Veritas News Service -- June 11, 2001 -- On July 1, 2001, Bob Schulz, Chairman of the We The People Foundation for Constitutional Education, will begin a fast which will continue until he dies or until IRS Commissioner Charles O. Rossotti delivers to him a list of the government's experts who will meet on September 18, 2001, in a public forum, at the National Press Club in Washington DC, with tax law researchers from the tax honesty movement, to argue against the conclusions of those researchers.

This comes as a result of the government's continued evasion of opportunities the Foundation and others have provided to the government over the past two years to discuss the allegations of fraud and illegal operations of the income tax system. The allegations include the following: 1) in 1913, the 16th Amendment (the "income tax" Amendment) was fraudulently and illegally declared to be ratified by a lame-duck Secretary of State just days before leaving office; 2) there is NO LAW requiring most Americans to file a tax return, pay the federal income tax nor have the tax withheld from their earnings; 3) people who file a Form 1040 "voluntarily" waive their 5th Amendment right not to bear witness against themselves; 4) the IRS routinely violates citizens' 4th Amendment rights against illegal search and seizure, without a warrant issued by a court upon probable cause and supported by oath and affirmation; and 5) the IRS, as standard operating procedure, routinely violates citizens' due process rights in its administrative procedures and operates far outside the law.

On February 10, 1999, Joseph Banister, a Special Agent of the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS submitted his 95-page research report to his superiors in the San Jose office of the IRS. The report contained these allegations and supporting evidence and respectfully requested some answers. Mr. Banister was concerned that he was enforcing the Internal Revenue Code as though payment was compulsory, when his research showed it to be voluntary. Instead of answers, Mr. Banister was asked to resign!

This Foundation respectfully, and properly, invited the leaders of the Executive and Legislative branches to have their most knowledgeable experts on the subject participate in academic symposiums and conferences the Foundation sponsored at the National Press Club in July and November of 1999 and in April and June of 2000. We received no response, not even an acknowledgement of the receipt of the invitations!

On April 13, 2000, while a delegation of people representing all 50 states waited outside, Mr. Banister and Mr. Schulz, and a videographer, met in the White House with Jason Furman, the Executive Director of the National Economic Council. He accepted, for President Clinton, a Remonstrance on the subject, he promised to have the staff of the NEC and White House lawyers and historians review the evidence, and he expressed his agreement to have the government's experts participate with Mr. Banister and other tax law researchers in the June 29, 2000 conference the Foundation was arranging for that purpose. Mr. Banister and Mr. Schulz then proceeded to a meeting in the capitol with Dr. William Koetzle, representing Speaker Hastert's policy office, and then to a meeting with Keith Hennessey, Senator Lott's policy director. They accepted the Remonstrance for Mr. Hastert and Mr. Lott, promised to have the experts at the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee review the evidence, and expressed their agreement to have those experts participate in the upcoming June 29th conference. However, on June 2nd, Mr. Furman told Mr. Schulz, "The legality of the income tax is not a high priority item at the White House and we will not be participating in any conference on the subject." A similar response was received from Dr. Koetzle and Mr. Hennessey.

At a cost of $252,000, the Foundation then published full-page educational messages in USA TODAY on July 7, 2000, February 16, 2001, March 2, 2001 and March 23, 2001, featuring the photographs and names of three of the principal tax law researchers and their allegations, three former IRS agents who have come to believe the researchers are correct, and five employers who have stopped withholding the income tax from the paychecks of their employees because they also have come to believe the researchers' allegations are correct.

On April 5, 2001, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing featuring large blow-ups of the Foundation's USA TODAY messages, mounted on easels. THE FOUNDATION WAS NOT ALLOWED TO TESTIFY AT THE HEARING. Two days prior to the hearing, Senator Grassley was quoted in the Saint Petersburg Times saying," We will not allow the We The People Foundation to testify at the hearing because their message will detract from the message we are trying to convey." The message the Committee conveyed was that those people who question the validity of the income tax laws are "tax cheats, schemers, scammers and cons They must be kept off the Internet, and will be dealt with harshly!"

On April 9, 2001, hundreds of citizens from across the country gathered outside the main entrance of the IRS headquarters building. Three weeks earlier, on March 19th, a letter was delivered to IRS Commissioner Rossotti, letting him know that the citizens would be there and respectfully requesting that he address the group at 11:30 a.m., to let them know when his experts would be available to meet with the tax law researchers in a public forum to discuss the allegations. On April 9th, he refused to address the citizens, choosing instead to schedule an interview with a reporter from The New York Times at 11:30 that day. The Times' article ran on April 16th. In its first paragraph it said, "As a few protestors gathered in front of the Internal Revenue Service building on a warm April day, Charles O. Rossotti was cool and relaxed in his third-floor office, reflecting on his three and a half years running the agency."

On April 11, 2001 USA TODAY informed the Foundation of its decision to stop publishing the Foundation's full-page educational messages about these issues, and the government's failure to address them, because "the ads could be misleading." The Foundation offered to meet with USA TODAY's legal department to discuss the veracity of the Foundation's messages. They refused!

On May 2, 2001, the home and business of one of the employers who has stopped withholding was raided by scores of government agents, at gunpoint. As of this day, those agents have not provided a list of the charges. Nor have they specified the probable cause for the search warrant. They have, however, asked the judge who signed the warrant for 45 days to analyze the computer hard drives, papers and effects that were seized during the raid before they specify the charges and probable cause. The judge granted the request!

The tax law research provides a substantial amount of very credible evidence that since 1913 the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches have been cooperating to deprive the People of a large percentage of the fruits of their labor by enforcing laws and regulations that are prohibited by the Constitution and which do not exist under the Internal Revenue Code. The evidence shows that the Code and regulations have intentionally been written in such a deceptive way as to obscure and obfuscate so as to give citizens the false impression that they are required to pay.

As a result of the Foundation's four messages in USA TODAY, and its other educational efforts, a growing number of people are becoming familiar with the facts of this research and now realize that Congress is prohibited by the Constitution from requiring individual citizens of the fifty states to file and pay the income tax or a social security tax as they currently operate. More and more citizens now believe that it is precisely because of the absence of proper constitutional authority that Congress has not passed any law requiring most Americans to file and pay an income tax.

So far, the IRS has responded with armed raids and with increased threats and saber rattling, but with no attempts to discuss in a rational way the allegations about the laws and regulations.

Journalists from the dominant media, including David Cay Johnston of The New York Times, have responded as apologists for the IRS by portraying individuals and employers who question the legality of the federal income tax laws as "tax cheats," even though those individuals often have a history of intelligent, rational and professional attempts to get their federal representatives and IRS officials to answer legitimate questions about the legal authority of the IRS to force the collection of the federal income tax.

Obviously, the current situation must not continue.

The question is: What can a free People do when faced with a government that has apparently stepped outside the boundary drawn around its taxing power by the Constitution and by its own laws, and refuses to justify its behavior, evades all requests by citizens to answer legitimate questions, and uses a heavy handed, steel-fisted approach to enforcing the income tax -- as though its payment by most Americans was compulsory when, in fact, most citizens apparently are not liable -- and when the dominant media will not allow the people to purchase space to tell their story?

Answer: We the People must educate one another about the discrepancies between the way the Constitution and the tax law are written and the operations of the IRS. Knowledge is power. Only a well-informed citizenry will bring the federal tax policies and programs back under the control of the People and their Constitution.

Education can take many forms.

Bob Schulz prays that his stand in defense of the Constitution and the rule of law, and his death, should it come to that, will help to educate citizens about the apparent discrepancy between the government's behavior in enforcing the federal tax laws and the legality of those laws, the government's recalcitrance and refusal to reconcile the discrepancy, and the importance of keeping the government within the boundaries the people have drawn around its power. His act should not be seen as one of frustration or despair, but as a measure of his devotion to our sacred constitutional principles for which so many others have laid down their lives.

On June 11, 2001, a letter will be delivered to President Bush, to the leaders of the Congress and to Commissioner Rossotti to inform them of Mr. Schulz's decision to do this. A copy of the letter can be viewed on the Foundation's web site at http://www.GiveMeLiberty.org/. Also on the web site are the Foundation's educational messages as published in USA TODAY and other educational materials on the subject.

Bob's motto is ACTA NON VERBA. His deed is part of an overall action plan put together by the Foundation under the heading of PROJECT TOTO, the goal of which is to develop a critical mass of citizens demanding answers to the questions of the tax law researchers, regarding the fraudulent and illegal operations of the federal income tax system.

For a discussion of PROJECT TOTO and what you can do to help, please visit the Foundation's web site at http://www.GiveMeLiberty.org/.

Bob Schulz
Chairman
We The People Foundation
for Constitutional Education, Inc.
2458 Ridge Road
Queensbury, NY 12804
(518) 656-3578 Phone
(518) 656-9724 Fax
Bob@givemeliberty.org

by Carl Pearlston

Veritas News Service -- June 6, 2001 -- Just like Senator Jeffords, who resigned from the GOP because of what he perceives as intolerance to diverse viewpoints, I have had my own problem with intolerance. My love affair with the ADL began almost 25 years ago. It has just ended with a curt note from the Board President advising me that I haven't shown a sufficient "demonstration of commitment to the ADL" to warrant retention on the Executive Committee or the Regional Board. How did it come to this?

I had been nominated to the Board by a judge with whom I had worked during the heady civil rights years, and then to the Executive Committee by the head of the Speakers Bureau, for which I was very active. Not that the romance had not been rocky. I had always known that my conservative Republican political views were barely tolerated by my overwhelmingly liberal colleagues, and I was tempted to keep them to myself. We were nominally a non-partisan organization, but our meetings frequently felt uncomfortably like those of a Democratic Party club in which it was assumed that all shared a common liberal or "progressive" political world-view and none could, or wanted to, hear a differing or conservative viewpoint.. Just after the recent election, our Director accosted me at a meeting with a vehement "You stole the election!" Our positions were usually those of the liberal wing of the Democratic party on issues like abortion, school choice, teacher pay, bilingual education, affirmative action, the homosexual agenda, gun control. I once cited the comprehensive study of Yale University Law School's Dr. John Lott on gun laws to the effect that in those states where people could legally carry concealed weapons, crimes against people actually declined, since criminals do not want to take a chance that their victim may be armed. I was met with the sarcastic and dismissive response that "Only John Lott, Larry Elder [Libertarian talk show host], and you believe in that study."

There was not a great tolerance for diversity of viewpoint nor introduction of new information. I was barred from distributing written material which was germane and relevant to issues under discussion; only material from staff could be disseminated. A member did once tell me that at least I kept them honest, i.e. they were forced to at least be exposed to, even if not to consider, a different view. But, it was an uphill struggle. When I once confessed to our National Director, Abe Foxman, my feelings of just spinning my wheels, he candidly told me that I would have to realize that over 95% of those involved were liberal and would be unsympathetic to my conservative views.

Lack of sympathy frequently translated into lack of civility. For example, at several meetings, there were objections that Dr. Laura Schlesinger's radio program and planned TV program was offensive and insensitive. to homosexuals. I pointed out that her views enunciate traditional Jewish values which deserve the support of a Jewish defense organization, and was greeted with derision and intemperate, hostile responses. When it came to the issue of homosexuals versus the Boy Scouts, ADL chose the homosexuals, all the way to the Supreme Court. Then, in its otherwise commendable nationwide partnership with Barnes and Noble in the program Hate Hurts, which sponsors books and educates teachers and young children to fight hate, it endorsed the books Heather Has Two Mommies and Steve Has Two Daddies as suitable tools for teaching tolerance to young children. Teachers' workshops and children's reading groups were organized, using these and other book in conjunction with the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which had earlier achieved a certain notoriety for its own school workshops wherein teenagers were taught the fine points of "fisting" and other homosexual practices. In this manner, fighting "hate" became a euphemism for an attack on sexual morality, the traditional family, and the Jewish view that children deserve a loving father and mother, not two fathers or two mothers. It is only through a perverse notion of "tolerance" that support for traditional teaching about the family is intimidated, and condemned.

When Dennis Prager participated by invitation in a panel discussion on church-state issues, some members actually hissed and booed his remarks in a hostile display of intolerance. A respected board member persistently repeated to all who would hear that Prager was insane.

When the organization published its harsh attack on the Religious Right in 1994, I was distressed as were many politically conservative Jews who do not share the ADL view that politically-active conservative Christians are our enemy. As (Jewish) syndicated columnist Mona Charen wrote, "The ADL has committed defamation. There is no other conclusion to be reached after reading its new report, The Religious Right: the Assault on Tolerance and Pluralism in America. It is sad than an organization with a proud history of fairness should have descended to this kind of character assassination and name calling." A Board member of another affiliate was forced to resign because he publicly expressed disagreement with that report. It seems that the term "religious right" is a talisman used to invoke a reflexive response of hostility without thought. So deep was the antagonism that when Ralph Reed, then head of the Christian Coalition, appeared at an ADL leadership conference and gave a heartfelt apology for past insensitivity, prejudice, and discrimination by Christians toward Jews, the private response by most members to his apology was hostility and distrust.

There was a particular intolerance on the issue of church-state. The theory that freedom of religion require "strict separation of church and state" was transformed into hostility to any public display of religion in general, to Christianity in particular, and even to Judaism. I do not understand the logic of a Jewish organization expending its time and resources to forbid the public display of the chief gift of the Jews to civilization-- The Ten Commandments. Nor does it seem appropriate for us to engage in litigation to forbid another Jewish organization (Chabad) from displaying a Menorah on public property. I was told that such a display would encourage other religious groups, including Moslems, to exercise their right to similar displays. Well, why shouldn't they? It is implicit in the meaning of freedom of religious expression and religious diversity, a freedom we have so long struggled to attain for ourselves. It is not in our country's interest for us to demand a naked public square, devoid of any reference to God. Our cramped view of religious expression led us to oppose even the observance of a moment of silence in schools as being likely to encourage prayer.

The issue of parental choice in education, either by tax credits or vouchers, met with unwavering opposition based on what I believe is an erroneously perceived constitutional doctrine of "separation of church and state", along with a strong commitment to the teacher's unions. At one meeting, I questioned Abe Foxman as to what the ADL would do in the likely event that the US Supreme Court would upheld the constitutionality of school vouchers. He said the ADL would never agree and would continue to press the court until the decision was reversed and the ADL viewpoint was adopted.

Then, as he passed the table where my wife and I were sitting, he said to me, "You shouldn't have asked that question." I then realized that the bloom was really off the romance.

I had always strongly believed in the ADL's mission, as defined on a banner frequently displayed at the front of our meetings: "... to stop the defamation of the Jewish people, and secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike...." Our efforts against anti-Semitism were without peer. We were a Jewish organization primarily concerned with issues affecting the Jewish community, and secondarily with equality and fair enforcement of laws for everyone. I recall that many times in days past we deferred action on an item on the grounds that it was not related to Jewish community, and was thus beyond our purview. As years passed, the purview kept increasing along with the budget. While overt, and even latent, anti-Semitism was decreasing, our traditional mission as defender of the Jewish community was expanded to defender of all. We have become just another of many leftist "rights" organizations. This realization was confirmed when I saw a new banner, displaying an unfamiliar mission statement: "...dedicated to translating democratic ideals into a way of life for all Americans in our time."

This grandiose expansion of mission has had other consequences. The curbing of defamation---an action-has expanded to curbing of hate--a feeling, or emotion, or state of mind. If we can change people's minds and the way they think, we will not have to control their actions. The program for changing hearts and minds, A World of Difference, was created in 1985 to change prejudiced feelings through "sensitivity training". It is reportedly very successful, highly commended, and widely used by governmental agencies and many companies. Unfortunately, my exposure to the program at a leadership conference indicated that teaching the values of diversity, multiculturalism, and cultural relativism resulted in denigrating the values and achievements of Western civilization and the desirability of a common American identity. There is now a nationwide industry of multicultural activists teaching various "sensitivity" programs which increase awareness of racial identity, and result in racial separation and racial hostility.

This focus on eliminating "hate" logically led to the creation of "hate crimes", in which, a two-tier system of criminality was created: 1) those who commit crimes of violence for any reason other than hate, and 2) those who do injury solely because they hate the status or class of the victim (race, sex, nationality, religion, disability, occupation, sexual orientation, etc), Criminals of the latter class are punished more severely than those of the former, even though both may commit the same violent crime. The punishment is levied on the thought, or feeling, or state of mind of the criminal and not the action, in keeping with the emphasis on eliminating and punishing hateful thoughts and feelings. Creating preferred classes of crime victims is not a proper function of the American criminal justice system. Nor does it seem desirable to federalize and supplant state criminal law enforcement, which is what results from enacting "hate crime" legislation at the federal level.

The concept of "hate crimes" inevitably leads to that of "hate speech", in which offensive, insensitive, or hurtful speech is legally banned, as it is in Canada where the criminal law punishes offensive speech as a form of group defamation. A minister was arrested there for publicly preaching, in accordance with the tenets of his faith, that the practice of homosexuality was immoral. The ADL has properly rejected repeated demands by some of its leaders for adoption of similar group defamation laws as violating our free speech guarantees. At the same time, the ADL has led the effort to abate hateful speech not only in the public, but even the private forum in the interest of "tolerance". There have been repeated condemnations of various incidents of speech deemed hateful, hurtful, insensitive, or embarrassing to particular groups. All too frequently, however, free speech and the expression of religious belief have been the targets of these condemnations, such as religious references by political candidates, Christian prayers at the inauguration, religious symbolism in comics, expressions of religious beliefs by sports figures, or even expressions of the politically incorrect, as was the case when conservative activist David Horowitz was condemned as racially insensitive for placing ads in college papers denying the wisdom, fairness, and practicality of the growing movement for Slavery Reparations. The ADL has illogically compared those ads to ones denying the Holocaust, while ignoring the issue of free speech curtailment in the violent reactions by students and compliant acts by college administrators to censor the ads and prevent intelligent discussion of the significant issue involved.

The ADL has always been a firm and loyal supporter of Israel, but it was also an early and naive advocate of the now-defunct Oslo peace process, to the ultimate detriment of actual peace. I frequently complained that we concentrated more on the process than the substance of peace, and that true peace was unlikely to occur since the root problem was not how much land Israel would give up, but Arab refusal to accept a viable Jewish state. All of our "insider" briefings on the Mideast downplayed the risk to Israel posed by an armed Palestinian Authority or Palestinian state, and held out rosy and unrealistic prognostications of peace. For example, at a leadership conference, we were treated to a talk by an Arab Ambassador urging us to take steps for peace, which translated into urging support for the election of Labor (Peres) over Likud (Netanyahu) in the coming election. It was portrayed, and accepted by many attendees, as a last chance for peace that was almost within our grasp. Most of us now see, in light of the past year's warfare, that the "peace" being urged was illusory and chimerical. So blinding was this hope for peace that, as reported, ADL had complimented the PA on their new school textbooks without even having read them, completely overlooking the virulent anti-Semitism contained therein. When I questioned our National Director about this, I became the target of attack and public humiliation for bringing up the matter. Nor did I endear myself by dwelling on our National Director's central role on behalf of the ADL in devising and wangling a pardon for criminal fugitive tax-evader Marc Rich.

When I expressed my views on some of these matters in various letters and articles, in which I was not identified as an ADL Board member, I was rebuked in a stern letter from our President advising that I had publicly taken positions contrary to ADL policy, which was not permitted. I had not realized that, as the price of Board membership, I had given up my freedom of speech on issues on which the ADL had taken a position.

This was much like the old Leninist doctrine of "democratic centralism", in which debate is allowed only before a policy is adopted, and no dissent is tolerated thereafter. It seems odd that an organization which boastfully espouses and teaches "tolerance" and "diversity", will not tolerate a bit of dissent and diverse viewpoint in its own lay leadership.