Harvester Evades More Questions

[Gregg]

Justin, (you know, they guy who works for a non profit that receives federal funding) adds this nonsense and ends with a question I'll answer...

Thanks, kensei. The guy I am debating with on the CA forum spends an inordinate amount of time on his "research." Flawed as it is, I kept thinking to myself, "He must be getting paid to do this!" The tenacity of spreading non-CtC BS and the sheer unwillingness to think critically. I found myself continually baffled at his responses and contortions of my words.

Realistically, what are the possibilities of the CtC community being monitored, emails being hacked, stuff like that... I've been wondering.

And well you should wonder, grasshopper. We're not hacking your e-mail, but trust me, just from the garbage you post on LH, we know who you are.......

[Nikki]

Thanks, kensei. The guy I am debating with on the CA forum spends an inordinate amount of time on his "research." Flawed as it is, I kept thinking to myself, "He must be getting paid to do this!" The tenacity of spreading non-CtC BS and the sheer unwillingness to think critically. I found myself continually baffled at his responses and contortions of my words.

Realistically, what are the possibilities of the CtC community being monitored, emails being hacked, stuff like that... I've been wondering.

Monitored?

How about 100% and all the information being shared between the feds and the states?

Justin: When you post crap like that in an unsecured forum where the guru also posts clear copies of every single fraudulent refund or setoff, you should expect to be the focus of attention.

[wserra]

3) Wesley was former military intelligence.

I'm honored to be confused with Prof. Even by Harvey, who is, well, confused.

[Pottapaug1938]

Simply amazing things that even we at Conspiracy Central did not know was going on:

4) The IRS hands out bonuses to Quatloos for "services and information." Don't know about the rest of you but I am still waiting to get the first check after being here for 9 years.

YIKES! You ought to check with your Illuminatipapa. Mine is making sure that my bonuses are paid, not in FRNs but in real money -- gold and silver -- and I don't have to pay tax on it, either.

[bmielke]

Simply amazing things that even we at Conspiracy Central did not know was going on:

4) The IRS hands out bonuses to Quatloos for "services and information." Don't know about the rest of you but I am still waiting to get the first check after being here for 9 years.

YIKES! You ought to check with your Illuminatipapa. Mine is making sure that my bonuses are paid, not in FRNs but in real money -- gold and silver -- and I don't have to pay tax on it, either.

Yes, and I have a bridge in Brooklyn, I'll sell it real cheap.

[grixit]

Hey, this christmas, let's do a Secret Santa exchange. Each participant has to come up with a backstory for whoever they pick that'll confirm the worst fears of the lostheads and spread it where it'll be eagerly picked up.

For example:

Nikki is a cyborg with the head and arms of an orangutan grafted on to a protoype rocket cycle. Nikki enjoys zooming through patriot rallies at supersonic speed, ripping the throats out of god fearing true americans who dare to mention the windup keys on the backs of federal judges.

or:

Captain Kickback has been described as "the lovechild of Machiavelli and Pol Pot". In his spare time he moonlights as an abortionist and eats the fetuses alive.

[wserra]

I thought we were supposed to make up the backstories.

[The Observer]

I thought we were supposed to make up the backstories.

You have something against the truth?

[bmielke]

I thought we were supposed to make up the backstories.

You have something against the truth?

The Truth is a wonderful thing, it should be protected at all times by a body guard of lies.

I am paraphrasing and I am not sure whos aid it orginally but it fits.

[Pottapaug1938]

I thought we were supposed to make up the backstories.

You have something against the truth?

The Truth is a wonderful thing, it should be protected at all times by a body guard of lies.

I am paraphrasing and I am not sure whos aid it orginally but it fits.

Winston Churchill.

[LPC]

The linked essay in Lost Horizons is the sort of thing you'd find from someone desperate or seriously flaky. The essay's main issue is that, in the course of one 1984 case, another 1984 case was cited for a particular proposition (namely that income tax is not reciprocal to any govt benefit) ... and, it turns out, the case cited didn't deal with that proposition at all. OK, an error.

I disagree.

Hendrickson's whine is about the following quotation:

"Plaintiffs argue first that they are exempt from federal taxation because they are "natural individuals" who have not "requested, obtained or exercised any, privilege from an agency of government." This is not a basis for an exemption from federal income tax. [citation omitted] All individuals, natural or unnatural, must pay federal income tax on their wages, regardless of whether they received any "privileges" from the government. Plaintiffs also contend that the Constitution prohibits imposition of a direct tax without apportionment. They are wrong; it does not. U. S. Const. amend. XVI [. . . .]"

Which is from Lovell v. United States, 755 F.2d 517, 519 (7th Cir. 1984).

Hendrickson whines that:

The "citation omitted" in this deliberately incomplete excerpt is to 'Holker v. United States', the case relied upon by the Lovell court as providing the authority for its otherwise unsupported declaration about "privilege". However, the Holker court not only also doesn't supply any authority for the contention made in Lovell, it doesn't address the issue at all.

The decision in Holker v. United States, 737 F. 2d 751, 752 (8th Cir. 1984), includes (there's that word again) the following statement:

In a letter to the IRS, Holker requested a tax refund for 1982, arguing that he owed no tax because he is a "natural individual and unenfranchised freeman" who "neither requested, obtained nor exercised any privilege from any agency of government."

In the Lovell case, the plaintiffs argued that they had not "requested, obtained or exercised any privilege from an agency of government."

The statements by the parties in Lovell and Holker were, therefore, identical for all practical purposes.

The issue in Holker was whether the taxpayer had filed a frivolous tax return for which a $500 penalty should be imposed, and the court ruled that he had. The letter described by the court accompanied an unsigned Form 1040 marked ""NOT A TAX RETURN — For information only," two W-2 forms marked "INCORRECT," and a Schedule C profit and loss statement on which Holker subtracted the value of his own labor as an expense. The court ruled that what he filed was a "return," and that it was frivolous.

The Holker court never directly commented on the claim that persons who have not requested or exercised a governmental privilege are not subject to tax, but the rejection of that claim is a necessary implication of the decision. By ruling that the refund claim was a frivolous return, the court necessarily rejected the stated basis for the refund claim.

The situation in Lovell was similar to the situation in Holker, in that the taxpayers sent letters to the IRS requesting refunds, along with unsigned Forms 1040 marked "not a tax return (see attached letter)" and Schedules C on which they claimed deductions for the costs of their own labor.

The Lovell court held that the letters were "returns" and that they were frivolous, citing the Holker case as support for the conclusion that the returns were frivolous. The Lovell court then directly addressed the "privilege" argument:

Plaintiffs argue first that they are exempt from federal taxation because they are "natural individuals" who have not "requested, obtained or exercised any privilege from an agency of government." This is not a basis for an exemption from federal income tax. See Holker v. United States.

(Italics in original.)

The word "see" is significant in this context.

My copy of the "bluebook" (A Uniform System of Citation, published by the Harvard Law Review Association) dates from 1975 (11th Edition), but I think it can still be relied upon in this area.

The word "see" is what the bluebook calls a "signal." From section III.C.26, "Introductory Signals," on page 86:

Signals are used to indicate the purpose for which an authority is cited, or the degree of support the authority gives to a proposition. Signals are italized.

After some other comments, there is a table of signals, and the significance of the lack of any signal ("[none]") is "Cited authority directly supports statement in text." The significance of the "see" signal is described as follows:

Cited authority constitutes basic source material supporting an opinion or conclusion of either law or fact drawn in a textual statement. It indicates that the asserted opinion or conclusion will be suggested by an examination of the cited authorty rather than that the opinion or conclusion is stated by the cited authority.

As explained above, the conclusion stated in the Lovell opinion is certainly "suggested" or implied by the Holker opinion, and certainly supports the statement made in the Lovell opinion, even though the Holker opinion does not make the exact statement made in Lovell.

If the Lovell opinion had simply cited the Holker case without the word "see," the citation could be regarded as technically incorrect, but the citation "See Holker v. United States" was perfectly proper and absolutely correct.

[.]

Well, "see," there you go.

Absolute proof of an Illuminati plot, obviously based on an obscure handbook, unavailable to the lumpen proletariat.

I actually enjoyed slogging through this absolute demolition of yet another piece of PH sophistry. Thanks, Dan. Perhaps PH will read or become aware of it and begin to question his "research."

Nah.

[Famspear]

Good grief. LPC, you not only nailed it (which is not a surprise at all), you seem to have "channeled" my brain. LPC's analysis is very similar to the response I was going to provide -- including the explanation of the "see" signal (Bluebook).

Coincidentally, just a day before this came up, I had been over at Wikipedia and had just added a citation to Holker in the relevant Wikipedia article -- with the appropriate "see" signal.

[Harvester]

Hey, this christmas, let's do a Secret Santa exchange. Each participant has to come up with a backstory for whoever they pick that'll confirm the worst fears of the lostheads and spread it where it'll be eagerly picked up.

Good Grief grixit. Someone's already started on it . . .

http://losthorizons.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=2342

[Nikki]

Hey, this christmas, let's do a Secret Santa exchange. Each participant has to come up with a backstory for whoever they pick that'll confirm the worst fears of the lostheads and spread it where it'll be eagerly picked up.

Good Grief grixit. Someone's already started on it . . .

Link to self-serving message deleted

Beautiful. Hamster is now referring to (yet another) one of his aliases as "someone."

Hamster -- why don't you just come out and say that you're "Libre?"

[LPC]

you seem to have "channeled" my brain. LPC's analysis is very similar to the response I was going to provide -- including the explanation of the "see" signal (Bluebook).

Channeling is not out of the question. The possible significance of the word "see" was something that popped into my head only after I had looked at the full text of both opinion, and I had to check the bluebook to make sure that my recollection of the significance was correct.

I have some more comments on some other things that Hendrickson wrote about Lovell and Holker. After quoting Holker in full, Hendrickson pontificated as follows:

Thus, even without bothering to address the larger distinguishing features of this case as revealed in the circuit court's summary:

Hendrickson then quotes an entire paragraph from the Lovell opinion that describes the "returns" that were filed by the Lovells, returns which, as I explained in my previous posting, seemed to be extremely similar to the "return" filed by Holker.

So what "larger distinguishing features" is Hendrickson blathering about? There's no way of telling, because Hendrickson never explains what features he is thinking about.

Following the quotation from Lovell, Hendrickson continues with:

and also without bothering to dwell on the quirks in the circuit court's unclarified declaration that everyone must pay "income tax on their wages regardless of whether they received any "privileges" from the government" (internal quote marks in the original),

Quirks? Unclarified declaration? What clarification was needed?

the plain fact is that the [Lovell] court actually DOESN'T cite any authority to support its thus empty words.

The implication (or assumption) is that a court's ruling is nothing but "empty words" unless it cites a previous case that reached the exact same conclusion, expressed using the same words. But if that were true, then no court could ever rule on a case of first impression.

Whatever the Lovell court may have meant by that portion of its ruling, and whatever the IRS shills responsible for posting it may have meant to be taken from the excerpt by the casual reader (who almost certainly would not bother to read the Lovell case in its entirety, and follow up by reading the Holker case, thus discovering the subterfuge), it is not what the excerpt is intended to suggest.

Which ends Hendrickson's rant on Lovell and Holker.

This last sentence is interesting for its complete lack of any substantive content, as well as a lack of any rationale for its conclusion. But the sentence is also inherently incoherent. If you delete the snarky aside about "IRS shills" and the related parenthetical, what you are left with is:

Whatever the Lovell court may have meant by that portion of its ruling, [...] it is not what the excerpt is intended to suggest.

That's right. What the Lovell court meant to say is not what it intended to say.

So, to sum up, what Hendrickson wrote was that:

1. The Holker opinion does not support the conclusion in Lovell (although it does, for the reasons explained in my previous message);

2. There are "larger distinguishing features" that distinguish the Lovell case and the Holker case, but Hendrickson doesn't say what they are;

3. There "quirks" in the Lovell opinion that are "unclarified," but Hendrickson doesn't say what they are;

4. The Lovell opinion is "empty words" because it is not supported by a citation to another opinion that is satisfactory to Hendrickson; and

5. It's not clear what the Lovell court meant by what it said, but whatever it meant to say is not what it intended to say.

Hendrickson is simply flinging feces and hoping that some of it will stick, knowing full well that his supporters have no sense of smell (or taste) and will never know that it's feces.

[Cathulhu]

Dan said:The implication (or assumption) is that a court's ruling is nothing but "empty words" unless it cites a previous case that reached the exact same conclusion, expressed using the same words. But if that were true, then no court could ever rule on a case of first impression.

Doubtless Pete thinks his sentence is a lot of empty words too, but those darn prison guards just don't react to magic words properly!

Pity they can't put him and Simkanin in the same cell, what a lovefest!