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In this case, the primary source appears to be indecipherable to anyone except for a lawyer who already understands section 6041 of the Internal Revenue Code of

petercooper 16y ago
In this case, the primary source appears to be indecipherable to anyone except for a lawyer who already understands section 6041 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 and all of the amendments that have been applied to it since it was enacted, so I'm not sure what good you're doing by quoting it. Most open source code is indecipherable to anyone but a programmer, but seeing it can at least provide some reassurance. Most political and legal processes are indecipherable or opaque to the general population, yet attempting to understand them is a positive thing. Having the primary source to hand is useful to ensure that you're not having the wool pulled over your eyes by a biased secondary reporter. A news site could easily misinterpret legalese. Cato is hardly the National Enquirer, but even so, they only cite a) a tax research paper that costs $75 to obtain, b) a tax CPA whose words are not reproduced anywhere else, and c) the venerable "Air Conditioner Contractors of America." There aren't enough references to primary sources to rule out a less-than-sincere attempt at shaping public opinion (not that that is necessary the case, just that it could be). There's a lot to be said for trusting news sources in order to save time, but taking a look at the primary source yourself in many instances can prove illuminating, and is certainly a responsibility for anyone who's going to proceed to get upset/angry or campaign against whatever the news/article is covering.

petercooper 16y ago

In this case, the primary source appears to be indecipherable to anyone except for a lawyer who already understands section 6041 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 and all of the amendments that have been applied to it since it was enacted, so I'm not sure what good you're doing by quoting it. Most open source code is indecipherable to anyone but a programmer, but seeing it can at least provide some reassurance. Most political and legal processes are indecipherable or opaque to the general population, yet attempting to understand them is a positive thing. Having the primary source to hand is useful to ensure that you're not having the wool pulled over your eyes by a biased secondary reporter. A news site could easily misinterpret legalese. Cato is hardly the National Enquirer, but even so, they only cite a) a tax research paper that costs $75 to obtain, b) a tax CPA whose words are not reproduced anywhere else, and c) the venerable "Air Conditioner Contractors of America." There aren't enough references to primary sources to rule out a less-than-sincere attempt at shaping public opinion (not that that is necessary the case, just that it could be). There's a lot to be said for trusting news sources in order to save time, but taking a look at the primary source yourself in many instances can prove illuminating, and is certainly a responsibility for anyone who's going to proceed to get upset/angry or campaign against whatever the news/article is covering.