Heretic on Taxes

by Larken Rose 

As many of you know from personal experience, it's more than a little annoying being in a contest where we use persuasion via evidence and reason, while the other side uses "persuasion" via inflicting pain and suffering. (Hardly seems fair.)

If someone wants to say that most Americans owe federal income taxes, I will use words to try to prove them wrong, but never in a million years would I advocate that they be robbed and put in a cage for saying what they think. Yet that is exactly how our wonderful "public servants" treat us: they respond to our voicing opinions by trying to cause us suffering. (How they sleep at night I'll never know.) Sure, they give occasional lip service to the First Amendment, but then violate it in every way they can think of. Consider a few examples from my case:

1) Years back the IRS started procedures to get a court injunction to forcibly shut down my web site, under the strange excuse that they were investigating my "abusive tax shelter." When I asked what I was doing that was remotely close to being a "tax shelter," IRS agent Chris Roginsky, after much evasion and obfuscation, identified my sin: I voiced an opinion the IRS didn't like. (The injunction never happened.)

2) On May 6, 2003, when a dozen armed IRS agents raided my house, they took every copy they could find of my "Theft By Deception" video, my "Taxable Income" report, etc., despite the fact that the Supreme Court says that's illegal (see Fort Wayne Books v. Indiana). IRS agent Donald Pearlman even admitted (twice) that they NEVER intended to return the videos, even after concluding their "investigation." (Can you say "book-burning"?)

3) The affidavit of probable cause on which the search was based (which they kept secret for many months) goes on and on about how evil I am for expressing my opinions on my web sites, in the report, in the video, to my e-mail list, etc. Nowhere does that document even vaguely refer to my First Amendment right to voice my opinions. The affidavit looks like it was written by the Thought Police.

4) When they raided Dr. Tom down in Texas, stealing all of his copies of the video as well, he called the Civil Rights division of the DOJ to complain. The attorney he talked to there said he could file a complaint, but it probably wouldn't be processed. Why? Because it would be a conflict of interests, because the DOJ was trying to STOP THE DISTRIBUTION of our perfectly legal video. Yes, their own attorney admitted that.

5) After my conviction, Judge Michael Baylson said I had the right to speak my mind, and that he'd never do anything to try to take away my strongly-held beliefs. Then he made it clear that he'd make my sentence a lot worse if I didn't take down my perfectly legal web sites and stop selling my perfectly legal video (which I did).

We speak our minds, they intentionally hurt us to make us shut up. They don't bother with evidence and logic. They have no need to. They can just assert that we're wrong, and then torture any heretic who would dare say otherwise. Welcome to the land of the free.

A lot of people have been terrorized in a lot of ways for not parroting the Gospel According to the Feds. While I'm not thrilled about what they've tried to do to my family (Tessa is about to go to prison for 30 days for the "crime" of being married to me), our loss has been relatively mild compared to a lot of other people.

There is a particular heretic that they are now trying to destroy that is about as undeserving of that torture as anyone I've ever  met. As you may or may not know, Dr. Charles Thomas Clayton (who you may know as "Dr. Tom") was recently sentenced to five years for expressing his opinions. Of course, the feds didn't SAY that his crime was speaking his mind (they pretended the case was about not filing returns and filing supposedly false claims for refund), but the DOJ and the judge in his case didn't do much to hide what they really hate him for.

On the "Taxable Income" report you will see my name. What you may not know is that Dr. Tom spent a lot of his own time and money to get that information to anyone who might want it. You would have seen my name on the currently comatosed www.taxableincome.net web site. What you may not know is that that web site came into being as a result of Dr. Tom giving his time, effort and money to make it happen. You'll see my name on the "Theft By Deception" video. What you may not know is that that video never would have happened if not for Dr. Tom selflessly donating tens of thousands of dollars for the hardware and software to make the video, the printing of the first batch, etc. And I do mean "donating," not "investing"; he didn't ask to ever be paid back any of it.

You also probably don't (yet) know the lengths Dr. Tom went to to try to get answers from those in government, from everyone from the President's chief of staff to the IRS attorneys specializing in 861 at IRS headquarters. I know Dr. Tom, and I know what motivates him. He did what he did because he saw 100,000,000 of his neighbors being robbed, and couldn't stand it.

As a medical doctor he had a lot to lose. He was in a perfect position to let someone else deal with the problem. But he didn't. I can't count how many times he expressed to me how much it bothered and frustrated him that so many victims of the federalfraud were working so hard just to make ends meet. He saw it as our duty to do anything we could to spread the truth and end the lie.

For that, he was branded as a criminal, and the feds are now doing everything they can to destroy him, financially and emotionally. They want him utterly ruined for speaking his mind, here in the good old U.S. of A. (And twelve jurors--the same people Dr. Tom was trying to PROTECT from government abuse--gave their approval for the heretic to be tortured.)

He is currently out, but very soon must self-surrender to prison unless he is granted an emergency stay of sentence pending his appeal. As soon as I dig myself out of economic oblivion, I intend to do everything I can to help support his family, and you can expect me to ask you to do the same when the time comes. But for now, I ask only that you do something really easy: please let Dr. Tom know that you appreciate his sacrifice. His e-mail is: ironman@excessiron.org

While the federal terrorists have him on the rack, let him know that he is not forgotten, that his efforts were not in vain, and that his courage is appreciated.

Sincerely,
Larken Rose

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