Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

["Cristóbal Palmer" <cristobalpalmer AT gmail.com>]

On 7/17/07, Phillip Rhodes <mindcrime AT cpphacker.co.uk> wrote:
> > You keep repeating this assertion.
>
> Yes, that's because it's true.

Then back it up. You're Saying A therefore B, but B doesn't follow from A.

A) The penalty for tax evasion at the federal level is _potentially_
jail time depending on the case.
B) All tax collection in this country is done through an implied
threat of force.

B does NOT necessarily follow from A. For B to follow from A, some
other things have to be true. Let's try a parallel example:

A) The penalty for running a red light is _potentially_ jail time.
B) All stopping at red lights is done because of the implied threat of force.

Well... no. I stop at red lights first and foremost because I don't
want to get in a traffic accident. I also stop at red lights because i
like to be a courteous driver and I don't particularly want to invest
the time and energy in figuring out a viable alternative to traffic
lights.

So back it up. Demonstrate to me that the government believes that
nobody would pay without that implied threat of force and that people
actually do pay because of that implied threat of force. Otherwise
quit being intellectually dishonest.

> The fact is, if you do not
> pay your taxes (or follow a myriad of other ridiculous laws) the
> US government will come and arrest you, at gunpoint, and imprison
> you.

Not for tax delinquency. They'll first send you an angry letter. Then
they may take you to court. Showing up at gunpoint for a tax issue?
That's hella rare.

> That our system is based on initiation of force isn't just
> about taxes, you know.  Look at things like drug laws:  If
> you choose to medicate your own body with substances that the
> US government declares off limit, you are supposedly guilty
> of a crime and can be arrested and imprisoned.  I don't have the
> numbers in front of me, but the number of people imprisoned
> in this country for that, and similar "victimless crimes" is
> ridiculous.

I agree that the "War on Drugs" is a ridiculous farce, but I think
it's odd to lump it in with an argument about taxes.

> Going back to the tax thing for a minute, let me frame it this way:
> Do you approve of the war in Iraq?  If not, how do you feel about
> the fact that our government purports to represent you as it collections
> billions (if not trillions) of tax dollars to use to fight this war
> which has killed thousands of innocent civilians?  And even if you
> personally support the war, can you see why some people would
> have reasonable objections to it?

I'm with you here.

Our invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law. Support for
the so-called "War on Terror" (much less the invasion of Iraq) is the
height of hypocrisy. What about our ongoing _support_ of terrorism in
Colombia? What about our support of terrorism in the West Bank and
Gaza? What about our support of the Contras? All of these meet the
classic definition of Terrorism as given by our own US government.
Bush, Cheney and others in this current Administration should be tried
for war crimes. Since that seems unlikely to happen any time soon, I
suggest we Impeach them. Did you see the Bill Moyers show on
Impeachment?

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07132007/profile.html

Yes, I agree that disgusting stuff is being done in our name, but I
don't think that making taxes voluntary ("starving the beast") is the
way to fix it.

> So, we pay taxes to pay for "the common good" or whatever. But nobody
> who believes the war is NOT "the common good" can simply choose to
> quit funding it, since we're forced to pay "our" taxes.

Well, yes and no. I actually personally know two families that have
either become tax resistors or have intentionally gone into poverty as
an anti-war protest. This isn't practical for most people, but it can
be done. Personally, I try to get involved with groups that lobby our
representatives for the change that I feel is important. If you feel
strongly about the war, I encourage you to go sign up here:

http://impeachbushcheney.net/

that's a website run by a local here to the Triangle.

>  So we're
> paying for a mixture of things that we might agree with (building a
> given highway or something) and things we may oppose.

Yep. That's the beauty of a pluralist society.

> >
> > Did you know that the equivalent of the IRS in Perú has its own police
> > force? They have some real teeth down there. If you lived in Perú, you
> > might have an argument. Here... not so much.
>
> That's just an implementation detail. The IRS here has police, even if
> the chain of command is longer.  Break a federal law, any federal law,
> and they will find somebody to come and arrest you.

I beg to differ. My uncle and grandparents were essentially put under
house arrest and had a lot of assets seized by SUNAT (SUPERINTENDENCIA
NACIONAL DE ADMINISTRACION TRIBUTARIA) _without_ a lawsuit, angry
letter, etc. etc. Guys with guns just showed up. My grandfather
started the most widely-read Latin American car magazine, btw. In
_this_ country, you've got a _lot_ of steps before guns come out. Oh,
and things worked out okay with my folks in Perú.

> I'd say the court got it 100% right on Lochner then.

You should try reading the case law and commentary. You realize that
you've put yourself in the wingnut fringe when it comes to Supreme
Court analysis?

> > Also, Lochner is intellectually
> > dishonest: the bakers didn't actually have the bargaining power to
> > negotiate for shorter hours, so they didn't have a real freedom of
> > contract to begin with.
>
> There are so many problems with that.  If a given baker is being asked
> to work more hours than he/she wants to work, he/she can choose to
> become something other than a baker.

That's exactly why Lochner was dishonest: the bakers involved did NOT
have that freedom. People working in the bakeries were the poor,
low-skilled workers who did not have alternatives; they were roughly
the equivalent of NC's migrant farm laborers.

> Or the bakers can unionize and
> bargain collectively.

If the bakery owners weren't abusive to union organizers, yes. Why
don't you go read more about the case and find out what the actual
plight of the bakers was?

> And since we have the idea of property
> ownership, private business, and capitalism, a given baker could save
> their wages and eventually start their own bakery (or something else).

This is an Adam Smith fairy tale. Have you ever heard of this company
called Microsoft? Did you hear about them being convicted of unfair
competition? Do you think Microsoft is an outlier?

> All this tells me is that our courts have been wrong for the last 6
> years.  And that's not surprising given our precedent and case-law
> based legal system.

How can you know this without reading the cases? How can you be so
convinced of your position with overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

> > Unelected judges were unduly substituting
> > their values for those of popularly elected legislatures to protect
> > rights that were not expressly stated in the Constitution" (596).
>
> So rights only exist if they're enumerated in the Constitution?

Reread the statement. UNELECTED judges were unduly SUBSTITUTING THEIR
VALUES for those of popularly elected legislatures to [do something].
According to some ultra-conservative theorists, the Supreme Court's
sole purpose is to interpret what is explicitly in the Constitution.
The something the Lochner era courts were trying to do was protect
rights not expressly stated in the Constitution. I never said (neither
did the original author) that only rights expressly granted in the
Constitution were valid. The point is that, by conservative standards,
what the Lochner era Court was doing was bogus.

> That begs the question of whether or not "fair labor laws" are fair,
> necessary and/or beneficial.

Again: do you like your weekends? I do.

Cheers,
--
Cristóbal M. Palmer
Love as a predictor of technological success: http://tinyurl.com/2em6zs