I, like you, would have opposed those Consituttional Amendment – and would support their repeal. But at least the position is clear and in the open.

The United States is quite different – there (as Tea Party people are always saying) the Constitution has not been runied by Amendments (although the Amendments to have direct election for the Senate and to allow an income tax, were hardly helpful).

No – but what has happened is even worse.

The government has taken powers (not recently – many decades ago) to which it has no Consitutional right – and the courts have gone along with it, corruptly twisting and/or ignoring the Constitution.

How does one restore (reform) a nation that has become so corrupt?

Where does one even start?

And, without America, how does the West stand?

Here in Oz we are taxed on alcohol and ciggies (automaticaly hiked up every half year) based on the furphy that “it costs society/health system too much”.

Which goes back to “well why does the government provide most health care free?”

By allowing the govenment to allow us something for “free” people sign up for allowing the govenment to regulate activities that might cost it money.

Nothing is free. But if people paid their own way, and paid for thier own bad decisions the vast majority of people would be better off. But there is a pathalogical aversion for “just desserts” in society now, I dont know why.

Here in Oz we are taxed on alcohol and ciggies (automaticaly hiked up every half year) based on the furphy that “it costs society/health system too much”.

Which goes back to “well why does the government provide most health care free?”

By allowing the govenment to allow us something for “free” people sign up for allowing the govenment to regulate activities that might cost it money.

Nothing is free. But if people paid their own way, and paid for thier own bad decisions the vast majority of people would be better off. But there is a pathalogical aversion for “just desserts” in society now, I dont know why.

Still I doubt that the person who burned himself to death in Tunisia (over not getting a graduate job, which as a university graduate he had been taught was his “right”, and then not being given a license to sell fruit and veg) led to either …..

An end to shoving vast numbers of people into government subsidized universities – where they get a totally false view of what their lives are likely to be like.

Or.

Getting rid of the requirement to have a license to sell fruit and veg.

The Revolution may lead to many things (Islamic Fundentalism, war, mass starvation…..), but I very much doubt it will lead to the complaints that set it off being acted upon.

However, this is not a tax upon passage, as the octroi was. It’s an attempt to collect state excise taxes on out-of-state purchases. An absolutely-stupid attempt, since the cost of collection must vastly-outweigh any taxes collected, but – there you go.

The ports-of-entry which are often seen on major roads in the US, especially in the Western states, are similarly nothing to do with taxing – they are there to ensure compliance with state laws by commercial motor carriers, issue permits and variances (eg for over-width or over-weight loads) and perform ag and fish-and-game inspections. If you pull into a port of entry, you may have to pay a fee for a state permit of one sort or another, you may get a ticket for not having chains in a state which requires them, and you may get an agricultural inspection, but you will not get taxed ad-valorem on the goods in your truck.

llater,

llamas

You might be amused to know, if you don’t already, that this actually goes on in almost exactly the situation you describe. Perhaps you already knew of this situation, hence your remark.

I haven’t heard much about it lately, but for many years motorists were routinely, if inconsistently, stopped by police on the Ohio side in Cincinnati. Kentucky has/had a much lower tax on liquor, tobacco, and some other products. Ohio based law enforcement went so far as to station undercover police with radios in the parking lots of liquor stores in Kentucky in order to identify customers from Ohio who could then be arrested as they crossed the bridge.

I’m not sure what your reference to the Constitution refers to, but as a practical matter it is done all the time. In the late 80s California actually had inspection posts at the borders, I don’t know if they still do or not. The commerce clause would give congress the power to regulate such taxes but doesn’t require them to do so and in reality they use the commerce clause for everything but its intended purpose.

Toll roads, that is charging for the use and upkeep of a road is of course a completely legitimate business. Not sure what government has to do with it, though.

Of course it is. What the government usually does to legitimate businesses though is to appropriate them, in order to use them as one more tool to levy taxes – which is what government-owned toll roads in fact are.

The octroi was a levy on the goods people were carrying. Luggage would be searched and fees charged for any taxable goods. A bit like if Ohio state stopped everyone coming over from Kentucky and levied sales tax on everything people carried (including the car if it was too new). This is one mistake the US Constitution does not make, probably thanks to the bad example of France.