Thursday 28th of March 2024

of taxes and revolutions...

sovereign of the sea

The Plantagenet Kings of England had the medieval right to require Maritime towns and counties to furnish them with ships in times of war. This duty was sometimes commuted for money, which became known as ‘ship money’. Ship money was unique as it was one of the few taxes the Monarchy could levy without the approval of Parliament.

Ship money was an intermittent tax that was revived by Charles I in 1628 when he raised £173,000 by levying it on every county in England. In 1634 King Charles I issued a writ requiring the justices of London and other seaports to provide a certain number of ships of war of a prescribed tonnage and equipment or their equivalent in money. The tax was super unpopular as contrary to all precedents, it was issued in times of peace. Nevertheless, the sum of £104,000 was collected.

In 1635, and subsequent years, ship money was annually levied by Charles I to cover peacetime government expenditures. Dissent with the ship money grew to such an extent, that by 1639, less than 20% of the money demanded was raised. The tax was stopped by the Long Parliament when they voted in the Ship Money Act of 1640.


https://taxfitness.com.au/Blog/1628-ship-money#:
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Ship money was a tax of medieval origin levied intermittently in the Kingdom of England until the middle of the 17th century. Assessed typically on the inhabitants of coastal areas of England, it was one of several taxes that English monarchs could levy by prerogative without the approval of Parliament. The attempt of King Charles I from 1634 onwards to levy ship money during peacetime and extend it to the inland counties of England without Parliamentary approval provoked fierce resistance, and was one of the grievances of the English propertied class in the lead-up to the English Civil War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_money#:~:text

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The American Revolution was precipitated, in part, by a series of laws passed between 1763 and 1775 that regulating trade and taxes. ... Since enforcement of these duties had previously been lax, this ultimately increased revenue for the British Government and served to increase the taxes paid by the colonists.This legislation caused tensions between colonists and imperial officials, who made it clear that the British Parliament would not address American complaints that the new laws were onerous. British unwillingness to respond to American demands for change allowed colonists to argue that they were part of an increasingly corrupt and autocratic empire in which their traditional liberties were threatened. This position eventually served as the basis for the colonial Declaration of Independence.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1750-1775/parliamentary-taxation
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In the decades leading to the French Revolution, peasants paid a land tax to the state (the taille) and a 5% property tax (the vingtième; see below). ... The tax system in pre-revolutionary France largely exempted the nobles and the clergy from taxes.

All paid a tax on the number of people in the family (capitation), depending on the status of the taxpayer (from poor to prince). Further royal and seigneurial obligations might be paid in several ways: in labor, in kind, or rarely, in coin. Peasants were also obligated to their landlords for rent in cash, a payment related to their amount of annual production, and taxes on the use of the nobles’ mills, wine-presses, and bakeries.


https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory2/chapter/taxes-and-the-three-estates

 

And so came the French Revolution of 1798

 

Taxes and revolutions (or civil wars) seem to go hand in hand. In France, the increased tax on fuel led to the Yellow Vests "revolution"... The "Covid-clampdown" is going to run its course until people won't be afraid to die... It could be better to die from a disease than from isolated boredom... We shall see. Already, there are "revolutions" around the world in regard to lockdowns. These could become "viral" — excuse the pun. Eventually, when the Covid panic is abated, taxes will have to be raised in order to pay for the damage... It could become ugly, as the rich get more "tax cuts".

the gilded devil...

Image at top: Sovereign of the Seas was the biggest ship of its time, nicknamed by the Dutch "The Gilded Devil" because it was covered in gold leaf and cost a mint... The taxes raised for this ship were at the origin of the English civil war...

civil war won't happen... unless biden raise taxes...


Civil war becomes inevitable in the USA


by Thierry Meyssan


The problem is no longer who was legitimately elected President of the United States, but how long can the civil war be postponed? Far from being a fight between a narcissistic TV presenter and a senile old man, the country is being torn apart over a fundamental cultural issue that has been smouldering since its inception.


VOLTAIRE NETWORK | PARIS (FRANCE) | 15 DECEMBER 2020


Here we are: the disaster that has been predictable for the past 30 years is looming. The United States is heading inexorably toward secession and civil war.


Since the demise of the USSR, the "American Empire" no longer had an existential enemy and therefore no reason to exist. The attempt by George H. Bush (the father) and Bill Clinton to give the country a new life with the globalization of trade has destroyed the middle classes in the USA and in almost all of the West. The attempt of George W. Bush (son) and Barack Obama to organize the world around a new form of capitalism - financial this time - has been bogged down in the sands of Syria.


It is too late to turn the tide. Donald Trump’s attempt to abandon the American Empire and refocus the country’s efforts on its domestic prosperity has been sabotaged by the elites acquired to the puritanical ideology of the "Pilgrim Fathers". As a result, the moment so feared by Richard Nixon and his election adviser Kevin Philipps has arrived: the United States is on the brink of secession and civil war.


What I am writing is not a fantasy, but the analysis of many observers in the United States and around the world. For example, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has just declared Donald Trump’s election fraud appeal inadmissible, not on legal grounds, but because "it would open Pandora’s box.


In fact, contrary to the misrepresentation of events that dominates the international press, either the outgoing president’s appeals are judged in law and he is obviously right, or they are judged in politics and proving him right will provoke civil war. But the conflict is already too far advanced. Judging him politically in defiance of the law will also provoke civil war.


We must stop interpreting the presidential election as a rivalry between Democrats and Republicans, whereas Donald Trump has never claimed to be a member of the Republican Party, which he stormed during his 2016 campaign. He is not an enlightened man, but a successor to President Andrew Jackson (1829-37). Yes, ideologically, the latter prefigured the "Southerners," the "Confederates.


We must stop pretending that Donald Trump does not represent the majority of his fellow citizens when he was first elected president in 2016, when he has just helped thousands of candidates win local elections in his name, and when he has just won millions more votes than in 2016.

No one in Europe seems to dare to see what is happening in front of us, because everyone clings to the idea of a United States that is a paragon of democracy. Please read the US Constitution, it will only take you a few minutes. It recognizes the sovereignty of the Federated States, not of the People. Its main designer, Alexander Hamilton, said it and wrote in the Federalist Papers: its purpose is to establish a regime comparable to the British monarchy without aristocracy, certainly not a democracy.

This constitution lasted two centuries only because of the compromise of the First Ten Amendments (Bill of Rights). But in this age of globalization of information, everyone can see that the dice are loaded. This system is certainly tolerant, but oligarchic. In the United States, almost all laws are drafted by organized pressure groups, regardless of who is elected to Congress and the White House. The political staff is just a smokescreen that hides the real Power. Every decision of every politician is noted by these groups and directories compiling their docility are published every year.

The Europeans, who want to represent the United States as a democratic nation, keep claiming that the presidential election is a matter for the electorate. This is absolutely false. The constitution does not provide for the election of the federal president in the second degree by the people, but by an electoral college appointed by the governors. Over time, governors have ended up holding elections in their states before choosing the members of the Electoral College. Some have agreed to include it in their local constitutions, but not all. In the end, the federal Supreme Court doesn’t care, as it did when George W. Bush v. Al Gore was appointed 20 years ago. It explicitly stated that the potential election rigging that had taken place in Florida was not within its jurisdiction.

In that context, Donald Trump would probably have won the 2020 election if the United States were a democracy, but he lost because it’s an oligarchy and the politicians don’t want him.

The Jacksonians, supporters of democracy, have no choice but to take up arms to make their cause triumph, as the Second Amendment to their Constitution explicitly provides. In the original sense of the Second Amendment, the right of Americans to acquire and bear all manner of weapons of war is intended to enable them to rebel against a tyrannical government, as they did against the British monarchy. This is the meaning of the compromise of 1789, which the majority of them considered to have been broken.

General Michael Flynn, the short-lived National Security Advisor, has just called for the suspension of the constitution and the introduction of martial law to prevent civil war. The Pentagon, whose head was replaced a month ago by the outgoing president in favour of friends of the general, is standing by.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, announced that he will appear before the Texas court that will rule on local election fraud. Texas is one of two states that formed an independent republic before joining the United States. But when it joined, it retained a right to opt out. In 2009, then Governor Rick Perry threatened to secede. This idea is still going strong. Today, the local Congress is expected to decide on Representative Kyle Biedermann’s proposal for an independence referendum.

The process of dissolution of the United States could be faster than that of the USSR. It was studied at the time in Moscow by Professor Igor Panarin. Demographics have changed since then and have been analyzed by Colin Woodard. The country would then be split into 11 separate states on a cultural basis.

To these problems are added the complaints against the legislatures of some 20 states that passed laws during the Covid-19 outbreak governing elections in a manner contrary to their own constitutions. If these appeals, which are legally founded, are successful, they will have to annul not only the presidential election, but all local elections (parliamentary, sheriffs, prosecutors, etc.). It will not be possible to verify the alleged facts in Texas and elsewhere until the Federal Electoral Council meeting. Texas and other states with similar appeals, as well as those that will have to annul the election, will therefore not be able to participate in the nomination of the next President of the United States. In such a case, the only substitution procedure that applies is for the new Congress, in which the Puritans are in the minority and the Jacksonians are in the majority.


Thierry Meyssan

Translation 

Roger Lagassé


 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article211845.html

 

Read from top.

 

 

I think that Thierry Meyssan is wrong here. Should Biden raise taxes he might have some troubles at home, but at this stage America IS AMERICA. All the states, despite their different colors rely on the Federal Government for cash and protection. Biden can also unite Americans in spirit by defining an (mostly ficticious but well "invented" — think Saddam) enemy outside the USA. This will be China and/or Russia, Iran/Iraq and anyone else who does not play ball on the US side. It could become uglier this way rather than an internal conflict...

 

Let's hope we are all wrong and that peace will be.