Bromley cites back to the legacy of a time when everything in
the kingdom was owned by the Crown, and no one had any true rights
to any property, only privileges. The transition to a constitutional
republic dedicated to the protection of natural and social rights
necessarily constrains what objects may be properly treated as
taxable, and excludes exercises of natural and social rights from
them.
The quote below may be convincing for those who take the position
that history trumps logic, but slavery had more than a page of
history, and that didn't make it logically constitutional, even
before the 13th Amendment.
The Constitution proclaims ideals that were often in conflict with
legal practices of the Founding Era. Court precedents are not among
the methods for amending the Constitution specified in Art. V.
I didn't take an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend" court
precedents, but the Constitution. You take history. I'll go with
logic.
On 05/11/2011 11:55 AM, Ellen Aprill wrote:
Upon this point a page of history is worth a volume of
logic.
-- Jon
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