flcracker wrote: ↑Mon Mar 15, 2021 3:31 pm
tector wrote: ↑Mon Mar 15, 2021 2:38 pm....trying to imagine the founders of this country saying a man could be jailed (by the federal government no less) for owning or selling a small strip of metal. The same would apply to growing a plant. Both concepts would be utterly ludicrous to them.
I'm not certain, but I think that one of the legal bases for prosecution of someone who owns an "unregistered machine gun" is the failure to pay a tax - on something that can't legally be registered for taxation.
The concept of waging war against their own Citizens to enforce the payment of a tax on a homemade product derived from homegrown grain apparently didn't seem so ludicrous to our Founding Fathers..
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion
Not sure I follow your legal "reasoning."
No one ever said taxes were illegal per se (to the extent the Revolution itself involved a tax issue, it was about taxation without representation, not just the fact of taxation). Nor did the feds say whiskey was illegal. Nor was this about private consumption--your own article says the whiskey was a medium of exchange (essentially, barter). Further, per your link, the issue only got violent AFTER 500 people attacked the home of the taxation officer.
Other than that, yes, it was completely similar to today--good point, sir.
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”