Bill Benson and M. J. Beckman, The Law That Never Was, vol. I (Constitutional Research Associates, 1985)
The idea behind this book is a powerful one: that the sixteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America (for those of you who fell asleep in civics class, it's better known as the "income tax amendment") was never ratified, and thus the government's collection of income tax every year is fraudulent. What American wouldn't jump at the idea that you don't have to give a third or more of your income tot he Federal government every year?
Well, unfortunately, out of three hundred million of us, the answer's probably in the vicinity of two hundred ninety-nine million nine hundred fifty thousand, and that's being generous because the book's been out for twenty years. I'm hoping copies of it have passed through fifty thousand hands. And yet, how many of those people have stood up and asked questions about this? Very, very few.
Part of the reason so few people have read this book is its expense. It is no longer sold without its companion, volume II (despite that they were published a year apart, and each is a stand-alone volume), and the set is quite expensive for a country where the average person spends less on books in a year than this set costs. It's possible that another part of the reason is that, if you care at all about language and presentation, it's simply impossible to recommend this book. All the great ideas here, and all the evidence, is presented horribly.
The Law That Never Was, vol. I is three hundred sixty-six pages long. I didn't actually get out the ruler, measure, multiply, and extrapolate, but I'm estimating that a full fifty pages of that amount was repetition-- exact repetition-- of two key pieces of legislation that the ratifications of most of the states broke and paragraphs of explanatory text surrounding them. Another fifty to seventy-five pages was taken up with lists of the details that made the ratifications incorrect, many of which were repeated from state to state. Perhaps, one thinks, a two hundred fifty page books would have cost less to print than a three hundred sixty-six page book, and might cost less to the consumer; however, when one is self-publishing, one does not have the services of a good editor to point out the incredibly annoying repetition. Nor would that editor point out that exclamation points, especially in a chapter heading, especially when there are more than one of them at a time, especially when they are meant to convey a threat, are just begging for ridicule of the authors. Such things make for schoolyard bully taunts, not good legal writing.
This is a fabulous idea, and so important in the general scheme of things in America that it should be read by every tax paying American. However, most tax paying Americans will find it very hard to get through-- not just the legalese, but the general unreadability of it. And yet, it is worth persevering, because this is not information you are likely to get from anyone else. Certainly, the IRS will never tell you they're criminals. ** ˝
