4 ms·

Honest question: how old are you? 20 years ago, I thought there was no way the drug war could continue. I thought the revelation of wiretapping in the AT&T data

by b6 9y ago

Honest question: how old are you? 20 years ago, I thought there was no way the drug war could continue. I thought the revelation of wiretapping in the AT&T datacenter would be the beginning of the end for illegal surveillance. I've given time and money continuously over that time, and watched the issues I care about most get worse. There seems to me to be no realistic mechanism for change. Do you really think that, in this situation, doing anything other than paying whatever the IRS demands is fraud?

ridgeguy 9y ago
Honest answer: I'm 68 years old. I've seen the drug war, surveillance of US citizens (the two things you listed), the slide of America into oligarchy, and a host of other issues that I care about get worse, hardly believing it could be possible even as it happened. Yet here we are. As a driver of change, withholding taxes doesn't seem to do much in our time. Didn't shorten our war in Vietnam. Didn't deflect the savings & loan crisis in the 80s & 90s, nor the financial crisis of 2007 - 2008. People who commit tax fraud become easy targets for Draconian civil and criminal penalties, and it's really hard to scale that strategy up to where it might be effective. The IRS only has a right to demand what's legal. So I favor aggressive tax minimization (pay the absolute minimum the law allows), which is not tax fraud. I contribute my tax savings in hope of improving governance at all levels, and to other causes (shelters for battered women, etc.). But I have to say, the rapid increases of regulatory capture, surveillance, and wealth concentration, along with the 2016 Presidential election result have eroded my optimism. Gerrymandering + electoral college = effective barrier to honest government. Like you, I don't see effective peaceful means of change remaining, those means having themselves been captured. It's not good, and I don't have answers at present.

by b6 9y ago

ridgeguy 9y ago

Honest answer: I'm 68 years old. I've seen the drug war, surveillance of US citizens (the two things you listed), the slide of America into oligarchy, and a host of other issues that I care about get worse, hardly believing it could be possible even as it happened. Yet here we are. As a driver of change, withholding taxes doesn't seem to do much in our time. Didn't shorten our war in Vietnam. Didn't deflect the savings & loan crisis in the 80s & 90s, nor the financial crisis of 2007 - 2008. People who commit tax fraud become easy targets for Draconian civil and criminal penalties, and it's really hard to scale that strategy up to where it might be effective. The IRS only has a right to demand what's legal. So I favor aggressive tax minimization (pay the absolute minimum the law allows), which is not tax fraud. I contribute my tax savings in hope of improving governance at all levels, and to other causes (shelters for battered women, etc.). But I have to say, the rapid increases of regulatory capture, surveillance, and wealth concentration, along with the 2016 Presidential election result have eroded my optimism. Gerrymandering + electoral college = effective barrier to honest government. Like you, I don't see effective peaceful means of change remaining, those means having themselves been captured. It's not good, and I don't have answers at present.