The American Spectator

p> RUSSO’S CHILDREN br> Re: James Bowman’s review of America: From Freedom to Fascism : /p> p>I read James Bowman’s article pertaining to the movie “America: From Freedom to Fascism” and was disappointed in his review and conclusions. Although I have not personally seen the movie, I have read a summary of its content and am one of the nuts he describes in his articles. I became one of these nuts several years ago when I became thoroughly discussed with our income tax system and wondered how we imposed such a horrendous system on ourselves. I researched this all the way back to the founding of the country and discovered that the Founders made it extremely difficult to impose a direct tax on the people mainly due to the fact that it would lend itself to the political corruption that we see today. Another thing I found interesting is that a graduated income tax and central bank were included in Karl Marx 10 points to communism. I think if Mr. Bowman would do some research and just look at the freedoms we have lost in this country and increasing power of the Federal government in my short life time of 56 years he might come to some of the same conclusions as Mr. Russo. br> — James W. Clark , CPA br> Greenville, North Carolina /p>

In his movie review, “America: From Freedom to Fascism,” James Bowman claims that convicted tax protester Irwin Schiff and conspiracy nut Aaron Russo are working under the theory that “there should be no intermediary, no one entitled to such a position by knowledge, experience, or authority, who stands between them and the plain sense of the law.” Bowman traces this idea to what he calls “Protestant fundamentalism.”

In my opinion, it is simply false to trace the “no judicial intermediary” theory to the Protestant idea that the Bible doesn’t need a priestly class to provide interpretations of it. That’s either pro-Catholic opportunism on Bowman’s part, or else anti-Protestant bigotry. Opposition to the tax laws is not a “Protestant” issue and this is the first I’ve ever heard such a claim. Tax rebels usually tend to follow nullification or interposition theories, which can be traced back to (ironically enough) James Madison, and also to Thomas Jefferson (not so ironically). The Civil War pretty much put an end to such ideas. For a critique of tax protestor arguments, please see the IRS site.

p>On the whole, however, I agree with Bowman’s critique of conspiracy theories. The nuts on both the right and left hold to the idea of covert causation in history, and both are equally anti-American, witness the title of Russo’s movie.