Simple Questions for an Introductory Video

We try to achieve cooperation, sharing, organization, and all that good stuff - the stuff of which joy and prosperity are made! - but we use a strategy of making rules and then hurting people for breaking them.  The strategy is counterproductive.  The tax situation in the United States is a great example of this on many levels.  You can help raise awareness of the problem...

Make a video of yourself asking these questions and comment on this post with a link to it.  Maybe we'll use it in our documentary!

• Can you earn a living without having to pay the U.S. federal government?
• Are there rules that apply only to those with who the federal government has an entirely voluntary relationship?
• Are any of those rules called laws?
• Is there anyone not in such a voluntary relationship who thinks they must follow those rules?
• If people make money from a voluntary relationship with an institution, does it make sense for the institution to get a cut?
• What is the legal definition of "income"? (Hold up your finger quotes!)
• What happened to that senate hearing where the government was going to answer a bunch of important questions about the income tax back in 2001?
• Did the Supreme Court use the term "erroneous assumption" (hold up your finger quotes!) to describe a particular understanding of the 16th amendment?
• What happens when an appellate court decision contradicts a Supreme Court decision?
• What protects people from kangaroo courts?
• Is the difference between direct and indirect taxes important?
• What does "apportioned" mean? (Finger quotes!)
• What does "excise" mean?
• Is the income tax really an excise tax?
• Is it possible that the tax law is confusing on purpose?
• Could an agency of the government deceive citizens into paying more taxes than they legally owe?
• Could the people in government want more money than the Constitution allows them to demand?
• Should a citizen decide how much of his or her own money goes to the government?
• Shouldn't you be more obligated to give the government a cut if they helped you earn what you earned?

Be a Part of the Premier SOME Documentary

The first CHOSE (Cooperative Humanity's Ongoing Social Efforts) documentary will consist of regular folks like you asking some of the following questions.  If other questions come to mind, feel free to ask them in the video you send us. Once you've made a video, even one that is only a few seconds long, you can post it to the CHOSE Facebook page, or email a link to it to my dscotese email account at gmail.

Creating a video in which you say "This is for Dave Scotese's C-H-O-S-E documentary," is the only way I will be able to use it.  In stating that*, you represent that:

• You authorize Dave Scotese and any editor working on a documentary film to edit and use in any way your name, likeness, image, voice and participation in and performance on film, tape or otherwise for use in any documentary that is created as part of the CHOSE Documentaries (the "Recordings").
• You agree that the CHOSE documentaries may be edited and otherwise altered at the sole discretion of Dave Scotese and any editor or consultant working with him, and used in whole or in part for any and all broadcasting, non-broadcasting, audio/visual, and/or exhibition purposes in any manner or media, in perpetuity, throughout the world.
• Dave Scotese may use and authorize others to use all or parts of the Recordings. Dave Scotese and his successors and assigns shall own all right, title and interest, including copyright, in and to the Recordings, to be used and disposed of without limitation as Dave Scotese shall in his sole discretion determine.

Here is a list of the questions you can ask in the video you send us.  Feel free to ask all of them, just one, or a few that interest you the most:

1. What is income anyway?
2. How many income tax laws have been passed?
3. When was the first income tax law passed?
4. How many income tax laws have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court?
5. Does the U.S. Constitution distinguish between taxes that can be avoided and taxes that cannot be avoided?
6. Can the income tax be avoided?
7. In Brushaber versus the Union Pacific Railroad Company case in 1916, the Supreme Court used the words "erroneous assumption."  What was the assumption they declared as erroneous?
8. Does the U.S. Constitution allow the federal government to collect information about citizens, and if so, how?
9. Do the people control the government or is it the other way around?
10. If people who pay income tax spent that money themselves, would the economy improve?
11. Is there a difference between the fifty states of the union and the United States?
12. Is anyone living in any of the fifty union states above the law?
13. Are there people who believe they are above the law?
14. Is there any evidence that the IRS has deceived people into paying taxes they do not owe?
15. How much of the income tax collected goes toward paying interest to the Federal Reserve Bank?
16. What effect does the definition in United States Code Title 26 of "Trade or Business" have on the law?
17. Is the income tax an excise tax on certain activities and privileges?
18. Are there activities one can do to earn money without incurring any income tax liability and if so, what are they?
19. Is an information return like a W2 or a 1099 incontrovertible evidence of a tax liability?
20. If an information return incorrectly represents my earnings as "taxable income," what can I do to clear up the record?

An earlier post in this blog contains many other questions that are written as commands to admit.  This is how legal questions are posed, with the expectation that the respondent will either admit or deny each one.  If you would like to turn any of them into an honest question as you would ask it, feel free to add that to your video too.  What we're really looking for is an expression of genuine interest in maintaining the financial health of our federal government in a way that reflects the support of the people. This is an interest we believe was shared by the founders of our nation.

*We may still need to ask you to sign a release so that we can use your video, so stay in touch!

A Documentary I'd Like to Make

A friend of mine recently explained to me how legislation, enforcement, and courts work.  Here's a brief summary:

A law is created for some reason.  For example, maybe there is a walkway between two places and you can go north or south.  The walkway is wide and has been marked with two sides (east and west) so that you can walk on either side to go between the two places.  For whatever reason, there is a law that says that if you use the west side, you will be fined $1000.

A man is charged with violating that law.  He goes to court.  In court, a video is played showing the man walking on the east side (not the side mentioned in the law).  The judge decides that he has to pay the fine.

Clearly, the judge has erred.

The man appeals the decision in the appellate court and the appellate court upholds the decision.  Clearly, something is amiss here.

The appeals process continues up to the Supreme Court, and that court declines to hear the case, which means the decision of the highest appellate court under the Supreme Court stands, and the man has to pay $1000.

My friend explained that this "problem is often remedied by the legislators who simply update the law to reflect what the judges have decided."  In other words, the legislators propose an idea for controlling society in a certain way, and the judges who get the opportunity to adjust the rule against someone who may have resisted the control act as though the rule is as they want it to be, thus taking the job of legislating away from the legislators.

Federal judges are not elected, but appointed by the president.

Any creative mind can imagine the problems this situation can create.  My documentary would follow some of those problems so that the climax of the story is the realization that the only good solution is widespread exposure of all the hidden agendas at play, and the denouement will be a few major strategies for learning about those agendas and inviting others to accelerate the process.

The "Tax Honesty Movement" is one example.  The "War on Drugs" is another example.  The movie "Holes" is a good fictional example, though one in which the corruption did not go nearly as far up the chain as it does in real life.