My Philosophy Pages
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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.
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Driving
There 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.
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Taxes
There 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 have not received a response to my inquiry from them since.
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 sources of revenue. 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 19th
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!
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