Not so Secure Socialism
The United States Supreme Court in 1937 validated Social Security as an exercise of the Constitutional taxing power of Congress for the benefit of the general fund of the United States Treasury. The Supreme Court also said that “Congress could, in its future discretion, spend that money for whatever Congress then judged to be the general welfare of the country” having “no constitutional power to earmark or segregate certain kinds of tax proceeds for certain purposes, whether the purposes be farm-price supports, foreign aid or social security payments.”
“Protection draws to it subjection; subjection protection.”
At the time of the introduction of the Social Security Act to Congress and the American people “The President wanted everybody covered for every contingency in life---’cradle to the grave,’ he called it... the social insurance system… But the Government of the United States is not an insurance company and so it could be done.”
While the system of Federal Social Security was “sold as if it were insurance” it was not. There is a great deception, a strong delusion, that social security taxes are payments of insurance premiums to obtain specified benefits at a specified time. There is no such right.
According to the Social Security Tax Act the government has been under no contractual obligation to make any return payment from the very beginning and has carried the provision that, “The right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision of this act is hereby reserved to the Congress.” Therefore “Congress could continue to collect the so-called social security pay roll taxes even though Congress discontinued all social security benefit payments.”
This may seem a little scary for some who are or may be dependent upon such payments but that is exactly what you should expect as the national and world economies continues their descent into a domain of devastating decline, debt and disaster. To believe that you have a right to get back specified benefits because you paid into Social Security is a foolhardy fallacy, if not a delusion of false hope.
According to Dr. Clarence E. Manion, the Supreme Court held that Congress can “tax payments and earnings of employers and employees in the same way that it can tax a bottle of whiskey or a ticket to the ball game.”
A man and his naturally endowed right to his labor was not originally the same as a bottle of whiskey nor a ball of twine. The idea of people laboring for a portion of each day without pay for the government is as old as the pyramids. It is known by many names such as statutory labor, corvee, or tribute and is nothing more than a form of subjection and servitude.
Corvee’ is a French word which can mean “Gratuitous labor exacted from villages or communities, especially for repairing roads, constructing bridges, etc.” In Latin it would be covata from corrogare meaning “to gather by request”. Webster says it is an “obligation on the inhabitants of a district to perform services” or “forced labor exacted by government”.
To take a man’s labor without consent falls within a broad definition of slavery. Neither the President nor the congress had the power to compel a free people to begin to labor without pay. They could not force the entire population into becoming tax collectors and serfs, or taskmasters and statute laborers without some form of consent.
Like all these system that begin as a “request” they end a “forced obligation” with some form of consent. The Romans had a Corvee system in their protected provinces and eventually throughout the empire to maintain public works. The Jews often opposed this because it was like the system of bondage in Egypt which God told the people never to return to in the Biblical instructions for writing a constitution.
Some of the citizens of Judea had appealed to the Roman Commander in chief, Pompey for the protection. Not all Jews practiced the same religion. The Pharisees brought in their own system of social welfare under the guise of religious obligations. There had been some exclusion of Jews from individual tribute because of the Roman respect of religious freedom recognized in their law.
Pure republics have always cared for the social welfare of its inhabitants through freewill offerings, but when the people neglect their responsibility in a free society they often decline into states of socialism that begin with promises of benevolent benefaction and end in decadence, decay, and despotism. Managing social welfare by exercising authority over the people has often been a part of governments from Babylon to Rome and they all failed or betrayed their public members. No matter what promises are made by a government at its beginning the deals are often altered before their demise.
All governments expand their power or influence over the people in schemes with offers of gifts, gratuities, and benefits, which gives government an increase in authority and compels a corresponding decrease in the individual’s right to choose. What they will contribute, to whom and for what purpose becomes the province of the government, and the “Will of the People” is imposed upon the people by the benefactors chosen for the people.
Herod the Great had a grand scheme of a vast membership in a social welfare scheme called Corban. You joined with a ceremony of ritual baptism after filing an application for membership with the administering “scribe”. Payment of prescribed fees was required and annual accounting of what you paid or did not pay was made available to the proper authorities.
With annual contributions collected and recorded by the scribes this system of individual sacrifice to support the needy of society became popular with many people who were jealous and envious of the rich or just covetous of their neighbor’s goods. With guaranteed entitlements and forced contributions the apathy and avarice of the people flourished.
Members were given a white stone as a form of national ID and Herod was able to expand his hope of a kingdom of God on earth by this religious system of social security (Corban) which provided for a statutory enforcement and collection from membership in the form of a tax.
Pilate "... used the sacred treasure of the temple, called corban (qorban), to pay for bringing water into Jerusalem by an aqueduct. A crowd came together and clamored against him..." Because those funds were for their individual social welfare and the people complained.
Few understood that what should have been for their welfare had brought them into bondage though they had been warned in the sacred text. Paul and others repeated that warning for the First century Church.
Why do I say this social security system was religious? Because:
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep himself unspotted from the world.” James 1:27
John the Baptist offered a similar plan of social welfare but without the use of force used to collect the contributions of his people. His plan was based on free will offerings like ancient Israel when it was still a Republic. Christ objected to the plan offered by Herod and the Pharisees not only because it weakened the character of the people, and therefore society as a whole, but it also violated the precepts of God found in the Ten Commandments.
Jesus preached a system of social welfare that operated under the perfect law of liberty by faith, hope and charity. Christians stood fast in the liberty of Christ and cared for each others through their own system of social welfare managed by the Church. The Church in those days actually understood the Gospel of the Kingdom appointed by Christ and would never send their people to the men of government that called themselves benefactors but exercised authority one over the other in opposition to His specific instructions.
The early Church called people to repentance of that system and a new baptism of John. This was not just some meaningless ritual. They would no longer covet their neighbor’s goods through the agency of Herod’s socialist government nor Rome’s free bread and extensive welfare state. They learned to care for one another in a network of love and service.
Rome and Jerusalem would soon falter and fail under the weight of their own corruption. Christians hearing the fullness of the Gospel of the Kingdom preached by John and Christ formed a new society that would survive and prosper in true faith during that decline and fall of the Roman Empire.
It is time for the Church to call for that repentance again but first it may have to do some repenting of its own.
Related aticles and audio files:
The Corban of the Pharisees
It made the word of God to none effect.
Is our Corban making the word of God to none effect today?
http://www.hisholychurch.org/sermon/corban.php
The Nicolaitan who God hates?
Because they covet their neighbor's goods
http://www.hisholychurch.org/sermon/nicolaity.php
Chapter 4. of the book The Covenants of the gods
Employ vs Enslave
http://www.hisholychurch.org/study/gods/cog4eve.php
Pure Religion
What is it and who does it?
http://www.hisholychurch.org/news/articles/religion.php
Radio Broadcasts on not so secure
Other notes:
Social Security benefits do not include an “‘accrued property rights.”
In the 1960 Fleming v. Ephram Nestor case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that workers have no legally "contractual interest".
Ephram Nestor paid Social Security taxes from 1936 until he retired in 1955.He was deported for having been a member of the Communist Party in the 1930s.
In 1954 Congress had passed a law saying that any person deported from the United States should lose his Social Security benefits. Nestor sued but the Supreme Court disagreed, saying:
- “To engraft upon the Social Security system a concept of ‘accrued property rights’ would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever changing conditions which it demands.”
The Court went on to say:
- “It is apparent that the non-contractual interest of an employee covered by the [Social Security] Act cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of an annuity, whose right to benefits is bottomed on his contractual premium payments.”
The following is from Chapter 4. of the book The Covenants of the gods, Employ vs Enslave the above booklet:
- “The catalogue of means and actions which might be imposed upon an employer in any business, tending to the satisfaction and comfort of his employees, seems endless. Provision for free medical attendance and nursing, for clothing, for food, for housing, for the education of children, and a hundred other matters might with equal propriety be proposed as tending to relieve the employee of mental strain and worry. Can it fairly be said that the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce extends to the prescription of any or all of these things? Is it not apparent that they are really and essentially related solely to the social welfare of the worker, and therefore remote from any regulation of commerce as such? We think the answer is plain. These matters obviously lie outside the orbit of congressional power.” Railroad Retirement Board, supra, 295 U.S., at 368
If Congress did not have the power to establish an insurance system, who wanted it?
- “The President wanted everybody covered for every contingency in life---’cradle to the grave,’ he called it---under the social insurance system… But the Government of the United States is not an insurance company and so it could be done.”
Neither the President nor the congress had the power to compel the free people of America to begin to labor without pay. They could not force the entire population into becoming tax collectors and serfs, taskmasters and statute laborers. How could an entire nation be bound into slavery?
Footnotes from Employ vs Enslave:
On page 936 through page 946 of the Ways and Means hearings the originator stated that the Social Security Act was “sold as if it were insurance”. That was a "mistake" and should not have been published as such. It was not until 1953 when the originator admitted that it is not insurance as published in 1936. To be like insurance is not being insurance.
Forward by Frances Perkins Sec of Labor 1933-45 The Development of the Social Security Act by Edwin E. Witte, ppVII
See also Audio http://keysofthekingdom.info/COG-04.mp3
Full Text http://www.hisholychurch.org/study/gods/cog4eve.php
Health Share Solutions
There is an alternative to the failing system of social welfare. It was the way of the early Church taught by Christ
http://www.preparingyou.com/wiki/Life_Share
The conflict between Christians and the people who persecuted them in the early days of the Church was mostly over their system of social welfare which was managed through their temples like Ephesus, Temple of Saturn and the Parthenon. The Christians depended on a Holy temple made of living stones which was a network of people living by the perfect law of liberty and faith, hope and charity. Those that had shared with those who had true needs. Our modern ideas of religion differ from the meaning of the word in the days the Bible was written. Pure religion was a religion rooted in charity alone.
Celsus, a Platonist, writing during the term of Marcus Aurelius, “opposed the ‘sectarian’ tendencies at work in the Christian movement because he saw in Christianity a ‘privatizing’ of religion, the transferal of religious values from the public sphere to a private association.”Christians as the Romans Saw Them, by Robert Wilken page 125.
The difference between public and private welfare is the difference between socialism and charity. The nation of Rome and those of the Pax Romana were all going socialist and made the power of the state their benefactors while Christians were living by love for one another according to the commandments of Christ.
This persecution which began under the Emperor Septimius Severus:
- "Severus returned victorious from having vanquished the kings who had taken part with Nigar against him, he published his cruel edicts against the Christians in the year of Christ 202, the tenth of his reign. But the general laws of the empire against foreign religions, and the former edicts of several emperors against the Christians, were a sufficient warrant to many governors to draw the sword against them before that time; and we find that the persecution was very hot in Africa two years before, under the proconsul Saturninus..." The Lives of the Saints. Volume VII: July. 1866. Rev. Alban Butler (1711–73).
The emperors maintained the loyalty by the sword and by the temples which supplied free bread and welfare for the people in a welfare state. A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those unable to avail themselves of the minimal provisions for a good life. The general term may cover a variety of forms of economic and social organization." Welfare state, Britannica Online Encyclopedia
The Church is one form of government that depends upon charity rather than force. As Christians, the six principal among them were Speratus, Narzalis, and Cittinus; and three women, Donata, Secunda, and Vestina, declined the proconsul's offer to them of the emperor’s pardon if they would worship the gods of the Romans, and sign up for their system of Qorban, social welfare. They knew that system of sacrifice made the word of God to none effect. Christians relied upon the Genius of God the Father working through the freewill offerings given in congregations of the Church by faith, hope, and charity.
Vigellius Saturninus, proconsul of Africa in 180 CE, addressed the seeming antisocial behavior of the twelve Scillitan Christian martyrs with the statement, “We too are religious, and our religion is simple, and we swear by the Genius of our lord the emperor, and we apply for his benefits, as you also ought to do.” The true Christians like Speratus, one of the twelve, would not apply to that Emperor for their daily bread and social security or common welfare, but claimed Christ as “Lord, the King of kings” and ruler of all nations saying:
- "I know not the genius of the emperor of this world; but I serve the God of heaven, whom no mortal man hath ever seen or can see. I never committed any crime punishable by the laws of the state. I pay the public duties for whatever I buy, acknowledging the emperor for my temporal lord; but I adore none but my God, who is the King of kings, and sovereign Lord over all the nations of the world. I have been guilty of no crime, and therefore cannot have incurred punishment."
Most modern Christians are not following in the way of Christ and His system of social welfare by charity alone but have been seeking the system that early Christians died to avoid. The result is that modern society has become fit subjects for tyrants and despots. They have not only weakened the poor but themselves. Christians should turn around and begin to seek the ways of Christ and the prophets by forming charitable systems based not on force but on the love of Christ.
Social welfare by men who exercise authority is contrary to Christ.
Luke 22:25 And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: ,...
It is rooted in covetousness.
Exodus 20:17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.
Mark 7:22 Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.
Romans 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.
Romans 13:9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
We become use to taking from our neighbor through the institutions we create until we are consumed by the spirit of greed which opposes Christ.
Galatians 5:15 "But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another."
We think there is strength and wealth in having the one purse of the socialist state.
Proverbs 1:14 Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.
It makes merchandise of the people as a surety for debt because we agreed with that spirit of covetousness.
2 Peter 2:3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
Proverbs 6:1 My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger,
Proverbs 11:15 He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it: and he that hateth suretiship is sure.
Proverbs 17:18 A man void of understanding striketh hands, and becometh surety in the presence of his friend.
2 Corinthians 6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in [them]; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Because the system of the world is operating in debt the only way to provide benefits is to take from your children.
2 Peter 2:14 "Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:"
Zechariah 11:9 "Then said I, I will not feed you: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another."
Micah 3:2 Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron. Then shall they cry unto the LORD, but he will not hear them: he will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings.
Ezekiel 11:3 Which say, It is not near; let us build houses: this city is the caldron, and we be the flesh..... Ye have multiplied your slain in this city, and ye have filled the streets thereof with the slain.... Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Your slain whom ye have laid in the midst of it, they are the flesh, and this city is the caldron: but I will bring you forth out of the midst of it. ...
Ezekiel 11:9 And I will bring you out of the midst thereof, and deliver you into the hands of strangers, and will execute judgments among you....
Ezekiel 11:11 This city shall not be your caldron, neither shall ye be the flesh in the midst thereof; but I will judge you in the border of Israel:
Even though we know the system of the world often takes from the most needy of society we are in love with benefits.
Ezekiel 11:9 And I will bring you out of the midst thereof, and deliver you into the hands of strangers, and will execute judgments among you.
Luke 20:47 Which devour widows’ houses, and for a shew make long prayers: the same shall receive greater damnation.
Many claim to be Christian, followers of Christ, but take that name in vain.
2 Timothy 3:1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
God will not hear your cries.
1 Samuel 8:18 And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.
Isaiah 1:15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
Jeremiah 22:21 I spake unto thee in thy prosperity; [but] thou saidst, I will not hear. This [hath been] thy manner from thy youth, that thou obeyedst not my voice. The wind shall eat up all thy pastors, and thy lovers shall go into captivity: surely then shalt thou be ashamed and confounded for all thy wickedness.
We should, we must repent
Luke 6:35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and [to] the evil.
Matthew 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
News With Views publication of this aticle Not so Secure Socialism here
Footnotes:
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