12:22 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

It Isn't So

My buddy and drinkin'/fightin' pal Doug Kenline says on Dec 23rd over on his WTP Georgia blog that Devvy Kidd, Executive Director of We The People Congress, has removed him without an explanation.

If this is what happened, Devvy doesn't have the authority to do it.

Per her contract with WTPC, Devvy has the power to remove any coordinator for cause.

However, removal for cause requires investigation and confirmation of cause before the fact of removal, implies the opportunity to be heard in the process, and requires that detailed notification of cause be included in the removal notice. And common courtesy asks that one be given a chance to disprove the charge(s) or atone and correct oneself.

Kinda like what happened between me and he. Live and learn, make it better.

Basically, it's a matter of due process. But, in this case it appears, Denied!

Stand up for your right to due process, Doug.

Ignore arbitrary and unauthorized edicts.

There are a few serious things wrong at WTP. One of them is that Devvy does this now and then. Another is that Bob fails to communicate. And there are other things.

If we can't talk about them, then what have we got? Only two choices: either concede to caprice and waste what's been built by letting it deterioriate into just another authoritarian monster, or hold the ground and defend the declared vision and purpose against all comers, including WTP HQ (Devvy). Even against Bob, if need be.

Maybe you did give WTPC cause to remove you. Maybe HQ figured you had embarrassed WTPC even more than they have embarrassed it themselves. But if so, Devvy must say so, with specifics.

Meanwhile... Ignore it, Doug.

        8:53 AM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Proof of Nothing

A refund from the IRS is proof of nothing.

Now and then someone will come breathlessly running by with a photocopy of a refund check or checks from the IRS, or a letter telling them that they'll be getting a refund. And they'll tell you that it's proof that their nifty new way of filing works.

Yet they cannot show facts that corroborate their claim.

This is not to say that there is no nifty new way of filing that works. Heck, there may be nifty old ways of filing that work, too. But the first question would have to be, What do we mean by "works"?

If all we mean is that it gets a refund, then sure, almost anything will "work" for a while. But even there, the claim is questionable, because we need to know if it will work forever and for everyone in similar circumstances.

It's the "forever" part where it usually breaks down.

The IRS refund policy is to process out refunds as quickly as possible. This prevents them having to handle a lot of extra calls about where the refunds are. And it limits the amount of interest that must be paid on monies held.

This policy causes returns to be processed quickly for numerical accuracy only. If the numbers add up, and the computer doesn't flag anything, the refund is automatic.

Then the returns are forwarded to a review process that checks for facual errors. This is where allowances and deductions are questioned. This is where the IRS catches the nifty new filing method and objects to it.

This is from 2-5 years *after* the return was filed.

So here is what too often happens.

Tax Whiz has an inspiration and files a 1040-whatever form with the IRS using a nifty new approach, and gets a prompt refund. Sighs a big sigh of relief, and heads to market with the money, to support the economy. He tells a few people about it; they caution him that he'll burn in Hell.

Next year, he does it again. Same thing. Money comes back, money gets spent, dire warnings of Hell.

But now he's emboldened. He files amended 1040s for the three years previous to his using the nifty new method. And he gets the refunds! He's ecstatic. It works!, he says to himself and everyone within the sound of his voice and keyboard.

Eureka! I have found it! 5 years of refunds! Or so he thinks.

But it's really only been a year and a half since he started using this nifty new method. Right about now his first new method return is up for factual review.

Meanwhile, people are clamoring for his nifty new method so they can get their refunds too, and even if reluctantly, he goes into the business of helping people use the nifty new methods. Of course, it needs a name, and everybody already calls it by his name, so he makes it official: it's the Tax Whiz Nifty New Method. Or, since it so clearly resembles a silver bullet, the Whiz-bang Method.

A bunch of people pay TW the money he needs to live on and travel and speak to groups, and he shows them how to do the Whix-bang Method. TW gets onto talk radio and even a TV spot here and there, and everyone's all a-chatter about the Whiz-bang method and how hundreds, even thousands, of prople are getting quick unquestioned refunds.

Then one day someone doesn't get a refund. He calls TW and complains. They talk it over and decide to pressure the IRS to perform. They do whatever they guess will work. Or they go in search of the next-level Whizzer who might know what to do when IRS holds out. Generally, they end up flailing about, spinning between competing 'practitioners' who spend as much time selling themselves agains their competition as they do selling themselves on the merits of what they can do.

But it's all downhill from there. Why?

Becasue just before the last guy filed his amended 1040s, the IRS auditors noticed a new numerical pattern showing up in the computer results of returns they'd been feeding it. They cross-checked with the crew who does factual review, and they've identified a set of returns that used the Whiz-bang Method. They've reviewed the Method and found that they have a rule they can use to refute it, and now the refunds stop.

And the inquiries start. And the investigation begins.

It's been maybe 4 years. The grind finally gets around to the Whiz-bang Method.

And a bunch of people get hurt.

Why?

Because as Gramma used to say, "Only time will tell."

Because simply getting a refund is Proof of Nothing.

When I see these claims and photocopies, my first thought is always, "How many years?" How many years since the first refund?

If it's less than five, it isn't even time to relax yet. More than seven? Maybe it's okay to schedule a celebration another three years out.

But it will never be time to get confident. Because the IRS can discover a pattern or method at any time, and begin to onject to it then. 10, 12 years down the road, if he was quiet about it and told no one, TW himself might be the trigger, when his latest return trips the fancy new computer algorithm the IRS just bought and installed to compare present and past returns for new red flags.

The IRS may be limited in how far back it can go in "correcting" returns and collecting on them, but all that does is cut off the first few years. It does not mean that they can't start now and get what they can.

So my concern is that it takes something a little stronger than a successful filing method, no matter how well it might seem to work, or even for how long.

This monster is not going quietly into the night. It will take a major court victory (yeah, that's waiting right out there on the bright shiny horizon of our stellar judicial system, as upright and independent that it is). Or an Act of Congress (right).

Or a "secret weapon" surprise. That might be possible. One that would "work".

It could happen.

But in the meantime, everything that has happened so far is Proof of Nothing.

        12:04 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Say! It isn't so!

There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that I have quit WTP.

After all, I'm the loyal opposition! Without me, all that remains is a giant step back toward a clone-world of potential Yes-men.

I can't let that happen, now can I?

LawfulGov.org is a parallel, a supplement, rather than an instead. Of course it could become a replacement, too, but that wouldn't be what I wanted.

No, I don't think that I am all that stands between WTP and oblivion. But what I speak for certainly is. And there are too few of us speaking for it. So, every one of us counts.

Even me.

1, 2, 3, 4... Omigod, Captain, I can't make sense of these orders! Are we to charge without weapons, or continue to hurry up and wait?! And who IS that naked guy out in front of the column?! And just how did we get here? This is a cul-de-sac behind enemy lines!!! Incoming? What the hell do you mean, incoming? We're not ready yet!

        2:10 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Fred Comments

Our great friend Fred Smart comments on "The Doug & Allen Show".

He wonders what set it off.

Doug has apologized on his blog, and David Goodyear has accepted (his archives weren't delivering as I wrote this; to review David's comments, scroll down to Dec 10th).

I accept Doug's apology as well. But not without an explanation, so similar things can be avoided in the future.

Doug says,

I was talking with David Goodyear and Allen Hacker as if they were high school drinking buddies. I could say any off the wall thing to my high school drinking buddies and it would always just be laughed off as all in good fun.

I think perhaps I felt that I was more of a friend with Allen Hacker. And in the blogosphere and, I've noticed also in the past, with email and all forms of electronic communication, words are often misunderstood.

Blogging teaches us to write better. I suppose it just takes losing one or two good friends to get somebody to straighten up and learn a lesson sometimes.

I would never have talked like that to Bob Schulz or Charlie Beall. Why would I disrespect Allen Hacker and David Goodyear by talking like that? Only because I felt a little more buddy buddy with them I guess.

I understand. But there are a couple of other ways to look at it.

What we say here will be viewed from many perspectives over the years, and it won't always be found as a neat and aligned package. Each post should be written to stand on its own merits, and represent within itself what it actually says, so that missing links and fragmented histories won't lead to erronous interpretations out of context. That's one good reason to keep it a little more formal. Posterity won't always know the greater context that revealed when you were and when you weren't joking, or complaining, or playing the fool.

Here's another reason: "taking license". Taking license is what a person does when he thinks he holds a special status with someone. And while that person may see it in a light of great affection, the world (and the other person) may not.

A vivid and all-too-common example is what happens in marriage. Before the license was issued, both parties were respectful, negotiating, and accommodating. After the license is formalized, each to some degree relaxes and begins to conduct business as though s/he has a claim on the other. I like this example so much because it involves both types of license: the metaphorical one that goes with the bone-headed idea that bad behavior is excused where intimacy reigns, and the actual physical piece of paper whereby stupid lovers beg for and are granted permission by the state to take ownership of each other's person and property.

So, Doug took license. He's done that a lot. And with me, he finally went too far.

I never kept drinking buddies who couldn't behave themselves. Where I grew up, most drinking led to brawling, because somebody always went too far and when told to back off, got belligerent and then got his drunken ass leveled. We called that, "being taken down a hitch." The experience was intended to be a humbling, and if it didn't work, after a while that guy would find himself drinking alone.

I mentioned that I had lost respect for Doug. It actually happened over time, watching him be way too much about himself and his problems and not nearly enough about his loved ones and friends. Over time I had come to think of him as an adolescent. Sorry Doug, but I takes it the way I sees it.

Doug said "it was a joke". Which part? I agreed that the first round was a joke, which is why I responded in parody. But what I got back can't honestly be called joking. Calling David Goodyear and I old men and accusing us of being rich and therefore insensitive, and saying "screw" us, can't be in the same class. It's not joking, it's baltantly insulting. In every bar I've ever fallen down in, thet kinda jawin' is a direct request for a broken nose.

I love a good laugh. When I'm not crying, I try to be laughing. But I live in two worlds, neither of which has a place for the kind of behavior Doug spat out that day.

One of those worlds is the Grand Illusion, where the US government has become the open enemy of the people, and in that context we don't have time to waste on bullshit, nor may we tolerate people who even only inadvertently serve the terror campaign being waged against us.

In the other, more metaphysical world, manifestation flows from ideation, and ideas such as those Doug was manufacturing for us all are not where I want to live.

I'm not fighting the enemy, I'm working to out-create him. While the enemy's proactively tearing down the country, and all of my friends are fighting a losing war of attrition trying to stop him, I'm trying to set it up so we can simply ignore him and set about building what we want, and firmly knock down without hesitation anyone who's ignorant enough to get in the way. That included Doug when he tried to reduce it into the despicable with his ill-considered "paytriot" remark.

Either way, from now on I have no atention for bad behavior. I won't contribute to its manifestation by recognizing it as having any place in my world, and I won't play footsie with people who come from whatever places that kind of stuff pretends to be acceptable.

In Jr High, several of the guys got caught up in 3-Stooges / Don Rickles garbage. They thought the jokes and put-downs were funny. I saw them as subtle king-of-the-hill maneuverings to destroy the self-esteem of the butts toward whom they were directed. I stopped knowing those guys. Over time, so did most everyone else. By high school, they were a nasty little clique of about five superior-atitude rude boys. By their sophomore year, every one of them had had his dumb ass kicked three or four times by one senior or another.

I'm reminded of the Chris Carter TV show, Millenium: "This is the life we chose; this is who we are."

Not me. I've chosen differently. Wanna travel with me? Leave the adolescent malarkey behind. Want my respect? Start building something.

All manifestation is affirmative. Attention is the creative catalyst.

I don't have any attention to invest in darkness.

If you want to live in the light, Doug, you are welcome at my table. Anybody else, too. Just do it.

That's all it takes.

-0-

        2:53 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Tap Dancer on Sand

Doug Kenline Responds:

Allen Hacker

Doug explicitly said he wanted a plan that required no work:

It was just a joke Mongo, calm down.

I like flyin' off the handle here in the blogosphere. It's good for the soul.

Now reading more Allen Hacker. Sheesh, the things you gotta do to get these guys to say something.

Mohammed Ali (floating like a butterfly) he's not. I'm neither impressed nor convinced. Not even caring.

You can't side-step this thing, Doug. You've sinned. You're damned.

Welcome to Hell. There's no room here for jokes. Or excuses. Or lies.

Got nothing left to say to you.

-0-

        1:42 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

D.K Flies off the Handle

My Buddy Doug Kenline wants to screw me.

Guess he didn't really want what he asked for. (See my previous, immediately below.)

Again.

Doug explicitly said he wanted a plan that required no work:

I need help building a business. Step one is I need a plan. Step two is there can't be any work involved. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Now, I figured he was joking in Part 2, but one good chuckle deserves/invites another, so I offered up a plan that met that requirement. One that millions of people (mis)use every year, with predictable results so statistically proven that they are guaranteeable.

Thing is, it didn't also satisfy Doug's implied condition (Step 0?) that "building a business" required that he like the plan. Obviously he didn't like it, and has since said so.

The part that tweaks me is that either Doug can make a joke but he can't take one, or that he wasn't joking and didn't want to hear about reality.

Either way he took it personally and got disappointingly nasty.

Beyond the 'scew Allen' type of comment, he boasts that he can outwork me any day. As if he knows me well enough to spit that particular piece of vomit.

I can build a house from the ground up with my bare hands. All Doug can do is put in the network toys. I can do that too, along with all the other low- and high-tech utilities. The only way he'll ever outwork me is with his jaw.

Doug accuses me of being old and rich. That's a laugh. As if my age were relevant, he'd oughta be lookin' at when it's his turn to be 55 and listen to the next self-righteous whippersnapper lip off about yet another irrelevancy.

He's sour on MLM, so he uses his failure there to denigrate one of my previous suggestions. He apparently is so blind to my ritzy neighborhood that he doesn't know that the daughter of my across-the-street neighbor has made her million in MLM and coached into existence a few additional millionaires in the process. But he knows MLM doesn't work and is beneath him.

'Cause maybe the only reason Doug is an alleged patriot is he's in trouble with the IRS. Other than that, he appears to be fine with government propaganda about "pyramid schemes" and whatever.

And he says this:

And don't ask me to go trying to recruit people into some "paytriot" scheme make money selling people their civil rights back to them

Huh.

Wasn't too long ago I said right here in this blog that one of the divide-and-conquer suicidal aspects of the so-called patriot movement is that if anybody proposes a way to pull it off that involves people actually supporting the guys who do the work, accusations will fly about 'patriots for profit'.

Thank you Doug for proving me right.

It's interesting, I think, that on the one hand, it's okay to contribute starvation-level pennies to people like Rose Lear now that she's destitute, while on the other hand viciously ridiculing any proposal that might have provided her pre-disaster support as well as empower the work she was doing before becomng totally broke and alone.

Shame on you Doug for working for the enemy.

Well, okay, Doug, you are fine with getting emotional and mean and unduly belligerent in public, let's see if you can take it.

I'll leave the part about how you're an unmitigated hypocrite to David Goodyear, since you included him in your diatribe as well, and also because he's tried to point that character flaw out to you before.

I'll just put it to you this way.

You have a Trans AM and at least one other car. I sold my car several months ago to pay the rent for a month during which I spent too much time doing WTP / patriot stuff instead of working. Now I don't have a car. Never mentioned it here, though; meanwhile, you've been crying like a baby about maybe losing your fancy car.

I passed up a really big job running a complete network-support unit in Hawaii for two years so I could stay here and provide web services for WTP, only to have Bob breach the contract because his financial strings-puller refused to fund the start-up costs after telling Bob he would support him all the way in whatever Bob thought was the right thing to do. So Last year I went into defacto bankruptcy and have not yet recovered, partly because as a libertarian of principle I refuse to file bankruptcy and cheat people. Meanwhile, you keep your job and do not much more with the rest of your time, really, than yak through your blog all day long about next to nothing most of the time.

That's enough pissing contest. Here's the bottom line.

Doug, you are a self-centered greedy crybaby who has no respect for anybody. You are a negative contributor to the movement overall, what with all your public fear-mongering that works neatly for the IRS and not to any constructive end.

You turned me on to the blog. For that I am grateful. But you don't get to pile a load of ongoing crap on top of that one laurel.

You've consumed your share of my respect, so that now I have none left for you.

Enjoy your braggart's job, your shallow temporary toys, and your childish fantasies of being important in the world.

'Cause right now, they are all you've got.

No marriage, no kids, no posterity, and a shrinking circle of friends.

A dead-end event horizon.

That's some claim to fame you've got there, kiddo.

Time to start thinking about what's wrong at home instead of throwing stones across the street.

Before it's too late.

-0-

        2:25 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

A Business Plan for Doug

My good buddy Doug Kenline asks for a business plan:

Business Plan

I need help building a business. Step one is I need a plan. Step two is there can't be any work involved. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

I have great news...

That plan already exists, and is used by about 80%* of all new businesses every year!

The plan is deceptively simple.

You won't believe how easy it is. Absolutely no work at all.

And the results are 100% predictable!

No uncertainty, no surprises.

The Plan:

1. Declare yourself to be in business. Tell all your friends. Spend a ton of money (or however little you wish) on PR, an office, a leased mercedes or BMW, buy a couple of really nice suits for those power luncheons....

2. That's it. Just keep doing #1. That's the fun part. Don't bother with inventing something, or locating a valid product, or creating or franchising a desirable service, or marketing or sales. Those things are no fun. Besides, they violate requirement number two: they are work.

This plan will work, predictably, with a scientifically sound result.

I guarantee it.

Note:

* 80% of all new businesses fail in the first year.

        3:24 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Update

Joe Bannister, former IRS agent turned Truth-in-Taxation advocate, posts details from his Monday sanctions heraring.

Background info on the case is available at freedomabovefortune.com

        9:27 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Gotcha!

Dubya Charged With Treason And Murder

Read all about it!

        10:12 AM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Stupid

The Second Amendment is, at best, only 40% of the reason the people, as in the vast group of individuals acting in their personal and private capacities, have an absolute and inalienable right to keep and bear arms.

I haven't yet studied all of the documents in the Silveira case, but I will have done so soon. Meanwhile, I can tell you quite confidently that this case was probably not heard by the Supreme Court because it did not raise the correct question, or did not ask the question correctly, and not because we don't have the right to keep and bear arms personally.

That's what usually happens. Almost-bright lawyers miss the point in the question they pose, and the Supreme Court either declines to follow that path, or worse, it answers a badly-put question as asked, which leaves in place the illusion of settled law when in fact the issue was not even addressed.

Of course, sometimes we do also have a stupid Supreme Court, as in, in my opinion, when the Court answers a wrong question correctly and obfuscates an issue. Or when it fails to do the right thing by a proper question, no matter what the reason.

One can only hope that the Court declined to hear the case because my suspicions are correct: that the case did not present them with the question that cries out to be answered, so they rejected the question that was presented, and now sit and wait for the correct question.

Of course, that would border on the stupid anyway, since the Court has several times in the past waived its own guidelines and expanded the scope of a question in order to address a 'larger' issue. Crandall v. Nevada leaps to mind as an excellent example.

Meanwhile, we out here in the real world also sit and wait, knowing that because the Court's refusal to hear an issue is always taken to mean that they are letting stand a lower court's ruling, in all but the Fifth Circuit's jurisdiction, you have no politically enforceable right to the means to defend yourself, your family, friends and neighbors, or your property, or to serve as the last line of national defense.

The Belligerent Claimant in Person says, To Hell with all of that. The BCiP does not yield his rights for any reason. The government is not sovereign over the individual, the individual in this country is a Citizen and not a Subject.

The Belligerent Claimant in person will ignore all unconstitutional pretenses of law, including gun laws. The BPiC will eventually create the necessary circumstances to challenge all such laws properly, ask the correct question correctly, and put this folly to bed permanently.

That failing, sooner or later there will be hell to pay.

Meanwhile, the issue is not settled.

        1:07 AM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Give it a Name

The US Supreme Court shirked its duty this week.

Dead Mercenary points a finger at them.

Amen.

        9:25 AM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Unreasoning Blunders

David Goodyear tells the truth about being motivated by faith alone.

        6:53 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Paris

Notice the new listing in the left column, Guerilla Funk.

Pay some attention to this guy!

Thanks to Dave Toney, Doug Kenline and David Goodyear for the heads-up.

        12:30 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Telling it like it is....

Doing just that is Angel Shamaya, executive director over at www.keepandbeararms.com.

Thanks David Goodyear for the heads-up.

        12:20 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Who Knew?

George Kysor tells us of a lawsuit filed by a 9-11 widow agaisnt Bush et al, for racketerring in the WTC event and their subsequent handling of it.

        4:00 AM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Iyam What Iyam

E/INTP

100th percentile: Math, Language, Visual/Spacial, Logic, Creativity.

000th percentile: Suffering fools and tyrants.

        9:46 AM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

I Have A Plan

Doug Kenline mentions that I am the only blogger [he knows of] who has presented a business plan [that will create income for people of our stripe]. But he doesn't like its product or structure; it's MLM. In truth it has three products, and you can choose from among them if you don't like any one or two of them. There's a food supplement, a medical benefit plan for the un- or under-insured, and a life effectiveness training activity. Oh, and a leads service for marketing the entire deal.

(Heh... It just occurred to me that I can do a shameless promotion like that on my own blog and nobody can rightfully deluge me with email bombs bitching about it. Hmmm....)

Anyway, I can understand Doug's aversions.

Besides, I do have an alternative. So here and now, let me make it clear that I am the first blogger Doug knows who has put forth TWO business plans. At least two, depending on how you look at it.

My alternative is also an alternative to the usual go-broke-and-go-away-griping mode of doing the patriot thing. I proposed it to WTP HQ, but they let personal issues and fears from the past get in the way.

No biggie. That is, after all, the way of the world as we know it.

Besides, as a result I formed Citizens for Lawful Government, aka LawfulGov.org. Bring forth success from failure. Spurred on by a certain bitter taste, I made lemonade.

Note that LawfulGov.org was and is not intended to be a replacement for WTP. More like a parallel thing to pick up the slack of all those political things that WTP won't be doing. And even, also, to assist WTP in what it IS doing.

How is LawfulGov.org a plan?

LawfulGov.org is designed to compensate its facilitators. Where before, you joined a group on a volunteer basis and gradually got consumed for all you had to give, LawfulGov.org is designed to cover your operating expenses and more, all the way to the point that if you work at it and live in an average town, you will earn a full-time living and be able to evangelize freedom full time.

I know, some so-called dedicated hardcore ptriots will accuse you of being a "patriot for profit" if you get paid to do this stuff, but the simple response is to ask them, "So, when did your approach restore the Republic, and why don't I see the evidence of your achievement?" You could ask them that. Or, if you're not a libertarian (we don't initiate force) you could bend them over your knee and paddle them for getting in the way. Or wash their mouths out with soap.

Back to the point: a business plan.

I actually liked that Doug referred to such as a business plan. Because it's more than a way to get paid and so remaining able to do what must be done... even beyond being a way to get paid directly for doing what must be done... it really is an actual business plan for accomplishing what must be done. That's something we've never had before: a business plan for the business of restoring the Republic.

Thanks Doug, for the idea!

What is the plan? Well, it starts out a lot like Bob's idea for WTP. An office in every county, state, (and municipality, eventually), and in Wash. D.C., from which vantage point The People keep a vigilant eye on the government.

The first big difference, however, is in the scope of what LawfulGov.org will do. WTP is "not political". Even though WTP Congress IS incorporated as a political organization, Bob has stressed that WTP is not political. LawfulGov.org is brashly political.

Next, WTP is incorporated. It is IRC 501(c) (3) and (4) priviledged. LawfulGov.org is not incorporated, and is "grandfathered" under IRC 508. This means that under the 501 yoke, the IRS can tell WTP what it can and can't do, and how it must keep and explain its financials. And that under 508, the IRS can't even talk to LawfulGov.org with any expectation of an answer.

Finally, and of utmost importance at the semantic level, LawfulGov.org is run by an accomplished business-world manager, where WTP is run by an MPA. MPA? Master's degree in Public Administration. That's a degree given to people who master how to run the government. Operate bureaucracy. Render and obtain compliance. An MPA is not an MBA. Business Administration versus Public Administration. Two entirely different objectives. The one (MBA) focuses on delivering a product at a profit while the other (MPA) focuses on making people do things regardless of cost.

True, the MPA among us can argue that he's just trying to make the government comply with the law. I'd agree, and I supported him all the way to bankruptcy in that ideal. But along the way I analyzed, as a good business consultant should do, what the hell was going on that this group flashed and began to burn, and pulses up and then shrinks regularly, but does not truly grow and accomplish its goals.

Yes, its fits and starts have clambored along to the point that it now has an HQ in Virginia, and an anticipated lawsuit on the right to petition.

But then again, it has four petitions into the government of which only one is being prosecuted while two of the other three are where the public's hearts and recruitability are, the lawsuit is stalled because WTP doesn't effectively raise money, and across the past year since the Freedom Drive maybe 400 coordinators have evaporated, some replaced, some not.

Money. It's the mother's milk of politics.

Oh, that's right. WTP is not political. I keep forgetting. I keep failing to "get it" that WTP is about making the government comply with the law, but somehow not doing that by employing politics. Why then, that explains it. Exempt from politics in a political arena, might as well claim exemption form the laws of finance as well.

To me, that's fantasyland. A pretty picture and an energizing charismatic leader, but as it turns out, no substance and no management.

No business plan. I need more than that.

So here's where I'll post the business plan: LawfulGov.org. As a business plan, Executive Summary format. Soon.

Meanwhile, there's the part Doug is interested in: compensation for patriot activism. I'll lay it out in terms of my own neighborhood in a moment. The cities are a little bigger here, and then so is the cost of living.

It costs somewhere between $4K and $6K to live here in Mountain View, California, +/- the 158th richest and most expensive city in the US. That may seem like a lot to folks back in Three Forks Montana, Where I grew up. But an average house in Three Forks can be had for about $110K; in Mountain view, the median is $340K. Three times as much.

By the way, it truly is all relative. When we moved away from Three Forks, we had turned down a two-story Victorian with a full basement on two lots as "too expensive": $3K!

And anyway, how many computer engineers can live and work in Three Forks? Or even Bozeman, which at that time had 36,000 people to Three Fork's 971?

Mountain View has about 72,000 people. It's like a little town in the middle of a metropolis, with one exception. More high-tech companies got started here or in an adjacent city than in all other locations in the country combined. So, property values shot way up, fast. And even though you now see a LOT of vacancy signs on apartments, and hotel rates have crashed, houses have only gone down a net 10%: the cottage next door, a 1.5-bedroom 1-bath "charmer" sold a few months ago for $678K in a bidding war.

Enough about that. I'll probably move someday, but so what? We'll still need a Mountain View Facilitator. Someone will have to live here and do the work of LawfulGov.org, and pay the bills that go with living here. And Sunnyvale. And Los Gatos. And Milpitas.... 14 cities in this county, and one of them, San Jose, with about a million people of its own. Clearly, a single County Facilitator is an insignificant grain of sand. seven local counties averaging a million or more people each. And WTP can't even field a County Coordinator for each one? You tell me what's wrong with that picture!

The first thing WTP did wrong in its Congress Coordinator recruiting was to create an unqualified free-for-all. First come, first served, everybody else locked out. You didn't get the job of State Coordinator because you were necessarily qualified, all you had to do was hear about it first and get to the signup page before anybody else. The second mistake was the abject lack of instruction and direction. The Freedom Drive happened to the degree that lucky coordinator signups were to be able to make it happen on their own from county to county and state to state. In fact, It seems to me that almost everybody who came to D.C. was a coordinator or delegated proxy for one who couldn't make it. We had about 800 coordinators, about 800 people showed up. What does that mean? Essentially, the organization showed up and forgot or didn't know how to bring the public along! From a business management perspective, that is a big enough failure to warrant firing everyone in the PR and Marketing departments all the way down to the janitors. Ah, but it was indeed a fine love-fest, and I too enjoyed it as that.

But we need to have an impact. Parties and conventions are good, but they don't move the body politic. Oh! That's right! WTP is not political.

Like I said, I just don't get that.

Back to the plan: the structure, the compensation and the duties. Yes, Virginia, there are duties. You don't really think you can earn a living wishing hoping and going to coffee klatches, do you?

A National Facilitator, facilitating 13+ Regional Facilitators (Circuit Court jurisdictions), facilitating 50 State Facilitators each coordinating Senate and HR District Facilitators AND County Facilitators, with each County Facilitator facilitating City Facilitators.

The organization will fill from the bottom up. County Facilitators will be promoted from City Facilitators, State from County, etc. You become a city facilitator and prove yourself competent, and move up as the vacancy exists. Naturally, early-ins will have more rapid advancement opportunity, but advancement should not be the primary value: this isn't an ego trip. It's going to be a difficult journey, and dilletantes won't survive.

Here are the preliminary numbers.

Mountain View had about 72,000 people. Our target is one in 1,000 the first year. That's 72 supporters, members and volunteers. We'll let them choose which they'll be. All will contribute financial support of at least $20 monthly. Most will be merely supporters and members, delegating their vigilance responsibilities to the Facilitator and getting off cheap for $240 a year.

72 contributors at $20 each is a gross contribution of $1440. The city facilitator gets 50%: $720. The county facilitator gets 15% from that income stream: $216. It's not a living yet, but it covers time and expenses already.

The target support-membership is 5%. Multiply these numbers for the target result. It's $720x5=$3600 per month for the Mountain View Facilitator.

The next city over is Sunnyvale, 101,000 people. City support revenue first-year 1% target is 101 people times $20/month equals $2020/month, Sunnyvale city facilitator gets 50% = $1010 per month. 5% final target results in $5050 per month income for the facilitator.

And so it goes. 14 cities in Santa Clara County, maybe an average of 60 supporters each in the first year and 300 final target, times 14 (840/4200), times $20/month ($16,800-84,000), times 15%, equals the County Facilitator being paid somewhere around $2520 first year, and final target at about $12,600.

Wow! The County Facilitator will be able to buy a house without having to eat rice and beans for 30 years!

Actually, there will be a cap on each possible facilitator's compensation, at something like twice the average professional salary in that area. Any "extra" money that results from those caps will be put into a make-up pool for facilitators in smaller counties that don't have a prayer of raising that kind of money for their facilitators' support.

But it's not going to be a hobby. It's a job, and a difficult one. That's why I insist that you need to be paid for doing it. You won't get rich, but you'll do okay.

Some details to know. Small towns and rural counties will actually get a greater support rate; more people in small towns and rural areas like what we're doing. That will help make up for the smaller numbers. Add in the make-up pool mentioned above and you just might make this work.

1% in the first year is an absolute minimum. If you can't get that many people moving (so few?), you're going to fail anyway.

It takes between 3.5 and 5% of a population holding the same idea for that idea to take hold and begin to "spontaneously" jump from person to person. It takes that many before the next level of people will feel safe accepting the "new" idea. It expands rapidly (exponentially) after the first-level jump.

Thus our real target of 5%: you make a living and can do it full-time, and when the idea takes off on its own, the increased workload will require you to do this full-time just to handle the response.

The truth is, you should be able to recruit more than 6% without any trouble. They are out there, looking for our solution. Your job is to find them. Therefore, this is not a sales job, it's a recruiting job. Let them know what you've got, sign them up as they respond. Work your way through the entire city and then do it again. That is, do it again if you're not already too busy recruiting the referrals from the people you've already brought in.

My guess is, once you get the first several, you'll already be getting referrals. People tend to know other people in the same thought-groups. Tell your supporters that the money they contribute is their ticket to delegate the actual vigilance-response work, but it doesn't excuse them from two other duties. They still have to come up with referrals as often as possible, and they still should be on the lookout for, and reporting, unlawful government.

The entire operation will be tied together by a web presence known as a Neticulum. Every city, county, state and district will have a coordinated website that is part of the whole. The facilitator's "local" website will be his primary tool. He'll print his flyers and business cards from there, all his contributors will donate through his site (logging him as the source to account his compensation), and local chat and email group functions will tie his group together as well as giving them access to their state, regional and national groups. And more. At any rate, in his recruiting, his biggest job will be to simply find people who have some interest in the constitution, in lawful government, and steer them to his local website. The website will provide all the education the contact needs to make a decision and sign up.

10% of all support contributions will go into a legal defense fund, rules to be formalized soon.

The remaining 30% will be distributed among the State, Regional and National levels.

The Neticulum operator will not be compensated from support donations. That compensation will come in the form of a commission on all of the advertising that the websites will sell to businesses that want to become known to "our kind of people".

The Neticulum operator will receive 40% of all ad revenues, the facilitator-owner of the site hosting the ad will receive 15%, and the remainder will be allocated to cover operating, lobbying and legal costs.

Everybody gets paid. Everybody will to some extent determine how much he gets paid.

There will be restrictions and requirements, but this is too long already. I'll flesh it out soon at LawfulGov.org.

        9:35 AM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Focus...Action!

Jim Paulson suffered an insight yesterday.

Of course, I would be among those who gave him the unhappy feedback he mentions. WTP is losing my confidence. I don't think they have the final answers (Where's the rest of the Operation Stop Withholding paperwork?!!!), and my own experience of what happens to coordinators who get too gung-ho teaches me that they don't want original thinking, just "Hurry-up and Wait, do what we say."

That's why I started LawfulGov.org, to provide a parallel path to fill in the discrepancies that come from WTP refusing to act politically. More recently, I've begun to worry that when the caravan gets to the Desired Land, WTP will have disappeared along the way, in substance if not altogether.

But I could be wrong. I have actually been wrong in the past. No, no, it's true.

Maybe Jim's idea that focusing on Simkanin and ensuring a win there will accomplish everything WTP is after regarding the income tax. It makes sense to me.

The question is whether or not the coordinators can convince that dog to wag its own tail.

It's your idea, Jim, it will have to be you who makes it happen. Let me give you some advice: don't ask permission, just do it. And don't hand it off to anyone if you want to see it get done.

Show me that you've got a prayer of success, and I'll help.

Go, Jim, Go!

        9:22 AM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Thank you, Christian Bowman:

"And you thought National Socialism was a bad thing

"The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek in cartoons. [Buried Treasure]

"Funny how close we are," Christian comments.

Yeah. Funny like a heart attack.

All you bloggers out there, you like your freedom of speech? You'd better be thinking about how you're going to become the belligerent claimant in person.... LawfulGov.org

        10:19 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

George Kysor

...and I had a little conversation.

        1:39 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

You...

           ...are here...

        12:06 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Dan Meador: R.I.P.

I have confirmed this.
I knew Dan had been sick. This is one of the worst losses we could suffer.

From Larken Rose:

Dear Subscriber,

It is a rare person who can stand up for what is right, daring to put himself in harm's way, and do so with cheer, good humor, patience and kindness. Dan Meador is such a person, which is why I am sorry to report that Dan passed away early this morning.
I never had the pleasure of meeting Dan in person, and for the most part he fought on a different battlefield than I did (though against a common enemy). But from the contact we did have, it quickly became clear to me that Dan was a "breed apart"; knowledgeable yet humble, with firm principles yet so easy to get along with.

He will be missed, for his research, his passion for the truth, his hunger for justice, but also just for being a good guy.

If you wish to send your condolences, support, etc., here is the place to do it:

Gail Meador
P.O. Box 547
Marland, OK 74644

Dan certainly did his "fair share" of working to make this country a better place. If everyone did just a tenth of what Dan did, this world would be a great place to live in.
Sincerely,

Larken Rose

-0-

        10:06 AM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Christian Libertarians

Now, there's an act of discernment!

And the fortitude to proceed from it.

        4:00 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Provoke...

Christian Bowman responds.

You're damn right I got mad, Christian...all I had to do was think of my grandkids growing up into such disgusting environments. I simply cannot believe that any of those cops and administrators are still on the job today. What the #@%$& is wrong with the parents of those kids?!!!!

In the other note, I didn't go see Matrix III because M.II was such a rip-off. Lower my expectations far enough, and I'll forget you.

Say something worth hearing, and I'm listening. Christian does that, often.

I understand the impulse to go back in one more time. Did it myself, twice. Both times it dead-ended at the point my supposed allies started pushing for deals I couldn't make.

"Think of it as paying your dues," they said.

"Think of it as pimping me out," I responded.

I know there's huge libertarian contingent within the Republican Party. But it's time they quit hiding and came home.

All they have to do is admit that it's wrong to try to enforce their religion through the government, and there would no longer be any difference between us.

Not that I expect so much discernment to occur in a day, but one can hope.

...and reconcile.

-0-

        11:26 AM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Goose Creek and Everywhere

Goose Creek, South Carolina
Terrorists employed by the city and state, posing as police officers and school officials, needlessly and viciously assaulted high school students at gunpoint in a "send-a-message" raid inside a school, complete with physical contact, drawn and pointed guns, and dogs.
CBS News Story

Fascism lives!

This is not an isolated incident. Government-controlled schools all over the country have been preparing similar raids and "drills" since before the beginning of the school year. In my own Mountain View, CA, neighbors of Landels School were shocked some months ago to hear someone using the school's PA system to practice terrorist commands that would presumably be used against the students at some point: "Freeze!" "Stand Where You Are!" "Don't Move!" "Get Down!"

Only Two Solutions

We citizens and our children are being blatantly abused. We are being pushed into a corner. But this is not without a plan. The objective is to complete our enslavement to the corporate state, and hopefully (their hope, not mine) accelerate that completion by eventually provoking enough incidents of violent or public resistance that they can then begin using actual force and gun sweeps to formalize their police state.

We have a choice as to how to respond without surrendering.

Revolution

They want us to attempt a revolution. They want our private citizen militias to rise up so they can destroy them. They now that no opposition committed in the open can hope to prevail against the US military, so they want to draw us out. We've had that shown to us with the lesson of Iraq. What? you thought there was no valid reason for that invasion? I submit that its real intention was to demonstrate to our own people that nobody opposes our government and lives to brag about it. At least not en masse.

But one's greatest strength is also one's greatest weakness. Our military can't lose in a head-on fight, but it is a baby in the dark against guerilla warfare. It is a principle of history that this is always true of regimented forces. American patriots defeated the British (and the French, earlier) using guerilla tactics. And the Iraqis are defeating the US right now the same way.

But don't get me wrong. I'm not calling for violence or rebellion. In fact, I am speaking against it. I suggest you save your violence for those who come in the night. At that point anything goes. Set it up now.

Political Action

I see two modes of political action that must be implemented vigorously and immediately.

Individual Non-violent Action

Become The Belligerent Claimant in Person, and start setting an example of unyielding freedom.

I'm not saying to get yourself fired over income taxes or arrested for turning in your driver's license if you're responsible for a family, but to at least support those who do those things, and speak out in favor of their stand.

And if you're not responsible for a family, then I say you have nothing to lose by your freedom and your self-respect, and that Trans Am is just a toy you'll wish on your dying bed that you'd sacrificed to the cause a lot sooner.

Learn your rights from the source documents: stop listening to every guru that appears online or at your church just because he appears to be one of us. If you can't prove your position in court, then keep your mouth shut until you can. And if you can, well, then, proactively Just Say No to all infringements of your freedom.

Be responsible, be respectful, and be unyielding. Say NO when the store clerk asks you for your home address "because of National Secirity" or "Patriot Act" reasons.

Make a loud devil-may-care declaration every time anybody mentions the Patriot Act, saying that it is unconstitutional.

Personally, my line is, "Oh, that unconstitutional fascist piece of shit? Are you dumb enough to obey an illegal law?"

Lose friends. Forgo buying what fascist sympathizers won't sell you without you having to sell out. Win the one that's important.

In the end, all you've ever had was your free will and self-respect. Will you be able to say that you kept them?

Mass Political Action

There is only one political party in this country that will end our government's suicidal foreign entanglements and not also violate our individual rights in the process or immediately afterward. The Libertarian Party.

ALL of the other parties in this country are fascist, either to the communist end or the reactionary end of the established political spectrum.

Yes, I'm saying that the conservative wing of the Republican party is merely reactionary, and definitely fascist as much as any other. This groups isn't doing anything affirmatively; it spends most of its time whining about how it's losing its unconstitutional religious franchise over the minds of Americans, while mindlessly supporting foreign adventurism. Clearly, this group of accidental traitors cares more about owning you at the spiritual end of things than it cares about your right (and divine mandate) to find your way home through an act of free will.

And I'm saying that so-called social liberals are fascists too. They just want to cut the middlemen, the corporations, out of the mix. They want you to serve the government directly, in its role as the redistributive agent of their peculiar religion.

Yes, religion. The root of all social evil, at both ends of the political spectrum, Humanism and The Children of Abraham in an inadvertent unholy alliance to drive the people into one form or another of abject subjugation.

Stupid people all of them, ignoring the half of history that exposes the fallacies of their respective sides, each believing that his form of brainwashing and political coercion is best for us all-- stupid people fighting, not for our liberation but for the spoils of war. And we are the spoils.

If you are still in the Republican Party, you are part of the problem. If you think there is any chance whatsoever that the Republican party will preserve your constitutional rights, you've had your head up your tight little ass for the past two years, and the fumes have gotten to you big time.

And if you're in the Democratic Party or the Green Party, you are a communist pawn, denial or not.

Either way, you're selling us all, including yourselves and your families, down the road to slavery and misery. The only question among you is, Which brand?

That's why I've reactivated my role in the Libertarian Party.

Because the only way to put the brakes on this runaway train to hell is to vote ALL the bastards out. NONE of them have made a fart's difference in the momentum, so none of them are worthy of retention.

Clean house, close down the military-industrial and government-education combines, apologize to ourselves and the world, and just start over with the restoration of the Bill of Rights and Personal Responsibility.

And, Oh yes, bring our military home, raise its pay, and make it so dangerous to any fool who would attack us that the mere idea quickly fades into history.

And re-arm the citizenry. Let the government-manufactured child-kidnappers and political terrorists already among us suffer the surprise of their short little lives the very first time, and every time, they rear their ugly heads in our midst.

And maybe then, we won't have to include our own police officers on that short list to extinction.

That's my hope.

        12:35 AM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

The Golden Ratio

Gerald Klaas comments on mine and Fred Smart's discussion of numbers, particularly the Fibonacci Sequence.

In particular, Gerald says, I was surprised that neither Fred nor Allen referred to the ratio as The Golden Ratio.

Or, as it is also known, the Golden Proportion, the Golden Section, and as I originally encountered it, The Golden Mean.

Golden or otherwise, I can't begin to describe my own amazement the first time I (wrote and) ran a little program designed to calculate F.numbers and then for each one before going on to the next, divide each pair both forward and back; and there, in the middle of my screen, these two sides of the ratio resolved toward a mirrored perfection, closer and closer to each other after the decimal as the number pairs grew in magnitude, until finally my screen ran out of room to display the minute variances tens of digits out.

I may still have the Visual Basic (or was it Quick Basic) code for that little experience, lying around on a disk somewhere, maybe holding up the odd leg of a coffee table or something.

I can't speak for Fred, but I didn't go that far with the discussion (it actually took place by email) because I didn't have all year that day to have the discussion that the subject deserves every time one thinks of it. Meaning, every time *I* think of it, in a flash within my mind I view a couple hundred universes of correlations and coincidences, and if I try to tell anyone about it, the world dissolves into Ylem (primordial superconscious foam), and I end up sitting there totally absorbed without words, much like an old friend used to do right after he'd shout out, "My God, I have to tell you this!!!", on LSD.

You see, I secretly exist in a metaphysical stasis of AllThatIs, a zero-sum infinity in which all things happen at all times everywhere, wherein my hobby, if you will, is discerning the initial conditions and patterning considerations upon which particular semblances of order mainfest in sensitive dependence, the primary of which in this local universe appears to be described by the Fibonacci Sequence.

So: had I gotten started, I would no doubt have said (written) something like what just got written, and I'm not so sure that anyone really wants to hear it.

Anyway, the problem with that kind of thing is, the instant you start describing it, it's already gone and a new manifestation emerges to fascinate.

Besides, the next thing you know, I'd be tempted to explain how F.Sequence resolves Fermat's Theorem ( xn + yn = zn ~n!>2 ). And I have NEVER heard anyone ask for that!

Besides, I'm not a mathematician: who'd listen?!!

Next question?

        10:16 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

The Future of America

Dave Goodyear makes me proud to have come from Montana, and reminds me why I won't be living out my eternity in California.

        12:37 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Don't stop now!

Doug Kenline, my blogging sponsor, is feeling despondent, thinking about quitting blogging. Seems life has happened to him while he was busy making other plans.

Looks like the Fourth-decade Crisis to me.

It happened to me. I had thought that I would have made a profound difference in the world by the time I was 40. I had thrown myself at the task like a hapless ball against the wall in a game of squash, continually having to take time out for the bitchy little demands of life (paying the rent, etc.), and suddenly I was 40 and the place was unrecognizably worse than when I had first noticed that it was bad!

Thank you John Lennon for having already explained how that happens, so I'd know it when I saw it.

Anyway, Doug, let me just say these two things.

First, if you're feeling like your life so far, all those agonizingly endless years of frustration failure and disappointment, has been a waste, just think of it this way: you haven't seen the half of it yet!

Second, if you quit now, you'll miss the fun part.

Besides, I have plans for Doug Kenline Wireless Opensource Networking Systems Conglomerated.

"Linux, opensource, unregulated spectrum. These are the things of individual liberty and freedom.

"If we could figure out some way to get everybody to have these powerful Linux servers in their homes with plasma television/computer monitors. All connected by some sort of OC192 wireless backhual system that was completely unregulated by the FCC.

"Every freedom fighter sitting in his own central office. Connected by self-healing wireless backhaull with so many alternate routes that nothing could ever shut down the network.

"This is the company that I would like to start. Doug Kenline Wireless Opensource Networking systems."

So stick around, Doug, I like your idea. And I'm still planning on cleaning up this joint.

All I need is the help of a few thousand New-World-Order failures, misfits and losers.

You'll do fine.

        5:24 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Because you asked, Doug....

Doug Kenline has found the three embedded blogs at CarTaxRevolt. He likes the embedding idea, but comments that he can't link to articles within those blogs because they are in frames within the CarTaxRevolt page.

You always could, Doug, but until now you had to take an extra step first. The blogs are stand-alone blogs just like yours and this one. And the actual address for each one is right at the top of it, as well as given in parentheses on the CarTaxRevolt Updates subMenu.

All you had to do was highlight the name of the blog with your cursor, copy it, and then paste it into your browser's destination window; click Go! or hit Enter, and you're now directly on the blog in question, all features available.

But now it's even easier....

I've added direct access links to the Updates menu and "Remove Frames" links in all three blogs, so all you have to do is click either link and the blog will be popped out all alone into a new browser window.

Ask, and you shall receive....

Happy?

        8:50 AM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

We Got Rank

It's amazing. People and companies spend millions to get to the top of the search engines. Hucksters and ad agencies play games with content and meta tags and all sorts of things, to get through to the top of the search engine sorting process.

CarTaxRevolt and Car Tax Revolt are number one and two on Yahoo and Google for a search of either spelling.

That's in contest with Tom McClintock and endless articles on the subject. That's in contest with car tax revolts in maybe 4 other states.

That's awesome.

And we're just getting our roll going.

CarTaxRevolt. No Redress, No Taxes!

        9:25 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

What's the Problem?

Whoa! That's the wrong question!

The correct question is:

Where's the Problem?

Answer:

In the mindset of the people!

        10:28 AM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Our new CFR/TC Governor

Looks like the 'Arnold and the Neo-cons Show' have won the California Contest.

Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.

Prove me wrong.

        11:04 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

CarTaxRevolt Update

I'm posting an update on the CarTaxRevolt website; click Updates, then choose the Info blog.

Basically, we got ignored. No press shoed up, the Assemblyman who'd promised to come didn't, and Greg is really busy with his new job.

        10:59 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Schulz on Cavuto

I just caught the evening replay of Niel Cavuto's show on Faux News. He had Bob Schulz on and actually did a fine and friendly job.

Bob presented the issue and himself nicely. It was interesting that when Bob referred to Simkanin, Cavuto slipped away from it. He obviously wanted to focus on Bob's future vis-a-vis the IRS and potential prosecution.

Not to color my comments on a bad ending note, because it was a very good segment, but next time, let's get the website mentioned. And integrate the name of the organization into the responses. People need to know where to go to find us. One organization name mention at the opening of the segment isn't enough.

Anyway, Kudos, Bob!

        10:44 AM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Jail Horror Picture Show

20-some years ago a federal fugitive stopped by the house on his eventual way to prison. He wanted counsel. I'm a minister (alternative sect), and he knew he could trust me.

He talked, I asked questions designed to help him sort out all his thoughts in the relevant matters - liberty, patriotism, his family, the greater good... daily annoyances like these.

He arrived clearly at two firm points. First, he was doing what he was doing for all the right reasons and he was not afraid to go to prison for what he was doing. But second, he was terrified of going to prison.

Why the conflict? He was convinced that while he was in prison he would be physically or chemically lobotomized and that would be the end of him as a patriot and as the man he and we all knew.

So he decided to remain on the run. The feds did catch up with him, though, and he did time.

He came by the house again afterward, to thank me for my willingness to help him, for my lack of fear of being identified. He apologized for having put me and my house at risk by being there. I reminded him that as a supplicant and confessant, he should never concern himself with such things. Besides, I also reminded him, the feds damn well already know who I am, I made Nixon's List before I could vote. (And then voted for Nixon!)

But that's not the point. He was not the man we all knew. He had not had surgery in prison, had never been hurt and knowingly drugged. But his fire was out. He was no longer concerned about the state of the country, and he was particularly disinterested in whether "they" had 'gotten to him'.

Rose Lear tells us that her husband seems to have changed his tune. He's telling her that the Feds control us all and we have to do what they want.

Dick Simkanin, formerly a firebrand in his own way, reportedly has plea bargained to the point of agreeing to lie about what he was thinking before.

What's going on?

Early after Simkanin's arrest, I got an email on one list or another talking about the arrest and lack of bail, etc. Normal-looking email, except for the casual notation that Simkanin was apparently being held in a medical facility.

Huh! A tax non-conformist held in a medical facility? Why did that take me back more than 20 years to a conversation about chemical lobotomies?

But let's not jump to conclusions. Chemical lobotomies might not be anything to do with anything. And I'm certain we could all inspect Simkanin's skin in as much detail as I did our old friend's and find no scars.

Several years ago, while I was a member and sometimes-speaker at an advanced research club that was investigating connections between physical science and the mind, I avoided a meeting. So did another metaphysical practitioner whom I respect.

When I found her standing outside the meeting room, and asked why, she told me that no way was she going to sit in that contraption and allow herself to be manipulated without knowing the program in advance and without having options. Yup. Same reasons I had. So we stood outside and watched the crowd move spontaneously among several emotional and energetic states while listening to a speaker drone on emptily about electronics and wave-forms and brain scans.

Nothing in that talk to get anyone excited, but at one point the crowd was almost unanimously cheering and aplauding every statement as though it were an announcement of ultimate spiritual liberation. And the next moment they would all be contemplative, then sad, then fidgety, whatever. But nothing in the talk to elicit any of these as reactions.

How was this happening, then?

Before the meeting, a couple of technicians "wired" the room. They placed a series of electronic wave-form generators around and cross-hatching the room. People came in and carefully stepped over the connecting wires and took their seats, marvelling at the devices and speculating.

Now, a lot of the members of this group are true explorers. They seek out altered states as hoped-for means to knowledge of the world, the self, existence, stuff. But in my opinion they were not good scientists. They'd try things for the personal experience without checking safeguards. All they needed was to be told that they would not be damaged but only temporarily manipulated emotionally, and that the effects would pass immediately in most cases. Nobody asked about the other not-most cases. They all volunteered, and the demonstration was on.

What's the point? Surgery and chemical mental-function suppression are completely unnecessary.

I have personally seen people manipulated without being touched, electronically.

Think about that. What if the gadgets could be set to do nothing more than subsume the individual into a penitent mindset? And what if prolonged exposure to the influence could entrain his own electromagnetics so that he'd stay in that framework for a long time? Might he not come, seemingly of his own accord, to the conclusion that he'd been wrong, and that the problem was him and not the formerly-identified evil-doers?

A man goes to prison for 16 or so months and comes out erased, his face speaking for another personality?

A man spends his entire life demanding integrity from the world, goes to jail a few months and starts telling his wife to do what "they" want?

A man goes to jail for a few months and then signs a perjorious statement as part of a plea bargain?

Maybe this all makes sense after all.

        2:37 AM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Big Day for CarTaxRevolt

Today is the deadline for the State of California to comply with the California CarTaxRevolt Petition for Redress of Grievances. That's the petition filed end of last week that demands the rollback of the illegally tripled car tax.

Project Director Greg Post and several members and other interested parties will be waiting on the West steps of the Capitol building in Sacramento to receive the government's answer (and apology). There are indications that they will be joined by at least one Member of the state Assembly.

California motorists must choose: join CarTaxRevolt or become a criminal...

I have posted a new article to the CarTaxRevolt website, "What’s Wrong With the Tripled California Car Tax". Sorry, no direct link, it's a frames-based site. Just click on Articles and then the title of the article and it will pop right up in the site's main window.

This article was written by request for the Los Angeles Daily Journal, a legal newspaper read mostly by lawyers and judges. It is iffy to get published before the election because of time constraints, and the issue could be moot after that. Which is why I have posted it to the website without waiting: it is crucial that the public understand the law behind what we're asking them to do.

Most important for California Motorists, my reading of the California Penal Code says that not only is the tax unconstitutional and not only is it being collected illegally, it is even illegal to pay the tax!

        10:43 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

More democracy than they can handle!

In a pure republic, the people elect representative to the next level up, then those representatives elect representatives to the next level up from them.

In the American republican form of government, there are two channels of representation. On the populist side, the people elect representatives to every level. On the sovereignty side, each political subdivision sends senators to represent it at the next level up.

Nowhere in either of these constructs is there direct election or decision of issues by the people acting en masse.

But the American form of republic is a true hybrid, wherein many states do allow direct decision in the form of Initiative and Referendum.

Initiative is where the people can force a question onto the ballot and then vote on it. Initiative is a device for getting around legislatures that are too controlled by vested interests or too entrenched in the political machinery to bother with what the people really want. At least, that's the theory.

Referendum is where the legislature passes a law back to the people for final ratification. For example, the Nevada State legislature can pass a proposed amendment to the Nevada constitution, but it must then refer that amendment to the people for popular ratification.

A pure democracy is where every eligible voter has the opportunity to vote on the issues of the day. In a pure democracy there is no congress or legislature, because the people legislate for themselves.

Democracies always become chaotic, what with everything changing as often as things can be gotten up for vote, and an emotional majority terrorizing a hapless minority. Which is why our Founders only allowed a little democracy within a predominantly republican structure.

The United States is not a democracy, therefore, but a democratic republic. It used to be mostly a republic, but the democracy part was vastly increased by the 17th Amendment, which replaced the appointment of senators with popular election.

Anyway, it is on the one hand a disaster for patriots to see the degradation of our republic that has resulted from the 17th Amendment. Deliberation has been replaced by the whim of the moment, and reason replaced by the mob. Where in times gone by the watch-phrases were 'eternal vigilance' and 'responsibility', the watch-phrases have come to be 'majority rule' and 'security'.

Yet on the other hand, now and then it happens that there is delightful vengeance is seeing the creature bite the hand of its Frankenstein.

I'm referring to the California recall, of course.

When the liberals here don't like an initiative passed by the majority (e.g., no welfare for illegal aliens), they run to a bleeding-heart federal judge and get the new law stopped ("It might hurt someone.") Or, as in the cases of affirmative action and bilingual educative befuddlement being stricken down, they simply ignore the court orders they dislike and carry on, saying, "It's for the children and the minorities and the women and anybody else who doesn't look like a dead white man, and all you who disagree with us are just plain mean at heart."

So when I see the people acting through the Initiative to throw out a democrat governor who hasn't served them well, I see democracy at work.

And when I hear democrats complaining that the recall is overturning an election, it makes my jollies tingle to think that these dolts are finally getting all the democracy they deserve.

        12:11 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

"J.C., meet J.t.B."

I said early this morning in my last post, "Life is astoundingly simple." I also said, "Maybe you do it (life) more than once,..."

So?

So, what if we actually do? Do life more than once?

For reasons with the mass of which I don't want to clutter this post, and which I refuse to debate or defend, I see the likelihood that we do.

But I don't see that as complicated. As I said, it's, "...nothing more than doing stuff wrapped in entrances and exits." The song is not over, the paradigm remains the same.

Now, it is possible to take my earlier message as meaning that there is no meaning. And I do personally see the universe and existence as a zero-sum game: all things exist, all scenarios play out, and all roles are played. All in the eternal here-and-now, allthatis in the infinitely fertile imagination of The One.

Yet within all that, I do find reason to choose. Just because I see life as passing through infinitely reconfiguring chaos, does not mean I allow myself to be simply a leaf buffeted upon the waters by a fickle wind. Rather I should be the butterfly turning left instead of right as I flit down the Amazon, sending a little disturbance into the atmospheric cacaphony that will eventuate into a small hurricane over Jamaica in about 20 months.

Better I choose to do things consciously in the now, things that will make an affirmative impact later on my next who-knows-how-many lifetimes, if for no more firm reason than 'just in case'.

So I do go for walks in the park and sit on benches and dissolve into the minute, hour, or day. But in all that mist, I am dreaming possible and probable futures. And I do stuff. But I look for stuff that will make a difference, maybe small stuff with large impact, maybe large stuff that only adds a touch of flavor, but an accumulation of stuff evincing a design nonetheless.

I try to make the stuff I do be something, because I will be the receiver of the result. The beneficiary of the consequences, if you will.

I'm not talking about "karma". The truth is much more direct than that, but I don't have time for all that here, just now. I'll just say that since there is no time, there is no sequence, there is no good-deeds bad-deeds depository and retribution system. That's just an old wive's tale, made up (a) because kids wouldn't stop asking questions whose answers weren't known and somebody needed to tell them something to get rid of their annoying persistence, and (b) it's a tale that works really well to scare millions of people into being good, out of a belief that without threats, they won't behave themselves.

Anyway, Scattered through this post is why I do the projects I do.

Maybe I'm totally selfish.

I have no intention of coming back around into a communist or fascist America.

Is that too harsh?

What if you don't agree that we come back?

Well, then, do it for your grandchildren.

Don't even bother yourself that I might be among them.

No need to worry that you might be there too. No need to tell me or anyone else if you agree with my view.

Just choose to do the things now that will deliver the desirable then to those who live into it.

I can keep a secret, after all.

        2:59 AM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Confused & Cluttered Minds

...are not proof that reality is complex.

We live in a matrix of lies made to fool us into believing that life is complex and that we can't live it without help, direction and rules.

Somebody else's "help", somebody else's direction, somebody else's rules.

Actually, life is astoundingly simple:

You get in, you do stuff, you get out.

Maybe you do it (life) more than once, but even that would be nothing more than doing stuff wrapped in entrances and exits.

Like a play. All pretend. Two shows a night, dark Mondays.

Curtain draws aside, lights come up. man sitting on a chair, blank set.

"Oooo, I just can't decide, blue or green, evening or afternoon, drive to the country or marry the bigmouth I met at the bar.... Life is so full of challenges!"

Give me a break!!!!!

You come around, you do stuff, you take off.

Often, while you're doing stuff, things get in the way.

Sometimes, you laugh about it, sometimes you get really pissed, and sometimes you don't even notice, you just take care of the glitch and proceed.

Because, after all, you're just doing stuff. Might as well include whatever comes up.

No need to be rigid.

"No, I can't do anything today, I've set this lifetime aside for a Special Purpose, and here I am, almost 40 and I am finally taking a day off to figure out what it was.

"Whaddy mean, why didn't I do that sooner, if the life was set aside? Whaddya mean, I've wasted half of it and what the heck was I doing?

"I was doing stuff, that's what I was doing. I was busy.

"Besides, it takes money to do stuff, even a Special Purpose, so I had to get a job. And then I needed a car. And then I took up with the bigmouth I met at the bar."

"And now I can't decide, drive to the country or marry the bigmouth.

"Hey, I know, I'll do both. This afternoon.

"Whaddya mean, what about taking the day off to figure out my Special Purpose? Don'tya see I got stuff to do?

"Besides, there's always tomorrow.

"And not only that, but I really don't want to know. If I did, I'd have to stop it with all this doing stuff, and do something.

"I'm not ready for that.

"Not today."

        3:29 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

We're on Talk Radio!

Greg Post, CarTaxRevolt Project Director, will be on KFI Los Angeles this evening.

His segment is expected to go at about 6:15 PM, so tune in early and don't miss it!

and...

I just did a ten-minute recorded interview for The Carl M Show on ATW Radio in the UK! Just a little local program.

Boy was that fun! I'll probably be getting a visit from the Men in Black for that one....

--Allen

        11:40 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

CarTaxRevolt Press Release

CALIFORNIA CARTAXREVOLT SAYS, "JUST SAY NO! TO THE CAR-JACK TRIPLE TAX SCAM"

Dateline: September 16, 2003 ... Mountain View, CA
Contact Name: Greg Post or Allen Hacker, LawfulGov.org
Contact Phone: (916) 220-7678 or (650) 465-7387
Second Contact Fax: (650) 964-2090
Email: CarTaxRevolt@LawfulGov.org
or allen@lawfulgov.org
Website: http://www.LawfulGov.org/CarTaxRevolt

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA - September 16, 2003 - California CarTaxRevolt, a project of Citizens for Lawful Government (LawfulGov.org), a Mountain View-based public oversight organization, has kicked off its campaign to reverse the recently-announced tripling of California automobile registration taxes set to take effect on October 1, 2003.

"We will begin with a Petition to every relevant State official from the Governor down to the Director of the DMV, demanding that they cancel this ill-advised scheme," said Project Director Greg Post of El Dorado County. The project's website is set up to take "electronic signatures" from all over the State, which will be forwarded to the California Secretary of State to show that there is broad opposition to the tax increase. "We plan to wait on the steps of the Capitol in Sacramento on September 30th at 2:00 PM to hear the official answer to its petition," Post concludes.

If their demand is ignored, the group plans to follow up on their petition with a call for mass civil disobedience, asking California automobile owners to refuse to pay the extra two-thirds of the requested fees. "We're suggesting that they set that money aside, preferably in a separate savings account" says LawfulGov.org Chief Facilitator Allen Hacker of Mountain View. "This will be their proof that they're not just trying to save a buck at the state's expense. They will be making a dramatic political statement to demonstrate that the People have simply had enough and are not going to assist the government in their further economic enslavement."

The California CarTaxRevolt project will provide guidance and links through their website to specific instructions for every step of the way, so that people may take the protest as far as they like.

When asked about the potential accusation that this is a call to anarchy and lawbreaking, Post responds that the "car-jack tax is illegal in the first place, and therefore no one is required to comply with it." He explains that it is a firm principle in American law that an unconstitutional enactment or action creates no duty.

Hacker added, "As we get the word out about what is really going on here, we fully expect that tens of thousands of people will join this movement." He also points out that "this is just the beginning. This month, the car-jack tax. Then we'll be going after the entire fiscal shell game - a full-fledged California Tax Revolt. And in the meantime, we're available to help advise, organize and web-publish the several other car tax revolts going on in other states. From now on, our public servants are going to be reminded of their proper place every time they step out of line."

"We're definitely non-violent," Post points out, "but we're not going to be passive either. We're are totally dedicated to commit all traditional political action toward putting an end to this and all other rip-offs of the Citizens by their government."

The California CarTaxRevolt petition is planned to be filed on September 19th. It can be previewed and electronically "signed" on the group's website at: http://www.LawfulGov.org/CarTaxRevolt

        7:51 PM -:- Posted by Allen   0 comment(s)   View or Comment! -:-  

Exquisite Torment

I am not speaking of fate when I say that we have no choice in the matter of enlightenment. I'm only saying that no man knows the hour of his being chosen by lightning.

You might be walking down the street. You might be settling into the mail. You might have your headphones on, listening to music. You might have raged against the machine all your life, for centuries even, all the while demanding illumination, desperately seeking some semblance of the assumed comfort of understanding. You may have done all those things and come finally to be sitting on a rock watching a bird in the sky, holding no greater intention or desire than to be there doing the simple thing.

And there, in that simple moment, between any given pair of heartbeats, Heaven opens up and you are immersed in the magnificent terrible truth.

It's magnificent indeed. Beyond all you've ever contemplated, more immense than you can bear, more stimulating than you can contain, vast and intricate in its simplicity, fundamentally beyond anyone's normal vocabulary.

You run out the door (of your office or room or home), or you run into town from the field by the river where the angelic Susanne has just revealed to you not just her own perfection but the overwhelming perfection of the Whole Thing itself. You run to tell someone. Anyone. Everyone.

Why? Because you know that the world perishes for lack of understanding. You know that people live in misery and quiet desperation in their agony of ignorance behind a veil so thin that it can no more be perceived than the truth it hides.

And then you discover how terrible Truth is. No one wants to hear you slaver in search of any words at all that might begin to express what you've seen. And if you do have speech adequate to approximate your vision, they really don't want to hear it.

No one wants his cherished beliefs to drift away into the harsh light of day.

No one wants to face the humiliation of having to effect a complete change in lifestyle in order to come into consistency with Truth. No one wants to admit the inconsistencies, the pretenses, the doubts and the fear hidden behind a lifetime of energetic assertions made from complete and surprisingly embarrassing ignorance.

No one wants to hear that his fantasy is corrupt. That everything his cherished leaders and mentors have told him is wrong. That the world he lives in is not even an illusion.

Sure, people will walk around and speak sagely about the matrix, the lies of their political leaders, the corruption in the social system. But ask them to apply the same standards and suspicions to their priesthood and religion, and they'll strike you down before you can move.

They're fine with the idea of the matrix of lies, but only to the point that learning about it requires them to question the pavement upon which they stand. People will readily shed walls, but they'll cave right in at the thought of surrendering the floor too.

So you can't tell them the truth. Not because you can't articulate it, but because they can't hear it. Because they do amazing acrobatic tricks in their minds to avoid it. Or they simple can't see that far through their dark glasses.

But there you are. Maybe you see the answer to their misery, but you have to live with them in their misery because they will not risk their worlds to achieve freedom.

You say, "It's this!"

And they scream back, "NO! I can't have it be that! It must be something else; I will not consider what you say. I can't. I have too great an investment in the view I have and the world that I've built upon it."

They can't see the future your truth describes. So they fear it, they reject it, and they will try to destroy you for showing it to them while they can't see it.

And that's what you're up against when you try to tell them how the world really is, how the government has enslaved them, and how their mere existence as men and women of integrity depends upon their outright betrayal of a lifetime of disorientation.

That is also what I'm up against when I try to tell my Christian friends among you that there is a scriptural argument for the separation of church and state, that to attempt to legislate morality is blasphemy.

Shocked? Compelled to disagree? No longer listening?

See?

That's what I'm saying.

And that's why I'm not bothering just now to write it up.

Besides, I've already more or less said it, and not a single person has responded to the point.

And that, for me, the fact that not a speck of the argument against what I've said about Moore's rock has been on point, is the source of my personal torment.

It's not that I feel rejected, or superior but slighted. Because none of this is what I started out to say anyway. All this so far has been nothing more than approach, a setting of the table for my dark feast of truth, so to speak.

What happened to me a few minutes ago is what always happens. It's my curse. I can't just do the simple things, and go along to get along. Reality keeps revealing its unexpected self to me. Believe me, I wouldn't mind if that stopped. Many is the time I've seen that bumper sticker that says, "God said it, I believe it, that settles it!", or heard some dufus make any of a vast number of similar statements, and jealously coveted that mindless state of ignorant bliss. Yet, alas, that is not my destiny. I asked for enlightenment, and now I must live with the consequences.

And I secretly believe that every one of you reading this knows that pain exactly, because I don't think that any of you are as obtuse as all the rest of us think you are. I just think that I am the only one brave enough (or stupid enough) to lay such things bare.

Anyway, there is a destination to this journey.

I put on a favorite CD (Sixpence None The Richer's "Divine Discontent"), fully intending to take care of some overdue coding on a new website for a project you're all going to love (I'm just the mechanic, someone else created the project, so I can brag it up all I want),,,, and....

Wham!

I know why patriots, constitutionalists, truth-in-taxation people, (generally) fail.

It's because they're not on point. They can't stay on point when their lives depend on it. Not even when their country depends on it.

They're too busy fighting and drawing lines among themselves, over things that might be crucially important personally in the long run when you consider ultimate spiritual realities, but that are completely unnecessary to the immediate discussion regarding rights, property, freedom, the essence of America.

It doesn't matter where rights come from so long as we all agree that they are not created by the state. It doesn't matter what the nature of the creator is, so long as we all recognize that not a man or woman among us will agree that it is the state.

The state, that Frankenstein's monster our grandparents forgot to keep in its cage, that remotely-operated destroyer of all that is decent... IT is the enemy.

But it doesn't have to worry about us, because we're too busy arguing about whether God is in the government on the basis of somebody's religious icon.

I am supremely sorry to have to be the one to say it, but if you think that the absence of a material reminder is all it takes that god lives not in the hearts of the people who are the government, that the influence of the creator, be it God or be it some universal consciousness of which we are all parts, is not felt at the core of the universe within which the government lives unless it be through a rock or plaque or pledge, then it is you who is without God.

There is more divinity in the run-of the-mill agnostic than there is in any evangelist who needs an icon to anchor his faith.

And in the meanwhile, WTP and every other group that would do good in the world is losing members and being abandoned by donors and people who might have really made a difference, simply because the secretly uncertain are more concerned about proving their faith to everyone else than they are about resting quietly upon it.

Whether God is as you may say, a distinct in-the-image-of-man benevolent tyrant, lovingly allowing the destruction of his and our most grand experiments, or whether the creator is more in the nature of what I say, the subtle instantiating impulse latent within the very fabric of existence... Whether we are objects created by a paternalistic Other, or whether we are magnificent manifestations of the Thing itself... it does not matter.

Either way, it is you who must prove God who are without Him.

And it is posterity that will suffer the consequences of this folly.