What is below should not be construed as legal advice. I am not an attorney or a para-legal. With some research and my past experience as a HazMat regulatory compliance inspector for a large California County, I have learned a few things relative to interacting with Government Representatives. What follows merely is the exercise of free speech and the opinion of a sovereign individual.
Unless you are a known lawbreaker, or there is a warrant for your arrest, or Martial Law has been declared, or you are blatantly and obviously breaking the law at the moment, a Government Representative (Rep) cannot force you to do anything. For example, when I went to inspect a business that fell under HazMat regulations, by law I had to ask permission to inspect the premises of that business. If the business owner/manager refused me permission, I then had a few options. 1) Return to the agency office, jump through some hoops, obtain an Inspection Warrant, snag a Peace Officer, and return to the business that refused my entry. 2) Come back another day; perhaps the owner/manager was merely in a bad mood. 3) Come back during the next inspection cycle for that area, which in the case of my employment was over a year away. Can you guess which option I chose in the rare case of being refused entry to a business? In seven years at that particular job, I NEVER obtained even one inspection warrant.
Contrary to popular opinion, regulatory Government Reps who work in the field have a tremendous workload. Their situation is made even worse by all the data that they have to enter into a computer each day. Although it does happen, in my opinion it would be a very rare instance in which a Government inspector would take the time to obtain an Inspection Warrant.
When it comes to Government Forms, here are some legitimate questions that can be asked by the individual being "required" to submit the Form---
1. Is the filling out of this Form required by Law or Regulation, or is it merely a procedure developed by your office? If it is required by Law or Regulation, can you please send me a copy of same with the appropriate section highlighted?
2. What Common Law rights am I waiving by signing this Form? [Whenever you sign ANY Government Form, directly beneath your signature write, "All Rights Reserved".]
3. What happens if I don't sign this Form?
4. . Is this a transaction involving a security interest? [It is, and your consent is required…unless a Court orders you to fill out the Form. You are providing information that it would be best to keep secure---address, date of birth, Social Security number, various types of business information, etc.]
5. Is your agency ordering me to fill out this Form?
Should you receive a copy of a specific Law or Regulation that supposedly applies to you or your business, and if you wish the discussion to continue, it can do so almost endlessly. That's because most all Statutory Laws (or Regulations, which are Administrative Laws) are extremely complex, convoluted, and technical. You have every right to ask, "What does this word mean?", or, "What does this sentence mean?".
There is nothing dishonorable about asking these questions. Government Representatives and Agencies often assume that citizens will view requests to fill out Forms as "orders", not what they really are---offers to avoid conflict. They make that assumption because most citizens DO see "requests" to fill out Forms as "orders". Unless you have broken the law already, or are obviously breaking it at the present moment, no Government Rep can order you to do anything...a Court can, but not a Rep. If a Rep does, and you wish to comply simply to avoid conflict, have the Representative put it in the Record that you are complying "under protest and duress, with all rights reserved".
Some may see all of the above as frivolous, but to anyone concerned with Liberty (and Government abuse of same) it is important to keep Government Reps---and the endless paper Forms of agencies---within proper bounds.
Dealing with Peace Officers really is a separate issue, and will be dealt with in a separate article.
9 comments:
Slightly off topic - but
I just watched V for Vendetta. Excellent!
Glad you liked it, Phil. Though fantasy, I thought it explored the topic of Totalitarianism and citizen resistence quite well.
I wonder what the Thatcher folks thought of it.
:)
P.S.
If you haven't yet seen them, you might enjoy the "V" video clips at
www.wethepeoplecongress.org/
Scroll down a bit & look on the right-hand side of the page.
The sound was a bit quiet on the petition delivering one. I liked the idea of the “V” outfit though.
Re US taxation. What is the legislation that authorises it? Or did ‘they’ just forget that little detail?
Title 26 United States Code (26 USC), Subtitle A, Chapter 1 is the Fed Income Tax Law; however, it deals with more than just the INDIVIDUAL Income Tax. Plus, a careful reading of the highly complex and convoluted law reveals that the Individual Income Tax only applies to certain individuals, not everyone.
Title 26 Code of Federal Regulations (26 CFR) is the corresponding Administrative Law (Regulation) written by the Treasury Dept...actually, the IRS within Treasury. It, like most all Regulations, is MUCH MORE complex and convoluted than the Law (26 USC).
A great breakdown of the whole mess is presented in "Theft by Deception", a video that can be Googled.
Many people, including Ed & Elaine Brown in NH, for years have asked the Govt to show them exactly where in Title 26 the average American individual incurs a tax liability on their labor. The Govt, to date, has never shown such a section to anyone.
The famed attorney, Melvin Belli, years ago attempted to locate such a section of the law and came up empty. Belli made the attempt because a man by the name of Conklin offered $50,000 to anyone who could produce the section that imposes such a liability.
Ed Brown in NH offered a million dollar piece of commercial property to anyone who could do the same. No takers. [At this point in time the property is no longer available. The Govt has seized it because Ed & Elaine were convicted of tax evasion. They have vowed to not be taken alive.]
P.S.
Here's another "V" video...with better sound...and more "V"s.
:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL38VZfw7xg
Interesting, amusing in a serious way. Obviously quite a windy day.
The guy explaining near the end made a good job of it. The last time I was in Washington DC the humidity was really bad and the temperatures (June/July) pretty high also. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to have worn that "V" kit then.
Re your comment re Maggie Thatcher ”I wonder what the Thatcher folks thought of it.” Answer: Probably baffled at being picked on.
The odd thing is Maggie Thatcher was in many respects the closest thing the UK has ever seen to a Libertarian in modern times.
She was generally in favour of smaller government, less taxation, simpler legislation, and individual responsibility.
Once she took over from Edward Heath whilst the Tories were in opposition she gradually cleared out a lot of the Heath supporters. There had been some crusty right-wingers and a lot of soft centre left European political elite types there.
She got a lot of accusations of being a fascist from the left when she took on the unions.
At the time the unions were incredibly powerful and were not above extreme violence. Arthur Scargill an extreme left-winger and was if I recall correctly getting financial support from out of the country. It is by no means of the question that things could have deteriorated to civil war. As I recall at least one strikebreaker was murdered in 73/74.
I grant If you saw the police vs. strikers mass battles it must have looked pretty authoritarian, but you need to keep in mind that before those it had been just strikers having it entirely their own way. The only way to get a handle on it without resorting to the army shooting people was to send in enough trained police to handle it.
What they did was train the police to move and react like a Roman legion. Plastic shields and Long sticks like a baseball bat to take the place of a sword. There was armour like a linebacker
No if you actually look at the legislation instead of the rhetoric, publicity and spin, then Tony Blair’s New Labour are far more fascist than Maggie Thatcher ever was. Just without the uniforms and theatre.
Good points about Thatcher. Too bad she almost always looked so "stuffy"...practically "imperious"
These days she is getting on a bit and moves pretty slowly. Then it was down to stylists and speech coaches.
When she was ‘just’ an MP she moved rather quickly with lots of energy and spoke faster in a much higher register.
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