Wasn’t it Cecil Himself who said that by now he presumes that anyone attempting to “prove” he doesn’t have to pay the federal income tax is “ipso facto, wack”?
A US Citizen is a US Citizen is a US Citizen. And so is a Citizen of the US. If they don’t want to pay federal taxes they can move their legal residence to this town and get a local job that does not involve any interstate movement of money. But OUR 34% tax bracket kicks in at just 50K.
We had an out break of “Sovereign Citizen” and “We the People” types at the time of the Great Farm Crises in the early 80s. (WE have a fresh Great Farm Crises about every ten years.) It has almost died out but there is some residue left. For the most part it is a tax and debt dodge. The fundamental claims are that Federal Reserve notes and bank paper entries are not legitimate money, that the Constitution was not properly ratified, that, because of some defect in the Northwest Ordinance, Ohio was not admitted as a State and that all state and federal legislation after Ohio’s statehood in 1803 is invalid.
The wonderful thing is that once you accept the initial leap of logic and somewhat convoluted “legalistic” thinking the whole thing makes sense. Thus, I borrowed $250,000.00 from the bank and gave the bank a mortgage, but all the bank gave me were paper entries in its account books which isn’t real money so I don’t have to pay it back and the bank can’t foreclose the mortgage because the mortgage was not properly recorded with the Washington, D.C. Recorder of Deeds (because Iowa is not a real State, for some reason or another) and the Iowa District Court has no jurisdiction in the foreclosure lawsuit because the flag in the courtroom has yellow fringe. The whole thing is just a marvel to behold.
I once watched a local magistrate quietly explain that the Court was perfectly willing to accept “counterfeit” Federal Reserve Notes in payment of a fine but the Defendant always had the option of spending 30 days in the rat hole of a county jail if he was all that opposed to perpetrating a fraud by paying in greenbacks. The Defendant swallowed his principles and paid up.
It’s important to note that there are people who don’t pay their taxes or don’t have drivers licenses etc., who know and admit that they are breaking the law, do not claim to be exempt or expect special treatment, and do expect to get in legal trouble if they ever get caught.
These people don’t claim to be sovereign citizens.
Just out of curiosity, do they ever claim to be intelligent?
[sub]Real morons in the world.[/sub]
So its better for someone to go on welfare and live off your tax dollars rather than take an under the counter job, if that’s the only work they can find?
Hari:
First or Second Foundation?
Anyway, I’ve never encountered a copper who didn’t know the permitted licenses in his jurisdiction. Heck, I even got a ticket in Japan once and the cop was kind enough to let me read the English instructions, conveniently placed in the back of his ticket book, regarding why I was getting a ticket. Darn thing even showed him what to check on my military ID card to ensure it was current!
Perhaps I’m one of the few, but I do keep a California Driver’s Handbood in my glove box. I’d imagine a cop in Louisiana would at least know what’s a valid license there. But, perhaps not.
p.s. I love Asimov’s SciFi!
So these people think that the 14th ammendment is what caused taxes and things like that? And that the Federal government didn’t have any power until the Civil War?
Huh? What about the Bill of Rights? The Whiskey Rebellion?
Hello!!!
What the hell are these idiots smoking and where can I get some?
FYI, search engine ranking has no relationship to the validity of the websites. Also, the number of con sites vs the number of pro sites doesn’t necessarily reflect on the validity of the opinions on those sites. It doesn’t even necessarily give a true picture of public opinion. For example, if 9 sites trash someone while only one site praises him, it doesn’t show that 9 of out 10 people are against that person; only that 9 people feel strongly enough to go to the trouble of putting up a website (or possibly that one or two people put up 9 websites).
Think about it… If someone likes and supports what Dees is doing, they’re not going to put up a website praising him. They’re going to perhaps send a check to his organization and maybe link to the SPLC from their website. What would be the point in them putting up a website that reflects what’s already being said at splcenter.org? On the other hand people who don’t like what he’s doing and feel strongly enough about it (especially those people whom he’s attacked) may put up a website expressing their opinion. In fact one individual may put up a number of sites and spam the search engines (I’m not saying that’s what happened in this instance but it can happen.)
Morris Dees heads an organization that takes a very strong stand against certain individuals and organizations. Someone who does that, right or wrong, is going to be attacked by people who resent what he’s doing. The fact the he’s attacked doesn’t prove that he’s wrong, only that he’s good at ruffling feathers.
Whether or not he’s a fraud depends on the facts, not on search engine rankings.
I went to the site Kalishnikov linked to. It’s got a page entitled “Compound Information” which seems to be its mission statement, including this information:
So, this site that says it’s goal is free speech is run by avowed racists who believe in disrupting the free speech rights of people with whom they disagree.
Sorry, Kalishnikov, far from supporting your allegation that Dees is a fraud, the citation you gave in support suggests to me that Dees is taking action against a particularly nasty segment of the community.
Then please tell me how YOU determine someone’s reputation.
He is indeed taking action against a particularly nasty type of people, which is a good thing, the trouble is that he paints with such a broad brush as to include and falsely accuse many innocent groups.
Well, I take a look at what he’s actually done, instead of what his opponents say he’s done. Two things that Dees has done, lawfully and through the courts, have impressed me.
Back in the mid-eighties, he took on a case for the mother of a dead black teenager. The teenager had been lynched by the Klan. Dees sued the Klan group in question for inciting its members to commit murder, got a multi-million dollar civil judgment against them, and executed it by taking possesion of their club-house for the mother of the slain teenager. He shut down a Klan group, peacefully and through the courts.
More recently, in Idaho, Dees sued the Aryan Nations for inciting its members to violence against a mother and son on racial grounds. Again, he was successful, and was able to take possession of the Aryan Nations compound, which was a training site glorifying Adolph Hitler and racist views. The compound now is a centre for human rights and the Aryan Nations have left Idaho.
Sounds okay to me.
Well K-boy, I don’t rely on the opinions of, ahem, ‘racial separatists’ et al.
Typically for those of us not involved in extremist organizations, etc, one relies on sources of information that
(a) Appear to engage in some ordinary level of fact checking
(b) Appear to make efforts for reasonable, unbiased inquiry.
I repeat, I have often seen praise for MD’s work in delving into the ugly underworld of racists, neonazis, at least elements of this self-styled ‘patriot’ movement etc. from law enforcement and major independent media.
The ‘critiques’ I have seen come from the website you nicely cited for us. I rather hope out of an abundance of zeal and a neglect for minimium of critical inquiry that one might expect when dealing with such issues.
It depends on the situation, but I don’t do it by counting search engine results. I just don’t believe that they are a valid measure of public opinion. I gave my reasons for this in my previous post.
I see K has acknowledged MD’s work, that’s good. It may be that in working in that murky world that he has to work with that he’s made mistakes. Intelligence failures if you will. That hardly makes the man a fraud – only human. I’m sure he’s made mistakes, as noted above.
Of course I didn’t form my opinion by counting search results, I’ve known about him for a long time. I mentioned the links because when some one asks for a cite on these boards they’re normally talking about a link, and I didn’t have time to read them all.
Some Native Hawaiian folks here tried to pull the “soverein citizens” baloney a few years ago. They lived on the beaches and declared it some sovereign nation of Hawaii, complete with their own license plates. Of course, the cops stopped them, noting the illegal tags. They made a big stink, said they weren’t being respected :rolleyes:, and basically made fools of themselves. They went away shortly after. I’m sure some are still camped there and still maintain their “political status”, though.
If you go to the IRS website, one of their more interesting pages is a document presenting common “I found a loophole that lets me get out of paying taxes!” myths, and explaining why they don’t hold much water. Most of these revolve around sillyness like “oh, x wasn’t correctly sworn in as governor, so they couldn’t have legally signed <x document>, and because their state’s name appeared on the bill, IT WAS NEVER LEGALLY RATIFIED! I DON’T HAVE TO PAY TAXES!”.
The thing that all of these tax dodges ignore is the concept of PRECEDENT. Laws are generally validated by how well they hold up in court over time, not by how the sentance happened to be phrased on some government document somewhere.
The Sovereign Citizen movement is not, in my experience, a white supremacist group. There may be some overlap between sovereign citizens and groups like Aryan nations, but I would not characterise the sovereign citizens I’ve had dealings with as white supremacist. Still, never hurts to be cautious.
With respect to International Driver’s Permits, my understanding is that they are a document to certify that your permit from your home country is in fact a driver’s permit, which is especially important if it is in a different language than the foreign jurisdiction you’re travelling in. But the IDP is not itself a permit. I found this explanation from a New Zealand tourism site:
I don’t pay taxes, and I can drive anywhere in the world. I have an international drivers license.