Long Train of IRS Abuses

"Of all the ideas that became the United States, there's a line here that's at the heart of all the others. 'But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design that reduces them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and provide new Guards for their future security.'"
--Benjamin Franklin Gates (National Treasure)

Ron Paul observes that the IRS/Tea Party scandal is only a recent instance of a long train of bipartisan abuses of the IRS for purposes of harassing political opponents. FDR, JFK, LBJ, Nixon and others precede the Obama administration in this regard.

Chief Justice John Marshall said that the power to tax is the power to destroy in McCulloch v Maryland (1819). It is interesting that he observed this axiom in a case where he and other justices employed the principle of judicial review to expand federal government power.

Nevertheless, it took nearly 100 years for the Sixteenth Amendment to come into existence and, with it, central government's power to marginalize any entity not favored by the current regime.

RP rightfully concludes that the only way our freedoms can be protected against this abuse is to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment, which would shutter the IRS permanently.