The IRS is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. The IRS is responsible for collecting taxes and the interpretation and enforcement of the Internal Revenue Code, two very important words.
In the 1980s, there was a reorganization of the IRS. A bipartisan commission was created with several mandates, one of the more important ones was to increase customer service and improve collections. Congress later enacted the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998. This Act empowered the IRS to function under four major operating divisions: Large Business and International division (LB&I), the Small Business/Self-Employed (SB/SE) division, the Wage and Investment (W&I) division, and Tax Exempt & Government Entities (TE/GE) division. The IRS also includes a criminal law enforcement division (IRS Criminal Investigation Division).
Whether this organization maliciously targeted conservative groups or not is not the major issue here. The major issue is that this organization has acted criminal. It has used its position in the government for purposes that fall outside of its bounds. The IRS has discriminated and harassed American citizens who were exercising rights provided and protected by the Constitution for what appears to be political purposes. These were not people who were tardy paying their taxes, even though there are plenty of those people. These were not people trying to avoid paying their taxes, even though there are plenty of those people. No, these were people filing for non-profit status with the IRS according to IRS procedures. This is discrimination, and it took place for an extended period of time and targeted one particular group of the population consistently over that period of time. Those elements alone strongly support the case for malicious intent and criminal conduct.
But, here is the really sad part of this story; I did a search in Google for stories of this nature, and Fox News was the only major news station reporting on this story. Whether you are a liberal or a conservative should not matter in this case. If the IRS gets away with this kind of criminal behavior, it will become a powerful tool for whatever party comes to power. This clearly confirms the polarized bias of the media. If the president had been conservative and the targeted groups liberal and left politically, there would be satellite trucks from every major news agency camped out on the White House lawn. There is no denying this fact; it is almost laughable to do so in light of what we have seen from the media over the last ten years.
This is where we find our country and our government. This is not a democratic problem or a republican problem; this is a collective governmental problem. These are the things that happen when government gets too large, and right now, the government is bloated and gaining weight. I am not sure there is a way to stop this any longer. The press does not report the facts; instead, they make up the facts as they want them to appear. The government, both republican and democratic, does not concern itself with the people, until re-election time.
And, the people, well ,the majority of people think only in polarized terms now. You will never get a Republican or a Democrat to admit that their party or candidate has any faults. Everything is right and good and the way it ought to be with their party's perspective, and most support that mindset. That is just fundamentally wrong. No one has everything right. No one party has all the answers. No one candidate is strong in every area, and yet, that is what most believe today.
Wow! Where do we go from here? To be truthful, I am just not sure anymore. It is, however, comforting to know that there is a Holy God in control, and it is in His hands that I rest.
4 comments:
Watched the Becky Gerritson video you suggested. It was both enlightening and alarming. I'm afraid you might be on to something with your theory that our "country is done." There doesn't appear to be much happening to "protect and preserve" the America that was purposed by our founding fathers.
Was impressed to hear such a significant and poignant speech from a fellow Alabamian.
Becky Gerritson was impressive, and said everything that needed to be said. I am not hopeful, but that has little to do with my belief in God. What happens to our nation has no more to do with God's overall plan than any other nation; we just think it does.
We "think" a lot of things, don't we?
That we do.
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