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Fred Koschara |
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Fred Koschara |
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I strive to be an honest and responsible individual. I think that people should be respected for their achievments and honored for their abilities. Unfortunately, I find that these traits often result in punishment in modern society, and that distresses me. As a result, I end up battling "city hall" at a personal, local, and state level more often than I would like to, trying to change people's minds and tyrannical laws alike. It's hard at times, and there are those around me that wonder why I bother, but I can't just let injustice go when I know I could do something about it. As a small child, I often heard my grandmother saying "Somebody should do something about that!" in response to one outrage or another. I've long since forgotten most of the things she complained about, but along the line I made up my mind I was going to be "somebody" and "do something" about the things I see wrong in the world. Return to the top of this page DrivingThere are two things a person comes into this world with that they can claim as being intrinsically their own - the goods they have to trade with the world around them for every thing else they want or need to sustain their life. The two things are Time and Ability. Any entity - whether a person or an organization (such as a government) that seeks to deprive a person of either their time or their ability, without just cause, is attempting to commit a crime against that person. The speed limit laws enforced in this country directly deprive motorists of both their time and their ability, then further demand the "offender" pay fines and increased insurance rates, and potentially subject them to other, more destructive burdens - including the possibility of incarceration - simply because they tried to make the best use of their time that they could. It is NOT a valid argument to say that these actions are necessary to prevent accidents: Such an action is prior restraint, which the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional. It is also unjustifiable: Why should a person be punished for the possibility they might commit a crime? If that is going to be done, we should outlaw the use of silverware - because a diner might pick up a fork and stab their neighbor. Further, we should also outlaw chairs, because someone might pick one up and club another person with one. For that matter, we should just outlaw civilization and get it done with, because without social intercourse, there would be no danger of human interaction - which is the only time crimes are committed by one person against another. Another argument that has been used to "justify" the speed enforcement is statistical observation has shown speeding drivers are more likely to have accidents than ones traveling at more sedate paces. This is FRAUD. Statistics is useful for observing the past behavior of large groups; it is totally useless for predicting the future behavior of an individual - which is exactly what is being done in this case. If motorists are being subjected to speed enforcement because of statistical observations, they are being punished for crimes committed by other drivers - not their own. This is a perversion of justice, and cannot be allowed to stand. I have typically driven at speeds that are 50 - 100% (or more) faster than the posted limits. I'm not doing it to show off, scare, or impress anyone around me: I've done it because there aren't enough hours in the day, and time spent driving is time I can't be doing something else. I drove a car capable of going (and stopping) safely at the speeds I drove, and I maintainedit so it stayed that way. I slowed down when conditions - weather, traffic, children playing in the street, how long it's been since I slept - indicated it was appropriate. I made it a habit to not drive farther than I can stop: If I can't see around the bend or through the fog, there may be something in the road I couldn't avoid. When I sat down behind the steering wheel, I was assuming the responsibility for the safety of everyone and everything in front of me. Where does the government get any right to tell me that I'm not allowed to assume that responsibility? In August, 1998, I had a hearing about my drivers' license and driving history. In the hearing, the examiner gave me a copy of my driving record so we could discuss it. It went on for several pages, and there are many speeding convictions listed on it - enough so that, by law, the examiner decided he had grounds for suspending my license. (Note that I was further deprived of my rights, not by a jury of my peers, but simply through administrative action by a public employee against whom there is no recourse.) Why does the law give him the "right" to suspend my license? Allegedly it's in the interest of the public safety. If I'm an unsafe driver, where are the bodies? Nowhere on the driving record this examiner used as justification for suspending my license are there any accidents: There are no victims and there is no property damage to substantiate the claim that I'm an unsafe driver. What objective means has been used to determine that I cannot drive safely? How is the public's safety protected by depriving the public of their rights? How am I supposed to find respect for laws that do nothing but deprive me of my rights, without just cause? In the Old West, marshals were given badges and empowered to bring highwaymen to justice. Now the highwaymen have badges, and the population is robbed at the will of bureaucrats who never have to answer to the public they are supposed to be serving. If a motorist is charged with speeding, they are not being charged with a crime: They are being charged with a violation of the law. As a result of the law, they are deprived of their time, ability, and monetary wealth, without just cause. This action is commonly known as "robbery." Since the crime is perpetrated on the public roads, it is known as "highway robbery." The crime is systematically carried out by an organized group of armed individuals, acting in concert, with a previously planned pattern of attack and method of selecting their targets. This is a "conspiracy to commit armed highway robbery." How many Federal offenses are identified in that one phrase? Would anyone like to help me fight this battle in the court system? If so, please email me immediately about your concern. I am investigating setting up a legal defense fund and a political action committee, and will proceed along those lines as time and budgets permit. What is a drivers' license but a contract with the state wherein you give up your inherent rights, and get nothing in return? By what philosophical system or moral code can the government require you to have and carry a drivers' license when without one you have the right to travel on the public roads, using the mode of transportation common for the day? Public property is just that - property owned by the public, not the government. The government is charged with maintaining the public roads, not restricting the public's use thereof. What is the fundamental purpose of a traffic light? The only justifiable answer is that they help to insure everyone on the road has an opportunity to take their turn. What has happened instead is that we have become slaves to the machines that are supposed to be our servants - and we must sit waiting at red lights for empty roads to allow the traffic that's not on them the chance to pass - or the highwaymen will come and rob us for trying to make good use of our time. Return to the top of this page TaxesThere is something fundamentally wrong with the basic concept behind taxes: By imposing a tax the government is supposedly obligating you to pay a bill you never agreed to: You are expected to pay a debt on a contract that not only did you never sign, but you were never given the opportunity to express (or withhold) the consent that would be necessary for it to be a valid claim. How, then, can the government ever truthfully state that you have a "tax debt" that is unpaid? Isn't a debt something you agreed to, in advance, knowing what the terms and conditions were? I sent a letter to the IRS asking these questions. I never received a response to my inquiry from them. One of the inherent problems with the design of the government of the United States of America (and of governments in general) is that taxes and fines, not business operations, are its sole legal source of revenue. (Note that something becomes legal when it is made permissible by means of law - which is an action of the government - so that taxation is "permissible" because it is "legal" since the government gave itself permission to collect taxes. Where in this equation is the taxee giving their informed consent?) In prohibiting the government from conducting business operations, the Constitution's framers felt they were preventing the spectre of government making private business impossible through unfair competition. Their fear was that with taxes subsidizing its business operations, the government could make it impossible for private enterprise to compete in the marketplace - which is probably a valid concern. However, rather than making predatory pricing an unheard of event, they merely restricted the government from the practice: Witness the anti-trust laws passed in the latter part of the nineteenth century as "required" to restrain "big business" from following exactly such a path. Rather than prohibiting the government from engaging in business, the framers of the Constitution should have prohibited it from collecting taxes. The government should have been required to conduct itself as a business, with one of the most significant associated limitations thereof: operating within a balanced budget. However, what was built is a system where the various government agencies feel they've got a blank check, and they're going to spend every penny of it, even if it means bankrupting the rest of the country in the process. The national debt is so high that the government can no longer be reasonably expected to pay it back with the present level of taxation - and it continues to grow at an increasing rate. What's the answer? More taxes? How long can that go on??? The USA doesn't need a Gestapo - it's got the IRS. Using fear tactics combined with fraud and deception, they extort billions of dollars from the American public every year while pretending the tax system is supposed to be one based on "voluntary compliance" (according to their own rules). Let's say you and I go up to one of our neighbors, and say "Give us 30% of your income, or we're going to lock you away in a little room." What would happen? We'd end up going to jail as extortionists. Now, let's say (for the sake of argument) that we're going to go down to the Federal building, and get jobs as IRS agents. We then go up to the same neighbor, and they have to pay. What's the difference? The fact that Congress may have passed a law saying it's OK for IRS agents to commit extortion does NOT make it any less of a crime! In fact, it's more of a crime, since any public official, in allowing such activity to take place, has violated the public trust, and may have broken their oath of office, besides which. The argument has also been made this is DOMESTIC TREASON, which is a capital offense under the Constitution. How can anyone make long range financial plans when they have no way of knowing what the financial rules in effect will be next week, let alone ten years from now? The IRS has caused the entire American economy to become focused on "this quarter's bottom line" - with no consideration of what the future holds. The IRS is destroying the nation's wealth - while Congress spends what remains on feeding parasites who, by their own choice, will not make any useful contribution to society. Sales taxes are yet another favorite scam, although so far they have only been perpetrated by state and local governments. The basic concept is that since you happen to be doing business within the area a government claims to have jurisdiction over, you owe them money. Not because they have provided any goods or services, but simply because you have the audacity of conducting business within their realm. Did the people ever get a chance to say whether they thought sales taxes were a valid concept, or whether they thought the government could impose them? NO! Sales taxes were sprung on the unsuspecting population by state legislatures without asking the public they are supposed to serve, and they got away with it because no one stood up to them to say they couldn't. Now the taxes have become so institutionalized it would be difficult, at best, to remove them from our economic environment. In every case, the dirty work is being done by an unpaid tax collector: If a merchant wants to continue doing business without harassment from government officials, they'd better collect the sales tax they're told to impose, and forward it in a timely manner. Employers are also expected to deprive their employees of the right to their wages, and forward a portion off to to the capitol without the worker ever getting their hands on it. This makes the merchant and the employer accessories to the crimes they are "forced" to commit. In every case, these actions are crimes, committed in the name of the law, because they are theft and extortion: If they were legitimate debts, there would be a contract in place, signed, in advance by both parties, stating what goods and services were being bought, for how much, and what the terms of collection and payment would be. When was the last time you saw such a contract issued by a tax collecting agency? Is this the sort of position laws are supposed to put the public into? I thought laws were supposed to protect our rights, not attack them! Return to the top of this page There will be more!
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