Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site mmm.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!mmm!mrgofor From: mrgofor@mmm.UUCP (MKR) Newsgroups: net.taxes Subject: Re: Lawyers' comments Message-ID: <619@mmm.UUCP> Date: Mon, 17-Mar-86 11:21:19 EST Article-I.D.: mmm.619 Posted: Mon Mar 17 11:21:19 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 21-Mar-86 06:36:22 EST References: <1630@decwrl.DEC.COM> Reply-To: mrgofor@mmm.UUCP (MKR) Organization: none Lines: 180 In article <1630@decwrl.DEC.COM> alpert@chovax.DEC writes: > > >Unfortunately, >IRS abuses of citizens' rights is not confined to a few isolated instances, >it is the normal way they conduct their business. It seems to me that if it were the "normal way they conduct their business", I would know of someone personally who had problems along the lines you mention. The only stories of abuse that I've heard come from people who, as I find out more about them, seem to have been provoking the problems to begin with. >(A very informative paper is published >by the Scientologists, for example.) An interesting choice of authority figures. Do you really think citing Scientologists helps your case? >Nazis are not to be found as that >particular philosophy runs completely counter to the ideals of liberty >and freedom espoused by people involved in this movement. (The closest What about the Order and Posse Comitatus. Granted, they may not use the word "Nazi" to describe themselves, but a rose by any other name... >There has also been much comment on how the government should be funded >if not through "income" taxes. What most people don't realize is that >for most of our history there has not been a significant direct tax >levied on the "incomes" of individuals. > Okay, then am I correct in hearing that you're complaining about the *amount* of government, and how nmuch it costs? I'll agree with you there, to an extent - the gummint *is* to big and costly. But I don't really see that as an argument against the form of the taxes - only the amount. >There are fewer and fewer people left alive who remember a time when the >Federal government did not steal this level of wealth from its citizens. Hyperbole. > >For simply put, taxation is theft. There are basically two ways to acquire >wealth, to produce it or to steal it. Government falls squarely into the >latter category. >However, when the average person has over half >of his wealth forcibly extracted from him to maintain a bloated and greedy >Federal beauracracy, that person is reduced to the status of a "tax slave," Hyperbole. > >Stating that he can "no longer distinguish between taxation and theft", >he went on to say that the court system in this country exists "to >maintain the status quo" rather than to dispense justice, particularly >in cases where the power of the State is being challenged on any level. Alternate wording: the courts exist to uphold the laws of the land. They don't make the laws - they uphold them. The legislature creates the laws - if you don't like the laws, the courts are not the right place to try to change them - try the legislature. > >He also stated that judges are no longer informing juries about >the right of jury nullification -- that is, the jury's ability ro overrule >the judge if they feel his interpretation of the law is incorrect, or that >the law is unjust or being unjustly applied. In fact, in federal courts, >he stated, the first thing that jurors are being told is that it is their >responsibility "to accept the law as given by the judge." In addition, >he said, defense attorneys are frequently being forbidden to inform jurors >about jury nullification. Here you have an argument that I can't counter. I have heard of judges over-ruling juries, but never the other way around. If the juries do indeed have the right to over-rule judges, then this appears to be a travesty. However, it surprises me that juries have that right, and after just a moment's thought about it, I can't see it as a good thing. Who wants a group of average people to make decisions contrary to the law - even to the point of over-riding the judge? Can you say "kangaroo court"? If I was a black man in the South unjustly accused of raping and killing a white Southern Belle, I would not want the (maybe all-white) jury to ignore the rules of law. Any lawyers out there? *Can* juries over-ride judges? > >He went on to describe the IRS and current tax system as "institutionalized >terrorism with the full support and backing of the political system." He Hyperbole. >also stated his belief that the legal profession as a whole chooses to not >only refuse discussing these issues, but is "hiding from the massive >violation of rights" engendered in the current system. The majority of >the "officers of the court" refuse to even acknowledge that these issues >exist. He also went on to describe an "officer of the court" as "a person >who has an interest in maintaining the court system above and beyond >the individual case." Paranoid hyperbole. > "There are no such things as 'laws', there is only > what judges will do." > Paranoid hyperbole. Bullshit slogan. >On the subject of rights, he stated that "without the concept of property, >the concept of rights has no meaning. Every right is a right in property." Clearly bullshit, unless you consider "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to be rooted in property. >He then described what he felt was a serious and damaging trend -- that >Federal courts are shying away from using the word "rights", substituting the >word "interests", thereby effecting a "dangerous erosion of the concept >of rights within the legal system, there is no longer such a thing as >'inalienable rights', simply parties with with differing 'interests'." The idea is that rights often conflict, and in those cases there is no possible way to uphold everybody's "rights". It's a realistic approach to a very real problem. > >"The system is becoming more untenable and terroristic" as time goes >on, he stated. Judges frequently have no concept of the world outside >the system. They typically go through law school, go to work >for a judge, become a prosecutor, and become judges themselves -- these >individuals have "never worked outside of the State." Paranoid hyperbole. > >As far as resisting or attempting to change the system, he painted >a fairly pessimistic picture. "Political activity is difficult in >the face of a 'guided democracy' with both major political parties >funded by the tax system. People who are a significant threat are >removed.", he said. People who want to overthrow the government are removed. Sounds self evident to me. But how are they "removed". I suppose you would have us believe they are carted off in the night to a faithful re-creation of Auschwitz somewhere in rural Wyoming. > "The Founding Fathers attempted, through the Constitution, > to establish a republic with a limited government that > respected people's rights. They failed." > Hyperbole & B.S. > >"judges no longer want to hear about people's rights, the Constitution means >nothing to them." Hyperbole. > > Bob Alpert > With all the hyperbole and bullshit, I don't think you're winning many people to your cause. If people catch you exaggerating and distorting the facts, it casts considerable doubt on even the true things you say. You're not doing your cause any good by propagandizing - go for the truth, not a bunch of paranoid, hyperbolic, half-true ravings. You use a lot of loaded words like "steal" and "theft" that twist your sentences so that the conclusions you wish people to draw from your arguments are already included. When people read this sort of slanted rhetoric, the intelligent ones automatically discount everything you say because it's so obviously biased as to cast immediate doubt as to the veracity of the facts. Instead of examining the facts and drawing a conclusion, you're giving the conclusion and then fitting the facts to conform. Not a very scientific practice. -- --MKR Sometimes even the President of the United States must have to stand naked. - Dylan