Political Prisoner Dies in US Jail for Protesting Taxation

DVC00577-compressedBy John Vibes

Last week, political prisoner Irwin Schiff died behind bars at the age of 87. He was serving multiple sentences related to his work protesting and challenging tax laws. Throughout his life, Schiff authored many books, and ran for political office on several occasions. His final book The Federal Mafia; How the Government Illegally Imposes and Unlawfully Collects Income Taxes became the only non-fiction book to be banned in America.

At the age of 77 Schiff was sentenced to 14 years in prison, and he sadly died just before his planned release.

In a recent statement, son Peter Schiff explained how his father’s condition took a turn for the worse while he was in custody:


The unnecessarily cruel twist in his final years occurred seven years ago when he reached his 80th birthday. At that point the government moved him from an extremely low security federal prison camp in New York State where he was within easy driving distance from family and friends, to a federal correctional institutes, first in Indiana and then in Texas. This was done specially to give him access to better medical care.  The trade off was that my father was forced to live isolated from those who loved him. Given that visiting him required long flights, car rentals, and hotel stays, his visits were few and far between. Yet while at these supposed superior medical facilities, my father received virtually no medical care at all, not even for the cataracts that left him legally blind, until the skin cancer on his head had spread to just about every organ in his body.

At the time of his diagnosis in early August of this year, he was given four-to-six months to live. We tried to get him out of prison on compassionate release so that he could live out the final months of his life with his family, spending some precious moments with the grandchildren he had barely known.  But he did not live long enough for the bureaucratic process to be completed.

While in prison, Schiff reportedly had his commissary money taken by the IRS so he was unable to buy toothpaste and food items that he needed. The decision to force him to die in jail instead of allowing him to spend his final days with his family was criticized even by people who did not agree with his work.

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5 Comments on "Political Prisoner Dies in US Jail for Protesting Taxation"

  1. Nothing cruel about that yeah? Unfortunately it’s not unusual on top of it.

  2. Mr. Schiff’s life & death in prison is tragic. He helped to broaden my thinking & start asking questions about what I believed. But I don’t think he ever fully understood citizenship. I see this as a big stumbling block for the liberty movement.

    Does being a US citizen not come with contractual obligations?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW5P_qSsq3g

    “A citizen of the United States is a citizen of the federal government …” – Kitchens v. Steele 112 F.Supp 383

    http://www.hisholychurch.org/study/gods/cog3cvc.php

    “Protection draws to it subjection; subjection protection.” – Protectio trahit subjectionem, subjectio protectionem. Coke, Littl. 65.

    http://www.preparingyou.com/wiki/Undocumented#cite_note-0

    Invito beneficium non datur. No one is obliged to accept a benefit against his consent. Dig. 50, 17, 69. But if he does not dissent he will be considered as assenting. Vide Assent.

    • The question is … who gave anyone the authority to make the assenting decision simply because they chose to not dissent? Perhaps the ACT of dissent is simply staying silent and not participating in the benefit. The dissent IS the mere ACT OF SILENCE … signaling by those aware of the non participants non approval. Who died and made them god is a simpler expression by a common man.

      • Actions speak louder than words. Something common men with common sense usually understand. Many US Citizens dissent but only in speech, not in action. We complain & moan about not wanting benefits & some are even delusional enough to believe they’re not using benefits as they use their Federal social security number to be employed, have a bank account, get loans, get credit cards, etc. They send their children to public schools while berating the evils of property tax. They leave their elderly parents to be cared for through Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, etc. while bemoaning the evils of income tax. I think you can see the pattern.

        We face a “chicken or egg” problem. We aren’t willing to take back the responsibilities to provide all these benefits before the tax burdens are lifted. And the tax burden will never be lawfully [contractually] removed while we receive the benefits. So the cycle will continue, people dissenting with their words & assenting with their actions.

        Actions speak louder than words.

        • I’ve been benefit non accepting since 75. Being a vet gets me out of the ACA trap. My only benefit is being excluded from an illegal confiscation plan. Mexicans watch me dig ditches cause anglos aren’t supposed to do that … scares them when the narrative is destroyed. Must preserve that pretext. Trump will behave like a POTUS dictator … this is good because its the truth and what we have been for almost 100 years. Time to pillage and conquer … especially the corporations. LOL

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