Good Luck
New member
Pathetic that one who describes themselves as a constitutional conservative can have absolutely no clue what the Constitution is actually for.
Anyhoo, for those people with the brains to understand the principles of the Constitution, and understand that 1/3 is a real number:
We do have a history in which various governments have attempted - sometimes successfully - to emplace a tax or fee on one of our rights. The most famous which pundits of both liberal and conservative camps agree was the incidence of poll taxes, most of which were specifically designed to prevent Blacks from exercising their newly granted right of franchise. Poll taxes were overturned, and a Constitutional amendment added to make sure they stayed overturned.**
As such, a precedent has been set that states, essentially, enumerated rights cannot be taxed because it prevents lower economic classes from exercising those rights. The 2nd Amendment was an exception to this principle because, until Heller, it wass argued by the anti-gun totalitarians that the 2nd Amendment wass a collective rather than individual right. Heller has set that misconception correct, and I am certain the various penalty taxes and fees some states and municipalities have set will have their turn at being overturned as an unconstitutional encroachment on one of our inalienable rights. (Happy, Dixie?)
The right of free exercise of religion, being another inalienable right enumerated by the Constitution, (happy again, Dixie?) should, and if there is ever the need for a challenge to taxation of religious ionstitutions, will, IMO, also be declared as an unconstitutional encroachment on an enumerated inalienable right. (Happy again, Dixie?)
**
Anyhoo, for those people with the brains to understand the principles of the Constitution, and understand that 1/3 is a real number:
We do have a history in which various governments have attempted - sometimes successfully - to emplace a tax or fee on one of our rights. The most famous which pundits of both liberal and conservative camps agree was the incidence of poll taxes, most of which were specifically designed to prevent Blacks from exercising their newly granted right of franchise. Poll taxes were overturned, and a Constitutional amendment added to make sure they stayed overturned.**
As such, a precedent has been set that states, essentially, enumerated rights cannot be taxed because it prevents lower economic classes from exercising those rights. The 2nd Amendment was an exception to this principle because, until Heller, it wass argued by the anti-gun totalitarians that the 2nd Amendment wass a collective rather than individual right. Heller has set that misconception correct, and I am certain the various penalty taxes and fees some states and municipalities have set will have their turn at being overturned as an unconstitutional encroachment on one of our inalienable rights. (Happy, Dixie?)
The right of free exercise of religion, being another inalienable right enumerated by the Constitution, (happy again, Dixie?) should, and if there is ever the need for a challenge to taxation of religious ionstitutions, will, IMO, also be declared as an unconstitutional encroachment on an enumerated inalienable right. (Happy again, Dixie?)
**
SIDE NOTE: one of the glaring holes in modern politics is we are overly dependent on precedents set by court decisions to keep our rights in order. This is going to bite us big someday, and possibly sooner than we think. For instance, the well-known exclusionary rule is a mandate handed down by a SCOTUS decision that excludes any and all evidence that is gained from actions which are in violation of our constitutional protections. But we did not protect that decision by adding it's concept to our Constitution. As a result, over the past decade or so government has been taking bites out of the exclusionary rule, adding this or that exception (Well, if they didn't MEAN to trample your rights by busting down your door in the middle of the night with no search warrant, then whatever they find is still OK.) We need to get out of our lazy apathy, and when the Courts find a hole in our Constitutional protections, we need to add an amendment to plug that hole so later courts cannot come along and say "just kidding - your rights in this matter don't exist after all."