Showing posts with label Psyche of tax cheats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Psyche of tax cheats. Show all posts

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Seasonal tax threats care of your accountant

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Its tax season and as can be expected every season, the Australian Tax Office (ATO) is out with its own form of "shock & awe". By that I mean psychological abuse. Basically the tax office is the execution agency which implements unethical laws. By that I mean there is no logical defense or justification for forcing you to pay tax. Of course there are plenty of rationalisations. But since they have no great conviction and they don't expect to either, they use subtle threats in the media. The nature of the threats takes the following form:
1. Appeal to fear: They highlight the consequences of not delcaring your income. They have more diplomacy than the Nazis, but rest assured its the same form of extortion. "We are targeting [certain] tax evaders this year". This year the target is taxpayers who understate revenue. Last year I think it was people who do not declare all their capital gains. The media campaign has the same 'feel' as religions of old, with pastors trying to scare churchgoers into giving 'penance'. Its extortion that ought to have been repudiated centuries ago.
2. Appeal to guilt: There are those appeals to guilt as well of course, with claims that you are a 'tax cheat', or a 'tax evader'. Nonsense. They are the evaders, for the reasons mentioned below. You know what it takes to 'earn' income, whereas they have to rely on extortion.
3. Appeals to utility: There is even appeals to utility, such as the fact that revenue is a basis for valuing an enterprise.

In defense of those who do understate your revenue....I say keep it up! Well done! You are a great Australian! Denying the tax office your money is the equivalent of sparing a bureaucrat his heroin, or denying a politician a pretense that he is doing some good with some stupid, ill-conceived program. Great Australians unite! Taxation is unethical. There is a plethora of reasons why. No good can come from it which cannot be derived from a moral system. It does not even benefit the exponents of the systems. These extorters will never have the pride or sense of efficacy which you derived from 'earning' wealth. Such is the nature of their need to control you. That is the source of their efficacy, to the extent that they have any ambition. They just don't have the efficacy to produce wealth in a competitive context. Just look how they spend your funds, with such schemes as Home Insulation.

Of course government services need to be funded...but they do not need to be provided at your expense, and nor should they be provided unconditionally. If the funding of these services was conditional, they would be provided with care, rather than indifference. If they were provided by the private sector, the provider would be accountable because you are a customer or a potential claimant in a compensation/legal case. For government, which is a middleman, they evade responsibility because they don't want accountability under their administration. That is why war pensioners wait half a century for compensation, when all the sick have long since died. This is the nature of their rout.
If you wonder why an accountant might be extolling the virtues of taxation, think no further than the fact that arbitrary tax systems create loopholes, which create a need for more complex tax systems, demanding an 'ever-increasing' number of tax exemptions, special provisions....sooner of later you end up needing an accountant, paying more tax than you should because you can't be bothered chasing people up for stupid receipts.
The psychological impact of this burden might slip easily off the more successful among you, but regardless, there is no question that such extortion precipitates repression. You simply don't want to consider the validity of these actions because you feel powerless to deal with them. Repression is a common response of slaves and simply people who are having problems coping with stresses they cannot resolve.
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Author
Andrew Sheldon

Friday, June 11, 2010

The anatomy of a tax cheat

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First we need to dispense with the question - What is a tax cheat? Common practice is to define a 'tax cheat' as a person who does not pay their tax. In fact this is an unreasonable 'smear' definition since most people minimise, avoid/evade taxes because on some level they are against them, whether they don't support either the concept of taxation, the methodology with which it is collected, the efficiency of its distribution or the underlying premise that their lives ought to be subordinated to the collective will. No choice you think? That is a different posting.
There are a significant number of people who don't believe there is a legitimate reasons for the imposition of taxation. They ought not to enslave people to achieve their values. In a democracy, we can consider this to be 'the tyranny of the majority'. Really it makes very little difference whether a tyranny arises from a minority or majority, coercion is not the basis for resolving conflicts. i.e. It is the origin of conflict - a lack of respect for the interests of others. It arises due to desperation for survival, a lack of empathy or self-respect, that one would undermine another's rights or values in order to satisfy some personal pretence for legitimacy or validation.
In the following dialogue I will demonstrate an example of a person who lacks self-respect. The forum conversation starts with an American who is interested in migrating to Australia. I weigh in with some critical feedback. My statements are in blue, the counter-parties are in red (for communists).
"Australia has the same fascist politics as America, in fact we are worse. But its a nice place to be coerced, abused and to pretend you have political freedom. Some people go to the beach to quash their anxiety, but because of the universal need to work, most simply repress any feeling of anxiety, and engage in unthinking love and social discourse.
Enjoy your stay. Let me save your time. NZ is worse. There is no escape, so I guess you're one of the suckers who is not going to change the system, given that you're a 'runner', so I guess you are a repressor".
[In fact he might not be a repressor. Given that he is leaving, he might simply not have the intellect or the time to identify the nature of the problem in the USA, or to appreciate that Australia is probably as bad].

A different forum poster weighs into the discussion....so a new contributor:

"You poor repressed thing you. I'll be sure to dodge the fascist death squads when I go to the shop. And you can be sure that the next time I feel some anxiety....I'll go to the beach".
You missed the point because you don't think. Please explain if you have rights why PM Rudd has the power to apply a new arbitrary tax on the mining industry, which has already cost investors in mining assets dearly. No warning. Perhaps you misunderstand the actual nature of fascism...
1. Initiation of force - wrong whether by government or private persons
2. Arbitrary rule or action - wrong because government has the moral sanction of force

You're decision to move to a beach is appropriate...you have a choice between immersing yourself in the water to wake yourself up, or burying your head in the sand.
Another characteristic feature of fascist regimes of a concrete nature since you are poorly versed with ideas is the use of price controls. The First Home Buyers Grant was such a scheme. Now you say...what about all those people who cannot afford homes? Ask yourself why homes are so expensive...because land development and sale is arbitrarily regulated by government. i.e. One of the least populated countries in the world prevents you from buying subdivided land. Why? To keep taxes high since land taxes are based on the value of property, which is kept artificially high by such restrictions.
PS: I suggest you look up the meaning of repression. By drawing attention to an issue tends to preclude me from being a repressor [....unless you can show I am a rationalising].

"That's the silliest thing I've read for a while, are you confusing Australia with Austria?"
Really? You are a classic case of repression. You say things are silly, but you present no argument. Convey to me please my contradiction. Please point me towards your beacon of freedom in Australia....perhaps the unfairest tax system in the world? Miners pay 54% because they can't escape persecution, meanwhile Google pays 0.1% in Australia, so they can pay 10% in Ireland.
Arbitrary rule. Persecution of those who pay the most because the federal government cannot catch the others. What of the property owners in Parramatta, who had their property expropriated by the NSW Labor state government so you could have a nice facade at the train station.
Please enlighten me. Maybe you ought to start by defining what you consider freedom.

"You have a very nice way of distorting the real meaning of fascism with your poorly driven semantics. By your example, there is no real thing as freedom".
Actually it is the conventional definitions which are very poor. They are poor because they are concrete-bound. They fail to convey the nature of fascism. Why? Because most people don't understand the nature of fascism...which is why we are destined to drift towards it AGAIN! I could use a better (more fundamental) word like 'collectivism', but it entails no value judgement or association with fascism, which is ultimately considered the cause of the problem. The problem is people don't make the abstract connection, so I use the world fascism.
Please define freedom for me. There are two basic definitions:
1. Rights which are an imposition upon others rights, e.g. Your right to an education which is an obligation on others to teach and finance it.
2. Rights as a protection from [the initiation of] impositions or coercion.
Clearly I support the latter. The former is a contradiction. Nothing semantic about that. I'm still waiting for an answer to my previous arguments.

"Oh how beautiful, someone who still believes that there are such rights which protect us from coercion or impositions. The only way to enforce those rights is through impositions and coercions, so it is just as coercive as the former. You call Australia fascist whilst missing the irony that you have the ability to do so".
I believe I am arguing that there are no such rights, but there should be, because the alternative is some degree of fascism or 'collectivism'. Any tolerance breaches a principle which enables only more.
The reason we live in a fascist society is because under 'representative' democracy the values of a single person, or non-substantive minority do not matter. The government therefore has no reason to listen to me because the media are a pack of liberals who don't. Even if by some miracle I was published, I would be discredited, misquoted or smeared as an irrelevancy. And I would be by the intellectual values of contemporary society. I would be in the minority. That is fascism - 'the tyranny of the majority'. The system does not work. The Senate is not working. The High Court seldom works, and too late.
In fairness to you I could have been clearer. By 'rights as protection', I mean that force should only be used by government as a defense measure. They ought not to initiate force. This was my original argument. If you want to get more fundamental. I am saying that values ought not to be gained by force. i.e. A person who protects their wealth does not seek to gain from others by force or fraud...the thief does.

Not true. The only way to take away all forms of governmental coercion is anarchy, but that just leads the way to individual coercion, which is far worse.
I did not suggest taking away all forms of coercion. I am saying that the only morally legitimate role of government is the protection of legitimate rights. Of course I support police, common law, courts, a military force, and even the instruments for regulating markets, so long as their role is protection, and not violations of rights, i.e. distortions of markets, which lead us to the current recession.
The logic of your point would be true, if I was arguing government ought to have no coercive powers, but I did not make a case for anarchy.
Think about it. Would you allow someone to take your kid without due process/reason/objective legislation (i.e. court determination).

But you argued that the government was fascist because it had coercive powers. You can't then say that the government is allowed some coercive powers without accepting the fact that that too would be a form of fascism, by your earlier argument. And then, you also have the argument of what constitutes a 'legitimate right', since for all people, their opinions differ on the matter.
Actually I argued above that government arbitrarily initiates use of force. That is the basis of fascism. Actually I can argue that...if I can base it on more fundamental values, i.e. A Theory of Values. I gave you a snippet of that. Fortunately, you are arguing towards fundamentals. You allude to the fact that there needs to be some sense of objective truth. Which I believe. Everyone at some level does, which is why they accept that science has some legitimacy. It is also why they don't walk in front of speeding cars.

I disagree that it is an arbitrary use of force. Our government basis its laws and regulations on the desires of the majority of its constituents. It's the basis of the Westminster system. You may argue that it would be a 'tyranny of the majority' but that is merely hyperbole, because if it were a tyranny, who is being terrorised?
I am not suggesting that all govt coercion is arbitrary, just some of it. Voluntarism or negotiation are important elements of accountability, even if they are the last measure through the court. The legislative process was created I believe with the expectation that it would achieve reason as the standard of value, but there was never any assurance or protection that it would. Implicitly the High Court, which is implicitly supposed to hold reason as the standard, gives arbitrary statutory law greater standing (than Common Law) based on the argument that its the democratic desire of people. Really people don't know, or reflect on such issues.
Why is democracy based on coercion? Because it does not seek to reconcile differences of opinion. Instead politicians make concessions. e.g. Senator Haraldine takes a kickback for Tasmania in exchange for Telstra privatisation.
The majority is almost almost destined to be wrong because they are passively represented by non-analytical people, who seek 'numbers', not principles based on fact. Of course they cannot avoid the most self-evident concepts, but they are not judicious in their scrutiny or analysis.
You think its not tyranny because you concede. You accepts its outcomes. But on some level everyone is frustrated with government; its just that few people choose to understand why. The reason is that they have no reason to believe they can make a choice. The tyranny arises because you have no effective choice about that. i.e. If I decide the tax system is immoral, and I choose to renounce my support by not paying. There is no negotiation where reason is the standard of value. I go to court, and the judge says 'the law is....'. I argue points of law. He decides the will of the majority is more important (i.e. statutory law), so my fate, and the fate of any individual is subject to the 'tyranny of the majority', irrespective of the validity of my arguments. Maybe he gives me a soft sentence, as is customary in cases where the law is considered outdated. There is the prospect of course that the judge might take an interest in my whole philosophical treatise if he hates the legislators, but there is a dim prospect of him investing the time. Its too much of a stretch. The flaw goes back to 1100AD, so the Westminster system has little standing with me.

The only other option is to base actions of the will of the minority but then I would argue that enforcing the status quo on the majority is just as much the basis fascism.
This is a false alternative. Your choice is not simply between being a perpetrator and a victim. There is a choice of being a trader, the same basis upon which you participate in voluntary agreements, i.e. By way of contract if specific and careful protection is required, but more importantly, a system where reason is the standard of value. Democracy is only legitimate if its consensus based (not representation) because reason must be the standard of value. Whose reason? Everyone's....with objective reality the final arbiter. Just like for science and the court system.

There needs to be a healthy mix of objective views but the majority of beliefs tend to be subjective, for example, one's belief on abortion is subjective, one's belief on economic is subjective and the fact is that there are no objective truths when it comes down to those situations, there is ONLY opinion. Most 'truths' as it were, tend only to be a basis, not definite.
I agree, most people are subjective, but what do you expect when:
1. Objectivity would cause you moral conflict, manifesting in anxiety/anger or repression/cynicism.
2. Government is the highest level of organisation. If reason is not the standard of value, it conveys a certain 'impracticality' to 'being real' and the practicality to faking it. Of course society as a whole cannot fake reality, as it confronts it in ways like reduced productivity, slower growth, financial crises, etc. We are forced to wake up at some point. It can take generations, e.g. Sweden. It will be the same for Brunei and Norway when they run out of oil & gas. The problem is people accept democracy because we were born into it. People don't trust a new conception. Galileo was killed for his efforts.
3. Rationality alienates you from people in society. Most people by accepting 'subjectivity' are undermining their cognitive development, and thus their respect for facts, and in the process diminishing their self-esteem. They can impress friends by a relative standard, but it does not 'mean' the same. They will therefore shoot the messenger or whistle blower who holds truth above perceptions.

If you analysed the issue of abortion and economic theory, you would find objectivity. You don't think there are patterns of behaviour to those issues. I don't want to deal with these specifics because that it going backwards. I'm trying to break you down to your basic philosophical premises. We started with politics, then ethics, then epistemology, now we are discussing the most fundamental values (metaphysics) - the nature of reality - objective or subjective. I kind of have you 'caged' and you want to jump from the 'metaphysical' bath water into the 'political' sea. You can do that...if you want to choose those philosophical set of implications.
You can explore these issues at my blog www.sheldonthinks.com. I am a writer. My blogs are poorly developed argument because they are unedited, but I deal with a plethora of issues in the media.

This issue seems to have winded up. Credit to the guy for his 'relative' honesty. Most people would not debate me to this level of philosophy. They would either me smearing, or more commonly simply walking off whilst cursing me. Occasionally people threaten to beat me up. :)
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Author
Andrew Sheldon

Friday, April 30, 2010

What is a tax cheat?

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The fact that one repudiates the 'right' of government (or its representatives) to levy taxes does not make you a 'cheat'. This is of course the dishonest propaganda of government. The fact that you hide your behaviour does not make you a cheat either. There is no shame in concealing your tax minimisation or 'avoidance' because ultimately the system is contrary to your moral rights. By that I mean - by an objective standard of rational debate - the government has no defensible reason for levying taxes upon you. You don't pay taxes because you believe they are legitimate; you pay them because you fear the consequences of renouncing taxation. They have all types of tricks to compel you to pay. These are the same methods of slave traders, dictators, bullies and other thugs. The difference is that they use extortion and arbitrary laws to force your compliance, and to give their acts the 'appearance of legitimacy'. You might look at the developing world and think that they are 'less civilised' because they have less order. The truth is - you are freer in the third world because the government cannot use financial assets as a threat to extort the compliance of people. That is why China and developing nations resorts to force because the poor have no financial assets to surrender. Thus the government can only threaten their lives to ensure compliance. So you see. You are living under a Hitler in contemporary society; its just that you dare not identify its nature. This makes the notion of 'freedom' you thought you had rather hollow doesn't it.
Don't get me wrong - few people fighting governments in any country are actually defenders of freedom. They are no less tyrannical than the governments they suppress them. i.e. In the Philippines the government imposes upon Muslims in Mindanao, and the politics of those Muslims suggests to me they are no greater advocates of freedom. So you repudiate both counter-parties. Better still...you just education them...or otherwise let them destroy themselves. Education is cheap. The best education we can give people is the consistency of a good role model. If we act with integrity, people are more likely to see our integrity, and when they see our practicality, they are more likely to respect us and move towards our value. It does not preclude them repudiating us, but we will be rewarded for our virtue, and will readily be able to defeat them. i.e. Just as the Japanese were moved by America's reform of their country in the post-WWII period. Sadly the US ruined that in later decades with its inconsistent foreign policy. It allowed the Japanese to justify worse.

People of course can repudiate taxes for different reasons, or refuse to pay for different reasons. From my perspective any reason is a good reason. A bad system ought to be rejected. Even if you pay, you ought to repudiate the system; otherwise you are allowing society to deteriorate into a more serious state of moral corruption. You think the current tax rate is reasonable...wait until the international standard rate is 70%. Why would that be the case? We have to compete with China or other emerging countries. I would suggest it could be 70% because:
1. Those governments will be aligned in their common goal of enslaving you as we move towards an international government
2. Those governments will be at war with China or India, which have emerged as powerful collectivist states because business and Western governments superficially perceived their 'love of money' as capitalist sentiments, when in fact it was never more than fascism.

So I suggest to you there is no such person as a tax cheat. The onus is upon government to provide a moral justification for taxation. They cannot do it. They will attempt some utilitarian argument about the 'common good'. That does not even hold up to scrutiny. It ought to be readily apparent that there is a necessary role for government, but that is not the same as defending taxation. There is every reason to welcome user-pay based charges for the services we use. You would be surprises just how little criminal activity there would be if there was no government taxation.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

The appeasement of the business man

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There is no more resounding acknowledgement of slavery than the resignation of a businessman. Quote:
"None of us like paying Income Tax or GST but it is a fact of life and we adjust our pricing to recognise those deductions".
This statement possesses two contradictions:
1. A dichotomy between what he wants (whether it is legitimate or not) and what he feels compelled to do in order to satisfy the external standards of government, the majority of voters, etc. This appears to be a justification for slavery.
2. Primacy of social values. The implication of this statement is that social values are superior to personal values, and that social values are not simply the sum of personal values, but that they transcend the sum of us. i.e. It matters little that 'none of us' like paying tax, the issue is that you are compelled to do so.
3. Moral values are actually not facts or 'facts of life', they are conceptual value judgements. In order to assess the legitimacy of moral imperatives requires a process of reasoning. They are not self-evident. The notion that 'none of us' like paying tax appears to imply that no one likes a gun in the head, and yet no one challenges the underlying justification for slavery. They just accept it. In truth, perhaps this businessman does not mean to imply all people dislike slavery. He simply feels compelled to be a slave because the majority 'in fact' desire that he should live in servitude to them.

Some people might reject this interpretation for two reasons:
1. They might not interpret their situation as slavery. I would respond that a slave is a person whose labour is the product of another. Whether you pay 30% or 100% taxation, it is still a matter of slavery, its just a matter of degree.
2. Some might argue that they are a beneficiary of their 'enslavement'. Actually this is not true because you pay a huge opportunity cost for your enslavement, and the enslavement of your fellow men. Irrespective, it is just a matter of degree. I will address the issue of opportunity cost in another post.

Assuming that he does not literary believe 'none of us' like slavery; that in fact the majority of people support slavery, either because:
1. They have some practical interest to derive from slavery
2. They believe slavery results in the betterment of those who cannot support themselves

I reject both of these premises because:
1. No one benefits from slavery for a number of reasons. The notion that because you have some pecuniary interest in some outcome ignores the greater benefits which would accrue if you were not a slave, and if you your compatriots were not similarly enslaved. i.e. Consider public education. You think you benefit from public education because it is free, but because it is free people will place less value on what they study. They might even become a 'professional student', in the profess deferring their ultimate responsibility as a human being to themselves. That is just one aspect of the inefficiency of taxation. Consider also the impact of the psychology. It is no accident that the education system is run by career socialists. It is a safe government job, but it is also an opportunity for the deluded unthinking, non-conceptual collectivists to indoctrinate your kids before they develop their own minds. Did you think you raised your kids to be 'thinkers' and wonder why they married a plumber? Probably because he had 'big hands'. He was so masculine. Because using your mind is so impractical by contemporary standards. Even money is not made with the mind, but because you have 'inside information', or a special bond with family, friends, or government. How social standards can change when you control the public education system. Oh, and if you thought you were safe with private education. Guess again. What is the standard of value for them? The public system. They don't even have to be marginally better, you will assume it without critical evaluation.
2. Helping others to help themselves. There is no question that we can give people help. I would however suggest however that it does not occur when you are obliged to give to beneficiaries. As soon as you are forced to do anything it ceases to be appreciated, and it starts to become an entitlement, and with it comes the expectancy that you will take care of them. Don't expect appreciation. Instead they will recent you when it is rescinded. The only way you can help people is if you have the power to rescind. The only way they can improve is if you have that power, otherwise they have no power to attain some form of self-discipline. Were you counting on their character? What made you think the education system or their abusive parents would give them any? What made you think the culture of enslavement would do any better for their children, than it did for their parents? I find people impossible to help unless there is a culture or 'ethic' of justice. If values or even 'love' is not conditional, then people are not accountable or rewarded for being good. i.e. Earning love/reward. I know - on some level you agree with this...but on another level you are thinking that 'love is unconditional'. Actually its not - but see my parenting blog for an explanation.

It is however not enough to renounce bad values, you have to stand up and defend the good values. It is not enough to vote for the conservatives. That will not change anything. This is an intellectual battle. Voting for conservatives is like playing craps instead of poker. Either way the game is fixed against you. The only way is to find like-minded people and organise to make a difference. More ideas on this here.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Friday, October 3, 2008

Where do the smart capitalists and parasites hide?

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"Four Corners tells the story of Heinrich Kieber – roguish hero to some, amoral thief to others - and the worldwide fallout from his actions".

Hiding money overseas is not difficult if you have a lot. All you need to do is hire some consultants. The trick is to find a way of hiding money without anyone finding out. The art of money laundering is attacked by Western (OECD) governments because it reduces their tax receipts. These people are depicted as drug traffickers and other low life. But could it be possible that they are just people who don't agree with the government's right to tax their wealth? Is it possible that these people are just pragmatic or practical capitalists trying to escape an immoral system, just as the Jews escaped persecution from Hitler.
It does not surprise me because I have such principles....too strong to hide behind some bank vault. Fortunately I am ready for any government tax agency that believes they have a right to my cash. Of course they can expropriate my wealth if I earn income, but as long as I live on savings they can only collect tax from what I spend. Fortunately I have modest needs.

So is Heinrich Kieber a hero? Well clearly not since he was not motivated by principles, but by money. He was paid $6 million for the information and he broke the law to achieve it. Now, before you respond that he is no worse than the capitalist he exposed, consider the following:
1. The capitalists will include among them men of principle who don't believe in tax
2. Men of no principles just trying to pragmatically hide stolen money by fraud or deception

The difference is that Heinrich Kieber is alleged to have stolen proprietary information, which is a Common Land offence, whilst the capitalists have breached an arbitrary legislative law, enacted by politicians wanting to enslave capital and capitalists for their constituency. A great many people don't think so they will not make a distinction, but they are hardly the same offences. Legislation is based on arbitrary, subjective law. I don't think it makes much difference whether you are enslaved by a majority or a minority, if you are forced to hand over your wealth or earnings, you are not a free man. So Heinrich Kieber to me is the equivalent of a gun runner for terrorists. The capitalists are just average men, most of whom don't have the clarity of mind to express their ethical principles, or otherwise they just think REASON is not the standard, so why should I show my money. Good luck to them. I trust they did not put all their money in the one place. Clearly the best way to hide money is:
1. In different people's names
2. In different countries
3. In different languages
I would rather help 10 honest men and 10 dishonest men than 1 government because every government I know is intent on enslaving the people they represent. The truth of the matter is that Western governments are imposing their system on every corner of the world. I actually think its great that there are conflicts in the world, because as long as there are ethical divides there will be:
1. Greater reflection on moral principles
2. Somewhere to hide
3. A critic of Western practices - where Western governments have defiled the concept of freedom. The concept no longer means anything. Ideas don't mean anything. People are anti-science. Even scientists are anti-conceptual. This is another fascist period again. You might be surprised by the things I say but consider the following:
1. Most academics are paid by government-owned institutions - places of safety, not competition
2. Most scientists only utilise the scientific method, which is based on indiction rather than deduction. Science has been reduced to statistics. Causation has been abandoned
3. Most philosophers are sceptics, who engage in rationalist arguments like its a mental game detached from reality. You see this from academics who sproute different ideas, but they have no commitment to any. They want to show how small you are because you don't know their secret terminology. They are word snobs, yet they would starve without a government salary. These are the impractical intellectual brutes. They are teaching your children.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The righteousness of a tax cheat

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Its popular sport for the media and the tax office to denigrate tax delinquents. Its all part of their strategy to portray people who don't support their taxing powers as common criminals. If you have any trouble making the distinction, its this according to Common Land:
A criminal is a person who engages in the use of force or fraud to obtain by deception a certain value belonging to others. (Basis: Common law)

The tax office would have you believe that a criminal (or a tax cheat in this context) is a person who breaks the law. (Arbitrary legislation after WWI)
The common law definition does back centuries. It pre-dates the tax system, so don't think we can't live without a tax system. Taxation as we know it is relatively recent. The Internal Revenue Code was only adopted in 1919. Actually it was not legally enacted. But there are plenty of countries which have 'legal' codes which are no less moral. Paradoxically it is the Arab states like Brunei, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Brunei and the UAE which have the fairest tax systems, but that has more to do with easy oil & gas money than rational philosophical values. The tax office's definition is the product of the arbitrary law enacted by vested interested politicians.

It ought to be apparent that immoral things are often perpetrated in the name of a crisis. In recent years the terrorists proved to be justification for a raft of new laws which gave certain governments around the world even more arbitrary power.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

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