Includes & including

Almost NOTHING governments are created to do can they actually be held LEGALLY accountable for doing in court. Here is the proof of that:

Your Irresponsible, Lawless, and Anarchist Beast Government, Form #05.054
https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/YourIrresponsibleLawlessGov.pdf

Almost all of the anarchy described above originates in how governments control, manage, and protect property of every description. Civil legislation and civil statutes, after all, are nothing more than the rules established by the government for managing ONLY its own property under Article 4, Section 3, Clause 2 of the Constitution. The Constitution, after all, is just a trust indenture for managing PUBLIC/COMMUNITY property owned by the government and managed by its trustees called “public officers”.

The entire authority to define ANYTHING within all legislation of Congress presupposes that Congress has an ownership interest in ALL PROPERTY that might be affected by such a legal definition. And by “affected” we mean the ability of Congress to exercise any aspect of the following main components of “ownership” over the property:

  1. The right to exclude ANY and ALL others from using or benefitting from the property.
  2. The right to control the use of the property or place conditions on its use.

If you can’t do BOTH of the above things with your property, then you don’t really absolutely own the property, but rather merely SHARE that ownership with someone else such as the government. The two aspects of ownership above are the essence of what the Constitution identifies as the power to “make needful rules and regulations” for PUBLIC property in Article 4, Section 3, Clause 2:

U.S. Constitution
Article 4: States Relations
Section 3: Admission of New States; Property of United States
Clause 2. Property of the United States

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

The above constitutional provision is deceptive, because it does not directly address what “other Property” is. In fact, it can be ANYTHING: civil statutory rights, privileges, chattel property, contracts, franchises, buildings, etc. If they spelled all these things out as “property” in the above constitutional provision, they would have to admit that ALL CIVIL STATUTES they enact are PROPERTY and PRIVILEGES owned by them and granted to you with legal strings attached that become HUGE shackles around your legs. We exhaustively prove this in:

Government Instituted Slavery Using Franchises, Form #05.030
https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/Franchises.pdf

The term “pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence has been identified by the U.S. Supreme Court as being SYNONYMOUS with the absolute ownership of PRIVATE property.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..“

[Declaration of Independence;
SOURCE: http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/declaration.html]

“The provision [Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1], it is to be observed, places property under the same protection as life and liberty. Except by due process of law, no State can deprive any person of either. The provision has been supposed to secure to every individual the essential conditions for the pursuit of happiness; and for that reason has not been heretofore, and should never be, construed in any narrow or restricted sense.”

[Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113 (1876);
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6419197193322400931]

Private property is simply property that the government (the PUBLIC) doesn’t either absolutely own outright or share an ownership interest in with you. Any government that interferes or intends to interfere with ANY ASPECT of the exercise of your ownership interest in your PRIVATE property therefore has the EXPRESS and/or IMPLIED goal of MALICIOUSLY making you:

UNAPPY!

If you never ask for or use any government property, government ceases to be able to regulate, and by implication TAX, your conduct or the use of your property. And by REGULATE, we mean impose any kind of penalty or condition on the use of the property pursuant to 5 U.S.C. §301. If they can’t regulate, the only other thing they can do is LEAVE IT and IT’S owner ALONE, which is EXACTLY what justice itself is legally defined as:

“The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone – the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.“

[Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting);  see also Washington v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210 (1990)]

PAULSEN, ETHICS (Thilly’s translation), chap. 9.

“Justice, as a moral habit, is that tendency of the will and mode of conduct which refrains from disturbing the lives and interests of others, and, as far as possible, hinders such interference on the part of others. This virtue springs from the individual’s respect for his fellows as ends in themselves and as his co equals. The different spheres of interests may be roughly classified as follows: body and life; the family, or the extended individual life; property, or the totality of the instruments of action; honor, or the ideal existence; and finally freedom, or the possibility of fashioning one’s life  as an end in itself. The law defends these different spheres, thus giving rise to a corresponding number of spheres of rights, each being protected by a prohibition. . . . To violate the rights, to interfere with the interests of others, is injustice. All injustice is ultimately directed against the life of the neighbor; it is an open avowal that the latter is not an end in itself, having the same value as the individual’s own life. The general formula of the duty of justice may therefore be stated as follows: Do no wrong yourself, and permit no wrong to be done, so far as lies in your power; or, expressed positively: Respect and protect the right.”

[Readings on the History and System of the Common Law, Second Edition, Roscoe Pound, 1925, p. 2]

“With all [our] blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow citizens–a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.“

[Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801. ME 3:320]

More like the above at:

What is “Justice”?, Form #05.050
https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/WhatIsJustice.pdf

But before we can challenge their jurisdiction to regulate, we must CLEARLY understand the basic rules for owning and managing property actually ARE. Those rules are summarized below:

  1. Rights are property.
    https://famguardian.org/TaxFreedom/CitesByTopic/right.htm
  2. Anything that CONVEYS rights is property.
  3. Contracts convey rights and are therefore property.
  4. All franchises are contracts, and therefore property.
  5. Civil statuses (Form #13.008) convey and enforce PUBLIC rights and are therefore PUBLIC property.
    https://sedm.org/Forms/13-SelfFamilyChurchGovnce/RightToDeclStatus.pdf
  6. The Constitution conveys mainly PRIVATE rights, which are PRIVATE property in the case of the Bill of Rights.
  7. Those who OFFER property to you are a Merchant (Seller) under U.C.C. §2-104(1).
  8. The person RECEIVING the property is the Buyer under U.C.C. §2-103(1)(a).
  9. The MERCHANT always prescribes ALL the terms of the offer and can withhold the property if those terms are not met. The withholding of the property is an exercise of the “right to exclude” aspect of ownership.
  10. You should always strive to be the Merchant in every business transaction to give yourself the upper hand. Deut. 15:6, Deut. 28:12, Deut. 23:19, Deut. 23:20.
  11. You should NEVER allow the GOVERNMENT to act as a Merchant in relation to you.  Exodus 23:32-33, Judges 2:1-4. Here is what happens when you do.

    “People of all races, genders, political beliefs, sexual orientations, and nearly all religions are welcome here. All are treated equally under REAL “law”. The only way to remain truly free and equal under the civil law is to avoid seeking government civil services, benefits, property, special or civil status, exemptions, privileges, or special treatment.  All such pursuits of government services or property require individual and lawful consent to a franchise and the surrender of inalienable constitutional rights AND EQUALITY in the process, and should therefore be AVOIDED.  The rights and equality given up are the “cost” of procuring the “benefit” or property from the government, in fact.  Nothing in life is truly “free”.  Anyone who claims that such “benefits” or property should be free and cost them nothing is a thief who wants to use the government as a means to STEAL on his or her behalf. All just rights spring from responsibilities/obligations under the laws of a higher power.  If that higher power is God, you can be truly and objectively free.  If it is government, you are guaranteed to be a slave because they can lawfully set the cost of their property as high as they want as a Merchant under the U.C.C.  If you want it really bad from people with a monopoly, then you will get it REALLY bad. Bend over.  There are NO constitutional limits on the price government can charge for their monopoly services or property.  Those who want no responsibilities can have no real/PRIVATE rights, but only privileges dispensed to wards of the state which are disguised to LOOK like unalienable rights.  Obligations and rights are two sides of the same coin, just like self-ownership and personal responsibility.  For the biblical version of this paragraph, read 1 Sam. 8:10-22.  For the reason God answered Samuel by telling him to allow the people to have a king, read Deut. 28:43-51, which is God’s curse upon those who allow a king above them.  Click Here (https://famguardian.org/Subjects/Taxes/Evidence/HowScCorruptOurRepubGovt.htm) for a detailed description of the legal, moral, and spiritual consequences of violating this paragraph.”
    [SEDM Opening Page, http://sedm.org]
  12. The CREATOR of a civil statutory privilege/public right/franchise is ALWAYS the owner and the Merchant granting or selling PUBLIC property. See:
    13.1. United States v. Babcock, 250 U.S. 328 (1919)
    https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=13911914425951042261
    13.2. Hierarchy of Sovereignty:  The Power to Create is the Power to Tax, Family Guardian Fellowship
    https://famguardian.org/Subjects/Taxes/Remedies/PowerToCreate.htm
  13. A statutory civil right (which is PUBLIC PROPERTY) exercised against a fiction of law (straw man, Form #05.042) such as a “person” is a right exercised against the GRANTOR/CREATOR of the OFFICE, and not the human(s) FILLING the office. This is an outgrowth of the law of agency. Thus, a civil statute used as a remedy in court against someone else is a remedy against the GOVERNMENT GRANTOR/CREATOR of the right, and not the OFFICER filling the office to which the PUBLIC right attaches. The CREATOR is the OWNER, and the OWNER of the right is the person legally RESPONSIBLE for its effect on others.
  14. If you use a civil statutory fictional office for private gain, the creator of the office is the owner of all income and property attached to the office through the use of the franchise mark, the Social Security Number or Taxpayer Identification Number. They must reward you with a portion of the PUBLIC property attached to the office to induce you to volunteer for the office to begin with. Thus, a “trade or business” partnership is established to remit the “kickback”. This is called a “return”.
  15. Rules of Evidence relating to property interest are described in Federal Rule of Evidence 803(14) and 803(15).
  16. Income taxation is always upon PROFIT or GAIN, and never the underlying property. For instance, taxes on LABOR are upon PROFIT from labor, not the underlying labor itself, which is property. That means NEVER can the ENTIRE amount earned from selling one’s labor for compensation of EQUAL value be classified as “income” from a constitutional perspective UNLESS you consent to it.  That consent must come in a place not protected by the constitution such as on federal territory or abroad, because otherwise government is making a profitable business out of alienating rights that the Declaration of Independence says are UNALIENABLE, which is a criminal financial conflict of interest.  Doing the OPPOSITE of what governments are created to do makes them not only NOT a government, but an ANTI-government.  See:
    Proof that earnings from labor are not “gross income” under 26 U.S.C. §61**, SEDM
    https://sedm.org/proof-that-earnings-from-labor-are-not-gross-income-under-26-u-s-c-61/

In tandem with the the uniformly anarchist approach of ALL governments, members of the Executive Branch such as the Treasury will often try to put themselves into the role of being able to literally add ANYTHING they want to statutory definitions so as to bring anyone and everyone into the reach of their ability to enforce against and steal from. The person who designed our Three Branch system of government described this tendency of the Judiciary and the Executive when he said:

“When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.

Again, there is no liberty, if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would be then the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression [sound familiar?].

There would be an end of everything, were the same man or the same body, whether of the nobles or of the people, to exercise those three powers, that of enacting laws, that of executing the public resolutions, and of trying the causes of individuals.”

[. . .]

In what a situation must the poor subject be in those republics! The same body of magistrates are possessed, as executors of the laws, of the whole power they have given themselves in quality of legislators. They may plunder the state by their general determinations; and as they have likewise the judiciary power in their hands, every private citizen may be ruined by their particular decisions.”

[The Spirit of Laws, Charles de Montesquieu, Book XI, Section 6, 1758;
SOURCE: http://famguardian.org\Publications\SpiritOfLaws\sol_11.htm]

The way the above is implemented by the Treasury Department in the I.R.C. is by abusing the words “includes and including” within legal definitions:

26 U.S. Code § 7701 – Definitions

[. . .]

(c) Includes and including

The terms “includes” and “including” when used in a definition contained in this title shall not be deemed to exclude other things otherwise within the meaning of the term defined.

The words “includes” and “including” are used in the context of several terms, such as the following items in 26 U.S.C. §7701 in order to unlawfully and unconstitutionally expand the jurisdiction of government to tax:

  1. “United States”.
  2. “Partnership”
  3. “Corporation”
  4. “Stock”
  5. “Shareholder”
  6. “Levy”.

Courts have interpreted the terms “includes” and “including” as encompassing things which are ONLY within the “same general class” as the thing or things specified.

“The Secretary has delegated its rule-making authority under § 847 to the ATF. In defining ammunition, the ATF has indicated that the term shall include “percussion caps.” 27 C.F.R. § 55.11 (1983). Furthermore, the Bureau has provided that “the terms ‘includes’ and ‘including’ do not exclude other things not named which are in the same general class or are otherwise within the scope of the term defined.” Id.”

[Bingham, Ltd. v. United States, 724 F.2d. 921, 927 (11th Cir. 1984)]

To impute anything BEYOND things falling in the same general and IDENTIFIED class would be to engage in an unconstitutional presumption (Form #05.017) in violation of due process of law. If you have to GUESS about what class is specified or what is included in the unidentified class, then the law is what the courts call “void for vagueness” because it fails the constitutional requirement for “reasonable notice” of what is included or expected because it doesn’t unambiguously describe the target audience, as documented in:

Reasonable Notice, Form #05.022
https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/ReasonableNotice.pdf

Otherwise, all doubts about what is included MUST be resolved in FAVOR of you and not the government, as we point out in:

PROOF OF FACTS: Ambiguous tax statutes are to be construed against the government, FTSIG
https://ftsig.org/proof-of-facts-ambiguous-tax-statutes-are-to-be-construed-against-the-government/

The above authority is often abused by legally ignorant revenue agents as an excuse or justification to ADD anything they want to be “included” in whatever definition you are challenging their authority with. This has the practical effect of:

  1. Interfering with the use or enjoyment of your PRIVATE property.
  2. Depriving you of the constitutionally required “reasonable notice” of whether you are actually “included” or affected by the thing defined. See:
    Requirement for Reasonable Notice, Form #05.022
    https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/ReasonableNotice.pdf
  3. Impermissibly delegating legislative powers to an Executive Employee in violation of the Separation of Powers Doctrine. See:
    Government Conspiracy to Destroy the Separation of Powers, Form #05.023
    https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/SeparationOfPowers.pdf
  4. Turning a “society of law” as the U.S. Supreme Court calls it in Marbury v. Madison into a “society of Men”.
  5. Destroying the “rule of law” and replacing it with the “rule of men”.

The result of all the above is that you are put under the subjective and ever changing whims of an unelected bureaucrat in the Executive Branch who is serving within what we call “The Administrative State”. This is not permitted by our constitutional system of government:

When we consider the nature and the theory of our institutions of government, the principles upon which they are supposed 370*370 to rest, and review the history of their development, we are constrained to conclude that they do not mean to leave room for the play and action of purely personal and arbitrary power. Sovereignty itself is, of course, not subject to law, for it is the author and source of law; but in our system, while sovereign powers are delegated to the agencies of government, sovereignty itself remains with the people, by whom and for whom all government exists and acts. And the law is the definition and limitation of power. It is, indeed, quite true, that there must always be lodged somewhere, and in some person or body, the authority of final decision; and in many cases of mere administration the responsibility is purely political, no appeal lying except to the ultimate tribunal of the public judgment, exercised either in the pressure of opinion or by means of the suffrage. But the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, considered as individual possessions, are secured by those maxims of constitutional law which are the monuments showing the victorious progress of the race in securing to men the blessings of civilization under the reign of just and equal laws, so that, in the famous language of the Massachusetts Bill of Rights, the government of the commonwealth “may be a government of laws and not of men.” For, the very idea that one man may be compelled to hold his life, or the means of living, or any material right essential to the enjoyment of life, at the mere will of another, seems to be intolerable in any country where freedom prevails, as being the essence of slavery itself.

[Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 369-370 (1886);
SOURCE: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2131565438211553011]

For a simply FABULOUS description by a senator of what happens when Congress impermissibly delegates its power to LEGISLATE to unelected bureaucrats in the Executive Branch, see:

Sasse on Kavanaugh Hearing: “We Can And We Should Do Better Than This”, SEDM
https://sedm.org/sasse-on-kavanaugh-hearing-we-can-and-we-should-do-better-than-this/

To the above end, the Rules of Statutory Construction and Interpretation were implemented by the U.S. Supreme Court to LIMIT the interpretation of statutes so that Executive Branch and Judicial Branch employees CANNOT arbitrarily add anything they want to what a statutory definition explicitly and expressly says. Below are a few simple examples:

“It is axiomatic that the statutory definition of the term excludes unstated meanings of that term.  Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U.S. 379, 392, and n. 10 (1979). Congress’ use of the term “propaganda” in this statute, as indeed in other legislation, has no pejorative connotation.{19} As judges, it is our duty to [481 U.S. 485] construe legislation as it is written, not as it might be read by a layman, or as it might be understood by someone who has not even read it.“

[Meese v. Keene, 481 U.S. 465, 484 (1987);
SOURCE: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=13796872946132691159]

“When a statute includes an explicit definition, we must follow that definition, even if it varies from that term’s ordinary meaning. Meese v. Keene, 481 U.S. 465, 484-485 (1987) (“It is axiomatic that the statutory definition of the term excludes unstated meanings of that term”); Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U.S. at 392-393, n. 10 (“As a rule, `a definition which declares what a term “means” . . . excludes any meaning that is not stated’”); Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Lenroot, 323 U.S. 490, 502 (1945); Fox v. Standard Oil Co. of N.J., 294 U.S. 87, 95-96 (1935) (Cardozo, J.); see also 2A N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutes and Statutory Construction § 47.07, p. 152, and n. 10 (5th ed. 1992) (collecting cases). That is to say, the statute, read “as a whole,” post at 998 [530 U.S. 943] (THOMAS, J., dissenting), leads the reader to a definition. That definition does not include the Attorney General’s restriction — “the child up to the head.” Its words, “substantial portion,” indicate the contrary.” 

[Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914, 942-943 (2000);
SOURCE: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1902129435857948493]

Most of the time, arbitrarily adding to definitions something that does not expressly appear SOMEWHERE in the statutes is done merely by presumption, which is universally condemned by courts as a violation of due process of law:

‘It is apparent,’ this court said in the Bailey Case ( 219 U.S. 239 , 31 S. Ct. 145, 151) ‘that a constitutional prohibition cannot be transgressed indirectly by the creation of a statutory presumption any more than it can be violated by direct enactment. The power to create presumptions is not a means of escape from constitutional restrictions.’
[Heiner v. Donnan, 285 U.S. 312 (1932);
SOURCE: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=285&page=312]

“If any question of fact or liability be conclusively presumed [rather than proven] against him, this is not due process of law.“
[Black’s Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition, p. 500]

Even among the most seasoned freedom researchers, the concepts documented on this page are very commonly misunderstood, resulting in the unsubstantiated false belief that things fall within definitions such as “United States” that actually are not included and cannot lawfully be included. This subject is therefore worthy of extreme attention to detail, because it is the origin of a significant amount of misunderstanding and even conflict within the freedom community.

Whenever there is confusion about the meanings of terms or their intended context, the most important things to remember are:

  1. Doubts about the meaning of statutory language must always be resolved against the statute drafter and in your favor, according to the U.S. Supreme Court. See:
    PROOF OF FACTS: Ambiguous tax statutes are to be construed against the government, FTSIG
    https://ftsig.org/proof-of-facts-ambiguous-tax-statutes-are-to-be-construed-against-the-government/
  2. A statute that fails to completely disclose all things included or within the class of things described fails the constitutional requirement for “reasonable notice” and thus is unenforceable and void for vagueness. See:
    Requirement for Reasonable Notice, Form #05.022
    https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/ReasonableNotice.pdf
  3. Congress can only control, regulate, or tax PUBLIC property it owns, not PRIVATE property. The ability to regulate or tax PRIVATE property is repugnant to the constitution. Thus, everything in civil statutes must be presumed to relate to PUBLIC property that Congress owns and therefore controls. The question then becomes HOW exactly did they acquire that ownership interest as the origin of their authority to regulate under Article 4, Section 3, Clause 2 of the Constitution?

The abuse of the words “includes and including” to unlawfully expand enforcement authority of Executive Branch employees within “The Administrative State”, as well as tools and techniques for combatting such abuse are exhaustively explained in:

Legal Deception, Propaganda, and Fraud, Form #05.014, Sections 15.5.8 and 18.2
https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/LegalDecPropFraud.pdf

If you would like complete information about the laws of property and how they interact with Congress’ authority to legislate, regulate, and tax so that you can challenge the problems we identify on this site in court, see:

Laws of Property, Form #14.018
https://sedm.org/Forms/14-PropProtection/LawsOfProperty.pdf