Saturday, October 17, 2009

How "Justice" Operates Under A Criminal Regime

















Thieves for their robbery have authority when judges steal themselves. --

Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act II, scene 2



It's time to play that time-honored children's game, "One of These Things is Not Like the Others." In this case we're going to examine three case histories of people accused of a supposed offense called "tax evasion."

"It's all in the wrist": Treasury Secretary and Goldman-Sachs bagman Timothy Geithner demonstrates his technique for picking the taxpayer's pocket.



Our first example involves Mr. Timothy Geithner,
who refused to pay Medicare and Social Security taxes for several years -- despite the fact that his employer would have reimbursed him for the tax expenditures. A 2006 audit revealed other irregularities in Mr. Geithner's tax history, including dubious dependent-child deductions.



Despite these, ah, irregularities, Geithner was confirmed by the Senate as the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, which collects tax revenues for -- among other things -- redistribution to Geithner's colleagues and former co-workers on Wall Street.



Sure, tax revenues are spent on other purposes, such as interest payments on the federal debt and killing harmless foreigners. But since the Congress made the Treasury Secretary the de facto economic dictator a year ago, servicing politically connected Wall Street criminals has become that department's primary mission, one that has devoured
trillions of dollars in wealth.


*Burp* Taxes are for other people: Tax-feeder Charles Rangel briefly lifts his snout from the congressional trough to pose for a photo.


Next, we turn to the case of Mr. Charles Rangel, a resident of New York, who refused to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income from properties he owns in the Caribbean.



Rangel's first impulse was to share -- no, to give outright -- most of the blame for his tax evasion to his wife, Alma, who manages the family finances.


With equal generosity he tried to cut in the Spanish-speaking tenants of the property for a slice of the blame as well: "Every time I thought I was getting somewhere, they'd start speaking Spanish," he insisted.




Rangel's problems continued to accumulate when it was pointed out that
his tax evasion was undertaken in order to facilitate other forms of fraud: He couldn't accurately report his Caribbean income and qualify for "hardship"-case rent controls on properties he maintained in New York City, or the special "homestead" tax exemption he claimed on his property in Washington, D.C.



Despite those infractions, and others involving congressional financial disclosure rules, Rangel has retained his job as
a New York Congressman and, more importantly, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which is where tax laws that govern other people are written.



The third case we'll examine is that of New Hampshire residents Ed and Elaine Brown. Convicted of "tax evasion" and "resisting arrest,"
Mrs. Brown, 68, has been sentenced to thirtyfive years in federal prison -- an effective life sentence.


Her husband's sentencing has been deferred until he has undergone a "psychiatric evaluation": As was the case with political prisoners in the former Soviet Union, Mr. Brown is suspected by state authorities of being clinically deranged because of his eccentric political views. Chances are pretty good that if he avoids prison, Ed Brown may be institutionalized for the rest of his life.




Obviously, the case of Ed and Elaine Brown is different from those of Geithner and Rangel, since they're not part of that sanctified stratum of society entitled to live at the expense of the rest of us. They, like most of us, belong to that class of people whom the law fails to protect, rather than the class that the law fails to restrain.



Unlike Timothy Geithner, the Browns aren't involved in stealing huge sums of money. Unlike Charlie Rangel, they're not involving in imposing "laws" that justify the pilferage of privately earned wealth.



The Browns stole from nobody, inflicted no harm on anybody, and spent most of their lives (with the exception of one matter discussed below) providing honest services to other people in mutually beneficial transactions. None of this is true of the likes of Geithner and Rangel, for whom plunder has proven to be a lucrative and respectable career.




Like Geithner and Rangel, Ed Brown --
as a very young man -- once tried to enrich himself through theft, only to be caught, tried, and imprisoned for that crime. In 1976, Brown was given an unqualified pardon for that crime, which he committed as an 18-year-old. He then built a business as an exterminator.



For her part, Elaine built a large and successful practice as a dentist. Neither one of them lived at the expense of other people; they were producers, not parasites.
In 1996, the Browns decided that they wouldn't permit the likes of Geithner and Rangel to continue stealing from them in order to enrich political favored cronies and constituents. So, like Geithner and Rangel, the Browns stopped paying their taxes.

Armed robbery: "Law enforcement" agents steal Elaine Brown's dental practice, June 7, 2007.


In January 2007, the Browns were "convicted" of the supposed crime of tax evasion and invited to turn themselves in for imprisonment. They impudently scorned that generous invitation, choosing instead to barricade themselves inside the home the Feds planned to steal from them and letting it be known that they would use lethal force to defend themselves against any federal aggression.


The Browns' Plainfield, New Hampshire home -- invariably referred to as a "compound," the preferred description of any dwelling in which live people the government intends to kill -- was surrounded by paramilitary troops from the U.S. Marshals Service.


In short order the home also became a focal point for armed private citizens who intended to support the Browns in the event of an armed assault and, more importantly, to be on-scene witnesses to help deter any potentially murderous aggression by the Feds.



While the Browns were occupied at their home, a
small army of heavily armed federal agents seized Elaine Brown's dental office -- an act of felonious armed robbery. Unfortunately -- albeit predictably -- the throng of Brown supporters was seeded with paid federal informants, two of whom, posing as supporters, gained access to the home and arrested the middle-aged couple without incident.


Put on trial for
eleven felony weapons and "conspiracy" charges, the Browns were found "guilty." That is to say, the court demonstrated that the Browns threatened to use the same means to defend their lives and property that were to be employed by those seeking to deprive them of the same.


The Browns had assembled an enviable arsenal of firearms, ammunition, bullet-resistant clothing, and homemade explosives (or, as the federal prosecution insisted on describing the pipe bombs, "improvised explosive devices" -- a term intended to evoke the image of "terrorists" detonating hidden weapons while fighting U.S. troops in Iraq).




Assistant U.S. Attorney Arnold Huftalen, who presided over the prosecution, initially sought a prison sentence of up to 44 years for the Browns. Holding aloft one of Elaine's handguns, Huftalen simpered that "This was not a small, dainty, self-defense handgun," describing it instead as a heavy weapon "designed to kill 17 people without reloading."



Given the indignation with which Huftalen invested every lisping syllable of his presentation, one might think that the weapons possessed by the armed federal agents surrounding the Brown home were designed to tickle people. But Huftalen, as a servant of a criminal regime, assumes that only the state has the right to use or threaten lethal force, and that
its victims commit some variety of terrorism when they arm themselves with implements of self-defense more effective than Q-tips or Nerf balls.



"Mr. and Mrs. Brown did not engage in a principled dissent against laws they felt to be unjust," pronounced federal Judge George Singal as he imposed the sentence. "Let us not be fooled. The conduct engaged in by Mrs. Brown was purely criminal."



To be "criminal," conduct has to inflict demonstrable harm against an identifiable victim.
Neither Huftalen nor Singal can describe a single instance of palpable harm that resulted from the refusal of the Browns to pay income taxes, or from their acquisition of the means to defend themselves and their home from the criminal syndicate bent on stealing their property
and, if necessary, murdering them.


Even if we were to accept the premise that tax "evaders" injure the "public good" by withholding their wealth from the public fisc, how can it possibly be a greater crime for the Browns to deprive the Feds of a couple of hundred thousand dollars, while the unpunished tax "evader" Timothy Geithner shovels out hundreds of billions of dollars to con artists on Wall Street?


Yes, the Browns threatened to shoot or otherwise kill anybody who tried to harm them. This, coupled with the presence of a large number of witnesses, is probably the only thing that saved their lives.


Thus it is of some interest that Huftalen (as
reported by the Nashua Telegraph) chose to seek a life sentence for Elaine Brown -- despite the fact that she had never harmed a living soul, and despite the fact that there was no physical evidence linking her to the explosives in the Brown household -- "in order to deter Brown supporters [and, presumably, other Americans] from engaging in similar conduct."


It's worth remembering that tax evasion, far from being a crime of any sort, is among our nation's oldest and most sacred political traditions. The War for American independence from Great Britain was carried out by people who engaged in exactly the same kind of "criminal" conduct for which Elaine Brown will spend the rest of her life in prison, and for which her husband may end his days in the American equivalent of the Soviet psihuska.


Sure, the government ruling us -- the same one that not only countenances, but promotes, the monumental criminality of Geithner, Rangel, and their ilk -- calls tax evasion a "crime" when it is carried out by people outside of the privileged caste.


Real crimes involve some variety of force and fraud to deprive someone of something to which he is entitled. Nobody is entitled to take the property of another through taxation, even if such pilferage is "authorized" by a majority of 300,000,000 to 1. The course pursued by Ed and Elaine Brown may have been unwise, but it neither picked my pocket nor broke my leg.


Pocket-picking and leg-breaking are the veritable job descriptions of those who seized the Browns' property, kidnapped them, and are preparing to detain them for the rest of their lives. This is how "justice" operates under the Robber State that afflicts us.




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Dum spiro, pugno!








23 comments:

tim said...

...the Browns stopped paying their taxes.

Should be: The Browns stopped paying unconstitutional taxes.

----

To be "criminal," conduct has to inflict demonstrable harm against an identifiable victim.
Neither Huftalen nor Singal can describe a single instance of palpable harm that resulted from the refusal of the Browns to pay income taxes...


But, they are terrorists: people who don't pay every possible tax that the feds hint is owed them are to be considered terrorists, as the absence of their required "voluntary" contributions will indirectly result in the untold suffering-- and possible death-- of untold numbers of trough-feeding freeloaders.

When the central power takes upon itself every sort of responsibility to provide for the masses, the productive citizenry become the breadwinners upon whose shoulders everything is carried. Their disobedience cannot be tolerated.

Ryan said...

William,

The late Dr. Sam Francis coined a term for this conduct by the rulers to the ruled, Anarcho-tyranny.

As Dr. Francis defined it:

"Mr. Barr's words are almost a definition of the system of government I have called "anarcho-tyranny": a combination of anarchy (in which legitimate government functions—like spying on the bad guys or punishing real criminals—are not performed) and tyranny (in which government performs illegitimate functions—like spying on the good guys or criminalizing innocent conduct like gun ownership and political dissent)."

http://www.vdare.com/francis/patriot_act.htm

I think this is a useful definition of what we are seeing today and we can expect more of this criminal behavior in the future.

kirk said...

Don't forget Daschle, Will. You know him - the tax feeder passing for a "representative" from the senate and senate majority leader at one time - who didn't pay his taxes for two years. Heard anything about it since? Didn't think so. Do you think we will we ever hear anything about it again? Didn't think so. Think he paid interest and penalties? In America he would have. In amerika, which he helped to create, he will not suffer any consequence at all for this.

It is absolutely appalling that two citizens are treated as those featured have been while the "leaders" show their absolute disdain of us all by making rules they write apply to us, but not themselves, taking over half our monies in the process. That they then sop our money into their own greedy, bottomless pockets as well as not pay their own taxes is a double disdain toward us. What is the response of the people? Reelect them! In the end, we have what we have for tolerating what we tolerate.

The effects of the tyranny we live under are all around for us to see. We have no will to do anything but kowtow and bow any more and the state of our nation reveals such. This is the sad state of the citizenry of this nation. On the other hand, the monster ruling us all is bankrupt and overstretched. It will not take much to tip the monster over the cliff. The time is coming. It is eagerly awaited by those of us who despise the hypocrisy, tyranny and megalomania that are the hallmarks of the true enemies of the people - the domestic enemies who reside among us.

Draco said...

Well, whatever else can be said about this instance and others like it and the mentalities that produce them, and however many people are informed about the wrongdoings of government, the joke is still on us. Geithner is still the Treasury Secretary, the Marshalls who took the Browns' lives from them are still going to work every day, and it all happens because the government has finally realized that it can do whatever it wants. The public can cry out as much as it wants - the people in power will laugh as they steamroll their will over whatever they want, as they should. They get the joke, and the joke's on us.

dixiedog said...

Imagine there's no Leviathan
It's easy if you try
No confiscatory tax from us
With us only Providence
Imagine all the people
Living for tomorrow

Imagine there's no Leviathan
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no socialist dogma too
Imagine all the people
Living life in freedom and liberty

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be a better one

Imagine no private property
I wonder if you can
No need for helping the poor
A forced collective of man
Imagine the few elitists
Controlling all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be a better one

(Lyrics borrowed, and edited, from the song "Imagine" by John Lenin [sic])

William N. Grigg said...

Dang it, D.D., that's a lyrical masterpiece -- and, ironically enough, I was just working on a song parody of my own, albeit one inspired by a much different original....

Anonymous said...

Living in the same town as the Browns, my wife and I never once felt threatened by them or their supporters. The numerous Federal agents and the State Police that descended on our town and even managed to ensnare me in a roadblock - all under the guise of keeping us safe from those crazy tax protesters up on the hill- were a different story. Their presence was threatening and their treatment of our local government was despicable. But alas what can you expect when we live in an age where all the power is concentrated within Mordor on the Potomac.

Olde Reb said...

William,

Your basic assumption is that there is an income tax upon individuals.

Wrong !

If such a tax exists, Congress could legally confiscate 100% of the earnings of individuals and the nation of sovereign citizens could become a nation of slaves. The Constitution could be stood on its head with just one law.

The Right to pursue a livelihood has been established as a Right included within the provisions of Liberty. Constitutional Rights are not suitable objects for taxation. If it were otherwise, all constitutional rights could be taxed out of existence. There can be no tax levied upon the Right to a jury trial, upon free speech, etc. Ref. http://www.usa-the-republic.com/revenue/liberty/index.html

If such a law existed, it would be alleged in pleadings (such as indictments) and be subject to contestation with the burden of proof as to its existence and to it validity. The government eliminated this possibility with the 1954 rewriting of the IRC.

Indictments for income tax prosecutions rely upon IRC 7201 through 7215. But those statutes have been declared generic as applying to ALL taxes collected by the IRS. All other taxes (except for individual income tax prosecutions) cite 7201 through 7215 in addition to a liability statute in subtitle A, B, C, or D. By not being required to cite a liability clause for an income tax, any challenge to the unidentified tax shifts the burden of proof onto the defendant. He will be required to prove there is NO POSSIBLE WAY the unidentified tax MIGHT be valid. That is impossible to prove as is documented on Quatloos. The courts permit the invalid indictments. Ref. Motion to Dismiss (Vroman) indictment http://restoretherepublic.net/forum.php?c=topic&op=index&cid=18&tid=7309

The corruption is in the courts. Why do the lawyers refuse to demand Due Process ??

AnHourOfWolves said...

Take the children and yourself and hide out in the cellar.
By now the fighting will be close at hand.
Don't believe the church and state and everything they tell you.
Believe in me, I'm with the high command.

Can you hear me?
Can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running,
can you hear me calling you?
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running,
can you hear me calling you?

There's a gun and ammunition just inside the doorway.
Use it only in emergancy.
Better you should pray to God, the father,
and the spirit will guide you and protect you from up hear.

Can you hear me?
Can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running,
can you hear me calling you?
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running,
can you hear me calling you?

Swear allegance to the flag. Whatever flag they offer.
Never hint at what you really feel.
Teach the children quietly for someday suns and daughters,
we'll rise and fight while we stood still.

Can you hear me?
Can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running,
can you hear me calling you?
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running,
can you hear me calling you?

Can you hear me?
Can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running,
can you hear me calling you?

Can you hear me running?
(can you hear me calling you?)
(can you hear me)
Hear me calling you.
(Can you hear me running?)

Hear me running back
(Can you hear me running?)
Hear me running
Calling you, calling you
Back To Mike And The Mechanics Song Lyrics

Mike And The Mechanics
-

Anonymous said...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-165688030
3867390173&ei=LHMcSvvMKImyrgLHwdGhBg&q=from+freedom+to+fasci
sm&hl=en

Anonymous said...

Aren't taxes wonderful . . . they really are the power to destroy.

Recently, I read that Idaho is no. 10 in amerika's top taxer's.

My marginal rate is 53.4%, plus 30% of the after tax dollars to the anti-family child support system (18% of the total), plus 6% sales tax (~3% of the total), plus property tax (~1% of the total), plus ad infinitum smaller amounts. So I figure 3 out of every 4 dollars I earn get confiscated right off the top before I put a roof over my boy's heads, food on our table or clothes on our backs.

They tax it when you earn it, they tax it when you spend it, they tax it when you spend it . . . you can't even wipe your ass without being taxed. And that is just a rough cut of the numbers . . .

Definitely different stock than those who founded this country. Personally, I think it is time to start hanging the bastards once again . . . which I shared with Butch 'DUI' Otter on the way home the other night with a single digit salute as he collected his mail.

Sic Semper Tyrannis

AvgJoe said...

Please allow me to make a note of this topic to bring up the fact that the Southern Poverty Law Center keeps and eye out for "tax cheaters" and turns that over to the feds.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is a racket for traders of this nation.

Anonymous said...

"Imagine no state property
I wonder if you can.......

"Imagine no elitists
controlling all the world."

"Yoo hooooo oooo"

"You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
and the world will be a freer one"

Jerri Lynn Ward said...

"Why do the lawyers refuse to demand Due Process ??"

Perhaps because they might get disbarred for persisting in bringing up the arguments you make?

Anonymous said...

As I've said before on numerous blogs etc around the internet, until the "authorities" start suffering consequences they have NO REASON to listen to "the people." or change their JackBoot ways. No consequences = No change by government. They don't care how much we "talk" and "complain". Those aren't consequences.

The hogs are hungry!

Anonymous said...

How could a lawyer be legitimately disbarred for stating his client's case?

Anonymous said...

What masterful spin doctor you are! Painting a picture of a couple that are just your average joe and the big bag gubernent being out to get them.

Good grief. I've read the case on Pacer and the picture you paint is one of fantasy.

William N. Grigg said...

Actually, I'm still only a spin internist. Spin Doctoring, as you probably know, requires a government-issued license.

Ed and Elaine Brown are hardly "average"; the typical American surrenders his income to the enemy in Washington without putting up the fight they did.

Ed's criminal background -- meaning the actual crimes he committed against persons and property -- troubles me, which is why I made specific mention of it. (A government-licensed Spin Doctor would have elided such matters, of course.)

I don't know the Browns personally; for all I know they have dreadful taste in music, tell bad jokes, and otherwise aren't the kind of people with whom I'd spend my private time. But their "tax evasion" neither harms nor threatens me, and I'm not scandalized at all by the fact that they acquired an admirably large arsenal to defend themselves against people who do threaten me.

I can't think of a legitimate reason why I should consider myself more threatened by people like the Browns than by the people bent on using lethal force to steal their property.

Ford N. said...

The Browns were not "average" because the typical American doesn't built a fortress with a bomb making factory in it to defend himself from the Jewish Masonic Illuminati that he thinks is after him then barricades himself inside to resist arrest with deadly force because he thinks the Ten Commandments instructs him to.

These are not the kind of martyrs that Libertarianism needs.

William N. Grigg said...

Ford N., I grant that the Browns aren't the kind of people a "movement" can comfortably embrace. But I really don't care about the "movement"; I'm more preoccupied with the rights of individuals than the needs of institutional libertarianism.

The issue of Mr. Brown's beliefs takes us right back to Jefferson's admonition: Let my neighbor believe in one God or ten "gods," it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. Brown was a man who expressed some bizarre opinions at a time when he was surrounded by pick-pockets and leg-breakers. It shouldn't be difficult to identify which of those parties was the actual threat to individual freedom.

In much the same way I fail to be scandalized by the fact that the Browns manufactured a handful of crude pipe bombs at a time when they were confronting the enforcement arm of a regime that routinely incinerates entire families in foreign lands, and occasionally (vide Mt. Carmel in 1993, Philadelphia in 1985, and an attempt at Ruby Ridge in 1992) immolates people it targets here at home.

Anonymous said...

Simply amazing that the Fed porkmeisters can rob and spend away you and your childrens inheritance with nary a nod while you, citizen/slave, had best do what you're ordered to do or else!

And Mr. Charles Rangel is the very same rat who presently is itching to reinstate the draft. How convenient.

isaac stanfield said...

Ford N: The Browns were not "average" because the typical American doesn't built a fortress with a bomb making factory in it to defend himself from the Jewish Masonic Illuminati that he thinks is after him then barricades himself inside to resist arrest with deadly force because he thinks the Ten Commandments instructs him to.



So only "average" or "typical" people should have the right to keep their own property? Who cares who or what the Browns thought (aside from you, of course)? That isn't the issue. The issue is whether or not individuals should be subjected to this kind of treatment merely for trying to keep what they earned. Am I missing something here?

JeanLinen said...

Inspired by Dixiedog and Anonymous, I've taken the threads of their contributions and added some weaving of my own. Love, Hope and Peace.
----------------------


"REIMAGINE"

Imagine no more Statists
It's easy if you try
No legal theft through taxes
or inflation pushed sky-high
Imagine all the people
Owning all their pay

Imagine no more Banksters
It isn't hard to do
No goldless counterfeiting
or controlling far from view
Imagine all the people
Living without thieves

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world's a freer one

Imagine no more leeches
I wonder if you can
No self-centred tax-feeders
A brotherhood of man
Imagine no elitists
Controlling all the world

Yoo hooooo oooo

You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
and the world's a better one