Tag Archives: IRS

Will Google SideWiki be Censored?

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(Update: unfortunately, SideWIKI died pretty soon. I can imagine that just too many complaints had come in by site owners that did not want links to the opposite site showing up to visitors to their site. I can see that this feature had quite some potential for misuse, but still sad to see it die. It had the one obvious fault of not being decentralized, which any disrupting service, like torrents, has to be.)

Today was an exciting day for me.

A few years back I realized that there was something missing on the world wide web, something essential – commenting without the consent of the site owner.

There are many web sites – including this one here – that allow comments on all articles. But these comments are definitely censored because the site owner can easily delete comments he does not like. Good web sites will not misuse this power and allow opposition and controversy to stand, even though spammers and pure nuisances will be removed.

But imagine a site like that of the IRS. Could you imagine how the comment section of this site would look like if only spammers and flamers would be removed? Could the site speak of its ‘service’ and still be credible if you could read thousands of comments describing incompetence, evil, and injustice?

That is where I started to plan a system that would allow – through a toolbar widget or similar – to attach comments on any website. One of the basic features of this mechanism would have to be that it could not be centrally shut down, but instead would have to be a distributed system where a part that went down would be replaced immediately by a redundant site on the other side of the planet – a kind of SETI for accountability.

I talked to some potential partners, as this was too big a project for a single fighter, but have to admit that I failed to get it off the ground.

Today I read about Google SideWiki! Could this be what I had felt was missing, could this be the one feature that would keep people away from the dark side of the force?

The fact that it is Google is definitely a disadvantage, as Google has been bullied into doing things that were against the mantra of ‘doing good.” Let’s just hope for the best.

Besides hoping for the best, there is a nice test in progress that investigates the freedom of speech and opinion of this new feature. Somebody posted a pretty nasty post right on the main page of the IRS’s site, wondering how long it will be there. Let’s all go there and observe.

The post is not a nasty post in itself, it is just something that I could imagine the site owner would not want to be on his site. It talks about so-called tax protesters and gives the web site of one of the more grounded protagonists. In all fairness, this post also mentions a site run by – probably – tax attorneys chastising the whole bunch of cooks calling themselves the tax honesty movement. But then again, we are talking about lawyers here and then those that deal in taxes and probably love the system as it feeds them.

This post goes even further and introduces the philosophy site Free Domain Radio, which introduces the idea of a society based on voluntary interaction instead of a government-run bureaucracy that is backed up by violence, claiming a monopoly in initiating violence.

I will certainly keep an eye on the IRS web site to see if this article disappears. If this post stays there that would be akin to the Wikipedia entry for the IRS containing a section about the tax honesty movement, the thoughts that the tax law as written might not apply to most American and thoughts on how society could work perfectly well without an IRS and a central government.

John Lennon: You are the Government

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(Old, revived article from the early 2008.)

With the battle for the presidential nomination raging it is interesting to gather some opinions about those who strive to be our rulers, those who want us to vote for them so that they then may tell us what to do and think.

Yoko Ono, late John Lennon’s wife has a great website, Imagine Peace. On it, I found the following video…

It struck me as fascinating how John Lennon assessed the situation with government and politicians – The people are the government, they have the power.

And isn’t he right?!

I might have mentioned once or twice on this blog (yeah, right – once or twice!) that I am working on the understanding of “The World IS as I see it.” Thus John Lennon’s statement was right on the money for me. He described the only one little thing that needs to happen to change the world, and that is seeing it differently – namely realizing that we do have the power. A requirement for this realization would be to stop blaming others for non-optimal situations.

A nice exercise on the way to reach that goal is to play ‘pretend.’ Thanks to Larken Rose I have a nice example for that. If we take back all the power we think we have given to the government, we can easily imagine what he describes in one of his latest letters to his mailing list.

Dear Subscriber,

This message needs a very prominent disclaimer. This is because the federal control freaks and their hired thugs, who don’t hesitate to resort to overt oppression and violence themselves, are scared to death that one day their victims will decide to do a little “enforcement” of their own. You see, “government” folk can kick down doors, taser people, drag people away, shoot people, imprison people, steal property, and otherwise harass and intimidate the peasantry as often as they like, but if you happen to make some comment about the purpose of the Second Amendment, well then, you’re a TERRORIST! (The feds accusing someone of being a “terrorist” is a little like Hitler calling someone an anti-semite.) So I want to make this perfectly clear, so that even a hired federal goon or a judge can understand it: I am NOT advocating the following scenario. Far from it. I am pointing out how irrational and thug-minded the feds’ method of “debate” is, by seeing what their rationale would look like in the other direction. So, with that being said, imagine the following story appearing in “Domestic Terrorist Weekly”:

TAX EXTREMIST APPREHENDED
April 15, 2010
(c)2010 Associated Militant Press – Washington, DC

This week the Militia Department of Justice announced the arrest of another in a long line of “freedom protestors” who have been thumbing their noses at the American public, duping people into handing over money they didn’t owe. “This should send a strong message to any other freedom protestors that their lawlessness will not be tolerated,” said Militia Attorney General Trooth D. Fender, after the arrest of so-called “district judge” Powe R. Happee, adding that “These scam artists are duping the public and defrauding innocent people, and must be held accountable.

Last month Common Law Court Justice B. Dunn issued an injunction, barring an extremist cult publication called “The New York Times” from printing any more tax-related articles. “This abusive extortion scheme is an affront to all law-abiding citizens,” said Judge Dunn in his ruling, before imposing a ten-year prison sentence on David Cay Johnston, the leader and head guru of the “freedom deniers” sect at the “New York Times” cult.

“If you tell Americans that they owe the tax, you can expect to be forcibly silenced,” said tax expert Ikan Reed. “Even the few judges and IRS agents who have been found not guilty of fraud have had all their money stolen and their houses burned to the ground, as a warning to others who might be considering taking their advice.” Mr. Reed also added, “I mean, if we all owe the tax like they claim, why do these guys keep getting captured and locked up?”

Commissioner of Liberty, Propper T. Wrights, said that he is asking the Militia Congress for more powers to fight against the freedom protestors, including the ability to impose more severe fines and penalties against the promoters of the “61 fraud scheme”–a frivolous argument in which proponents claim that Section 61 of the Internal Revenue Code means that all income is taxable for all Americans. “These frivolous scams must be stopped at all costs, to protect the innocent,” said Mr. Wrights.

Aside from a little pointless “turnabout-is-fair-play” daydreaming, what’s the point here? It is this:

Would kidnapping a few dozen IRS bureaucrats prove that we don’t owe the tax? No. Would hanging a judge or two prove us right? No. Would forcibly silencing opposing views show the validity of our position? No. What proves someone right is EVIDENCE and LOGIC. Any bozo should be able to understand that.

So why is it that the government, and its lapdog media, constantly harp on how much the feds have HURT people who say “861”? (And they’re hoping to do the same to Wesley Snipes.) What kind of moron thinks that THAT is proof that the 861 evidence is invalid? “Hey, we locked some people up, stole lots of money and property, and silenced a bunch of web sites. See? We told you they were wrong!” Nice mentality.

Luckily, most of us outgrew this outlook on life at about age three, when we realized that smacking our sibling in the head didn’t actually prove that we were in the right. Trouble is, neither federal judges nor IRS and DOJ thugs have figured that out yet. They still think locking people up, issuing injunctions and swiping property is an adequate substitute for rational discussion. Or rather, they think it’s okay for THEM to use violence instead of words; but if they even suspect for a second that WE might resort to violence, they run crying to the nearest armed federal thug. What a bunch of hypocritical, spineless cowards.

Sincerely,
Larken Rose

What I want for Larken is that he will take more John Lennon’s viewpoint. I can understand his grudge against the government that put him in jail for a year, but I think once he succeeds in owning this fact as his own creation, all this will go away. We might lose his sharp pen, which I enjoy a lot, but this will be worth the price to pay for his peace and happiness.