Christmas in Prison: Last Call

(originally launched into cyberspace on 12/26/2008)

I just wanted to send an update, and a final begging, about helping
out Dr. Tom's family while he remains a political prisoner this
holiday season. Some donations people have sent might still be in
the mail, but the total received so far is around $1,500. It's
good, but I think we can do better.

(For those who don't know, over the years Dr. Tom poured tens of
thousands of dollars of his own money into the cause of spreading
the truth, without asking for anything in return. And for his
honesty and principles, he and his family lost their house, and
pretty much got robbed blind by the IRS.)

I may have scared some people away last time by suggesting $100 as
a donation amount (though a number of people rose to that
challenge). If $20, $10, or even $5 is what you can do, that would
be greatly appreciated, too. This time around you can also donate
to Tom's family via PayPal, by sending the funds to
"This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.." So now that you and I have had our non-
imprisoned Christmas, let's see what we can scrape up to make a
political prisoner's "holiday" a bit jollier.

Once again, check or money order (or cash, if you dare) should be
made out to me and sent to the address below. After I think all the
donations have arrived, I'll send one big check to Dr. Tom's
family, and I'll send to this list a list of donors (just including
initials and amounts). Let's see if we can get the total number up
around $3,000.

Sincerely,

Larken Rose
P.O. Box 653
Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006

(P.S. Many thanks to the people who, along with their donation Tom,
also included one for my family. Our Christmas would have been
pretty pathetic without it.)

http://www.kickingthedragon.com

Christmas in Prison

(originally launched into cyberspace on 12/18/2008)

As you've probably heard before, psychological depression generally
tends to occur more often and more strongly around the holidays.
And, as you could probably guess, being in prison over the holidays
doesn't exactly improve matters. I only did it once, and it was
right after I had gone in, so it wasn't too bad, but it still
wasn't exactly fun.

Well, Dr. Charles Thomas Clayton, whom some of us know as "Dr.
Tom," is about to be spending Christmas in prison--not for the
first time, and not for the last. He won't be doing any Christmas
shopping, and won't be having a Christmas dinner with his family.
He'll be spending Christmas in a cage, as a political prisoner, for
having told the truth about the federal income tax.

Now, it's very easy to feel forgotten while in prison, mainly
because it's very easy to BE forgotten while in prison. The rest of
us have our busy lives, and it's just not all that fun--during the
holidays or at any other time--to think about the people who have
been wrongfully imprisoned. Well, if you think it's frustrating and
infuriating to think about such injustice, consider how it feels to
be the VICTIM of such injustice.

Dr. Tom selflessly sacrificed, for the cause of truth, more time,
effort and money than most of you will ever know. In fact, he has
done more to spread the truth about the "income tax" fraud than
just about anyone I know (including myself), all without any hope
of ever being repaid. For that, the American tyrants decided he
should be caged for five years. Keeping that in mind, I want EACH
of you to do one or more of the following:

1) Write Dr. Tom a letter, even if all it says is that you're
thinking of him, and you appreciate what he did. You can't send
money, or really anything else to the address, except for
magazines. (Soft-cover books may or may not make it through.) But
even a really short, hand-scribbled note is a lot better than
nothing. (Know that all mail into and out of prisons may be read by
prison staff.) Here is the address for sending Tom mail:

Charles Thomas Clayton, Reg. #06269-078
FCI Bastrop
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 1010
Bastrop, TX 78602

2) Send a few bucks to Dr. Tom's commissary fund in prison, from
which he can buy snacks, necessities, and a few other little
things. Funds can be sent for that purpose via mail or Western
Union, and the web page below explains how:

http://www.bop.gov/inmate_programs/money.jsp

You'll need to know the name of the recipient (Charles Thomas
Clayton) and his inmate registration number (06269-078) to send
money.

3) Last but not least--in fact, MOST importantly--I'll be taking a
collection, from now until Christmas, for Tom's family, which I'll
then send to them as one big check around New Year's. As I've said
before, what any of us can "afford" depends in large part on what
we decide is important. If you had a kid who needed a $10,000
operation to save his life, I bet just about all of you, one way or
another, would find a way to come up with it. Well, how important
do you think it is to help out those who have suffered as a result
of putting their necks on the line for ALL of us? How much support
do you think Dr. Tom deserves for the enormous sacrifices he has
given? How much is it worth to you for it to be HIM doing the time
for telling the truth, instead of you? It's hard to put a price tag
on that, isn't it? So keep that in mind when deciding how much to
send.

These days, to a lot of people (including me) $100 seems like a lot
of money. But I challenge each of you to see if you can come up
with that much in the next week or so, and send it off to the
address shown below. (Donation checks need to be made out in my
name, and then I'll post a list of contributors--just initials and
dates--when I send it all off to Tom's family in one big check.) If
sending $100 is really not possible for you, then send whatever you
can, even if it's only $5. Most of those who read this message
won't send anything (as is the case with every plea for help), so
every little bit counts--and, of course, every BIG bit counts even
more. It's too much to hope that Dr. Tom will actually have a happy
holidays, but we ought to be able to at least make it a little less
miserable. So go to it. (And do it now, before you forget.)

Sincerely,

Larken Rose
P.O. Box 653
Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006

http://www.kickingthedragon.com

P.S. In the next few days, I'll be sending to the list a "thank
you" note from Colin Jackson, husband of Sherry Peel Jackson, for
the help all of you provided to them.

P.P.S. For those of you who know Ken Evans, drop me a quick e-mail
at "This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." for an update.

An Illegal Belief

(originally launched into cyberspace on 12/02/2008)

There are lots of things you can DO in this country that are
against the law. There are even a few things you can SAY that are
illegal (e.g., threats, statements that constitute fraud, slander).
But I can only think of one thing that it's actually illegal to
THINK in this country--one thing that it's actually against the law
to BELIEVE, no matter what you do with that belief. And I happen to
believe it.

Various crimes include a "mens rea" component, meaning one's state
of mind is relevant to whether a crime occurred, but I'm not even
talking about that. I'm talking about a belief that, all by itself,
is impossible to have without breaking the law--or at least without
breaking what the tyrants say is the law. Sound absurd? Read on.

How would it even be possible to make any thought a crime? If the
person didn't DO anything based on his belief, or didn't even SAY
anything about it, how could it possibly be illegal to think
something? Well, it couldn't, which is why it takes a rather clever
trick to outlaw the thought of which I speak. Suppose that the
government really didn't want anyone to have a certain belief,
let's call it "Belief X." Writing a law that says, "It shall be
unlawful to Believe X" would look silly and would be impossible to
enforce. But what if instead, the government passed a law that said:

1) You are required to sign something, under penalty of perjury,
stating whether you believe "X" or not.
2) It is illegal to say that you believe "X."
3) It is illegal to DENY that you believe "X," if you really do
believe it.

Passing such a law would make it quite literally illegal to BELIEVE
"X," no matter what you did or said about it, since there is no way
for you to believe it WITHOUT breaking the law. Whether you admit
or deny your belief, either way you are a criminal (though if you
deny the belief, they may never know it). The only way to NOT break
the law is to not believe "X."

Again, if you think this discussion is absurd, keep reading.
Because as it happens, the federal government DID impose such a
law, making it ILLEGAL for me (and many thousands of others) to
believe what we believe. It is, quite literally, impossible for us
to hold this belief without breaking the law, at least the law as
the federal control freaks depict it. In other words, the BELIEF
ITSELF is illegal, no matter what we say or do about it. What's
worse, the belief happens to be CORRECT. As a result, I know
something true that it is a CRIME to know. Think I'm exaggerating?

---------------------------------

To over-simplify things a bit, I believe there are specific
sections of the federal tax statutes and regulations that describe
when domestic income is actually subject to the federal income tax
(mainly 26 CFR 1.861-1 and following). I further believe that those
sections do NOT show the income of most Americans, including
myself, to be subject to the tax. I therefore conclude that I don't
owe federal income taxes.

For the full explanation of what I believe, why I believe it, and
why lots and lots of other people believe it, you can order my
book, "Kicking the Dragon," at the following web site:
http://www.kickingthedragon.com

But for right now, it doesn't matter whether you agree with my
legal conclusions or not, or whether you even know what they are.
The point I want to make here is how profoundly insane it is for
there to be a law making it illegal to THINK or BELIEVE something.
Based on what I believe, I am automatically a criminal, no matter
what I do. Think I'm kidding? Try this:

If I believe I don't owe federal income taxes, what are my options?

1) I could say what I believe, and act accordingly, by not filing
income tax returns and not sending the IRS money. I did that, and
was sent to prison for it. So did lots of others, some of whom were
also sent to prison for it. Others have also been prosecuted for
filing claims for refund, asking for money back that they had sent
in before. In other words, they went to prison for saying, "I don't
think I owed you that." (The only reason the feds didn't do that to
me is because the statute of limitations ran out on the claims I
filed.)

2) On the other hand, I could pretend that I believe I owe the tax,
and I could file and pay. However, that too is ILLEGAL in my case.
Section 6065 of Title 26 makes it a crime to sign a return that you
don't believe is accurate. So if I signed return swearing that my
income is taxable, when I believe it isn't (and Judge Michael
Baylson coerced me into doing exactly that), I would be breaking
the law. Of course, if you overstate what you owe, they won't
prosecute you for it, but it's still technically illegal.

In short, there was NO WAY for me to think what I think without
breaking the law, at least as far as the feds are concerned. And
that means that, for all intents and purposes, THE BELIEF ITSELF is
illegal. I know that plenty of you have learned the hard way that,
despite the myth of "due process" and all that, in reality, if you
say you don't think you owe the tax, you will be insulted and
threatened, and possibly fined or prosecuted, until you say you
didn't really mean it. And then, if you say you didn't really mean
it, and you sign a return swearing that you owe the tax, you'll be
committing perjury. Ain't it great to live in the land of the free?

If there's one message that I hope makes it through loud and clear,
for anyone who reads my book, this is it: Whatever bunk you hear
about rule of law, due process, checks and balances, fairness and
justice, the truth of the matter is that the federal government is
funded the same way the Mafia is: by brute force. Actually, the
Mafia is preferable, because at least they don't try to deceive and
defraud you before sending in the stupid thugs to collect.

Sincerely,

Larken Rose
http://www.kickingthedragon.com

P.S. The following poem was written and sent to me by "D.R.E.,"
after reading my book, "Kicking the Dragon." I just couldn't resist
sending it to this list, and it seems especially appropriate to the
message above:

- ----------------------------

Martin Luther nailed his thesis to the Wittenburg church door,
Larken Rose mailed his thesis to Spaulding, the IRS whore,
Pope Leo X with Exsurge Domine answered with logic and fact,
The IRS having none chose to attack.

Larken, oh Larken, how dare you believe,
To ignore the IRS and their attempt to deceive,
We told you, we told you, we told you they chant,
But answers to questions they refuse to grant.

At your insistence twelve hundred did ask,
Six simple questions, that was our task,
Should I use this section and what does it say,
About how much taxes I really must pay.

We all must have mistakenly used invisible ink,
Or else the IRS chose not to think,
The answer they sent was only a threat,
If you ask these questions you will soon regret.

The IRS again and again chose to be truthless,
You didn't back down, so they got ruthless,
You are the one they put in a cage,
But I sit at the keyboard livid with rage.

Eventually we hope the truth will leak out,
So people will learn what eight sixty one's about,
It's actually no longer about payment of taxes,
It's about the Fed's choice to whack us with axes.

NeoCons are nazis with classier attire,
But still want to put Larken's book in a fire,
The story of Larken, this he has written,
Buy it and read it before it is smitten.

Coming Soon: Tax Revolt

(originally launched into cyberspace on 11/16/2008)

Dang it! I was going to send this e-mail earlier, before I had
heard anyone else saying this. Well, now someone else--someone with
a pretty darn good record of predicting stuff--is saying it. Oh
well.

In short, I think very soon you will see a national tax revolt.
Now, I wish that it would happen as a result of millions of people
finding out they don't actually OWE federal income taxes. I'd
settle for some philosophical-based revolt, like the American
Revolution, where they oppose being robbed on principle. But I'm
afraid it will be simpler even than that: people will be running
out of money (or what passes for money these days), and the
government will be too stupid to reduce its extortionist practices--
in fact, it will try to steal much MORE from people (especially
with Barack Ostalin in office), because "government" never thinks
that it should do with less.

And then good old-fashioned desperation will kick in, and people
will decide that buying food is more important than sending money
to the IRS. And non-compliance--or at least, what people THINK is
non-compliance (since they don't owe all the taxes they think they
do)--has a self-accelerating effect. If a million people do it, and
ten million other people HEAR about it, then 11 million people will
be doing it, and so on. There is safety in numbers, especially when
it comes to disobeying tyrants. As the level of disobedience rises,
the probability of any given person getting into trouble for it
drops. The feds know this, which is why they have desperately tried
to keep secret the falling enforcement statistics of the IRS (as
the Syracuse TRAC studies show), while proclaiming from the
rooftops what thuggery they do manage to pull off. They are
desperate to keep everyone scared, and to a large extent, they have
succeeded. But when people really start to feel the hurt of the
coming economic collapse, they won't really care what the IRS
threatens to do any more.

Again, this isn't even how I wished things would go. I'd rather
people knew the truth, legal and philosophical, and opposed the
federal extortion racket on those grounds. But they'll probably
just do it out of simple necessity. However, one bright side might
be that more people might be open to HEARING about the federal
"income tax" fraud, once they really start feeling the pain of it.
And I'm betting when April 15th rolls around, there will be plenty
of financial pain to go around.

Larken Rose
http://www.kickingthedragon.com

P.S. Here is that other guy predicting tax revolts, among other
things:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46MEqEgdLTg

Proof vs. Punishment

(originally launched into cyberspace on 11/16/2008)

It never ceases to amaze me how bad Americans are at thinking.
Unfortunately, that applies to many in the freedom movement as well
as the general public. I'm not just talking about me not liking
their conclusions; I'm talking about the complete absence of logic
in the way they think.

If you were to suggest that the platypus is warm-blooded, and I
slugged you in the nose for suggesting that, does that prove you
wrong? No. Does it prove you right? No. Does it prove anything
about what you said? Obviously not. Whether you're right or not
depends upon what the EVIDENCE shows (e.g., whether the internal
temperature of a platypus fluctuates significantly). And it depends
upon nothing else.

Yes, that example is a bit silly, but not any more silly than what
many people, including both government propagandists and some pro-
freedom folk, argue. "You went to jail, so why should I listen to
your theories?" If I had claimed to have some risk-free way to not
give the IRS any money (which I never have claimed), then me
getting into trouble would be relevant. If, however, I said, "Hey,
look what the law books say!" and got put in a cage for it, that's
not proof of anything. And if instead the feds had left me alone,
that also wouldn't prove anything. Whether my legal conclusions are
correct--whether anyone's conclusions about anything are correct--
depends completely and entirely upon whether EVIDENCE and LOGIC
supports those conclusions.

For quite a while now, some people have been touting Pete
Hendrickson's book, "Cracking the Code" (at least the second book
by that name) as the Holy Grail which would save everyone from the
IRS. And some people couldn't imagine why I wasn't joining in the
chorus, based on the claims of people using his "method" with some
success. Even with a legal position I believe to be correct, I have
long cautioned people that being RIGHT doesn't mean you're SAFE.
Often it's the opposite: it's dangerous to be right when the
government is wrong, as Voltaire said. When people were citing
several large refunds that the IRS had issued to people who had
relied on the 861 evidence, and when the IRS wasn't doing much to
the people who brought up that issue, I repeatedly warned people
NOT to cite that as proof of anything. The fact that you DIDN'T get
punched in the nose (or prosecuted) is no more proof of what is
true than the fact that someone DID get punched in the nose. "I got
a refund!" is not proof that your claim was legally correct, nor
would failure to get a refund be proof that your legal position is
NOT correct. That's as true of the theories in "Cracking the Code"
as it is of the 861 evidence.

(For those of you who like to use, "Look at all these refunds," as
proof of something, do an online search and find out how make
refunds have been issued based on the completely baseless "slavery
reparations" scam. The number dwarfs anything the "tax honesty
movement" has ever accomplished. And it proves nothing.)

Unfortunately, it seems like many people don't really CARE what is
true and what isn't. They care what, as they put it, "works." In
other words, they want an easy solution, and they don't want to be
bothered with having to find out what is TRUE and what is not in
the meantime. And if the truth can't magically save them, they
don't seem to even care what is true. In short, they have no real
love of the truth; they just want to keep more of their money.
Wanting to keep what is rightfully yours is perfectly justified,
but some of us also value truth for truth's sake, no matter who it
saves or who it gets into trouble.

To get to the point, I just heard that Pete Hendrickson, author of
"Cracking the Code," has been indicted. However, while I think that
several of Mr. Hendrickson's legal conclusions are dead wrong, you
will NEVER hear me claiming that him being indicted is proof that
he was wrong, any more than I'd say that someone NOT getting
indicted is proof that he was right. But a LOT of people in the
movement were spouting that logical fallacy for a long time, as
they have done so for countless theories in the past.

Please, back up and grasp reality. The federal income tax provides
some people with a LOT of power, not just because of the money, but
because of the control it gives over the economic decisions of tens
of millions of people. Whether those in government get that power
through legitimate taxation, or through fraud and deception (and
you know which I believe it is), why would anyone expect them to
willingly give up that power? If someone says, "We don't owe this
tax," the people whose power is at stake will of COURSE try to shut
that person up, whether he's telling the truth or not. Yeah,
sometimes they are slow about it, but in the long run they're never
going to condone less power for themselves, or tolerate people who
try to achieve that. When someone gets indicted, or convicted, or
gets an injunction against them--whether it's me, or Mr.
Hendrickson, or anyone else--it proves one thing: PEOPLE IN
GOVERNMENT LIKE POWER. (And who still needed any further proof of
that?) And that's all it proves.

I hope Mr. Hendrickson beats the tar out of the feds. But whether
he does or not will have no bearing whatsoever on whether his
conclusions are correct or not. (I expect the feds to do their
usual tap-dance and obfuscation tactics when it comes to the issue
of "willfulness." I believe Mr. Hendrickson's conclusions to be
flawed, but I've never seen any indication that HE doesn't believe
them, and that means he committed no crime.) I'll include a link to
the DOJ fear-mongering piece (which they call a "press release"),
in case anyone thinks I'm making this up--since some people seemed
to think that Mr. Hendrickson had found some magical way to make
the feds be nice to everyone. The "press release" is, of course,
mostly the feds' usual insult, demonize and threaten message, so
don't take my including this link to mean I agree with anything the
feds say in it.

http://tinyurl.com/5qu6qe

But notice how the feds exploit peoples' inability to think, by
sending out the implied message, "Look what we're doing to this
guy, and that proves he's wrong!" Unfortunately, such stupid
reasoning coincides perfectly with what I've seen a LOT of people
in the freedom movement claim: that NOT getting into trouble (at
least for a while) proves that someone is RIGHT. It doesn't.
Evidence and logic proves what is true, and who is right. Nothing
else does. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of people don't have the
time or desire to study things for themselves. So they will do what
they have always done: jump from one claim to another, never
knowing what is true and what is false.

Larken Rose
http://www.kickingthedragon.com