HS says:
“The current tax laws are unconstitutional and mostly voluntary. That’s been admitted even by judges.
So make up your mind.”
Just for clarity, I reply:
My point was not that religion shouldn’t have tax deductibility.
My point was that by giving tax deductibility to “religion,” the IRS must DEFINE it.
A good example is when the IRS took away Bob Jones University’s tax deductible status because, as a religious institution, it banned interracial dating on a Biblical basis.
Oddly enough, most of the major liberal churches went into court on Bob Jones’s side. Those churches are absolutely committed to ridding the world of the white race. But they realize that once the government defines “religion” to do that, they can go ahead and define “religion” any way they want to.
That is establishing religion by the Federal Government.
#1 by H.S. on 05/08/2005 - 6:23 pm
Bob, is that really what you believe the definition to be, or is that possibly a statement of what the reality of practice has brought us to. The common phrases bandied about by the doctrine of Political Correctness is that the U.S. Constitution is “a living, breathing, evolving” document that “changes by interpretation as the will of We the People changes.” AKA the desires of the Priesthood. Hey, it’s 2005, not 1776 or 1864 or 0029.
As static non-living, non-breathing, non-evolving publicly available words written down as law governing those under its jurisdiction, the only way they can be “made” to live and breathe is when those words are successfully redefined, or made of no effect, into the minds of living, breathing people.
BTW: Another of your exchanges reminds me that I was an employee of the Dept of the Interior during the time Mr. Watt was appointed as Interior Secretary, a hard-right, out-spoken evangelical, self-professed Christian who made many enemies for many different reasons. My take had and always has been that Reagan liked him a lot.
But, then of all he did and was accomplishing, he was fired and wiped out by his rather nothing comments about EEOC “committees” to get anything done.
So who came to his rescue, although everyone agreed? We all laughed.
#2 by Bob on 05/08/2005 - 9:28 pm
A “living, breathing Constitution” is called a dictator.
If the will of the people changes, the congressmen and president they elect were supposed to change things.
I remember Watt well. I met him, of course. I liked him in the Reagan Administration. Your department was right next door to OPM where I worked.
He told the joke on a plane to Pat Boone and used the word “cripples” in a speech about it.
As a Jehovist, as soon as Watt left the Cabinet, he took a much higher-paying job as a lobbyist for more aid to Israel.
#3 by H.S. on 05/10/2005 - 6:13 pm
But OF COURSE! He was a part of the larger group including Howard Phillips, I understand, that were going to cut and slash and close down whole! departments (which we all supported completely).
They were dead set against foreign aid.
What was it you keep saying about “fraud” again?