By Christopher Hansen,
Is the United States Federal Government is Establishing a Civic Religion
in Violation of the First Amendment?
Of course the first question that must be answered is: What is religion?
There are many religions today including versions of, theism, pantheism, atheism (See Malnak v. Yogi 592 F.2d 197, 206 (C.A.N.J., 1979)) and religious status has been granted by the courts to deeply held moral, ethical, or religious beliefs. (Welsh v. U.S. 398 U.S. 333, 344, 90 S.Ct. 1792, 1798 (U.S.Cal. 1970)) So how do we determine what is a religion and what is not?
In Malnak v. Yogi 592 F.2d 197, 210 (C.A.N.J., 1979) Circuit Judge, Adams tries to give some possible qualifications for what a religion is in his concurring opinion:
Such signs might include formal services, ceremonial functions, the existence of clergy, structure and organization, efforts at propagation, observation of holidays and other similar manifestations associated with the traditional religions. Of course, a religion may exist without any of these signs, so they are not determinative, at least by their absence, in resolving a question of definition. But they can be helpful in supporting a conclusion of religious status given the important role such ceremonies play in religious life.
There is another form of well-known religion today, which is as subject to the establishment and free exercise clause as any traditional religion. It is a civic/civil/secular religion. But we must still be aware of such religions because the fact that the government cannot constitutionally establish a civic religion is not in legal contemplation. It is the law.
“The suggestion that government may establish an official or civic religion as a means of avoiding the establishment of a religion with more specific creeds strikes us as a contradiction that cannot be accepted.”
Lee v. Weisman 505 U.S. 577, 590, 1992
“[T]he State may not establish a ‘religion of secularism’ in the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus ‘preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe.’ Zorach v. Clauson, supra, 343 U.S., at 314, 72 S.Ct., at 684, 96 L.Ed. 954.”
School Dist. of Abington Tp., Pa. v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 225, U.S.Md. 1963.
So what are the characteristics of a civic/civil religion? According to the Yale Law Journal these civil religions are nonsacral and politically motivated.
A second characteristic of civil religion is its essentially political, nonsacral character. While traditional religions have, at least in the West, taken politics very seriously, they have generally done so in the name of something sacred. Civil religions, on the other hand, train their gaze on politics. Political life is the source of their concerns and provides the raw material for rituals, moments and imagery.
95 Yale L.J. 1237 May, 1986, CIVIL RELIGION AND THE ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE by Yehudah Mirsky
Therefore we need to look, not to the characteristics of traditional religion but to the defined characteristics of a civil religion that trains its gaze upon politics because political life is the source of their concerns and provides the raw material for rituals, moments and imagery.
In Malnak v. Yogi 592 F.2d 197, 212 (C.A.N.J., 1979) Circuit Judge, Adams wrote a thought provoking concurring opinion concerning what is and what is not religion when considering the establishment clause in which he stated:
A more difficult question would be presented by government propagation of doctrinaire Marxism, either in the schools or elsewhere. Under certain circumstances Marxism might be classifiable as a religion and an establishment thereof could result.
Therefore we must determine if Marxism can be classifiable as a religion and if an establishment could result. Webster’s defines Marxism as:
the political, economic, and social principles and policies advocated by Marx; especially : a theory and practice of socialism including the labor theory of value, dialectical materialism, the class struggle, and dictatorship of the proletariat until the establishment of a classless society “marxism.” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.)
Webster’s defines ‘dialectical materialism’ as:
the Marxist theory that maintains the material basis of a reality constantly changing in a dialectical process and the priority of matter over mind.” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.)
Because Marxism proclaims that “reality” is “constantly changing” then dialectical materialism is a Marxist theory that promotes an “ultimate reality” (See Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of University of Virginia 515 U.S. 819, 819, (U.S.Va.,1995)) or an “ultimate concern” for believers and followers which occupies a place parallel to that filled by God in traditionally religious persons according to the C.A. 7 in 1994.
A general working definition of religion for Free Exercise purposes is any set of beliefs addressing matters of “ultimate concern” occupying a “ ‘place parallel to that filled by … God’ in traditionally religious persons.” Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 340, 90 S.Ct. 1792, 1796, 26 L.Ed.2d 308 (1970).
Fleischfresser v. Directors of School Dist. 200 15 F.3d 680, 688 (C.A.7,1994)
In TOWARD A CONSTITUTIONAL DEFINITION OF RELIGION from the Harvard Law Review 91 HVLR 1056 it is clear that political philosophies can become civic religions.
Even political and social beliefs may be religious. Tillich suggests: “If a national group makes the life and growth of the nation its ultimate concern … [e]verything is centered in the only god, the nation ….” [FN91] This point has been variously made about “civil religion in America,” [FN92] Communism, [FN93] Marxism, [FN94] Nazism, Italian Fascism, and Japanese militarism. [FN95]
[FN91]. P. TILLICH, supra note 66, at 44.
[FN92]. Bellah, Civil Religion in America, 96 DAEDALUS 1, 1-9 (1967). See also Cousins, La Politique Comme Religion aux Etats-Unis, in RELIGION ET POLITIQUE: ACTES DE COLLOQUE ORGANISÉ PAR LE CENTRE INTERNATIONAL D’ETUDES HUMANISTES ET PAR L’INSTITUT D’ETUDES PHILOSOPHIQUES DE ROME, JANVIER 3-7, 1978 (forthcoming, 1978).
[FN93]. J. BENNETT, CHRISTIANITY AND COMMUNISM 87-88 (1970). See also J. MURRY, THE NECESSITY OF COMMUNISM (1932) (arguing that Communism is the world’s one living religion).
[FN94]. See L. DEWART, THE FUTURE OF BELIEF 56-58 (1966).
[FN95]. See E. SHILLITO, NATIONALISM: MAN’S OTHER RELIGION (1933).
Is Marxism/Socialism a Religion?
World renowned economist John Maynard Keynes in his 1925 A Short View of Russia as edited down for ESSAYS IN PERSUASION (Harcourt Brace, 1932), clearly defines why Communism (Leninism) is, without question, not only a religion but an alternative to Christian capitalism.
Chapter IV, Page 297
I. A Short View of Russia
(i) What is the Communist Faith
Leninism is a combination of two things which Europeans have kept for some centuries in different compartment of the soul—religion and business. We are shocked because the religion is new, and contemptuous because the business. We are shocked because the religion is new, and contemptuous because the business, being subordinated to the religion instead of the other way around, is highly inefficient.
Like other new religions, Leninism derives its power not from the multitude but from a small minority of enthusiastic converts, whose zeal and intolerance make each one the equal in strength of a hundred indifferentists. Like other new religions, it is led by those who can combine the new spirit, perhaps sincerely, with seeing a good deal more than their followers, (p. 298) politicians with at least an average dose of political cynicism, who can smile as well as frown, volatile experimentalists, released by religion from truth and mercy but not blinded to facts and expediency, and open therefore to the charge (superficial and useless though it is where politicians, lay or ecclesiastical, are concerned) of hypocrisy. Like other new religions, it seems to take the colour and gaiety and freedom out of everyday life and to offer a drab substitute on the square wooden faces of its devotees. Like other new religions, it persecutes without justice or pity those that actively resist it. Like other new religions, it is unscrupulous. Like other new religions, it is filled with missionary ardour and oecumenical ambitions. But to say that Leninism is the faith of a persecuting and propagating minority of fanatics led by hypocrites is, after all, to say no more nor less than that it is a religion and not merely a party, and Lenin a Mahomet, not a Bismark. If we want to frighten ourselves in our capitalist easy-chairs, we can picture the Communists of Russia as though the early Christians led by Attila were using the equipment of the Holy Inquisition and the Jesuit missions to enforce the literal economics of the New Testament; but when we want to comfort ourselves in the same chairs, can we hopefully repeat that these economics are fortunately so contrary to human nature that they cannot finance either missionaries or armies and will surely end in defeat?
There are three questions to answer. Is the new religion partly true, or sympathetic to the souls of modern men? Is it on the material side so inefficient as to render it incapable to survive? Will it, in the course of time, with sufficient dilution and added impurity, catch the multitude?
(P. 299) As for the first question, those are completely satisfied by Christian capitalism untempered by subterfuge will not hesitate how to answer it; for they either have a religion or need none. But many, in this are without religion, are bound to feel a strong emotional curiosity towards any religion which is really new, and not merely a recrudescence of old ones, and has proved its motive force; and all the more when the new thing comes out of Russia…
How can I accept a doctrine which set up as its bible, above criticism, an obsolete economic textbook which I know to be not only scientifically erroneous but without interest or application for the modern world?… Even if we need a religion, how can we find it in the turbid rubbish of the Red bookshops? …
Yet we shall miss the essence of the new religion if we stop at this point, The Communist may justly reply that all these things belong not to his ultimate Faith but to the tactics of Revolution. For he believes in two things: the introduction of a New Order upon the Earth, and the method of the Revolution as the only means thereto.
Continuing on page 305: Can Communism in the course of time, with sufficient dilution and added impurity, catch the multitude?
I cannot answer what only time will show. But I feel confident of one conclusion—that if Communism achieves a certain success, it will achieve it, not as an improved economic technique, but as a religion…
Continuing on page 307: If irreligious Capitalism is ultimately to defeat religious Communism, it is not enough that it should be economically more efficient—it must be many times as efficient…
Continuing on page 308: The decaying religions around us, which have less and less interest for most people unless it be as an agreeable form of magical ceremony or of social observance, have lost their moral significance just because—unlike some earlier versions— they do not touch in the least degree on these essential matters. A revolution in our way of thinking and feeling about money may become the growing purpose of contemporary embodiments of the ideal. Perhaps therefore, Russian Communism does represent the first confused stirrings of a great religion.
This new religion is different from the Religions of the West so many in the West do not recognize it as a religion. Why? Because this “new religion” of Communism has done what Keynes predicted it must. It has “sufficient dilution and added impurity” as to “catch the multitude.”
Communism has become the established religion of the United States, China, all of Europe, North Korea, Cuba and many other if not most nations, at least in part. Not in its pure state as preached by the prophet Marx and Lenin his disciple but in the diluted form Keynes said was necessary. As Trotsky wrote: “Marx is the prophet with the tables of the law and Lenin the greatest executor of the testament” (see the report at the Seventh All Russian Party conference of April 5th, 1923 as published in LENIN by Blue Ribbon Books, New York,1925). Trotsky was second in authority only to Lenin in 1923 and even he calls Marx a prophet comparing him to Moses with the tables of the law (Ex. 24: 12) and Lenin becomes the executor of that religions new “testament.”
This must be given “great weight.”
In such an intensely personal area, of course, the claim of the registrant that his belief is an essential part of a religious faith must be given great weight.
U.S. v. Seeger 380 U.S. 163, 184, 85 S.Ct. 850, 863 (U.S.Cal. 1965)
Are the proclamations of the true believer, Trotsky, not to be given the same great weight as the proclamations of Daniel Andrew Seeger? If not Trotsky then why not the testimony of Professor Leslie Carr?
In reviewing the letter with Dr. Paloma, plaintiff claimed that his right to teach Marxism was being infringed. In the apparently heated discussion that ensued he professed that Marxism was his religion and Dr. Paloma told him that he could not teach Marxism as a religion in the classroom anymore than she could teach Christianity.
Carr v. Board of Trustees of University of Akron 465 F.Supp. 886, 894 (D.C.Ohio, 1979)
The entire Communist Manifesto has been implemented in the United States but sufficiently diluted with added impurity and invidiously and covertly slowly over 150 years so as to not alarm the masses.
The graduated income tax of the 2nd commandment of the Manifesto has been fully implemented and enforced with a fanatical vengeance even though it is incomprehensible and lacking clear and unequivocal language.
The free “sacred public school system” of the 10th plank are practically a religion in and of themselves with the endless cries of “Its for the children” while the God of the Christians has been kicked, with pomp and ceremony, to the American curb.
“Instead, let all parents & all socially-minded people help all our children to improve their education, their sacred public school system & every American citizen or friendly guest.” Dr. Bruno J. Kieth Parallel Lives August 18th 2004.
The Federal Reserve Bank is the has the centralization of credit and is America’s de facto national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly, as per the 5th Marxist commandment. Of course paper “credit” notes have replaced the Constitutionally mandated (Art. 1 Sec 10 and Art. 1 Sec. 8) gold and silver coins with equal weights and measures demanded by the Old Testament (Deut. 25: 15).
Congress, in its invidious and covert implementation of the New Religion of Leninism, refuses to even define what a dollar is and the Courts just use the vague term “legal tender” (a penny is legal tender and not a dollar) to define money. At the same time the Courts refuse to define the dollar or simply declare they have no authority to define a dollar, as that is Congress’ job, and so all legislation that relies on that undefined monetary measurement unit “dollar” are void for vagueness because the taxing language cannot be “clear and unequivocal” without a defined monetary measurement unit. (Spreckels Sugar Refining Co. v. McClain 192 U.S. 397, 416, (U.S.1904))
But not only have these three well known Marxist religious dogmas been covertly established as a part of the New American Civil religion. Drug laws (unheard of before the 1848 Manifesto) create property forfeiture, as do IRS liens and levies as the government confiscates the property of all “rebels” and “tax protesters” (aka Christians) as per the 4th commandment of Marxism.
Add on inheritance taxes and the now diluted and impure 3rd commandment is implemented.
Then there is the Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Transportation, the Commissions Act of 1934, The Interstate Commerce Commission established in 1938, The Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Communications Commission, and Executive orders 11490, 10999, as well as State mandated driver’s licenses and Department of Transportation regulations and the 6th Marxist commandment, sufficiently diluted with added impurity has been implemented.
The 7th Commandment… “Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan,” is now diluted to, The Desert Entry Act and The Department of Agriculture and National Parks (no where are National Parks authorized by the U.S. Constitution). The 7th has also been “diluted” by changing “owned” to “regulated” and “subsidized” to make it more palatable to Americans.
Marx’s commandment #8 was: “Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.” Americans now call it Minimum Wage, Unemployment Benefits and Most Favored Nation trade partner with Communist China. It is also the Social Security Administration, The Department of Labor and of course Executive order 11000 “ASSIGNING EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS FUNCTIONS TO THE SECRETARY OF LABOR.”
Then there is #9, “Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of population over the country.” The diluted version is called the Planning Reorganization act of 1949 and government subsidized super corporate farms, as well as Executive Order 11892 Relating to Federal Regional Councils. Agenda 21 is also being implemented.
The words of judge Adams begin to ring in the ears of people who feel their religion has been substantially burdened by this establishment of the diluted “new religion of Communism.”
Defining religion is a sensitive and important legal duty. Flexibility and careful consideration of each belief system are needed. Still, it is important to have some objective guidelines in order to avoid Ad hoc justice.
Malnak v. Yogi 592 F.2d 197, 210 (C.A.N.J., 1979)
Only if the government favors a comprehensive belief system and advances its teachings does it establish a religion. It does not do so by endorsing isolated moral precepts or by enacting humanitarian economic programs…An undefined belief in humanitarianism, or good intentions, is still far removed from a comprehensive belief system laying a claim to ultimate truth and supported by a formal group with religious trappings.
Malnak v. Yogi 592 F.2d 197, 212 (C.A.N.J., 1979)
Such words hopefully can shake the sleep from the eyes of so-called American Christians as do the words of Marguerite E. Harrison in her book MAROONED IN MOSCOW,THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN WOMAN IMPRISONED IN RUSSIA
Then there is the great new religion of Communism, for to its sincere and devoted followers it is a religion for which they are just as willing to sacrifice themselves and their neighbors as the Raskolniki in the days of Peter the Great, who immolated themselves and their families in great auto da fes, hundreds at a time, the willing sacrificed with the unwilling victims. The propaganda of Communism as a faith has its appeal to the young and imaginative, as well as to the more mature idealists and the fanatics of Marxism. There are many people who take a fierce delight in the renunciation of their individual freedom for the collective good, and there are many features of the Communistic doctrine which, when studied from this angle, have a tremendous appeal.
These dreamers of a new social order based on the religion of Marxism are inevitably doomed, in my opinion, to failure, for economic and political reasons as well as from the fact that the vast majority of members of their own party are not actuated by any such altruistic motives. They are having great success, however, in the organization of the Communist youth, boys and girls of the working classes, who do not see the practical failure of Communism, who are at the age which hopes and believes all things. It will be interesting to see what fruit the purely spiritual and intellectual side of Communism produces in the next generation.
Marxism is a comprehensive belief system and the government is advancing and teaching that religion in the public schools and to Americans while refusing to answer the “frivolous” questions that must be answered or their religion remains substantially burdened in violation of law.
If the Communist Manifesto were considered to be from “the prophet with the tables of the law” and parallel to the Ten Commandments instead of a political philosophy there would be no doubt that implementation, even in their diluted forms with added impurities, would be an establishment violation? But because the implementations of the New Religion of Leninism, Marxism, Communism, Fascism, Socialism “[W]hatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion…” Torcaso v. Watkins 367 U.S. 488, 493 (1961) have been adopted and implemented by invidious and covert means because this “new religion” is declared by its advocates to be strictly as a secular movement. That is what the World Plan Executive Council United States did while using textbook, in public schools, developed by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Should Christian Americans and all Americans that believe in God argue that all of the above-discussed information not demand an answer as to why the Religion of Marxism is being established in America and the courts and Congress not only allow it but assist in that unconstitutional establishment?
Speaker Martin R. Stephens, Utah House of Representatives, Opening Session Remarks, voiced these same concerns on January 19, 2004 AD stating:
“There seems to be developing a new civil religion. The civil religion I refer to is a secular religion. It has no moral absolutes. It is non-denominational. It is non-theistic. It is politically focused. It is antagonistic to religion. It rejects the historic religious traditions of this nation. It feels strange. If this trend continues, non-belief will be more honored than belief. While all beliefs must be protected, are atheism, agnosticism, cynicism, and moral relativism to be more safeguarded and valued than Christianity, Judaism, and the tenets of Islam which hold that there is a Supreme Being and that mortals are accountable to him? If so, this would, in my opinion, place this nation in great moral jeopardy.”
The implementation of this New Socialist religion have been invidious and covert.
When an American Indian couple tried to keep their daughter from being Marked by a Socialist Security Number the Supreme Court made an interesting comment:
There is no claim that there is any attempt by Congress to discriminate invidiously or any covert suppression of particular religious beliefs.
Bowen v. Roy 476 U.S. 693, 703 (U.S.Pa.,1986)
This claim must now be made by every Theist in America.
If the government, or a shadow government, wants to establish a religion and We the People have refused to grant such authority then how would this invidious and covert establishment occur? The easiest solution would be to simply refuse to call the New Established American Civic Religion a religion. They would just need follow the advice of Rousseau and call this established Civil Religion, “social sentiments without which a man cannot be a good citizen or a faithful subject” or a “sacred trust” or a “compelling government interest.” Then it has a purely secular interest and the now socialist government can declare it to be a “compelling government interest.”
Other links concerning the “Sacred Trust” of the religion of Social Security: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4
So whatever happened to Jefferson’s wall of separation between sacred trusts and State?
Marxists did not need to find a way to implement their “new religion.” The diagram and blue prints had been written by Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote concerning the concept of civil religions in Book VI, Chapter 8, Civil Religion in THE SOCIAL CONTRACT OR PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL RIGHT.
There is therefore a purely civil profession of faith of which the Sovereign should fix the articles, not exactly as religious dogmas, but as social sentiments without which a man cannot be a good citizen or a faithful subject. While it can compel no one to believe them, it can banish from the State whoever does not believe them — it can banish him, not for impiety, but as an anti-social being, incapable of truly loving the laws and justice, and of sacrificing, at need, his life to his duty.
Just change the word “banish” to “imprison” and the New American Civil Religion’s social sentiments are complete. In America today if a Christian (or any non-Marxist religionist) attempts to even ask questions about not participating in Social Security (aka “a sacred trust among the generations…” President Clinton Dec. 8th, 1998 Remarks in opening the White House Conference on Social Security), or what “clear and unequivocal language” imposes the income tax upon them (Spreckels Sugar Refining Co. v. McClain 192 U.S. 397, 416, (U.S.1904)) or what law requires them to file a 1040 return (without a proper OMB number) for a “voluntary assessment and payment” (Flora v. U.S. 362 U.S. 145, 176, 80 S.Ct. 630, 647 (U.S. 1960)) of a tax because they cannot find the law that requires them to be a “persons liable” (California Bankers Ass’n v. Shultz 416 U.S. 21, 46, (U.S.Cal. 1974)) while the IRS and the courts, without answering the questions of the bewildered voluntary slaves (aka taxpayers) simply label such questions and arguments as “frivolous and without merit.” (Lewis v. C.I.R. 2006 WL 954872, 2 (U.S.Tax Ct.,2006)) and in doing so “can banish him, not for impiety, but as an anti-social being, incapable of truly loving the laws and justice.” (Rousseau, on Civil Religion)
Try to survive without the Mark of the Beast (aka Social Security Number or Federal Reserve Notes) and you are declared to be anti-social and incapable of truly loving the laws and justice, and of sacrificing, to his duty to file a return and pay an alleged “fair share.” No one can be compelled to pay a tax for another person’s religion unless of course that religion is Leninism. But then that is why the income tax is “voluntary” (IRS publication 21 and many more references upon request).
The State has become God and the, “‘ultimate concern’ occupying a ‘place parallel to that filled by … God’ in traditionally religious persons.” Fleischfresser v. Directors of School Dist. 200 15 F.3d 680, 688 (C.A.7,1994) To a Christian, however, it places the State before God and is the same as idol worship. Add on the Mark of the Beast at U.S.C. 42 Sec. 666(a)(13)(A) concerning licenses to buy and sell as per the prophecy found at Rev. 13: 17 and the “diluted” Communist “new religion” is established. Most Americans are forced, threatened, intimidated, etc. by this established religion of Leninism to pay a “voluntary” income tax while applying for a “voluntary” social security number, which is only required by law for aliens working in the U.S.
We no longer trust in God but in the State to care for our needs. Bailouts and welfare and Medicaid are Marxist religious implementations. In the Federal Government We Trust. We no longer pray to God but pray to the courts.
These government programs and socialist style charity possibly not being constitutional because of establishment clause violations is indeed a difficult question for the government, for as Judge Adams states:
It is equally clear, however, that in the age of the affirmative and increasingly pervasive state, a less expansive notion of religion was required for establishment clause purposes lest all “humane” programs of government be deemed constitutionally suspect. Malnak v. Yogi 592 F.2d 197, 210 (C.A.N.J., 1979)
But such Federal (not State) “humane” programs were deemed, not only suspect but unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court and even Senator Davy Crocket. This New American Civic Socialist Religion, which “takes property from A to gives it to B” and from children to the elderly and from them middle class to the wall Street tycoon also takes from Christians’ their sacred and spiritual rights and liberties of conscience and property were once repugnant to the American society.
In Calder v. Bull 3 U.S. 386, 388-389, (U.S. August Term 1798) the court is very clear that the heart of Marx’s religion is not allowable as the legislature cannot take from “A” to give to “B.”
The people of the United States erected their Constitutions, or forms of government, to establish justice, to promote the general welfare, to secure the blessings of liberty; and to protect their persons and property from violence. The purposes for which men enter into society will determine the nature and terms of the social compact; and as they are the foundation of the legislative power, they will decide what are the proper objects of it: The nature, and ends of legislative power will limit the exercise of it. This fundamental principle flows from the very nature of our free Republican governments, that no man should be compelled to do what the laws do not require; nor to refrain from acts which the laws permit. There are acts which the Federal, or State, Legislature cannot do, without exceeding their authority. There are certain vital principles in our free Republican governments, which will determine and over-rule an apparent and flagrant abuse of legislative power; as to authorize manifest injustice by positive law; or to take away that security for personal liberty, or private property, for the protection whereof of the government was established. An ACT of the Legislature (for I cannot call it a law) contrary to the great first principles of the social compact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority. The obligation of a law in governments established on express compact, and on republican principles, must be determined by the nature of the power, on which it is founded. A few instances will suffice to explain what I mean. A law that punished a citizen for an innocent action, or, in other words, for an act, which, when done, was in violation of no existing law; a law that destroys, or impairs, the lawful private contracts of citizens; a law that makes a man a Judge in his own cause; or a law that takes property from A. and gives it to B: It is against all reason and justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with SUCH powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed that they have done it. The genius, the nature, and the spirit, of our State Governments, amount to a prohibition of such acts of legislation; and the general principles of law and reason forbid them. The Legislature may enjoin, permit, forbid, and punish; they may declare new crimes; and establish rules of conduct for all its citizens in future cases; they may command what is right, and prohibit what is wrong; but they cannot change innocence into guilt; or punish innocence as a crime; or violate the right of an antecedent lawful private contract; or the right of private property. To maintain that our Federal, or State, Legislature possesses such powers, if they had not been expressly restrained; would, in my opinion, be a political heresy, altogether inadmissible in our free republican governments.
Consider also the plain words of Davy Crockett from The Life of Colonel David Crockett by Edward S. Ellis.
“Mr. Speaker–I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money.”
Any law or government program that supports the goals of Marxism and is supported by a Marxist tax (graduated income tax) is no less a tax that supports the establishment of a religion than taxing a Baptist to support the Church of England as explained in a footnote in Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228, 102 S.Ct. 1673, (1982)
For example, according to John Adams, colonial Massachusetts possessed “the most mild and equitable establishment of religion that was known in the world, if indeed [it] could be called an establishment.” Quoted in B. Bailyn, at 248. But Baptists in Massachusetts chafed under any form of establishment, and Revolutionary pamphleteer John Allen expressed their views to the members of the General Court of Massachusetts in his declamation, The American Alarm, or the Bostonian Plea, for the Rights and Liberties of the People:
“You tell your [colonial] governor that the Parliament of England have no right to tax the Americans … because they are not the representatives of America; and will you dare to tax the Baptists for a religion they deny? Are you gentlemen their representatives before GOD, to answer for their souls and consciences any more than the representatives of England are the representatives of America? … [I]f it be just in the General Court to take away my sacred and spiritual rights and liberties of conscience and my property with it, then it is surely right and just in the British Parliament to take away by power and force my civil rights and property without my consent; this reasoning, gentlemen, I think is plain.” Quoted id., at 267-268.
Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228, 102 S.Ct. 1673, (1982)
How can Congress dare to tax a Christian for the support of the Marxist religion they deny? Are you gentlemen their representatives before GOD? If it be just in the General Court to take away a Christians’ sacred and spiritual rights and liberties of conscience and his property with it, then it is surely right and just in the American Congress to take away by power and force civil rights and property without consent; this reasoning, gentlemen, I think is plain.”
And yet taking from A and giving it to B is exactly what Marxism and socialism accomplish with their graduated income tax and Social Security income taxation. And when did this begin to change from the days of Davy Crockett and Calder v Bull? The answer is that they changed rapidly following the publication of the Communist Manifesto in 1848 AD. It was then that followers of this Civic religion of Marxism began to use political life as the source of their concerns to provide the “raw material for rituals, moments and imagery for its implementation.”
The first U.S. graduated income tax was started by Abraham Lincoln less than 14 years after the publication of the Communist Manifesto. Lincoln also created “greenbacks” which were soon followed by a centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly now known as the Federal Reserve Bank. Mandatory free education for all children in public schools was not found in the USA until the 1850s.
We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person ‘to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.’ Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those religions**1684 based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs.
Torcaso v. Watkins 367 U.S. 488, 495, 81 S.Ct. 1680, 1684 (U.S. 1961)
Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others. See Washington Ethical Society v. District of Columbia, 101 U.S.App.D.C. 371, 249 F.2d 127; Fellowship of Humanity v. County of Alameda, 153 Cal.App.2d 673, 315 P.2d 394; II Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences 293; 4 Encyclopaedia Britannica (1957 ed.) 325-327; 21 id., at 797; Archer, Faiths Men Live By (2d ed. revised by Purinton), 120-138, 254-313; 1961 World Almanac 695, 712; Year Book of American Churches for 1961, at 29, 47.
Torcaso v. Watkins 367 U.S. 488, 495, 81 S.Ct. 1680, 1684 (U.S. 1961)
Conclusion
The conclusion is obvious. John Maynard Keynes in A Short View of Russia was right. Communism is a religion. Trotsky was truthful, and therefore Marx was a prophet who brought the world the “tables of the law” of Communism. American Marxism in its successful diluted forms are religions and early Russian Communism merely represented “the first confused stirrings of a great religion” now practiced, at least in part, by almost the entire civilized world. Taxes are the price we now pay, not for being civilized, but for being Marxists. True Christian civilization would not require taxation but truly voluntary gifts.
Now you must ask yourself: Am I a practicing Marxist?
