![[tmbchr]™](/journal/popocculture-blog-logo.jpg){kind=logo}
Wesley Snipes, Tax Evasion Martyr
This is how the legal system works: you use one high-profile case (lynch a pack leader) to deter certain behaviors among the rest of the herd by way of example.
Actor Wesley Snipes faces up to three years in prison and a fine of $5 million when he is sentenced Thursday on federal tax evasion charges.
Federal prosecutors last week urged U.S. District Judge William Hodges in Ocala, Florida, to sentence Snipes to the maximum penalty to demonstrate to taxpayers that refusal to pay income taxes carries severe penalties.
Snipes was convicted on three misdemeanor counts of failure to file federal income tax returns.
“This case presents the court with a singular opportunity to deter tax fraud nationwide,” the government said in its sentencing recommendation.
Snipes, who has starred in movies such as “Blade,” “Major League” and “Murder at 1600,” had been charged with felony conspiracy counts for participating in a scheme that rejects the legal foundation of the tax system. However, a jury accepted his argument that he was innocently duped by errant tax advisers and acquitted him on the most serious charges.
This case, clearly, is about maintaining civil order. If everyone stops paying taxes, then the power of the government begins to wither away - just as Ron Paul kept saying. And the last thing the government wants is for people to stop believing in its legal and moral authority over us. So, how do you remind people of that authority? The simplest way is punishment: “We can still kick your ass! We still have all the weapons!” People who are actively being punished are too busy being punished to question the fundamental authority upon which such punishment rests…
Once upon a time, in a world not so far away from our own, a fellow named Thomas Paine put forward a system of taxation which was far too revolutionary for even his Revolutionary War buddies, who used his propaganda talents so well. In his book, Agrarian Justice, he put forward the notion that the bounty of the earth comes directly from God. And that all humans are, as creatures of God, equally entitled to that bounty. Instead of the average person surrendering money upwards to their lords and masters, he suggested that we have a system completely the opposite of that: any person who deprived another of their God-given right to live off the bounty of the land was legally required to compensate that person for their loss. So instead of us paying taxes upward, money or food or what-have-you would be paid downward by land-owners to the people.
No wonder Tom Paine died in ignominy.
April 24th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Re Paine:
All the chimps in the world are entitled to the Earth’s bounty as well, yet, the strongest groups get the best feeding grounds and drive the other weaker groups off.
Competition seems to be big commponent of the way things work here on planet Earth.
To me, the best solution is the free market. Because the competition is not so red in tooth and claw. The worst thing that can happen is you go out of business. You go out of business by having a model or an idea that doesn’t work.
Its democratic. Customers reject ideas that don’t work for them, and choose ones that do. To be successful, you need to have somthing to offer people.
So in a way, if Thomas Paines ideas didn’t work maybe its not so bad. If people were redy for them they would have caught on. Maybe they will catch on in the future. Maybe they were never meant to be. Its up to everyone.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
No, that’s ridiculous. That’s like saying Martin Luther King, Jr. getting assassinated was the right thing to have happen simply because it did.
The reason Paine died penniless is because revolutions always start out very radical and then the pendulum swings back towards conservatism once the new power elite have taken over. It’s not a matter of “the people” not being ready for his ideas, but of the landed gentry who gained power in the turn-over of not wanting to lose what they just won!
April 24th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Another Gandhi connection:
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2007/11/06/bhoodan-land-gift-movement/
Also Brazil and Portugal have begun instituting the Basic Income Guarantee system (supposedly) so it’s entirely possible.
April 24th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Well, here is the difference between business and politics- Business people have to be pragmatists. They have to do things that actually work. They have to provide goods and or services tha people actually want. So say for example, some entrapreneur has a successful start up, or several, that actually work and several successful businesses are created and not only that but several business models are created that others can then use–eventually it can be said that this person has become very powerful.
inspiration->hard work->success-> power.
Politics is backwards. You need to gain power first, then use your political power to try out your ideas on the public, which may or may not work. For example it took a long time to show that niether Marxism nor Fascism work, a long time and a lot of bloodshed.
As far as I am concerned people with revolutionary ideas that never caught on have a big burden of proof to meet. Wheras, to succeed, bussinesses have to demonstrate that over and over the populace chooses their product.
Martin Luther King jr. was a person. His ideas are another. I would say wheras, he was assasinated, his ideas caught on.
I think its good to acknowledge when progress is actually made. Like for example, the Richest man in Europe is an East Indian living in the UK. The second richest man in the World is a Mexican son of a Lebanese immigrant.
I think we do have a meritocracy, a free market capitalist one.
April 24th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
but seriously though, how do you prove that an idea that never caught on is better…or preferable…to ideas currently in practice? That have worked for a long time?
April 24th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Well, I read some more of your links. Maybe it would work. Portugal does have the lowest per capita GDP in western Europe, though,but their overall standard of living is supposedly high.
Is it kind of basically like everyone drawing a social security check from birth?
April 24th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Poor Wesley Snipes. He neglected to follow the proper tax avoidance procedures for the wealthy. All he would have had to have done would be to have used the same procedures used by the recording industry, multi-national corporations, wealth families, and various other monied interests to avoid paying their due, or at least to get the most bang for their buck.
Tsk, tsk.
April 24th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Here is an opposing view one that is really old:
What is the explanation for this paradox? Tocqueville writes that there are two motivations for people to work - to provide the necessities of life and to improve themselves. But “a charitable institution indiscriminately open to all those in need, or a law which gives all the poor the right to public aid” removes both these motivations by eliminating the need to work and not denying aid to people who do not want to better themselves. The result is the creation of a system in which “the most generous, the most active, the most industrious part of the nation devotes its resources to furnishing the means of existence for those who do nothing or who make bad use of their labour.”
Its an article about Tocqueville’s “Memoir on Pauperism” which I have read but I no longer have.
It was pretty good. I still think most people don’t know what wealth is. I think people far removed from wealth creation have the least understanding of it, and many of these people are into political writing, like sociologists academics etc.
Aren’t “chavs” basically welfare cases in the UK that sitaround all day and act like assholes?
Why wouldn’t more of this type spreadi f everyone on the planet was made a welfare case?
April 24th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I agree but what’s going on now is inflation is about to start eroding the fruits of our labor. I’m inspired, I work hard, I am successful and I gain a little power. But, where my efforts might gain benefits not just me but for future generations (inheritance, charitable donations) now my money goes to cover the rising price of goods and services. It still is a meritocracy but with shorter lasting results.
April 24th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
[…] Wesley Snipes: Tax Evasion Martyr addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shallownation.com%2F2008%2F04%2F24%2Fwesley-snipes-loses-epic-battle-with-uncle-sam-gets-3-year-prison-sentence%2F’; addthis_title = ‘Wesley+Snipes+Loses+Epic+Battle+with+Uncle+Sam%2C+Gets+3+Year+Prison+Sentence’; addthis_pub = ‘’; […]
April 24th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
well, you are assuming there is a trend of inflation that will continue for some unspecified period of time. Why assume this?
I mean, right now its raining. So should I assume it will keep raining until the Earth is flooded under ten feet of water?
I mean, yeah, inflation is going up, but many types of prices are going down.ver been to Walmart lately? Many things are priced cheaper then the same things were available for when I was a little kid more than 20 years ago.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
??? Something very profound was going through my head when I wrote this but I can’t remember what it was now. Every few years I get into economics and this time what triggered it was housing, which in Chicago has remained relatively stable. That means expensive so most of my personal experiences lately have been with prices that only go up. I can’t find one, or a small group of, links that could show my thought process.
I’m glad you asked the question because I hadn’t had a reason to question my assumption that this was our future, thanks! I think I assumed this as a security blanket because the alternative is much worse. I lived through inflation as a child and came out ok but I haven’t lived through a nightmare economic scenario.
You’re question also helped me remember a line of reasoning I had been toying with concerning what will happen after the election. Not that you’ve helped me slough off my blankie I can get to that. Really, at this time, I think we’ll get the worst of both worlds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation
April 24th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
I meant “Now”. (All day I’ve been typing ‘licked’ instead of ‘picked’. Luckilly I caught them before I sent them to my coworkers.)
April 24th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Yeah, I’ve read all these different scenarios, inflation, deflation, stagflation.
I think its all speculation bordering on self flagelation. Hey that rhymes!
But anyway, none of these predictions take into account how creative actual individual human beings are. Lately, I have been reading the Forbes 400 list about 27 year old billionaires and other Billionaires that were poor orphans, welfare Moms, victims of sexual assault, people like that.
You can’t factor stuff like that in.
Also, if anyone is curous I wrote a couple posts on Basic Income Guarantee and why I think it is a horrible idea.