A state of disobedience

From the transcript at trial: Commonwealth of

Virginia v. Alvin Scheer

DIRECT EXAMINATION, CONTINUED

BY MR. STENNINGS:

Q. Alvin, what did you think about the things Texas started doing after the massacre . . .

MS. CAPUTO: Objection, Your Honor. That kind of inflammatory language—

MR. STENNINGS: Withdrawn, Judge.

Q. After the mission, Alvin. What did you think about what Texas did after the mission was destroyed?

A. I've got to confess, I was so sheerly tickled when the governor went to the legislature and asked for a law declaring income tax withholding for the feds illegal in the state. Didn't change the withholding, mind you, just sent it straight to the state.

Now, I didn't see the TV when the governor spoke. I was a little busy fixing up my truck, packin' a few things, figurin' out the map and all. Well, I never was too good with a map. So I missed the governor when she came on TV.

But my friends who saw it told me about it. Said the governor used some mighty strong words speakin' to the legislature about federal income tax. "No matter what the Supreme Court may have said, tyranny long endured does not equal law . . . 'Disobedience to tyranny is obedience to God.' " They told me she said that the income tax was illegal from the beginning, never properly made part of the Constitution. Never . . . ratified? Is that the word, Mr. Stennings? Well, if that really was true, I guess that means they were pickin' my pocket every two weeks for most of my life.

The other thing was, she and the legislature said no Texas corporation could pay corporate income tax either. That didn't sit too well with me, the fat cats getting over and all. But my friends said that when the governor explained it, it made sense. See, the corporations never did pay any tax. It was all smoke and mirrors, a sales tax—we were used to that in Texas, of course—pretending to be an income tax. The big corporations? They just raised their prices to cover the tax they paid, plus a little more profit for themselves. So it was just me and folks like me that were payin' the big corporations' income tax. "Obtaining money under false pretenses," the governor said it was. That, and "We aren't going to roll for their scam, anymore, either."

Anyway, the governor's bill passed by a pretty good margin.

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