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YesToHellWith is determined to expose the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of Orlando Carter. We are asking that President Trump review this injustice and exonerate Carter.

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  • Was Cardozo a traitor?

    Was Cardozo a traitor?
    Sep 21 2026
    Cardozo: When a Common Right Became Taxable as an ExciseIt is September 21st, 2026. Welcome to YesToHellWith.com.We have now reached 1937.And here the constitutional story takes a major turn.The case is Steward Machine Company v. Davis. Justice Benjamin Cardozo wrote the opinion for the Supreme Court.The case arose from the Social Security Act of 1935.Congress imposed a federal tax upon certain employers, calculated as a percentage of wages paid to their employees. The statute described that tax as an excise upon the employment relationship.The constitutional objection was straightforward.An excise had traditionally been associated with commodities, transactions, privileges, businesses, occupations, and particular activities.But employing another person?That was argued to be different.Employment for lawful gain was described by the challengers as a natural, inherent right—not a government-created privilege.And therefore, they argued, it could not constitutionally become the subject of an excise.Cardozo rejected that proposition.And listen carefully, because this is the critical moment.The Court said:“Natural rights, so called, are as much subject to taxation as rights of less importance.”Then Cardozo went further.He said an excise was not limited to privileges created by government.It was not limited to activities government could prohibit.According to the Court:“It extends to vocations or activities pursued as of common right.”That is an extraordinary statement.Not because the Court concealed what it was doing.Quite the opposite.The Court confronted the distinction directly and rejected it.A right did not have to become a privilege before Congress could tax its exercise.A lawful activity pursued as a matter of common right could itself become the subject of a federal excise.Now compare that with Flint, which we examined in the previous video.In Flint, the corporation tax was sustained as an excise upon doing business in a corporate capacity.There was an identifiable corporate franchise and legal structure involved.But Steward Machine went further.Cardozo said Congress’s excise power was not confined to activities arising from a franchise or governmental privilege.The employment relationship itself could be taxed.And the Court stated the proposition broadly: what a person does in operating a business can be subjected to taxation just as what that person owns can be subjected to taxation.Stop and appreciate what has happened.We are no longer asking whether Congress may tax the privilege of operating through a government-created corporate form.We are being told that Congress may impose an excise upon an activity pursued as of common right.That is a substantial doctrinal development.And Cardozo supported it partly through history.The Court examined taxes imposed in England and colonial America, including eighteenth-century taxes connected with servants and employment.From those examples, the Court concluded that excises historically were not confined to commodities or government-created privileges.Whether you accept that reasoning is not the point of this investigation.The point is to identify exactly what the Court did.Because now the constitutional vocabulary has changed dramatically.An excise no longer requires a government-created privilege.The exercise of a common right can provide the taxable activity.And once that proposition enters constitutional doctrine, consider how large the potential field becomes.Working.Hiring.Operating a business.Entering economic relationships.Activities that exist because free people interact with one another—not because the federal government created them.That does not mean Steward Machine itself held that every person’s wages were subject to the modern federal income tax.It did not.The case involved an employer tax under the Social Security Act, and we should not pretend otherwise.But the constitutional proposition it announced was much broader than that particular tax.Activities pursued as of common right may be subjected to an excise.That proposition matters enormously.Because remember what we are tracing.Not merely statutes.Not merely whether a tax was upheld.We are tracing the evolution of the constitutional reasoning that allowed federal taxation to reach progressively deeper into ordinary economic life.And in 1937, Cardozo supplied an important doctrinal step.The boundary between privilege and common right no longer protected an activity from being classified as the subject of an excise.The Court had crossed that line openly.And history was about to provide the federal government with an opportunity to build upon an expanding tax structure on a scale previously unimaginable.World War II was coming.The federal government would need staggering amounts of revenue.Exemptions would fall.Millions of Americans who had never paid federal income tax would enter the system.And then came the mechanism that would permanently transform the relationship between...
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    8 mins
  • Do not fear the IRS

    Do not fear the IRS
    Sep 20 2026

    Defend yourself the correct way!



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    2 mins
  • What are you doing?

    What are you doing?
    Sep 20 2026

    www.thelibertydialogues.com



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    4 mins
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