The Rule Of Law Under Assault
“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer
“I didn’t say it would be easy, I just said it would be the truth.”
-Morpheus
The Rule Of Law Under Assault
A Final Escalation In The Government's Corrupt Efforts To Keep More Americans From Learning The Liberating Truth About The Income Tax
Six years or so ago, some IRS paper-pusher made the mistake of his or her career in refusing to accept the return filed by my wife and me, leading to my uncovering the liberating truth about the income tax and putting it down on paper for anyone to read and learn for themselves in 'Cracking the Code- The Fascinating Truth About Taxation In America' (CtC). Three months after publishing the first edition of that book, I became the first American in history to secure the return of ALL of the property that had been withheld from me and turned over to the federal government in connection with the income tax-- Social Security and Medicare "contributions" included. This was the first of thousands of such victories in insisting on the proper application of the law by readers of CtC which continue to this day.
A year later, some higher-level IRS stooge did it again, taking me repeatedly into court in efforts to suppress my book. These efforts revolved around purported challenges to the accuracy of what is presented in CtC. All were defeated-- indeed, the government actually surrendered in every contest, and itself moved the courts to dismiss each assault on the book upon realizing that it couldn't make it's case.
Two years after that, a still-higher-level thug pushed the agency and the DoJ to try to slow the spread of the truth about the tax by filing a "lawsuit" against my wife and me, in which the federal courts are asked to order us to testify to the government's specifications in order to create a pretense under which we could be held liable for taxes which even the Treasury Department's own internal records admit that we don't owe. This has proven to be a sustained, still-ongoing embarrassment to the agency, the DoJ, and the courts (and yet another definitive affirmation of the accuracy of what is revealed in CtC).
Now another batch of these folks is daring another, and more significant, embarrassment, by charging me with allegedly having "Willfully [made] and [subscribed] any return, statement, or other document, which contains or is verified by a written declaration that it is made under the penalties of perjury, and which he does not believe to be true and correct as to every material matter." (The details can be seen here.)
At bottom of course, this assault is another effort by the government to evade the plain words of the tax statutes. As has always been the case, and as is unambiguously demonstrated by the practical record of events, I'm being attacked not because what I say is wrong, but because what I say is right.
Due process is in the crosshairs, here, too. The awkward proposition the government is forced to embrace in this latest assault is that one can be punished criminally for simply refusing to affirmatively endorse the government's self-serving pretense about the nature of the tax.
Consider: one has always been punishable for standing silent ("failing to file") if the government has been told that "income" has been paid to one beyond the exemption amount. (One also then faces the prospect that such allegations will be taken as true, since they are uncontested, possibly leading to the establishment of a corresponding tax liability).
These charges against me propose that one can now be punished for NOT standing silent also, if one simply fails to adopt those allegations made by others about the legal character of one's receipts (which is what those allegations really are about-- rather than simply the amount of money that changed hands-- even though those making them seldom understand this)! The end result is the proposition that one can be punished unless one testifies to suit the government's preferences (the doing of which, not coincidentally, always results in a financial gain to the government).
Thus:
THIS IS A RULE OF LAW CASE, Not A "Tax Case"
"But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe... When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime."
-Thomas Paine
Imagine an America in which, say, a psychiatrist obliged to testify about someone's mental condition in a competency or commitment hearing risks prosecution for perjury if he doesn't express the opinion the government wishes to hear... Think about testimony in parental rights hearings... In legislative hearings... Criminal forensics...
Nauseating thoughts, aren't they?
Now think about the doorway into that America which is opening right before your eyes, as the government makes its first attempt to get away with this kind of mind-bogglingly corrupt evasion of natural and Constitutional law, in order to compel me to endorse its claim to my property, or punish me for refusing to do so. That's what the assault on CtC is all about.
Remember, my odyssey to uncovering the truth about the tax began with the simple proposition that I cannot be compelled to express, by way of a sworn statement on a legal document, a view that I do not actually hold. As is discussed in the introduction to CtC, at the beginning of that odyssey I was routinely submitting tax returns of a “conventional” character, unusual only in that they contained a disclaimer by which I (and Doreen, after our marriage) declined to formally declare our earnings to be “income”, as that term is meant in the relevant law. The government was still taking our property (and never stopped doing so throughout all of the period involved in the charges with which I am being forced to deal in this latest government struggle against the inconveniences of due process and the truth about the tax).
The IRS suddenly refused to accept our 2000 return unless we explicitly made a sworn declaration that our receipts DID qualify as “income” (after years of accepting these returns without a peep). We refused to have that testimony dictated to us, as we did not believe it to be true. The government’s apparent reliance on our doing so prompted my deep research into the subject, by which I learned what DOES qualify as “income”, and why the declaration sought by the government is so important to its scheme for applying the tax to receipts which DO NOT objectively qualify as “income” (obviously, in the case of receipts which DO objectively qualify as “income”, a declaration would neither be needed nor wanted).
Since then, I have merely and simply declared what I believe to be true about my receipts (which declaration necessitates rebutting contrary allegations by others of which I am put on notice by way of “information returns”-- W-2s-- lest I otherwise constructively testify to the substance of those allegations through acquiescing by silence). The process of rebutting these allegations in a legally meaningful way involves the completion of a return, and completing a return to that effect happens to result, by a purely mechanical exercise, in a claim for the return of all withheld property. That end result is not the purpose of the exercise, it is just a byproduct. Speaking freely, honestly and accurately is the purpose.
What these charges are really all about is a government effort to compel me to make a declaration that I know and believe to be untrue. Furthermore, don’t forget that I am effectively compelled to say something, since my silence (failure to file a return) in the face of allegations by others on “information returns” to the effect that I have had receipts qualifying as “income” in more than the exemption amount is treated as a criminal act (even without regard to the adverse economic effect I would be obliged to quietly abide).
This is what this outrageous case is really all about.
Of course, this case concerns the truth of the tax, as well. The fact that hundreds and hundreds of complete refunds of withheld, paid-in and garnisheed property, lien releases, notice of deficiency closing notices, and every other kind of concrete acknowledgement possible (along with innumerable subtler acknowledgments) from the federal and more than 35 state and local governments have been continually being issued for nearly five years now to Americans across the country when they, too, have knowledgably declined to declare their earnings to qualify as “income” is simply evidence of the fact that without that endorsing declaration, those earnings do not, in fact, qualify, and that what I know and believe to be true about the tax, and explain in 'Cracking the Code- The Fascinating Truth About Taxation In America', IS, in fact, the truth.
(In regard to these refunds, many have involved very detailed exchanges between the tax agencies and the claimants-- sometimes going on for a year or more, as anyone following my postings these cases over the years is aware. See the Victories Highlights page and the Every Which Way But Loose series for dozens of examples. Be sure to click on provided links relating to each posted item on these pages to see all the material and dialogue exchanged between the claimant and the tax agency in connection to these events.)
To the government, that truth about the tax is the only thing that matters. It wants to drive that truth out of the minds of those who have learned it, and intimidate those who have acted on their knowledge into reversing themselves, by simple, crude fear; and it wants to discourage anyone else from ever learning it in the first place.
But to the rest of us, the refunds and other victories, and even the liberating truth to which they bear witness itself, are not the core issues here-- as is made clear by the fact that some of those victories involve claims of as little as a few dollars (one is only $1.00). Nobody who has learned that truth is invoking it for the money-- they are invoking it as an exercise of their right to speak freely, honestly, and in a legally-meaningful manner in dispute of allegations made about them by others which they know and believe to be untrue.
This case is a speech, due process, and core Rule of Law case, pure and simple-- not a “tax case”. Bluntly put, it is a "government behaving lawlessly and abusively in service to its boundless arrogance, ambition and contempt for the Constitution" case.
All real Americans will find their stomachs roiling at this embrace of raw corruption by the state. All real Americans should be galvanized to action, as well.
If you are,
GET INVOLVED!!
DONATIONS ARE SORELY NEEDED TO FINANCE A LEGAL A-TEAM THAT CAN REALLY SLAP BACK!!
Any amount you can afford will help.
Make them here, or by mail to Pete Hendrickson, 232 Oriole Rd., Commerce Twp., MI 48382.
MORE-- Send word of this corrupt assault on freedom of speech, due process and the rule of law to everyone on your lists!!
Especially, ring the phones off the hooks at the Institute for Justice ((703)682-9320), the ACLU, the Rutherford Institute ((434)978-3888), the Center For Individual Rights (202)833-8400, Judicial Watch ((888)593-8442) and every other organization that fancies itself a champion of liberty and the law.
Do the same with the media-- your local outlets, the national MSM and new media like LewRockwell.com, Vdare.com, Infowars.com and so on. You may not be aware of it, but none of these folks know anything about any of this (and some that may have heard of CtC have had their impressions tainted by folks of the sort described here, or reflexively think "Oh, it's just that "Schiff", or "Meredith" or [fill in the blank] stuff with new clothes").
You also may not understand that YOUR bearing witness to YOUR study and independent verification of what is presented in CtC, and of all that I have been posting here over the years, is FAR more influential with these folks than anything I can do to excite their interest. YOU'VE got to do this, each and every one of you, or it just won't happen.
Finally, send this newsletter to everyone you know, EVEN OTHER CtC WARRIORS. For a variety of reasons-- some doubtless benign, others perhaps not-- these newsletters are not getting to everyone on my own mailing list. YOUR forwarding the email you just got from me announcing this update will ensure that these other folks get the news and can get involved.
**
P. S. If you see posts about this subject in newsgroups, forums, etc., please do me the favor of posting my comments above (with links active), or, "Pete has posted comments about this latest attack on the truth about the tax-- along with some important links-- at www.losthorizons.com/LastShotForTheLawDefiers.htm."
P. P. S. The short films at www.losthorizons.com/WtW.htm, www.losthorizons.com/AreYouReady.htm and www.losthorizons.com/It'sTime.htm will provide a quick introduction to the liberating truth about the tax, and the 25-page document at www.losthorizons.com/Intro.pdf will give a more in-depth, but still easily-accessible look at this critically-important subject.
**
A Few Good Words From The National Forum
| It's no wonder we're fighting an uphill battle on all fronts. Every time one of us sticks our head up, the other slaves try to beat us back down so we don't cause problems for them. We have an assortment of people at all levels with such an interest in maintaining the status quo, ol' massa rarely even has to raise the whip. Well, this slave is done crawling around on all fours. They can drag Pete into the street and put a bullet in his head, and it will not silence me! They're going to have to drag me out and put one in my head too.
I can't wait to see how this case works out for Pete, my hope is for the best. My only concern is that we are not operating under a fair and just system, and I wouldn't put it past these scoundrels to fabricate evidence, present false testimony, call witnesses who lie, you name it, do anything it takes to shut him up and stop him from spreading the truth.
We should all contribute whatever we can afford, and spread word of this case far and wide, to lovers of liberty everywhere. -sclavus |
"IRS Monsters Meet CtC Sunlight"
 |
(Click on the title or image-- Windows Media Player should launch.)
Substantive Filings/Activities In The Case
NOTE: My references below to government filings as "attempts to evade" might strike some as prejudicial at first glance, but it will be observed by the careful reader that the government actually doesn't even attempt to contest the substance of most of these motions (such as its having made no effort whatever to challenge or contest the very key "meaning of includes" material presented in the "May 7 Motion to Dismiss on Additional Grounds")...
Government Attempt to Evade Jan. 15 Motion to Dismiss
Reply to Government's Non-Response
May 5 Motion for Disclosure Exhibit
Government Attempt to Evade May 5 Motion for Disclosure
May 5 Motion to Dismiss on Additional Grounds
Government Attempt to Evade Motion to Dismiss on Additional Grounds
Government Attempt to Evade Motion for Discovery
May 7 Motion to Dismiss on Additional Grounds
Government Attempt to Evade Motion to Dismiss on Additional Grounds
A hearing was held on May 14 in which very brief oral arguments were permitted concerning the Jan. 15 motion.
All of the motions above were "taken under advisement" by the court following the May 14 hearing.
Over the last 45 days or so, a few significant events have occurred in this matter, prompting this update. First of all, in what attorneys familiar with federal procedures describe as a highly unusual move, the Department of Justice (sic) has produced partial records of internal communications between IRS personnel and those of IRS personnel with DoJ officials concerning the decision to initiate this assault on me personally, due to their inability to dispute the truth about tax revealed in CtC. These selected records have been given to Chief District Court Judge Gerald Rosen for in camera review. It is perhaps the DoJ's hope that this customized submission will forestall an actual order from the court for a more complete submission pursuant to a defense motion to the court to that effect, which has been pending since January, and which, like nearly all of the defense motions so far, was "taken under advisement" by the court on May 14. I have only been furnished with a summary identifying each series of exchanges, and not the actual emails and other individual communiqués, but by itself the summary is quite interesting. First, the summary immediately suggests the government's motive of pre-empting an actual order, and consequently more complete release, since it indicates that only exchanges through June of 2006 were given to the judge for review. The indictment didn't occur until November of 2008-- nearly 2 1/2 years later, so there would appear to be much that has been left out of this submission. Furthermore, this summary suggests that only exchanges of a formal nature were provided. (By the way, the unfinished sentence in the last entry in the summary linked above is as it was submitted.) More interesting still, the summary makes clear that operatives in the IRS have been repeatedly trying to come up with some pretext for charging me with something-- which efforts had been being repeatedly shot down-- since as early as 2004! The summary describes two "referrals" for criminal investigation shot down by the Detroit IRS offices, followed by the shopping-out of the effort to the apparently more pliable Cleveland IRS office. That office accepted the "referral", but then also apparently recognized the illegitimacy of the effort. As noted in the cover letter accompanying the summary, which itself purports to "summarize" the history reflected in the materials given to the judge, "[T]he referral was re-assigned to the Cleveland Field Office, where it was accepted. Ultimately, the Grand Jury investigation was not expanded to include Hendrickson as a target." The cover-letter summary goes on to say that an "administrative investigation" was then commenced-- this is the investigation which included a series of summonses to my "third-party recordkeepers" discussed in detail here. Significantly, that investigation was unable to produce anything serving the purposes of those in the IRS behind this assault. This is made clear by the nature of the indictment upon which they were finally forced to settle, which ended up merely alleging that I didn't believe what I said on documents long-since in the record. In fact, the allegations to which the "ignorance tax" schemers ultimately resorted after all of that struggle to find more plausible pretexts for this assault could have been written at any time from 2002 on, with no change whatsoever other than in the number and relevant dates of the otherwise identical counts. All of the flailing about revealed in these summaries didn't happen in a vacuum, of course. Every bit of it went on distinct from, parallel to, and coincident with, the four failed efforts to enjoin distribution of CtC and impose penalties on me based on spurious charges of "promotion of an abusive tax shelter" (a charge which the government has broadly applied, and with great success, to those actually espousing mistaken views about the "income" tax over the years) discussed here; not to mention the calculated misinformation campaigns of the IRS against CtC discussed here; the bogus "lawsuit" against my wife and me discussed here; the series of frantic redesigns of "notices" "forms" and "letters" described here; and the ongoing, six-years-now-and-counting successes of CtC-educated Americans in reclaiming every penny withheld from them and given over to the federal and a constantly-growing number of state and local governments in connection with the "income" tax documented here, of course. All in all, the government's efforts to evade the truth revealed in CtC have been impressive indeed (for volume, vigor and unscrupulousness, anyway). They call for matching efforts by those of us that know and care about the truth to see to it that it continues to spread, and that these corrupt government programs to dissuade others from learning the liberating truth fail. ***
The jury in my trial came back with guilty verdicts on all counts. Sadly, for several reasons the content of CtC and related materials never got presented other than in the most cursory fashion throughout the affair. Various aspects of the trial will likely yield grounds for appeal, and I will pursue them accordingly.
Needless to say, I'm not happy, and my family is in serious distress. But we will persevere.
You are the ones that make this possible, and I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for your prayers, your kind and heartening words, and your support throughout this ordeal so far. I hope that you will continue in every respect going forward, and especially keep up your own courage and commitment in upholding the rule of law (though I have no fears on that score).
There is an old story that I'm sure you all know, about a group of mice being preyed on by a cat. One day, one of the mice has the bright idea of hanging a bell around the cat's neck, so that the mice will all hear it coming, and thus avoid being consumed. Everyone agrees that the plan is brilliant, but then comes the question, "Who will be the one to put the bell on the cat (and surely die trying)?" Faced with that, no one acts, and the mice go on as abject victims of the hungry cat.
However, there IS a solution to that conundrum: If all the fellows of the mouse doing the belling act together in his support, the cat can be overwhelmed and the job can be done.
In this case, the mice are supposedly free men and women, and the task that needed doing was that of pulling back the curtain to reveal a corrupt lie by which everyone has already been victimized for decades, and would continue to be for decades to come. I stepped forward and pulled back that curtain, and now the liars are trying to cut off my hand so that the curtain can drop back into place and their exploitations can continue unhindered. I need my fellows to help, right now.
Donations can be made here. Anything that you can afford to contribute-- even if it's just $10-- will be helpful and much appreciated.
Many of you have already contributed to my expenses in dealing with this assault on the truth and our rule of law, and I am enormously grateful to all who have done so. But just getting to where we are in this affair so far, has cost nearly $200,000.00 in legal fees. Much more will be needed going forward in pursuing the appeal.
By the way, an alternative to simple donations that has another, special virtue is to purchase copies of CtC to give to friends, family and neighbors...
As it happens, the eleventh edition of CtC is now available, and so, even if just a single book is all that you can afford, this is a perfect time to give your older edition to someone needing to learn the truth about the tax and to give yourself a new copy with all the text upgrades, additional authorities and appendix supplements included to one degree or another in every new edition. If your budget allows for more, discounts begin with as few as six copies. Click here for ordering and discount information.
Above all, even if helping financially is simply beyond your abilities at this time, don't let yourselves be cowed into silence. Lies and corruption require darkness to thrive. The light of public awareness is to them as daylight is to a vampire.
However, I simply cannot command the attention of the media. The first thing anyone in the media does upon hearing from me is go to Google, and the first thing they find is a DoJ press release, or some other carefully-crafted, misleading page by an enemy of the truth which deliberately excludes all of the legal victories (and the legal shenanigans of the opposition), the hundreds and hundreds of practical victories, the facts about the disinformation campaigns and the other plain evidence of the actual truth of CtC-related events over the years, and which also excludes any of the actual content of the relevant law, of course. Typically, the matter gets no second look, nor any skeptical investigation of these calculated misrepresentations.
YOU can get more traction, though, because you're not saying, "Hey, look at my stuff!" You're saying, "Hey, look at this guy's stuff! I did, and it took awhile, but what I learned will blow your socks off, and it's the story of the century!"
So please, stand up, loud and proud. If you are in the media, or know anyone who is, please help see to it that informed, honest reporting is done about CtC and this current desperate, corrupt assault on the liberating truth. And even if you're NOT in the media officially, help me get the word into the new media, which matters at least as much. Send me your video testimonials.
"Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right."
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
To review this affair in its entirety, please begin at the top of this page and read through.
*People exploited as resources by others while under a delusion keeping them from realizing the sordid truth. See 'The Matrix'.