“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

-James Madison

 

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The Lost Horizons News

Mid-Edition Update for December 28, 2014

 

Please Start Here

Featured In This Update:

The Great Deception

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David LaRocque's Press Release

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Keeping Things In Focus

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Make Someone You Love Sweat Bullets This Year

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What Makes YOU A Warrior For The Truth?

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Project Paradigm-Shift

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Test Your "Income" Tax IQ!

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A "Pragmatic" Perspective On The Tax And The Rule Of Law

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Illuminating Anniversaries For This Week

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Your Comments

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...and much, much more!

 

 

Hot Topics In The News:

 

The Fourteenth Edition of CtC is Now Available!

On Obamacare

On the "Minimum Wage"

And Hey! Don't miss the great stuff in the main page of this edition!

 

 

"The preservation of a free government requires, not merely that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained, but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great barrier which defends the rights of the people. The rulers who are guilty of such encroachment exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are TYRANTS. The people who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them and are slaves….."

-James Madison

 

The Great Deception

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE OBSERVED THAT, "[T]he loveliest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he does not exist!" He meant that by not believing in the Devil, Man must see his woes, and all evil in the world, as being in some manner the natural order of things. This ultimately leads to a loss of faith in God's goodness or even His existence, and the Devil's purposes are accomplished.

Of like craftiness and effect to this Satanic trick is the long-running campaign by Hamiltonians and their fellow-travelers to convince the American people that the U.S. Constitution is actually an evil artifact, designed by a cabal of elitists to look out exclusively for their own interests at the expense of everyone else's. Thanks to this campaign, Americans cast despairing looks down the dark road toward which their feet have been turned, gazing without a hint of recognition right past their best means of secular salvation.

In this, my last post of 2014, I want to take a shot at enlisting all of you, and all those with whom you share these words, into the fight against this pernicious ploy. I think that by the time you finish reading this commentary you will agree that this is a battle on which could rest the outcome of the war.

CONTRARY TO WHAT AMERICANS HAVE LONG BEEN CONDITIONED TO ACCEPT, "the law" is neither a process nor an institutional structure. Rather, it is a set of principles.

Properly understood, when we speak of "the rule of law", we do not speak of "the rule of lawmakers", or "the rule of law-enforcers", or even of "the rule of government". Rather, we speak of the rule of foundational principles to which the government, the lawmakers and the law-enforcers are all subordinate, and to which they must conform. When this conformance happens, we enjoy "the rule of law".

American Constitutions are the articulations of our foundational principles. They list what the governments they authorize into existence are and are not to do. As such, Constitutions embody the beliefs of their creators regarding the purposes and limitations of the governments they call into existence, in a written form so that those purposes and (especially) those limitations can always be resorted-to in the future for guidance and discipline whenever the people feel that the state has exceeded its proper scope.

Without a written Constitution, the principles of governance are undefined and nothing more than shifting, unreliable, unpredictable notions which are selected and enforced based on the degree to which they serve the interests of the loudest or most forcefully-self-interested faction (which often means the richest or most aggressive or most sociopathic faction). Without a written Constitution, there is no rule of law, and that means no rules at all.

The same is true of even a written Constitution, if the idea that it is subject to institutional interpretation is embraced. What, after all, is "interpretation" except for "deviation", which is to say, "evasion"? Any "interpretation" today that is at all different from yesterday's view is an evisceration of the concept and purpose of a "written Constitution". How is writing down the principles different from not doing so if the purposes and limitations they are intended to enforce are subject to varying interpretations?

It IS different. Because our foundational principles are written down, and because the Framers in their wisdom provided that all actors claiming governing authority can only do so through the mechanism and by virtue of that written, foundational instrument, those principles and limitations--as originally conceived-- patiently await the American people like 330 million big, red "re-set" buttons, needing nothing more to restore the republic than that a few million of them be firmly pushed.

Here's a crude little model of how this works.

The U.S. Constitution is a framework setting the shape and limits of the federal government:

That framework-- exactly as written, and exactly as it remains to this day-- successfully confined the federal government within its virtuous liberty-securing and prosperity-enhancing limits for more than 150 years. It was only when the State took an audacious chance at exploiting the unique circumstances of the early 1940s to broadly misapply the "income tax" (as explained here) that everything changed. By that one daring move the State succeeded in equipping itself with a massive amount of concentrated wealth with which to support and advance its limit-busting agenda through extortion, bribery and propaganda. Its most important defensive mechanism thus undone, the Constitution proved unequal to the sustained and enormously-better-financed attack by which it was then assaulted.

Note the history of the failure. As shown in the diagram below, the collapse of the Constitution's limiting effect didn't coincide with the 17th Amendment changing the manner of senatorial elections; it didn't coincide with the Federal Reserve beginning operations; it didn't coincide with the government undertaking some great program like the Cold War, or the Civil Rights programs, or anything else of the sort.

Instead, the collapse coincided with the "Victory Tax Act of 1942" and the "Current Tax Payment Act of 1943", which were accompanied by opportunistic, "Hey, let's see what happens" distributions to individuals and private companies across America of federal forms dictating protocols concerning "income", "employees", "employers" and "wages" but with the custom, statutorily-defined meaning of these terms omitted. Nothing changed in the scope or nature of the tax, but many, many Americans were taken in by the ploy and imagined that something HAD changed (because after all, surely Saint Franklin and the rest of our good and virtuous federal government would never deceive us, or exploit our ignorance, right?).

Over the next few years a huge amount of wealth was successfully extracted from a huge percentage of the American population, and there was a 1000% increase in the average annual fraction of American households filing income tax returns-- almost all in complete blindness as to the legal snares for the unknowing and unwary inherent in the filing process (all of which are explained in this book). The "ignorance-tax" pump became fully-primed with the fuel-tank topped-off, and the now-heavily-funded lovers, beneficiaries and apparatchiks of the mammoth, unrestrained State dug into the task of entrenchment.

(Per-capita expenditures directly reflect the overall size, and therefore also the scope and influence, of the federal government.)

The problem was not any inherent flaw or inadequacy of the Constitution. The problem was an engineered public ignorance and a consequent failure of the American people to recognize its peril and defend the fundamental law from its domestic enemies by the means most heavily-relied upon by the Framers-- the jealous regard of individual citizens for their own interests in harmony with the taxing-power limitations of the Constitution, by which the State is firmly kept on an austerity budget.

Over time (but very quickly), the suddenly well-financed State increasingly exceeded its limits:

Eventually, it became almost impossible to see where the limits ever were. 

A real problem, for sure. But because we wrote it down, we've still got the framework needed for a re-boot:

By hitting that reset button, we can be right back where we started:

All that is needed is for individual Americans to learn (or re-learn) the truth about the "income" tax, and apply it. It is ONLY because of the successful exploitation of ignorance about the tax that things got out of whack; and hard though it may be to see today, all that is needed to restore the limits on the State is for that ignorance and consequent exploitation to be undone.

OF COURSE, THERE'S THE ISSUE OF THE "INTERPRETERS" (and their cronies and clients) not wanting anything re-set. That crew got things out of whack deliberately, and they will fight any effort to restore them.

But here's the thing: That's ALWAYS how it is. There never is, and never has been, a magic spell that keeps the law untwisted by special interests, or untwists it without effort.

Liberty HAS always and WILL always require individuals to stand up and reach back and plant their feet firmly on the foundational principles, come what may-- that's the only way it can be secured and enjoyed.

The beauty of our unique American heritage is in that we have those liberty-oriented, government-limiting foundational principles firmly and plainly written in stone for us to stand upon.

We just have to do the actual standing.

Foundational principles-- even the ones written in stone-- don't invoke, enforce or defend themselves.

And, of course, for us to do the standing (and the invoking, enforcing and defending), we have to operate from a perspective of respect for the Constitution. That's why, surprising as it may seem, the "Great Deception" that is the focus of this commentary is not the deception about the nature of the income tax exploited by the unrestrained State.

Instead, the "Great Deception" that is the focus of this commentary is the sometimes subtle, sometimes screeching assertion coming from voices on the left, voices on the right, voices imagining themselves to be libertarian and voices on the top and the bottom all at once that the U.S. Constitution is some kind of elitist, anti-liberty scheme, or at best, a well-meant but futile gesture.

Though often tarted-up with audience-appropriate buzzwords meant to convey "movement" legitimacy, and though sometimes communicating genuine concern and disappointment, these assertions are actually those of the "interpreters", delivered by trolls and useful idiots. This can be seen in the fact that the trolls' attacks are not directed at the flawed "interpretations", and instead imply (if not state outright) that the interpreters are getting the Constitution right.

By this ploy the Constitution is made the villain responsible for the evils of the State, and the "interpreters" are absolved of blame. The current regime is legitimized while its victims are encouraged to turn away from the instrument designed by the Founders to keep American regimes in check.

Somehow this cognitive contortion finds buyers despite the simple fact that the "interpretations" of the fundamental law made today and over the last 70 years or so are wildly at odds with what were steady and consistent contrary views over the previous 150 years. Today's Constitution-haters would have us believe that the bases for today's "interpretations" were somehow overlooked for that previous 150 years, even though it is axiomatic that understanding of the language and purposes of the Constitution is greater and greater the closer one approaches the time of its creation.

As we rewind back to the accurate application of the Constitution, we find four-fifths of the Leviathan State falling away. Prior to the implementation of the "income-ignorance tax" scam and the metastasization it enabled, there was no CIA, no DEA, no Dept. of Education, no NSA, no EPA. As recently as 1940, the FBI-- then the largest and most prominent federal law-enforcement agency by far-- had a mere 890 agents, and neither the funding nor the need for more. Kept to its proper, Constitutionally-mandated limits, the federal government simply had little it was allowed or equipped to do.

Plainly, a simple restoration of respect and enforcement of the U.S. Constitution as written is the best means by which the American people can again enjoy the benefits of the liberty-loving limited-government regime under which we grew dizzyingly prosperous while remaining free individuals secure in our rights. Thus, it behooves each and every one of us to denounce, dispute and disdain all those who would denounce and disdain the Constitution, while at the same time denouncing, disputing and disdaining those who would "interpret" the Constitution contrary to its simple words and clear meaning and purpose.

Eschew utopian anarchists, "Illuminati"-conspiracy theorists and "living law" lunatics alike, regardless of the stature, position, sincerity or credentials of any of them. All of them are enemies of the truth and of your liberty.

Stand and act on behalf of the law, resorting to its words directly and those of its authors. Take back the power you have inadvertently lent to the State by letting yourself be taken in by the "ignorance-tax" scheme.

Teach the liberating truth to your children, your neighbors and your friends.

AND WHEN YOU MAKE YOUR NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS NEXT WEEK, lead your list with a resolution to respect, uphold and enforce our fundamental law. That's all we really need in order to restore the republic and regain our exceptional American heritage of liberty secured by proper law.

"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

-Thomas Jefferson

Care to post a comment on this article? Set a brushfire-- E-mail this newsletter to a friend Return to contents ***** Warrior David LaRocque's Press Release:   Friends, Doreen Hendrickson, wife of the author of the book that exposes the income tax fraud that is being perpetrated on the American people, is being subjected to malicious prosecution by government thugs. The charge is “contempt of court” for her refusal to sign a statement drafted by the government attesting to facts which she knows to be untrue – specifically that she has a tax liability to the federal government under the government’s fraudulent interpretation of the law regarding the income tax, when in fact she knows that the statement she has been ordered to sign is false. Pete Hendrickson’s book “Cracking the Code” shows, through penetrating analysis and in great detail, how the U.S. Constitution provides, in Article I of that document, for only two classes of taxes on the American people – direct taxes which are subject to apportionment, and indirect taxes (“duties, imposts, and excises”) which are subject to the requirement of uniformity. Notwithstanding government assertions to the contrary, the United States Supreme Court ruled (in the Brushaber case) that the Sixteenth Amendment created no new power of taxation which did not exist prior to the amendment, and that the income tax authorized by that amendment is an excise tax applicable only to government-connected activities. Accordingly, while the government has no authority to impose income taxes (direct taxes or “capitations”) on private sector activity, the Internal Revenue Code has been carefully manipulated to create the appearance of tax liability when no such liability exists. When one reads Pete’s book and learns how this is done, the effect is tantamount to being struck by lightning. For anyone who was educated to believe in the essential legitimacy of the American government and its operation, this revelation is beyond shocking. The only conclusion one can reach is that the level of corruption has become so great in our system of government that heroic measures will be needed to save it from the rot and corruption which has been allowed to penetrate it, and take root in its foundation. Pete Hendrickson has taken it upon himself, at great personal sacrifice, to sound the alarm about the governmental fraud that is destroying the greatest economic system the world has ever seen. This is Pete’s battle, not Doreen’s. But the government was unsuccessful in its assault on Pete, so it attacked his wife, who has nothing to do with the battle to bring out the truth to the American people. While this fact in itself is highly disturbing, the government’s line of attack on Doreen is nothing short of outrageous. The government is trying to use the enormous power of the federal government to force Doreen to accept a version of official truth which she knows to be a lie. This behavior by the government is the behavior of a tyrannical regime – nothing more, nothing less - and is absolutely incompatible with the rule of law. This assault on Doreen Hendrickson is of a type familiar to anyone who has studied the history of Communist and Fascist regimes in recent world history. This is not something one would have thought possible in America. Yet this is exactly what is happening in our country today. The Doreen Hendrickson case, as little known as it is, could be seen as one of the most important cases taking place in America today. If Doreen Hendrickson is sentenced to prison for refusing to sign a statement, under court order, which is demonstrably false and contrary to Doreen’s deeply held belief, then the constitutional protections afforded us by the Founders to preserve and protect our liberty may no longer exist. If you do not understand what is happening to Doreen and Peter Hendrickson, I urge you to investigate further at www.losthorizons.com. Contact Pete Hendrickson at newscritter@losthorizons.com Click here to get this press release as a .pdf for easy distribution Click here to get the alternative press release as a .pdf for easy distribution Care to post a comment on this article? Set a brushfire-- E-mail this newsletter to a friend Return to contents ***** Keeping Things In Focus EARLIER THIS WEEK I READ AN ARTICLE by William Anderson offering well-taken commentary on the latest campus sexual assault hoax. Anderson's article concerned the purported frat rape of "Jackie" at the University of Virginia in 2012, which was f first reported in Rolling Stone last month and then seized upon both as gospel and as a validation of the feminazi assault against reason and the rule of law on campuses across America. Anderson does a great job describing the problem of wildly-improper burdens and standards of proof which have become the norm at our colleges where this one politically-live subject is involved. He even drills right down to a very key (if not "the") environmental factor supporting this particular termite-swarm attack on American rule of law: Furthermore, the Obama administration has ordered colleges and universities to use a standard of “preponderance of the evidence” to determine if sexual assault or rape has occurred. People who are accused (almost always male students) are not permitted to have attorneys representing them and usually are not given specifics of the accusations until a hearing is held. Any institution that does not use these “standards” can be denied federal money, which would pretty much put most of them out of business. So... C'mon, Bill! Think it! Say it!! "Plainly, Americans should stop supplying the feds with the money they use to seduce and then coerce these schools into this socially-destructive, rule-of-law-eroding behavior!!"  Was that so hard? Every day I read something of the same sort, rightly complaining about some federal government outrage (and not just "outrage" as in "an offense to the sensibilities" but "outrage" as in a dangerous, wound-inflicting and ultimately not survivable attack on our rights and our law). As usual, these complaints leave off the most important part: WHAT MUST BE DONE ABOUT IT! These outrages are presented as if just pointing at them is going to cause some sort of spontaneous uprising. And how's that working for everyone? Just pointing at outrages doesn't cause uprisings, or anything at all that is meaningful in the short window of opportunity we have left ourselves by our previous complacency. It is nothing but one frog in the pot remarking to his neighbor, "It sure is getting hot in here..." It is crazy, and irresponsible. Worse, it is actually taken by one frog or the other (or both) as some kind of meaningful reaction to the danger. There is probably a psychological expression for this delusion, which has the effect of quelling any actually-productive response to danger by implanting a sense that one has done something. By virtue of this delusion, Americans will darkly mutter in dismay and disapproval the whole time they are being fitted out for shackles and penury, while never actually bestirring themselves into a lick of self-defense. This is doubly a tragedy and a scandalous shame in light of the fact that all that really needs to be done is so simple. It is actually nothing more than invoking and upholding our laws as written, and resuming what has historically been the norm in this great country. ANYWAY, I HAVE NOW FILLED IN what Mr. Anderson left out-- please take heed. I have also shared these thoughts with Anderson himself, so that next time he writes on bad things done by government he can include the universal solution: Spread and learn what CtC teaches, and thereby take the fuel from the federal wildfire that otherwise is going to burn down our house. YOU will encounter this same example of Einstein's definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results) all the time in articles all over the internet, especially from "alt-media" types. Since in this case it is your liberty that is going undefended in the face of dire threat due to these delusional expectations, I urge you to follow my example and point the problem out to the pundit involved. Maybe if enough of us do so, these folks will decide to stop being part of the problem and instead become part of the solution. Care to post a comment on this article? Set a brushfire-- E-mail this newsletter to a friend Return to contents ***** Be sure to wait and see both panels of this animated graphic, and please paste it into emails and share it widely. Most folks will "get it" without a word of explanation necessary. ***** “I didn’t say it would be easy, I just said it would be the truth.” -Morpheus   Make someone you love sweat bullets this year... (...and show them you think they're the greatest!)   I think we'd all agree that sometimes the truth can be a pesky thing-- demanding, disturbing, and seriously inconvenient.  The fact is, when you know the truth, you have to act on it, or be party to a lie; and when that lie is old, entrenched, vigorously defended and comfortingly familiar, the correcting truth can be very hard to learn, and even harder to act upon.   That's why one of the most challenging gifts to receive this holiday season is a copy of 'Cracking the Code- The Fascinating Truth About Taxation In America'.   Learning the truth about the income tax means setting aside misconceptions nurtured for a lifetime.  Acting on that truth means abandoning lifelong servility to the state through the offices of the IRS-- the one organization whose carefully cultivated reputation as a rabid junkyard dog is feared by everyone in America.   Both of those things are really hard!   However, those very same challenges also make 'Cracking the Code-...' the most rewarding gift to get or give this holiday season.   After all, how better could you communicate to those you love the high degree of esteem in which you hold them?  How more certain of your high regard could they be made, after such a display of your faith in their character?   (Helping them stop unnecessary losses of up to 40% or more of their earnings each year goes over pretty well, too, by the way...)   So, pass out a little panic this year.   Then stand back and watch your special someone stand tall, like the real American he or she was born to be.     Warriors!  Don't Forget About Grandpa!! The sequel to CtC is now available!! Click the image below for details!   If You're Already a CtC Warrior, Aren't You Really, Really Glad YOU'VE Taken Control Of Whether Any Of YOUR Money Goes To Washington, Just As The Founders Intended?   If You're Not A CtC Warrior, Isn't It Time You Became One?   Set a brushfire-- E-mail this newsletter to a friend   Return to contents Care to post a comment on this article? Set a brushfire-- E-mail this newsletter to a friend Return to contents ***** Am I Supposed To Be Afraid Of This? A nice little commentary by Jack Perry ***** *****   American Understanding Of The 16th Amendment At The Time Of Adoption WERE YOU AWARE THAT OUT OF A POPULATION OF 122 MILLION+, with more than 45 million gainfully-occupied, only 4.171 million tax returns were filed by Americans in 1925? That is, were you aware that the America of 1925, consisting of the generation that had adopted the 16th Amendment 12 years before, found that only about 9% of its adult, working citizens were subject to the tax, even though a vastly higher percentage of these folks earned more money than the very low exemption figure of $1,500? Watch this new film about Americans from the time when everyone knew the meaning of "capitation" and "excise" and knew what the 16th Amendment really did (and didn't do). Get the liberty-enhancing facts, Jack... SHARE THIS VIDEO WIDELY!! You've got to be the teachers, my friends-- or the lessons will not be taught. Share this page, or at least the video link at: http://youtu.be/qd46hg4Wj0Y, and when you do, direct your correspondent to follow-up by taking in the all-important big-picture context for these revelations. Here are links to other recent educational films: 'Educated Americans Love The Income Tax' and 'Busting The Myth-Mongers'. And don't forget this one: 'Now, More Than Ever, It's Time To Learn The Truth About The Income Tax'. "All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed." -I. F. Stone Care to post a comment on this article? Set a brushfire-- E-mail this newsletter to a friend Return to contents ***** In The End, It's A Question Of Morality THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THOSE IN DENIAL OF THE TRUTH ABOUT THE INCOME TAX laid out in cold, hard, unambiguous documentation on the previous pages has always fascinated me.  These folks are presented with a simple choice between an obvious, patently ridiculous fiction and a plain, thoroughly-documented truth which has been being continuously acknowledged for years now even by the peddlers of the absurd fiction.  Yet the deniers still manage to avoid choosing to embrace the truth. On the one hand, these deniers are invited to imagine that their ancestors were drooling idiots, who inexplicably authorized their government agents to seize any portion of anybody’s and everybody’s earnings, at the whim of those agents, in perpetuity.  According to this myth, the only "control" imposed on this utterly despotic power is that those who abuse it can be turned out of office afterwards (by what might then be an utterly ruined and subjugated population).  Simply to describe this fantasy in plain words reveals it to be nonsense-- indeed, even after what most of them would admit has been a life-time of conditioning to the acceptance of mammoth government, not one of the deniers themselves would be so daft as to grant such authority to the state. Click here for the rest of this article ***** The Motor City Witchcraft Trial(s) A NEW BOOK CHRONICLING DOREEN HENDRICKSON'S heresy trial has hit the presses. Find it here, and read all about it! *****   See and hear from some others who "did", too, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Learn how to share YOUR testimonial here.   ***** "[T]axes are not raised to carry on wars; [it is, rather,] that wars are raised to carry on taxes." -Tom Paine   Return to contents   Some Folks Have Already Surrendered To The State's War Of Terror... I'm proud to be a member of our ever-growing CtC community of grown-up Americans who have not. To learn how the Founders anticipated this kind of internal assault on our liberties-- and provided against it-- read 'The Shield' (and share it around widely)! "Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right." -Martin Luther King Jr. Set a brushfire-- E-mail this newsletter to a friend   Don't Keep A Bushel Over Your Candle!! I HAD A CONVERSATION THE OTHER DAY with a warrior still waiting for his first victory, and who is instead being put through an obnoxious stall-and-distract "frivolous" routine (along with his warrior wife). This recently-retired professional man has done everything to comprehensively uphold the law, even going back as far as possible to correct his business filings as well as his personal ones, but so far with no joy. My correspondent had suing on his mind, and wisely so-- the stall-and-distract "frivolous" assertions are calculated to occupy their target while the two-year window to launch a suit to compel the issuance of a thus-far unmade refund closes, and these folks aren't going to get foiled by that cheap ploy. So, I encouraged my friend to proceed, with all possible dispatch. At the same time, though, and more vehemently still, I urged this good man to another, parallel activity which I think even more virtuous, since it offers direct benefit to everyone: WRITING UP HIS STORY FOR PUBLICATION!! Thinking about what this wonderful couple has been put through, I was struck hard by how compelling their story is as evidence of the truth about the tax-- just as is the story of every carefully-scrupulous educated filer and claimant whose claims are being evaded with the manifestly inapt, obviously-dodgy "frivolous" bs. I was also struck by the realization that those who have been victimized by this run-around don't understand the power of their stories! My correspondent said as much to me when I brought up the idea of him writing up his story for his local paper, and/or posting in one place or another on the internet; his initial response was that, 1. He HAD thought about writing it up, but as a book; and 2. He didn't want to write it up until he had gotten a favorable resolution of the matter, thinking that only then would it be a virtuous story to tell. No, no, NO! Both of these notions-- that the whole tale could fill a book, and that it is desirable to be able to report a victory at the end of the story-- are understandable. But both overlook the very important facts that a 1500-word article will get read, while a book might not; a 1500-word article will get written, while a book might never be (and in any event, won't get written and out there NOW, while the need is immediate and high); and the story of illegitimate resistance to a CtC-educated claim is just as powerful an educational tool as a victory-- maybe even more powerful. I ask you all, would the civil-rights movement have gotten the attention it did if the only people who ever told their stories were those NOT subjected to manifest abuse? If Rosa Parks' story had been, "Well, a white guy came on board and demanded that I give up my seat in the front of the bus to him. I refused, and he gave up and went to the back himself," do you think her experience would have inspired anyone to pay attention? More to the point here, evasions are evidence of truths-- just as much so as are admissions or capitulations. Those of you who are attentive will have noted that while most of the EWWBL episodes I post end up as victories, I also post those that are not-- because an unfounded or transparently-evasive dodge by the government is just as much evidence of what the law actually requires as is a surrender to that requirement. When you can show your opponent doing the equivalent of muttering, "Yeah, THAT's the ticket...!" you are showing that he's lying. When you show that he's lying, you are showing that the truth is not on his side, and IS on your side. I REALIZE THAT EXPLAINING HOW THE STATE'S AGENTS ARE LYING is not as easy as simply announcing a victory. But it IS just as compelling to those we need to reach, and in some ways, more so. Despite its ever-increasing ludicrousness, there are still some who cling to the feeble "denial" notion that CtC victories are just a [ten years long, tens of thousands of occasion] "slip through the cracks". These folks convince themselves that CtC-educated victories don't happen because they should, but only happen by accident. But that "it's all been a big mistake" notion, even as deeply delusional as those who resort to it are willing to be, can find no traction when facing demonstrable outside-the-law behavior by the state in response to CtC-educated claims. No one can argue that gimmicked "frivolous" notices making fake and deliberately incorrect references to statutory language, for example, are "slips through the cracks"! SO, HERE'S THE THING, PEOPLE: This community really needs to become a very vocal, very widely-published community of revelatory voices-- RIGHT NOW. Every one of you needs to get busy bearing witness to the truth-- trumpeting your victories and denouncing any and all law-defying, truth-revealing evasion of the truth by its enemies. As I counseled my correspondent the other day, every one of us must write our 1500-word testimonials. Write them for consumption NOT by me or by the CtC-educated, but for reading (or watching-- video stories, even just of you reading or telling your story are great) by those not yet equipped with the liberating truth about the tax. Get them out there-- in your hometown paper, your newsgroups, your chatrooms and your blogs. Email them around, and copy me, please. The ice is breaking, because lies only hold up until the weight of the truth becomes too much for them, but it has a way of hardening back up if the pressure upon it doesn't grow. If all you've had are victories, sing them out! If you've had resistance, sing that out, just as loudly. Use the resources on this site. You don't have to analyze any evasions to which you might have occasion to refer-- just describe them with an eye to pointing out that they are unmistakably knowing and deliberate, and provide the URL at which they can be read about here as the means for explaining how they are manifestly contrary to the law. Understand that EVERY state reaction to CtC IS A RESOURCE on behalf of communicating and emphasizing the liberating truth. But only if you put it out there... One Candle Is Uncovered... Care to post a comment on this article? Set a brushfire-- E-mail this newsletter to a friend Return to contents