[Radar]

I was kind of under the impression that amendmants were considered part of the Constitution.

You were under the correct impression, however the 16th amendment was never legally ratified and thus is NOT an amendment to the constitution.

After all, untill it's proven to be illegitimate it's still in effect.

You've got that backwards. It must be proven to be legitimate and that's impossible since the required legitimate 36 votes to pass it were not obtained and nothing the supreme court says can change the number of votes cast or the validity of the votes that were cast improperly.

Collectivists often think that government gives rights to the people and powers to states. The opposite is true. Government derives its power from the governed. A nation is made up of millions of individuals. These individuals grant a limited amount of power to government to take care of things like common defense. Since government gets its powers from individuals, it may not have any powers that individuals themselves don't have. A goup of individuals don't have any more rights or authority than a single individual. So if the government makes a law regarding drugs, suicide, or abortion, they have no such authority because we as individuals have no authority to tell our neighbors they may not smoke. We as individuals DO have the authority and power to stop our neighbors from attacking us, murdering, stealing, etc. As individuals we have the right to defend our rights and our lives from injury but don't have the right to tell others what they must or must not consume or to reach into our neighbors pockets for our own needs.

Income taxation is unconstitution for several reasons and one of those is that the government has no authority to tax income even if the majority of Americans voted for it.