The Missing "Frivolous" Argument

USC 26 6702(c) States:

(c) Listing of frivolous positions

The Secretary shall prescribe (and periodically revise) a list of positions which the Secretary has identified as being frivolous for purposes of this subsection. The Secretary shall not include in such list any position that the Secretary determines meets the requirement of section 6662 (d)(2)(B)(ii)(II).

This appears to be (Actually, Pete found the correct link for me, so...) Here is the "list of positions which the Secretary has identified as being frivolous," but there is one position that is missing.  It's my position, and if they would like to add it to the list, then I will have to admit that I no longer have a legal basis for refusing to support their criminal operations.  Here is my position, which I think would go under section B ("The Meaning of Income:  Taxable Income and Gross Income"):

"Taxable Income" can only mean what a person gets by exercising some kind of federal privilege, so those who exercise no such privilege are not liable for the tax.

[The following was added to this post after Mr. Hendrickson directed me to the information the IRS has provided regarding the word "privilege" in the actual list of frivolous positions.]

The closest position to mine that does appear says this:

(1) Compliance with the internal revenue laws is voluntary or optional and not required by law, including arguments that:
...(g) Only persons who have contracted with the government by applying for a governmental privilege or benefit, such as holding a Social Security number, are subject to tax, and those who have contracted with the government may choose to revoke the contract at will.

What the IRS is saying is that this is an incorrect position, and so it must be.  Let's go so far as to assume that you really do have to apply in order to gain a federal privilege, but notice the "and" that I italicized.  Why is that chunk of text compounded into this frivolous position?  Would it not cover more cases without the addition of that conjunction and the text following it?  Perhaps those who have contracted with the government may not choose to revoke the contract at will.  Perhaps the position that holds that such one-sided abdication of contractual obligation is a legal option for those exercising federal privilege (whether applied for or not) is actually frivolous.  I would assume that it's immoral, at least, to unilaterally revoke a contract, so it's no small stretch to see that arguing in favor of such revocation would be frivolous.

[End of added material.]

Thanks to Pete Hendrickson's legal research on this subject, available at his website, http://losthorizons.com, for those interested in ending their financial support for the criminal endeavors of the US federal government.

Let's Win the War on Coercive Authority

The first step in winning this war is to recognize coercive authority.  This isn't too hard to do, although it is difficult to write down a method that works.  This is because there are an infinite number of ways to coerce people.

Some people feel coerced by a person who has been helping them when that person threatens to stop helping unless ... something or other.  This is typical of young people under the care of parents - parents who are authorities.  Defeating this kind of coercive authority requires the completion of the simple and natural process of growing up.  When you don't need the help, having it taken away is not coercive.

The fact that parents wield this authority and (generally) love the children over which they exercise it is not a bad thing in itself.  It does create a relationship that can be mimicked (and is mimicked) by external authorities that only pretend to love those over which they exercise authority.  For example, people on welfare "need" the help and can therefore be controlled by the source of the help, which is the state.

An authority directs your actions, either because you respect its counsel, or because you fear its punishment.  When your behavior (or lack of behavior) comes from fear, you may be dealing with a coercive authority.  Will the punishment be looked upon as criminal by your friends and family?  If not, then you are certainly dealing with a coercive authority.  If you are a child and the authority is a parent or guardian, this may be the kind of coercive authority that will be defeated by simply growing up.  We all have to grow up, or we cannot reach our potential.

Parents also wield coercive authority that can't be solved by simply growing up.  Everyone knows about spanking and lots of people recognize that word as a euphemism for violence against children.  It is used to coerce them into behaving a certain way.  It is widely recognized as immoral.  Imprisoning children (for example in their bedroom) falls into the same class.  These are the early examples of coercive authority that teach us that it's acceptable.  Our learned acceptance of coercive authority then blossoms into the horrible state of affairs we now endure.  Most people fund state sponsored terrorism (aka war) because they are afraid of getting caged, and such imprisonment is unfortunately not recognized as violence.

If we ignore the coercive authority wielded by parents over their children, what's left is coercive authority that can only be defeated by adding the one missing ingredient: recognition that the punishment is immoral.  If we want peace and freedom, we must recognize that coercive authority is harmful, and challenge it wherever possible.

When Martin Luther King Jr. suggested that we have not only the right but also the duty to break unjust laws, he also said "One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty."  I disagree with the words "a willingness," but, since the state is always more powerful than the individual, I'd use "the endurance."  During the creation of that penalty, it is important to constantly call attention to the immorality of the law.

That's it.  Two steps, recognize coercive authority, and then call attention to the immorality of the punishments it uses to control behavior.  This is how we defeat coercive authority.  As they make more unjust laws, our opportunities to demonstrate their depravity multiply.

Lastly, I want to make this claim: For a law to be just, it must be enforced only against those who agreed to follow it.  If anyone has some decent argument against this claim, please present it.  Since I recognize the sovereignty of the individual, I don't think you need a law to get back from a criminal whatever he took from you.

I Like Endangering My Children

My children are in wheelchairs.  My wife and I taught them how to walk, and they were walking just fine, but they wanted to attend school, and you're not allowed to walk at school.   There are various reasons for the prohibition, though some (the authorities are scared of people who can walk) are not advertised.  The advertised reasons are all about keeping the kids safe.

So the kids get wheelchairs when they get to school.  That's ok with me because they can walk at home.  Except that they don't walk at home.  They are allowed to take the wheelchairs home, and they do.  The schools encourage this, again because they want to help keep the kids safe.  When I ask my kids to go for a walk with me, they decline.  I know that's pretty disturbing, but it gets a lot worse.

Since they've been sitting or lying for so long, the lower portions of their legs have become numb.  I have watched their toes get broken at school and showed them their broken toes and offered to help them get the exercise that would help them heal.  The exercise brings life back to the injured extremities, and with that life comes the pain of the injuries.  My children don't like the pain, so they have stopped the exercises.  I am distraught about this.  Any advice would be helpful.

I have already forbidden the wheelchairs in the house, so the kids have taken to crawling on their hands and knees to get to their beds at night, and out to the car in the mornings.  I told them that they should crawl at school too, as the exercise would help their feet heal so that they could walk again, but they are not allowed to crawl.  Safety concerns again.

My wife is also worried about the kids' safety, so she has been asking me not to let them crawl around the house, and telling me I should carry them to their beds when they get home from school.  I am about ready to abandon my family because my depression is beginning to ruin the lives of everyone around me.  Any advice would be helpful.

Common Core

Thanks to Marion Brady, we have an inside look at the horror called "Common Core":

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/eight-problems-with-common-core-standards/2012/08/21/821b300a-e4e7-11e1-8f62-58260e3940a0_blog.html

I wonder if anyone else is worried about "Common Core".  I've looked at Education Policy Advisor Charlotte Thompson Iserbyt's work and multiple Teacher of the Year Award winner John Taylor Gatto's work, and it shows that an effort like Common Core is often designed to cause problems rather than solve them.

My kids' school is participating in a program designed to prevent the creative and disruptive thought that advances the goals of our species and replace it with predictable responses.  It is also designed to replace civil disobedience borne from the healthy conscience of an active mind with plain obedience.  It is designed to create adults who will follow orders regardless of their moral implications.

So why are my kids in school?  Because it's illegal to protect them from it.

If you have any contact with a truancy officer and can get him to agree to look the other way when he discovers parents who are protecting their kids from school, please let me know.  Such civil disobedience is the mark of true heroes.

The Bank Revelation Act

If you click to read the letter from Union Bank (outlined in Red, on the right side) first, you will see why I am also presenting the information from ChexSystems.  My reckoning suggests that Union Bank closed my business account because I tried to open an account with First Citizens Bank.  I have sent this text and image to the branch manager at Union Bank as an offering she could use to defend her decision to open my account in the first place.

A friend of mine opened a bank account to hold some money for a down payment on a house.  PNC, his other bank, on the same day closed his account there, saying on the phone to him, "Just like you can choose to do business with any bank and open or close an account with us, we also reserve the right to do business with whoever we want to." My reckoning here also is that this closure was a response to having a competitor.

When I spoke with the branch manager at Union Bank on the phone, she was upset with me because she had "gone to bat" for me with the higher-ups, and then I went and opened an account at another bank.  She asked me why I did this and I explained that I have had banks close accounts on me without much reason.  She was at first a relief from this banking practice, but now her bank is an example of it.

For me, this story was grounds to establish a "Bank Revelation Act" enforceable by any banking customer who wishes to help other bank customers deal with the banking system as it continues to be pinioned, abused, fattened, manipulated, and domesticated by the federal reserve and the legislators helping it.  Banks can provide a good service to the communities in which they operate, but when organized parasitic humans (aka government-backed monopolies like the "Federal Reserve") infect them, they slowy turn into tools of oppression.  Both the manager of my Union Bank branch and I are now victims of this oppression.

The BRA has only one simple requirement, and that is for any interested banking customer, employee, or shareholder to publish whatever details of an unfortunate banking situation they care to publish.  I believe the Bank Secrecy Act has done tremendous damage to the economy of the United States and I'd like to see its more horrible pieces discarded or at least challenged and defeated by private citizens acting in cooperation.

There are already many examples of people following the BRA.  That is how "common law" normally gets created: people recognize value in doing things a particular way and eventually come to expect everyone to do things that way.  When such an established expectation is not met, and someone suffers because of the failure, it is common for a community to agree that the person who failed must compensate the victim.  I believe this is what is known as a "common law tort," notwithstanding the usurpation of the term "common law" by whatever authorities have happened to usurp it.

"Tort law (i.e., the law relating to private civil wrongs) is largely  common law, as opposed to statute-based law, in England, Canada, and the  United States. Several major reforms have been introduced along the same  lines in different countries. Allowing claims by dependents of persons  tortuously killed and removing the immunity of the crown or government or  charitable institutions from tort claims provide examples." -- Encyclopedia  Britannica

The BRA, however, does not support any tort claims, for the language itself indicates that the responsible party publish only what they care to publish.  This frees the growth of this practice from any reason for suppression by the governments who pretend they are the only option for adjudicating tort claims.  They will, nevertheless, do what they can to protect their pet banks from the harsh light of cooperative publishing among their victims.  I think the BSA was a prophylactic.

Literacy is Mind Control

At Tragedy and Hope (Tragedyandhope.com), Richard Grove or one of his guests pointed out that literacy is mind control unless the reader can hold a concept in his mind without believing it.

My sister just pointed out to me the importance of the difference between using evidence to persuade others that you're correct and using evidence to work with other people in an effort to find truth.  In Non-Violent Communication (NVC), this distinction is important.  When people are engaged in conversation, the attempt to persuade can be considered violent.  It is possible for a person to be persuaded to believe something that isn't true, or even convinced of it.  This, of course, requires that the persuasive speaker be presenting something false.

While most of us do not wish to present something false to those with whom we converse, we are often in error.  For this reason alone, it is advisable to avoid convincing and persuading, and instead engage others in a search for the truth.  From this perspective, the baser strategies through which we inadvertently spread confusion and falsehood will fall away.  It just doesn't make sense to use ad-hominem attacks or other logical fallacies when we're after the truth, and we honestly recognize the possibility that we don't yet have it.

NVC begins by assuming that we are all compassionate by nature and that violent strategies—whether verbal or physical—are learned behaviors taught and supported by the prevailing culture. NVC also assumes that we all share the same, basic human needs, and that each of our actions are a strategy to meet one or more of these needs.

 -- The Center for Non-Violent Communications

Another Crack at Explaining Bitcoin

Bitcoin was recently described to me by someone to whom I'd just explained bitcoin very briefly as "online rewards".  Quite an accurate observation!  You get a reward for having your computer compute some hashes from a highly condensed version of the data in the public ledger.  What public ledger?  I'll explain that later.  Let's nail down who pays for the reward and why.

The reward comes in the form of newly created bitcoin, which essentially dilutes the holdings of everyone who has bitcoin.  In this way, the entire bitcoin community pays the reward, in exact proportion to how much bitcoin each member holds.  Why are we willing to pay through this form of what can accurately be called "inflation"?  We pay it because we value the system's ability to transfer value (in the form of bitcoins) from one of us to another through the Internet, without a middleman that we have to trust.

The reward goes to a lucky computer owner whose machine has found a special number called a "nonce."  It's difficult to find the number, and the number that will work is different for each person trying to find it.  I'll explain why in a moment.  "Bitcoin mining" software, which is free and open-source, finds the number.  It starts with a nonce of zero and runs an algorithm that takes two main inputs (as well as some others that we can ignore for now).  The first main input is called a "hash" which is computed from all the new bitcoin transactions.  The second input is the nonce.  If the algorithm produces a small enough result, then the owner gets some bitcoin.  This is because one of the new transactions adds the reward to the owner's bitcoin address.  If the algorithm produces a result that is too large (nearly all of them are), then the software increases the nonce by one and tries again.

Remember I said that I'd explain why each person trying to find the number has to find a different one?  This is because the "hash" of the new transactions depends on the data that represents those new transactions.  Since two different people trying to find the number each have a different bitcoin address, the one new transaction that puts the reward into the owner's btc address will be different for each of them.  That changes the hash, and therefore the nonce that will work.

Remember I said I'd explain what the public ledger is?  It is commonly referred to as the "blockchain" because each time someone finds that special number (the "nonce"), they add a block of transactions to it.  So the blockchain contains all the blocks, each of which contains a set of transactions that were made during a particular period of time (designed to be about ten minutes long).  Bitcoin is transferred from one bitcoin address (or, account, if you like thinking of it as a ledger) to another by adding a transaction.  The transactions already in the block chain must include one that puts bitcoins into the source address, and none that remove those bitcoins from it.  Let's see how the ledger is handled to make sure no bad transactions get in.

I'll explain it with an analogy.  Suppose someone says "Find me a number whose digits add up to exactly half of itself."  We all know how to make sure that any proposed answer actually works, right?  Bitcoin works the same way.  If you add a transaction that moves bitcoins from an address that doesn't have any bitcoins in it, your transaction will be ignored by every (sane) bitcoin miner and therefore never get into a block.  But lets suppose that an insane miner tries to add it.  First, in order for his attempt to even get noticed, he'd have to find that special nonce.  Once he did that, here's what would happen:

The new block would be broadcast on the Internet to other miners who would read the transactions in it.  They'd see a transaction that attempted to spend bitcoins from an address that didn't have any bitcoins, and tag the new block as garbage or just throw it away, and then proceed with trying to find a nonce that worked for them, using only the valid transactions they've received.  Every decent bitcoin client would also recognize this bad transaction and therefore ignore the entire block.  In this way, the miners protect the integrity of the blockchain, and by finding nonces that work, they earn bitcoins, or "online rewards."

The version of this explanation at litmocracy.blogspot.com will not be updated much.  Instead, the post on bitcointalk will be updated.  I'll have a link in a few minutes.