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America: Freedom to Fascism
A Refute
By Matthew Young

I began watching this movie in order to refute its claims about the legality and existence of the income tax. I wound up producing a thorough refute that came to more than 4400 words. The income tax, Federal Reserve System, and dystopian visions of the RFID future are all addressed with factual information and a touch of reality.

If you would like to obtain my document for personal purposes or to post elsewhere, I would be happy to share.

16th Amendment
The movie offers no evidence that the 16th amendment wasn't ratified. They simply assert that it wasn't. The claim failed in United States v. House, and in Miller v. United States the court said that:

“We find it hard to understand why the long and unbroken line of cases upholding the constitutionality of the Sixteenth Amendment generally, Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Company…and those specifically rejecting the argument advanced in The Law That Never Was, have not persuaded Miller and his compatriots to seek a more effective forum for airing their attack on the federal income tax structure”

The court actually sanctioned the litigants for making a “patently frivolous” claim.

"Where is the law?"
Have you ever seen the law that makes murder a crime? You probably haven't. I know I haven't. The sequence of people who can't say they’ve seen the law is meaningless.

These IRS folks are just dumb. I'll point you to the law right now: 26 U.S.C. § 1. You're free to access the text. Title 6 Subtitle A of the United States Code will provide you with all of the laws you’re seeking.

If you're arrested, you cannot demand that the arresting officer show you the law that you've violated. He has no obligation to ever produce a book of state statutes to point it out to you. This is similar; the IRS has no obligation to help you find the law and absolutely no interest in wasting its time doing so. Ignorance doesn't spare you from prosecution. They might not be able to send you to jail for tax evasion, but they’re still going to get their money.

Number of Non-filers
When the IRS woman says that 67 million Americans aren't filing returns, it's not because they're evading tax. Almost all of those 67 million aren't required to file because they aren't earning enough income to owe tax. The Bush tax cuts, for example, eliminated the tax liability of millions of poor people and families.

Dodgy Quotes
That isn't a Wilson quote. It contains pieces of Wilson quotes, but it's been spliced together with additions that didn’t come from Woodrow Wilson.

Off to Jail
I can already tell you that two people who appeared in this film were prosecuted by the IRS for tax charges. One was found guilty of criminal acts and forced to pay several million dollars (in addition to being sent to prison). One was found not guilty of the criminal charges but forced to pay several hundred thousand dollars to settle his tax bill.

Debt Interest Consuming Everything
The statement by the tax attorney about debt interest is factually incorrect. The fact that he cites a report instead of using statistics is a great clue. I'm assuming that he's taking the report's statement out of context.

Spending
According to this film, there is no money left after debt service and "government waste."

Individual income taxes in 2006 came to $1 trillion+. Only $200 billion was spent paying interest on the debt. That leaves $800 billion of "government waste."

In that period the government spent $360 billion on unemployment/welfare, $270 billion on Medicaid, $90 billion on education, $70 billion on transportation, and several hundred billion other dollars in other areas.

If you're going to tell me that all $200 billion in debt payments came from the income tax, do tell me where the other $800 billion went if it wasn't any of that social spending or defense.

Supreme Court Rulings
Court rulings against the idea that the amendment wasn't property ratified: Ficalora v. Commissioner, Sisk v. Commissioner, United States v. Sitka, United States v. Stahl.

Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co. doesn't deal with the 16th amendment. The piece quoted by the man in the movie is a very small part of a very long sentence. In other words, he's taking the section out of context. The fact that the 16th amendment granted no new taxing power is irrelevant and meaningless!

Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad (addressed in Stanton) held that it didn't matter whether income taxes were direct or indirect--the 16th amendment simply removed the requirement that they be apportioned. Parker v. Commissioner affirms that the 16th amendment allows a tax on "wages, salaries, commissions, etc. without apportionment."

The argument being advanced and the cases being used in an attempt to advance it are meaningless--I've already provided the instances in which the court ruled that the income tax was constitutional. They aren't contradicting themselves; instead rulings and statements are being taken out of context and the conclusions made by the court in the rulings being cited have simply been ignored.

Southern Pacific Co. v. Lowe, for example, doesn't even mention the 16th amendment, yet it's cited as an example of a case against it.

Constitutionality
The argument that "Once something is unconstitutional, it's unconstitutional!" is wrong. The income tax that was invalidated was unconstitutional because there was no 16th amendment. The 16th amendment made the income tax without apportioning the revenue to the states constitutional--that's why it was added to the constitution.

The argument about direct and indirect is irrelevant. The court has already ruled on what the tax is considered! You'll find it in some of the cases I've been discussing.

That's a letter is meaningless. Once again, that law is 26 U.S.C. § 1, which imposes an income tax on individuals.

Eisner v. Macomber isn't about the income tax. It relates to the taxation of dividends. Even if it was about the income tax, the Supreme Court holds that wages, benefits, and all other forms of gain not excluded by Congress are taxable income.

Doyle v. Mitchell Bros. doesn't relate to the income tax either.

Tax Liens
There's no argument here. The federal government uses liens because there is no issue that needs to be evaluated by a third party. Doing otherwise would be a waste of time, money, and the entire justice system (I already listed cases holding that the arguments about the validity of the 16th amendment are fallacious).

Enforcement
The old guy (who I really like because he sounds like a cool old guy) states that there is nothing in the Internal Revenue Code making tax evasion a crime and/or allowing the government to seize property. Check out 26 U.S.C. § 7201:

"Any person who willfully attempts in any manner to evade or defeat any tax imposed by this title or the payment thereof shall, in addition to other penalties provided by law, be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $100,000 ($500,000 in the case of a corporation), or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution."

FBI guy (and sadly) old angry guy don't seem to know what they're talking about.

Joe Banister
Want to know something interesting? This man, the one who's telling us that there is no law forcing people to pay income taxes, is...PAYING INCOME TAXES as of 2005, according to his lawyer. I bet he’s making far more money promoting this garbage than he was making at the IRS.

Interview with Cohen
The tax code doesn't say that it's voluntary to comply. The text being quoted in the movie is from an IRS publication and means voluntary compliance in the sense of the IRS not having to go after you for not paying. There's no "diversion of logic” in Cohen’s statement. The IRS actually does want to achieve maximum voluntary compliance—they’d rather you do it right!

The 5th amendment argument doesn't hold up. United States v. Sullivan and Garner v. United States affirm that the 5th amendment does not shelter you from reporting your income.

Once again, income has been defined by the courts to include ANY gain not excluded by Congress. Coppage v. Kansas deals with labor unions, not the definition of income. You cannot pick one phrase out of the ruling that has nothing to do with the court’s holding and claim that it invalidates all previous court precedent.

I'll quote from William E. Peck & Co. v. Lowe:

"The Sixteenth Amendment, although referred to in argument, has no real bearing and may be put out of view. As pointed out in recent decisions, it does not extend the taxing power to new or excepted subjects, but merely removes all occasion, which otherwise might exist, for an apportionment among the states of taxes [247 U.S. 165, 173] laid on income, whether it be derived from one source or another."

The federal government was granted the power to tax in Article I of the constitution. We're all subject to that--the argument related to Peck v. Lowe doesn't stand up.

Marcella Brooks
Marcella Brooks claims that the prosecution couldn't show her and fellow jurors a law requiring income tax. Unfortunately for this film, the case in question is a state income tax case. The question of federal income tax is irrelevant.

The man whose fate was decided was involved in a federal case, however, and in that case the court ruled that "...Harrell's challenge to the tax assessment is frivolous."

The 16th amendment doesn't impose new taxing power. It simply eliminates the requirement of apportionment among the states. The end.

Cohen is correct when he says that this is a waste of his time. These issues were settled in the 1910s, after all.

The assertion that lower courts aren't in compliance with the Supreme Court is absolutely false. He cites no examples.

This is a rather unfair exchange. Cohen is unprepared, obviously, and the guy doing the interview isn't talking about specific cases.

Assertions about Law and Supreme Court
False assertions. I don't see a need to repeat everything I've already said.

There doesn't need to be a statute allowing a direct unapportioned tax on wages, so he's right in saying that it doesn't exist:

16th Amendment: The federal government can collect an income tax that isn't apportioned.
Supreme Court: Wages include any gain not excluded by Congress.

Marcy Brooks the Liar
IRS agents don't investigate state income tax cases. This woman sat on the jury that heard charges relating to state income tax. According to what I've read, the IRS agent in question didn't testify in this case. She's making it up. This is a state case--why has it been edited together with footage of an IRS agent on a federal matter? By the way, did you see how heavily edited that footage was?

And you can see how much this woman is enjoying her celebrity... I get 700,000 pages searching her name on Google.

Supposed Winners
We already dealt with the former IRS agent. He wasn't charged with not paying taxes--he was charged with criminally helping people file false returns. He was found not guilty of that. There’s been no tax assessment against him in the civil realm because he’s paying his taxes.

Vernice Kuglin was not found to be correct about not owing taxes. A jury decided that she was not guilty of tax evasion. Why? Because the IRS didn't take the time to answer her letters.

Her attorney: "The next question of civil liability for the amount of taxes is further down the road. I would anticipate here that the IRS is probably going to be sending her a 90-day letter for the six years that were the subject of the indictment."

The IRS didn't answer her letters and didn't get a successful criminal charge, but it didn't stop them from collecting anything. I’m sure they either got their money or have taken whatever property she had by now.

I feel that I should again stress that these folks haven't successfully challenged the law or proved that it doesn't exist or is invalid. Instead the government has failed to prove that the people in question willingly evaded paying their taxes (which doesn't mean they didn't willingly evade their taxes--only that the government, which has the burden of proof, didn't have enough evidence to show that it happened). The IRS can still collect its money, and in some of these cases it did.

Additionally, you cannot necessarily come into a courtroom and claim that a law is invalid. A judge is not going to tolerate someone arguing that he/she has not committed a murder because murder isn't really a crime. It's very possible that whatever was being addressed by the man in Dawson's court was irrelevant.

Once again, that statute is 26 U.S.C. § 1.

Boohoo Stories
I can’t find specific information on Joe Louis’ tax troubles, so I would be weary of buying the claims made in the film.

The business and home raids detailed by this family don't sound like IRS raids. Methinks it's a matter of the drug charges that were mentioned.

The Federal Reserve
There is a fundamental lack of understanding of what the Federal Reserve is. It is not properly called a private corporation because it's a mixture of public and private entity. The parts of the bank that are privately owned are the regional Federal Reserve banks that handle the money supply in their respective areas.

They aren't operated for profit, and ownership interest in the bank cannot be transferred, sold, or used as security for a loan. The stock of the federal reserve banks is owned solely by the banks that wish to be members of the system (and they're required to be, so every bank is a member of the system and every bank owns part of the Federal Reserve—not just big banks like Citigroup and JP Morgan); dividends of no more than 6% can be paid on their ownership interest.

There's no purpose in being alarmed about the dividends. The system doesn't pay interest on some of the money it keeps on hand from the individual banks, and it pays interest below market levels on some other funds that it holds. The dividend makes up for ways the member banks are already being shortchanged.

The system and its banks are not privately controlled. The President appoints people to both the Board of Governors for the system and the individual Boards of Directors of the individual regional banks.

There no small, evil group getting rich off of the Federal Reserve System. Go take a look at where banks generate their income.

The country was not in a good position without the Federal Reserve. Look into history and that's apparent. When Andrew Jackson killed the Second Bank of the United States, we got the Panic of 1837. A bank lived for five years, and half of the banks in the country failed (as in bust and out of business).

A system of national banks from the Civil War in the 1900s provided some relief, but the banking industry was still a mess—see Panic of 1873, Panic of 1893, and Panic of 1907. Those economic depressions were caused by the problems in the banking industry that could have been avoided with a central bank.

Debt and it's nothing new. Mortgages and loans existed long before the Federal Reserve. Why is debt being presented as some evil, modern invention that’s out to get us? Most debt is eventually repaid. In fact, the vast majority of debt is repaid—very few people default on their houses, cars, and student loans (three major types of debt). It's not some evil force--it allows people to have what they want to have, whether it's a house, a car, or a shopping trip. Libertarians ought to embrace the personal choice present instead of bashing debt.

Inflation & Currency
Inflation existed when the gold standard was in place. It's nothing new and it's not going anywhere.

That said, what's the difference between gold and paper? The argument presented is that gold is fundamentally a store of value, but it really isn't. We can’t eat it, wear it (in any practical sense), sleep on it, live in it, get around with it—it actually has no practical use. Gold only has value because we agree it has value. If no one was willing to exchange value for gold, gold would have no value.

Our paper currency works in the same way. We agree that the paper has value, so it functions just as gold functions. As long as everyone agrees that the paper has value, there’s no problem.

No major currency is backed by gold. The Swiss Franc is the only currency that comes anywhere close, and they're still no where near 100% backing. They're at a fraction of it. Don’t you think there’s a practical reason for that?

In talking about this supposed loss in value on the dollar, we're ignoring growth in income that comes with inflation. The table I found only goes back to 1967, so let's compare 1967 to now. The value of the dollar is different to the downside; the median household income in 1967 was about $7,000. The median household income in 2005 was $46,000.

Adjusting for inflation, median household income from 1967 has actually increased by $11,000 in today’s terms. No one is sitting around losing everything to inflation--we actually have a significant amount of additional income.

Gold Holdings
Ron Paul should know that Fort Knox is holding approximately 4500 tons of gold worth approximately $85 billion. It's not controlled by the Federal Reserve--it's overseen by the mint.

The Federal Reserve's gold vault is not at Fort Knox. It's in New York. They have more gold there, yes, almost $90 billion worth, but most of it belongs to other people (foreign countries, foreign central banks, etc). They haven't stolen it and aren't withholding it from all of us. I think the countries and individuals who own the gold would make a bit more noise if they weren’t allowed to have it back.

Jefferson Quotes
These Jefferson quotes are so irrelevant. The private banks don't control the money supply--the folks appointed by the president do. They don't issue money either!

More Federal Reserve
The Federal Reserve System is not an elite playhouse for big banks. Every bank operating in this country as part of the Federal Reserve System must own shares in the system. There are literally hundreds of owners on the low end of my estimation. Citigroup? Member. JP Morgan? Member. Mom & Pa’s Local Bank? Member. Momma’s Little Bank? Member. Small and Local Bank? Member.

Further, those shares don't have control as they do in a typical corporation. The regional Fed banks are managed by the presidential appointees who are non-partisan officials who don't have to answer to the president or anyone else (similar to Supreme Court justices). They, however, are limited in how long they can be in the system, so there is no impetus for being political.

Alan Greenspan stuck around for the maximum amount of time he was allowed to do so, and he was reappointed by presidents of both parties.

Miscellaneous Claims
This video makes a lot of claims about martial law, civil liberties, the banning of the sale of viatmins, etc. without any evidence. I don't feel the need to bother addressing them.

Executive Orders and Legislation
Executive Order #10,999 (allowing the government to take over transportation)- John F. Kennedy, February 16, 1962. This applies to national emergencies and diaster situations (like Soviet invasions and nuclear wars).

Executive Order #11,000 (allowing civilian labor)- John F. Kennedy, February 16, 1962. Same situation (Soviet invasions and nuclear wars).

Executive Order #11,921 (supposedly allowing the POTUS to declare an emergency without Congressional review for 6 months)- Gerald R. Ford, June 11, 1976. I can't actually find a provision in this order that does that the movie claims.

Senate bill #1873 does allow the government to vaccinate you with untested vaccines against your will--if there's a pandemic or epidemic that is a massive public health threat.

The FDA simply doesn't require GM foods to be labeled.

HR #1528 wasn't passed. Its provisions are irrelevant.

This Treasury Department letter only exists on sites quoting the movie. It's not legislation and not policy, even if it does exist somewhere.

I don't like most of these provisions of the Patriot Act. They're bad. I will poke the one that says secret lists are bad... I'd rather not have terrorists knowing that they can't use their own names to fly on plane (since they have been willing to do so in the past).

The supposed Bush quote is a purported event by one organization. I wouldn't take it seriously.

Echelon is misrepresented. Most of its stations are outside of the Unted States--because that's what it sifts through, non-US communications.

New Orleans
Louisiana police- controlled by the state and local governments.
Louisiana National Guard- controlled by the Governor of Louisiana.

Don’t tell me that the State of Louisiana is on the forefront of the New World Order…

National ID Card
The REAL ID Act doesn't establish a national ID card. Instead it unifies the state standards for driver's licenses and other forms of identification so that it's not easier to obtain identification in one state than it is in another. Why is that a bad idea?

Further, the REAL ID Act doesn't require identification for anything that doesn't already require identification. In other words, the change has no real effect on people.

RFID Chips
This woman is presenting dystopian visions of a future that has come no where close to being realized. Is all of this possible? Yes, but that's absolutely meaningless.

All money is not being digitized. There is no plan to do that. There is no plan to do any of this!

This little pizza order scenario is absurd and absolutely no where close to ever being realized. Again, more dystopian visions of possibility with no basis in reality.

Since there is no national ID card, I guess we're a long way away from being implanted with chips too. That’s another assertion with no basis in reality.

The approval of RFID chips in humans is not approval for the government to come implant us. Instead people can go and get a chip implanted in them if they so desire to do so (and some people have). All of this is being presented as if the government is making plans to start using the technology on all of us, which is absurd. If a woman wants to get her family implanted with RFID chips, that's none of my business. If Andy Rooney wants one, that's none of my business either. They're private individuals, not the government.

I'm glad they used the TASER on that woman. She failed to comply with an order! It has nothing to do with her license and everything to do with the fact that she wouldn't get out of her car or put her hands behind her back. That's not totalitarianism.

Electronic Voting
The claim that voting machine companies won't allow examination of their source code is false. Several levels of government review voting machine software source code, and their approval is usually required for the software to be used.

The claims of wrongdoing in Ohio are absurd. If you want an explanation for the problems with exit polling, there are plenty available. The response rate has been declining and samples have become uneven. The folks doing exit polling often aren't professional poll people.

The polling conducted by organizations for states and the national level was rather good. There were few surprises. That has nothing to do with voting machines.

New World Order and Banking
The central bankers of the world are conspiring to create a global police state? Are you serious?

The Bank for International Settlements is not the "central bank of central banks." To say that is to have no understanding of what a central bank is and does. The organization doesn't do very much and doesn't set monetary policy!

Further, let's again keep in mind that the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and the Boards of Directors of the regional banks of the Federal Reserve System are not private bankers. They are presidential appointees with no ownership interests in the system and no responsibilities to the member banks.

Do you understand the claim that the Federal Reserve and Bank of England perpetuated the war in Iraq? The film is claiming that we were trying to prevent Iraq from switching its oil transactions to Euros from dollars. As dumb as Bush supposedly is... he sure is a clever guy when it comes to advanced knowledge of monetary policy and economics. Please. That was not the motivation of the United States--we would not invade Saudi Arabia if they switched their oil business into Euros.

Note on presentation: people from the Council of Foreign Relations are talked about with ominous music and quoted saying ominous things. The photos are black and white. Robert Reich, from the Clinton Administration, gets a color photograph of himself smiling. What a surprise when he says something that aids the film’s viewpoint.

The IMF is ordering wars too? Seriously?

CAFTA and NAFTA are not one world government. If you want one world government, the European Union brings you far closer, and the countries of that bunch can't even agree to use a single currency yet. NAFTA and CAFTA come nowhere close to even forming an organization like the European Union, let alone some one world government.

Number of jobs created during Clinton's administration: 22.5 million
Number of jobs created during Bush's administration (so far): 7.8 million

These trade agreements aren't robbing Americans of their jobs. Unemployment at the end of Clinton's term and throughout Bush's term has been at one of the lowest points in recent history.

The North American Union is a proposal for European Union-style cooperation between nations. The report that the Bush Administration ordered rejected a political union. None of the governments in question have endorsed the proposal and there's been absolutely no action on it, even as weak and meaningless as it was. We are no where close to a European Union-style constitution in North America!

Once again, banks don't create money. The Federal Reserve System is not a group of private bankers, and the BIS doesn't control the Federal Reserve System.

Viacom no longer owns CBS.

GE is currently considering divesting NBC.

Either way, CBS, NBC (GE), ABC (Disney), FOX (News Corp.), and The CW (Time Warner/Viacom) all compete against each other. Where did we get this idea that they're secretly collaborating with each other?

Oh, it's Henry Ford on banking! Want to ask him about the Jews?

Conclusion
There is no purpose in restating if you’ve made it this far. I will be happy to defend any piece of this if someone would like to take issue with what I’ve said.