In
the fallout from the recent revelations about the Internal Revenue
Service systematically persecuting conservative political groups and
other enemies of President Obama, the establishment is putting on a good
show of being shocked by the behavior. The reality is that the IRS is
and always has been a tool of oppression and is routinely used by those
in power to destroy their opponents.
Once the income tax expanded to include nearly every wage-earner and company in the country, it was immediately seized upon as a potent weapon by the worst tyrants in American history. Franklin Roosevelt loved the IRS and used it well to silence his opponents. When he wasn't illegally wiretapping members of Congress or other enemies, he was dispatching revenue agents to trump up charges against anyone who dared to oppose him. Roosevelt's own son, Elliot, said of his father, "[He] may have been the originator of the concept of employing the IRS as a weapon of political retribution." Roosevelt sent his minions to destroy Senator Huey Long, radio commentator Boake Carter, Congressman Hamilton Fish, Former Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, newspaper publishers William Randolph Hearst and Moses Annenberg, and dozens of others. FDR also intervened to derail IRS investigations into corrupt Jersey City Democrat Frank Hague and then-Congressman Lyndon Johnson.
Once the income tax expanded to include nearly every wage-earner and company in the country, it was immediately seized upon as a potent weapon by the worst tyrants in American history. Franklin Roosevelt loved the IRS and used it well to silence his opponents. When he wasn't illegally wiretapping members of Congress or other enemies, he was dispatching revenue agents to trump up charges against anyone who dared to oppose him. Roosevelt's own son, Elliot, said of his father, "[He] may have been the originator of the concept of employing the IRS as a weapon of political retribution." Roosevelt sent his minions to destroy Senator Huey Long, radio commentator Boake Carter, Congressman Hamilton Fish, Former Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, newspaper publishers William Randolph Hearst and Moses Annenberg, and dozens of others. FDR also intervened to derail IRS investigations into corrupt Jersey City Democrat Frank Hague and then-Congressman Lyndon Johnson.
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