Tax Policy
The Justice System
--- Alan Diamond, in a speech to the Yucaipa Chapter of Americans Against Modernism and Change, February 2003.
"Our state is running a tremendous deficit. To cure this problem, we need bold retrogressive thinking. That's why I would repeal our tax code and replace it with a modification of King Athelwulf's Grant of a Tenth of Public Land originally passed in 854:
Though apparently one tenth of the Kingdom of Wessex was given to the Church, King Athelwulf was really making a grant out of public land. Such a grant was an actual conveyance of real property rather than a gift of a tithe of the produce of the land.
For which cause, I, Athelwulf, king of the West-Saxons, with the advice of my bishops and nobles, for a remedy thereof have adopted the wholesome expedient of granting forever some portion of my kingdom to God and the holy Mary, and all saints; to wit, a tenth part of my land, free and quit of all secular services, king's tribute both great and small, and the taxations we call witeredden; and for the good of my soul and the remission of my sins, let it be wholly free for the service of God alone, exempt from military service, the building of bridges and castle-ward, to the end that prayers may ascend without ceasing unto God for us, and so much the more diligently as we in aught remit the services of those who offer them....
This charter of donation was written in the year of grace 854, in the fourth indiction, of the ninth day of November, in the city of Winchester, before the greater altar of the blessed apostle Peter.
As governor, I would appoint justices who would return to such important procuedres as trial by combat, burning witches, and the use of the rack."
--- Alan Diamond, in his best-selling unauthorized autobiography, "I Was Born A Thousand Years Too Late."