain. 

The result of many an encounter between government forces and ordinary citizens is that the moment the government decides to violate rights, any resistance is deemed a cause for arrest and prosecution. In this way, even if there were no original reasons for arrest, justification can always be trumped up.

The same sort of reasoning was used in the Burr case, when even though Burr and his men never levied war on the United States, and never intended so to do, resisting arrest was seen as levying war against the government. Justice Marshall did not ever rule on this aspect of the case, because he merely found that since Burr was not there when his men were resisting arrest, he was not responsible for their actions. This left the way open for every atrocity since which was based on resistance to tyranny as an act of war against the state.

When the ATF agents climbed in through the window at Mt. Carmel, they had a sealed warrant that they did not bother to share with the Branch Davidians. The Davidians had every right to fire at strangers breaking into their home. But they were deemed to be in the wrong, because you are not allowed to resist the government, even if you don't know it's the government.

That is what is wrong with our constitutional rights at the moment -- that they exist only on paper and not in reality. With mottos like those of Lew Rockwell -- anti-state, anti-war, pro-market -- we can never win our rights back, Passive capitulation is not the answer.

Zora Nadrimal's Half Brothers

The acorn does not fall far from the oak, they say. But Jean Laffite's father was a tanner. It is true that his brother Alexandre preceded him in the privateering profession. But was Alexandre a self-taught sailor -- a pioneer in this new trade? Hardly. Though their father was not a sailor, Alexandre, Pierre and Jean had family members who were ready to teach them the ropes. They were none other than their grandmother's three half-brothers, Reyne, Felix and Clemente,

Excerpt from t he Journal of Jean Laffite
"...under the orders of Uncle Reyne, Felix and Clemente who were the half-brothers of Grandmother"

Was Jean Laffite a self-made man? Yes and No. He was undoubtedly an individual who made much of the opportunities presented to him and who achieved a great deal on his own. But he was also part of a family, and he benefited from the supportive upbringing of his grandmother and the broad horizons offered by her kinsmen.

                                           Excerpt from Theodosia and the Pirates: The Battle Against Britain

It takes many generations in a family before a spark of talent can flicker into a flame. Aaron Burr wanted to be a sailor, too. He ran away from home at age ten and signed on as a cabin boy. But his Uncle Timothy, unfortunately, was not a sailor himself, and he would not allow the orphaned boy under his charge to pursue a path that was not part of the family tradition. So Aaron was sent off to Princeton to study the classics, like his father and grandfather before him, And Aaron Burr, despite his adventurous streak, excelled in his studies, because he did indeed have the ability to parse classical languages programmed into his genes. At first Burr applied himself to his studies until he looked around and noticed that nobody else was doing half as well as he was, and then he relaxed and proceeded to enjoy the rest of his college years.

"You didn't build that." is a phrase that is bandied about by people who think it is unfair that we each have an inheritance and a family legacy and talents that are nurtured in us by relatives who appreciate what we can do, because they can do that themselves, too. But just because you have a foundation built by your parents, grandparents and countless generations before you, that does not mean you have built nothing yourself. Nor does it mean that you should be deprived of whatever advantages you were given at birth in an attempt to level the playing field for everybody else.

Everybody else also has parents, grandparents and nameless ancestors, too. We each come with something built in, and something to pass on to the generations to come.

Why You Can't Just Set Men Free

When I first read the Journal of Jean Laffite, I came across a passage that had me baffled. In it, Jean described how he and Pierre arrived in Mobile with a cargo of slaves that they had plundered from the Spanish, but the American customs tax was too high, so they could not unload and sell the slaves.  They turned back with their cargo in the direction of New Orleans, but could not sell them there, either,  and on the way they met a fishermen and gave him the slaves free of charge. What they could not sell, they gave away. That was when the Laffites realized they would need to find a base of operation in the New Orleans area where they would not have to go through American customs. Luckily, they found Grande Terre and Grande Isle.

The Passage about Giving Slaves to a Fisherman

"In November of 1804 we embarked for Cuba to capture our seventeenth vessel with a cargo of slaves. We set off for Mobile to sell the slaves, a very poor market, and lots of fees for right of entry of the Customs authority. We embarked for New Orleans and also had very little luck with the slaves. We took the boats back out to ocean in order to find a base to discharge the cargo. We found Grande Terre and Grande Isle, and we gave our slaves to a fisherman."

Why couldn't they simply have set the slaves free? Why did they have to give those people away, like a litter of kittens that had no resale value? Jean Laffite did not explain this, because to him it went without saying. The slaves had to go to a good home. They needed someone who would provide for them. They could not just be abandoned hungry and penniless to wander around like strays.

I later dramatized this predicament in a scene from Theodosia and the Pirates; The Battle Against Britain.

Excerpt from Theodosia and the Pirates: The Battle Against Britain

It is easy to become enslaved. Sometimes it happens suddenly. Sometimes it happens gradually. But you cannot expect to become free all at once. Biblical examples tell us that it requires at least forty years in the desert. Forty years is the time it used to take for most of the previous generation that had been born in slavery to die, and for those who were born free to take over the positions of leadership. In fact, chimpanzees, just like indigenous humans, tend to live about forty years in the wild, though much longer in captivity.

Photo Credit: The Daily Mail, UK
Chimpanzeessin Liberia, abandoned by their captors, beg for a handout

I recently read a news story about how the New York Blood Bank set up a virus testing laboratory in Liberia in 1974. They captured wild chimpanzees in order to run medical experiments on them. The captured chimpanzees lived on six little islands and were fed by their captors. They became totally dependent, even though they had once lived free. In 2005 the New York Blood Bank shut down their operation in Liberia, but they promised to care for the chimpanzees they had captured. The funds ran out last year. Now the chimpanzees are living on charity. Even though they are ostensibly free, they have become totally dependent on humans.

You can read the original news story here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3173127/The-heartbreaking-battle-save-66-chimpanzees-baby-left-starve-African-island-medical-firm-abandoned-finished-experimenting-them.html

When the Zionists settled in Palestine at the turn of the previous century, under the Ottoman Rule and later the British Mandate, they were the desert generation. When Israel acquired its independence in 1948, they were ready to be self-governing, and they had the ability to fight for their own freedom. Unfortunately, the country was then flooded with holocaust survivors who had not gone through the desert culling. They arrived with the values of dependency built in. That is why today, just like the chimpanzees in Liberia, Israel asks for handouts from the US.

The essence of slavery is not whips or chains or cages. You can tear off the manacles and open the cage door wide, but if the spirit is enslaved, the man is not free. Slavery is abject dependency.  The example of the liberated Liberian chimpanzees shows this very clearly.