Anti-tax folk arrested, or, New England lunacy cut short by police

Ed and Elaine Brown, a couple of would-be tax renegades, have been arrested in New Hampshire after a long stand-off with police. God bless these folks and their anti-government ways. If it wasn't for them and the folks who populate right-wing forums and other protest groups, life wouldn't be nearly as interesting. After all, we need a good laugh now and again don't we?

Seriously though, the Browns believe that the federal income tax is unlawful. Why? They claim that the Sixteenth Amendment was never properly ratified. Yes, that's right, according to the Browns, the Sixteenth Amendment is the greatest fraud in American history. These people have got to be fun at parties.

The idea that the Sixteenth was never ratified started, more or less, with a guy named Bill Benson. Bill went about the states that considered the Sixteenth back in the day and tried to find the documents the state legislatures used to consider the Amendment. What did he find? Spelling errors, misplaced commas, uncapitalized words, and synonyms. For example, whereas the Sixteenth (and the rest of the Constitution) capitalizes States, some of the states didn't when they sent their ratification papers back to the federal government. One state used the word lay instead of levy. Another didn't pluralize incomes. Bill's conclusion? The Sixteenth Amendment was never ratified. Therefore, no one owes any income taxes.

Too bad every court that has ever considered the issue has recognized how silly the argument is and rejected the argument. Here's United States v. Thomas, 788 F.2d 1250 (7th Cir. 1986) as an example.

But, you know what, you gotta love these folks. Being a Vermonter, I've met a million of these folk (well, not a million, there aren't a million Vermonters). They're serious to a fault, hold the most crazy ideas, see the world falling in around them, and tend to hang out in dive bars arguing with bartenders over the cost of a Budweiser (cause they won't drink imports and that micro-brew stuff is just communist). I saw one of them debate Bernie Sanders during the 2006 Senate Election. It ended with the guy, Peter Diamondstone, being handcuffed and dragged out. It's moments like that and people like this that make you glad that Reagan helped close down the state-run mental institutions. Awesome.