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.