mweiss

Whle that may be the demonstrated case in some communities, I would find it shamefully discriminating. I think the intent of zoning should be to ensure, to the best of ability, that those who buy into a community can reasonably expect it to be developed and used in a manner consistent with what they were sold from the start. I think zoning is a part of community planning. As such, if someone wants anarchy, they can go live out on Montana and do as they please. For the rest of us, we don't want to have to be suing our neighbors every time some wants to put a tire shop next to the rest of our residences, or pack too many homes in a small area, as this builder wants to do. In this case, the builder got the property for a song, just the back taxes. A bargain, around here. The former owner was so stressed that she died during the run up to the eviction. A tragic ending to more than a century of history on this mountain.

I can't believe I've missed this topic for so long... Over here, it's just mweiss, but on many forums of less serious and honest nature, I use Bass Pig as my handle, since it best denotes what my interests are. (See avatar and web links).

I attended the town hearing earlier this evening and turnout of residents was on the low side. Just myself and four other parties. As I expected, the builder addressed all the "health & safety" issues. I heard some "uh-oh" type murmering coming from the builder's side of the room when I spoke about the implied contract between the town and the residents, which was interesting. I also brought up the historic case of Qualitron, which I successfully prevented from building a factory smack in the middle of exclusive Stony Hill section of Bethel, 42 years ago. And I mentioned the historic trends in well water quality going downhill as a subdivision was built on the other side, east of me. I was able to get all my objections voiced. However, I think we have little chance of stopping this development, because of CT Statute 8-30, which allows ALL of the lots in an "affordable" subdivision--not just the affordable lots--to fall short of complying with zoning minimum acreage requirements. I pointed out that if we are to allow this developer to do this, then by all rights. the residents can't be stopped from dividing up THEIR lots and doing the same thing. And one of the town council members responded that this is true, and allowed under the law. And so, in a space where 5 homes may today sit, possibly 25 or more homes could end up sitting. Unfortunately, our expert witness, a civil engineer and my neighbor, was ill, the result of shoveling 11' of snow off the roof of his restaurant in Oswego County earlier in the week. But he called me a couple hours before the hearing and related the major points and I and another resident conveyed those points at the hearing. It was an interesting discourse. The builder defended his position, stating that the property they had taken over was a hazard to persons in that it had two mobile homes on it that were filled to the top with refuse, 150 tires scattered all over the land, a failed septic system and other hazards. The house itself was run-down and had cardboard sheets in the windows. He stated that it was inconceivable how anyone could live under those conditions (silently, to myself, I grinned, because I too, had lived under similar conditions for some time). So in the final analysis, the builder would be improving the property. So it's a matter of what sort of residents move into that subdivision that will affect the quality of life for the surrounding landowners. Ultimately, the neighbors nearest this development will have to take the state to court, as the state law overrules the town zoning on this matter.

The problem I am seeing with the lack of prior restraint (zoning laws) is that with the system proposed here of letting an injured landowner sue the instigator is that the courts would be immediately clogged up with lawsuits. Everyone would be suing everyone else and instead of having settled law to act as a guideline to prevent this litigious situation from developing, we’d eventually end up with a mish-mach of case law in which party A sued party B for property trespass or damages, or however you consider it. I think the problem with zoning is that it is indeed determined by the government and that special interest parties get preferential treatment. But the concept of zoning and planned communities is not a bad one—so long as it’s proposed before the first land buyer comes along. Instituting zoning on preexisting landowners would be immoral, because it would be tantamount to telling a landowner who’s understanding of his land use is “unlimited use” within reason, that he can not longer do certain established activities on his land. However, prospective buyers entering a community would be presented with something like a EULA for the land, and this could be produced by the developer of that community, a private entity, to which the buyer could agree and buy in, or decline and go elsewhere.

Ayn Rand once stated when asked about Welfare: “The system already exists; use it.” Since we have a compulsory tax system, and there are certain laws we are compelled to obey, we feel that we are at least entitled to certain protections under those laws. It’s not unlike demanding better curriculum in public schools, which we are forced to pay for anyway. While I agree in general terms, that one should be free to do as one pleases with one’s property, one cannot be totally moral by taking the sterilized and isolated approach that a couple of the more respected posters here are taking, without considering the whole system involved. For instance, a few here believe that it is okay to pollute ground waters, since, as they espouse, it is owned by no one. Therefore if one pollutes the water to a certain extent, those who use the water for drinking should suddenly be saddled with the cost of water filtration systems. Hmmm… that sounds like an initiation of force against the other users of the water. The young folks here who read a couple of Objectivist books and proclaim themselved “Objectivists” and go around spouting simplistic views without an understanding of the hierarchy of how those views fit in with a larger system is quite sophmoric. I was that way too, when I first studied Objectivism in 1962. But then I started to grasp a wider range of integrations—that every personal activity has an impact on someone. Yes, even a failure to wear a seatbelt has a potential impact on some EMS person who has to scrape your bloody remains off the highway because you were thown 100’ from your car when it crashed because of a tire blowout that you could not have planned for. Yes, when you put too many septic systems in a small area, the e-choli bacteria in the ground water rises and the damage is cumulative over time. At what point does the pollution take away the quality of life from those surrounding the development? Many young so-called “Objectivists” seem to take this notion of the virtue of selfishness too literally. I noticed that last year when in discussing a thread about loud music and disturbing the neighbors, many of the folks on this forum were having a difficult time determining if there was a moral issue at all, and then arguing whether it was a case of trespass, and if so, what level of noise was permissible, etc. The point is, when someone is about to take an action that will have an IRREPARABLE harmful effect on a resource that a number of individuals in an area depend upon, and when it can be scientifically proven that such an action could irreparably harm said resouce to the point where it is of impaired value to the established individuals who have been using it for a long time, then I contend that there is an initiation of force by the developer by intent to build those septic systems so close together. That is irrational selfishness, because one is doing it for “profit at any cost” and in this case at the cost of the existing homeowner’s quality of drinking water. Since we are living in a society that restricts what we can do with our property, it should at least be equal across the board. Giving one developer a special privilage that we don’t get amounts to a violation of “equal protection” under law. Sure, I can look at it the Libertarian/Anarchist way of morality and say I’m okay with that and I’ll just drink e-choli in my water until I get sick enough to have to buy a water treatment system. And that seems to be the general view espoused by a few of you—most surprising because the persons who supported that view are the persons I generally find myself most in agreement with on other issues. But on this matter, you’re sounding like anarchists. If this developer can divide up this land, and we can’t do the same and sell parts of our lots for profit, then it’s fundamentally a skewed system. And if we can, then out the window goes the whole purpose of zoning. Zoning is meant to protect me, a homeowner, from you, who want to put in a coal mine just 50’ from my front door. If you think zoning is immoral, just try living next door to a noisy 24-hour tire repair shop with air guns and jackhammer noises going all day and night.

For some perspective, I am going to post an editorial I wrote back in 1966, when my (then) home town was embroiled in a similar instance where an "exception" was being made to zoning laws that we all agreed to when we chose to buy our homes there. The exception was to allow an electronics plant right in the heart of an exclusive residential neighborhood. The town attorney's arguments about noise, pollution and traffic congestion were all handily addressed by Qualitron's attorney. I attended the public hearings and spoke on the matter, raising points that I raised in the editorial below, but with greater emphasis on the town having an implied contract with the residents via zoning law. This is scanned in from a clipping I saved in a file folder and is in pretty poor shape, so any typos are scanning-related:

I think the situation is more like what SoftwareNerd describes. We’re all unwilling parties to the “contract” on land use, that is, zoning laws. However, certain parties, under the guise of helping the poor, get to bypass the laws. IOW, unequal protection under the law. Yes, we are being defrauded. But since we’re bound to uphold OUR end of the bargain by not dividing up all our land and building more housing units, how can it be that this developer can come in and do jus that? And it certainly does negatively affect all of us. Particularly the two property owners to the south of that lot, since the setback for the two front houses is proposed to be only 10’. Imagine the horror for them of once viewing wooded wilderness, to suddenly having someone’s windows 10’ from your property line. Hell, it makes me almost want to donate some subwoofers to those two homeowners so they can blast the new neighbors daily with bass, so the new neighbors will have second thoughts about their decision to move in. Seriously though, it’s going to negate the reason several of these people moved there in the first place. These people only recently built their homes in the past two years, and had no inkling that the town was going to forclose on the property next to them and sell it to a land developer who intends to divide it up into tiny lots and put huge houses on them, directly contravening the understood 2.5-acre zoning. So if the developer can do this, then let’s say fair is fair and all of the land owners should rightfully be able to subdivide, build more homes and sell for profit. But then it would turn the whole mountain into a crowded urban community, not what we all moved up here for. The public hearing is this Thursday. Assuming it doesn’t get rescheduled because of the threat of the blizzard that the weathermen are predicting, at least we MIGHT get to state our thoughts for the record.

I attended the pre-meeting and for the most part, it’s the typical ‘grasping at straws’ arguments: the concern over water quality, destruction of “open space”, and discussion of public safety issues such as the new private road creating un-plowed snow conditions that would hamper ambulance and fire department response times. Mostly addressable. The town could stipulate a homeowner’s agreement that the road be maintained. As for the many septics, the town could address that by bringing in city sewer systems and forcing ALL the residents along the route to pay for it (that’s a nice $20,000 assessment that has to be paid in a short span of time). But the one thing I think we might have a chance of winning on is the fact that when the current residents bought and moved in, they did so with the expressed regulations that the area would be 2.5-acre zoned. IOW, no one would be able to build more than one home on a lot. Now the town is changing the rules after people have made agreements, and allowing five homes to be built on this lot. To me, that recalls an earlier case I argued on in 1968 in another town, the case of Qualitron building in a zoned residential area. While that town argued that Qualitron would bring pollution, traffic and noise, Qualitron was able to address each complaint. However, I argued that the town would be in breech of it’s contractual obligation to residents to respect it’s own zoning laws. Qualitron knew it didn’t stand a chance of winning against that argument, so it’s attornies withdrew and they built the plant elsewhere. I think this case today is the same sort of situation. The town had an implicit agreement with the land owners that these lots were to allow one home per lot. This new developer comes in and because he’s claiming to be building “affordable” homes, he gets approved to build five of them on this lot. Another interesting side note is that “low income” around here is defined as families with $80,000 or under, annual income. So these homes would be considered low income (the median income here is $150,000.) Three of the homes would cost in excess of $800,000 and the two “affordable” homes would be priced in the mid 400s. If nothing else, this is sure to push our tax assessments up considerably. So in a nutshell, I think we do have a moral argument here in that the town is changing the rules that the residents of that area agreed to when they bought their property and is violating the implied contract that this agreement constitutes. When the homeowner is bound to obey the zoning laws, but a developer can come in and bend the rules to such an extreme, it’s a case of uneven justice. The residents are getting shafted, despite the fact that when they moved in, the zoning would protect their property from turning into an urban area. Given this new angle on the situation, does anyone here think we still should be fined, thrown in jail and force to read AS for protesting the town’s breech of contract with the residents?

Although not entirely unexpected, I must same I am a bit surprised at how few here identified the initiation of force against neighboring homeowners by the contamination threat of this poorly-designed system. We aren't trying to stop the developer. We just want to have him scale back the number of units to a level where the ground water won't be some badly affected. Five 4-bedroom homes on 3 acres is too much for that small tract of land. My neighbor is arguing from a civil engineering point of view, and I agree inasmuch as I've seen my own water quality decline when Gretl Lane was built in 1977. While ground water may not belong to anyone until it is pulled out of the ground, do you really believe that it is morally justifiable to contaminate the water supply? I think that is going overboard. Perhaps if they are justified in polluting my water, I am more justified in invading their air space with my bass, since I was here first. I'll just tell them to invest in a sound proofing system.

Two weeks ago, I became aware of a developer’s plans to build a 5-unit “affordable” housing development just 300’ from my property line. There’s going to be a town meeting on the 15th, and the neighbors are having a pre-meeting tomorrow afternoon. I have a longtime friend and neighbor who is a civil engineer, licensed in NY, who will be our “expert testimony” at the hearing. The area to be built on is zoned for 2.5 acre lots. The subject lot is about 3 acres and the builder want to construct five homes on lot sizes as tiny as .7 acre. Because 3 of the homes are to be “affordable housing” and that the town hasn’t met the state’s quota for such housing, zoning and wetlands regulations can legally be swept aside. The concerns are that the septic system design submitted by the builder is inadequate and will result in contamination of our wells. My civil engineer/neighbor claims the situation created will be dire and that where he works in Westchester County, such a septic plan would fall short of compliancy with minimum standards for separation of leaching fields. He emphasizes that housing this dense only works when you have city sewer system serving the complex. I can only add historical perspective, being a 42-year resident at this location and being very conscious of the drinking water quality. In the late 1970s, when a small development was built 1/3 mile east of me, I noted a decline in the taste of our well water shortly thereafter. I can only conclude that adding more homes and septic systems will degrade our water still further. The town will only allow two arguments at the hearing: if they concern a public health issue if they concern a public safety issue I think we can argue the health issue. But obviously, the state-mandated quota for “affordable” housing implies that 3 of the 5 homes to be built are to be reserved for the “economically disadvantaged.” This hints at the possibility of undesirables moving into the neighborhood, with it’s median income of $150K. Typically when the poor move in, there are other problems that they bring with them, including misbehaved children. Historically, over the past four decades, there have been some relatively poor families in this neighborhood and virtually all of the vandalism and property destruction caused to private property has been traced to the children of these families. One advantage of living in a wealthy neighborhood is that the kids seem to be better behaved and educated, wherein they don’t feel the need to go out and cause property damage for kicks. This latter concern is certainly one I share. But equally so is the potential damage to the quality of our drinking water. Given that our ability to argue against this development will be hamstrung by the restrictions mentioned above, does anyone have any suggestions for ways to approach the issue in a manner that is satisfactory to the Hearing’s rules, but gets across these other points? Towns aren’t rational, and while it may be somewhat effective to make a case that their construction will be an “initiation of force” against us by pollution of our aquifer, I think the stance will come across too bizarre for town officials to comprehend. If you were in my shoes, how would you argue, given the situation as descibed?

And that's what ALL of these estimates are--rough--because no one really knows for sure WHAT Vista will require. One fact I can share with you about Vista is that my friend, who is one of the beta testers, observed that when viewing my webcam on his machine with Vista, it used 100% of the CPU, while when that same machine was booted into xp, the CPU load was only 7% when viewing my webcam. He was so curious about that that he wrote a letter to some magazine that recently did an article on Vista. We are only making wild speculations, but what if that 93% addition CPU load were DRM analyzing every frame of my web cam's images? And again, most of the estimates I made are general, based on the Australian PC reviewer's article. When someone mentions any numbers, it's a good idea to take it with a grain of salt. Remember, 58% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Ummm... you mean BLACK slavery was outlawed with, what was it, the 14th amendment? But with the 16th amendment came universal slavery of ALL races of people. Seems like every time they amend that piece of toilet paper, the infringements of our natural rights only become applied to a larger group of people.

There is a guy on BroadbandReports who posts in their Liberal "Blue Room" alot who goes by the handle "TamaraB" which is the name of his trawler. He lives on it and plans to do just this. More practical would be a large submarine, a la, Captain Nemo's "Nautilus". I can imagine that raising a family on a yacht would be confining over the years. Not to mention the ship would have to dock for repairs regularly. Sustainability would be very unlikely. And remaining out of sight from surveillance satellites and out of the crosshairs of government military ships would require some advanced stealth technology.

Two common tax protest methods are to sign the returns and the checks to the IRS "without prejudice" or, "under duress". Doing so will only just about garantee one result: that the party signing in the afore-mentioned manner will be systematically audited every year for the next ten years. Messing with the IRS in this fashion is akin to poking a very short stick into a hornet's nest. DON'T DO IT. An interesting anonymous posting appeared in the blog of Mr. Brown's this morning: http://questforfairtrialinconcordnh.blogsp...sive-video.html New video interview appeared there today too. I was speaking with a friend of mine and he feels that the feds aren't going to raid, but that Mr. Brown will have created his own self-imposed arrest, and he'll rot there until eventually all his supporters lose interest and leave.

My most recent bankruptcy was in 1986. Bankruptcy does not clear tax debts. Well, you can say that, but when you take away everything that makes life worth living, life in a miserable state is not worth living. People, when they get old, don't wish to be fighting battles like this. We want to retire and enoy the few years we might have left, in peace.

Alex Jones interview with Ed Brown on Youtube: Search on "Alex Jones - Ed Brown interview part 1 of 4" and so on. The abuse by the feds of this guy's rights is amazing and discussed in part 2. I'm listening now. Of course you have to filter the trashy talk by Mr. Jones and pick out the facts selectively but it's interesting.

My god man, you speak as if you were speaking to a 20 year old who still has a life ahead of him! I continue to work on as many options as I can. But a legal advisor strongly recommended abandoning the property and leaving the country to a country with no extradition treaty with the US because if they discover certain things, they could come after me for a lot more than back taxes. As long as I'm here and things are kept quiet and there are no inspections, there is no problem. We're talking enormous fines and maybe prison here. It's more complicated than you could fathom. It's also enviro- bullshit, because everything is perfectly safe. Finally, if I lost my home, I would not want to live anymore. I don't have a million dollars where I could start over again somewhere else. I'd be on the street because the taxes in demand are probably more than the place could ever sell for. But nobody wants to buy Pandora's box. It's a legal mess of epic proportions. A Catch 22 situation, because I'm damned if I prove to the town that the property is worthless for certain reasons, and damned if I don't because of the taxes owed. I've already identified that the only way out of this mess is to make a lot of money and pronto.

True, but they won't. The lambs willingly prostrate themselves before the shears. More on this: http://nhindymedia.org/newswire/display/3993/index.php Looks like a classic Irwin Schiff argument from 10 years ago. Claims prepared for the coming raid: http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/mi...990001?cid=2194 ...another Waco to come? Interesting video on this blog page: http://questforfairtrialinconcordnh.blogspot.com/ More videos and new clips on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer...p;search=Search

The valuation placed by the town is meaningless in the market because it’s based largely on the square footage and the surround property values. So it’s way more than I think the house is worth. We looked into selling it last year, but because of the condition of the house, and the condition of the land, plus the fact that everything’s built on what is now designated wetlands, even a buyer who plans to demolish and build anew can’t do so. The new zoning laws also disqualify the lot for a new construction. As such, we could not find a real estate agent that would list the property. There are numerous “environmental” issues that I cannot discuss publicly, which would come back to haunt me in the form of huge lawsuits, if I did not disclose them at time of sale, and to disclose them would prevent sale and end up with the entire lot being turned into a superfund site. I am caught between a rock and a hard place. The circumstances are almost surreal. I can’t prove to the town that the parcel has no resale value without causing the property to be condemned which would mean we would be immediately evicted. This is not like a nice luxury home we have here. It’s not even contractor-built. It was built over a 25 year period, with used barn lumber, and weekly paychecks. Having lost our Bethel house to a sewer assessment (city sewer came in, our 4 year old septic was condemned and we had to pay a $900 tie in fee plus a $3,000 sewer assessment in 1966, which pushed the house into foreclosure because the mortgage payments doubled and it went into default as a result) we were forced to move in here without plumbing, heating system or electric wiring for the first few years. A borrowed gas unit heater provided the heat for a few years and I collected gallon milk jugs and rinsed them out and filled them up and friends and a neighbor’s house, 36 of them in the back of my ’59 VW bug and that would last a week. We used it for drinking, bathing and washing dishes. There was also a porta-potty, since there was no septic yet installed. Electricity came in off a big yellow extention cord, from a temporary feed from the power company outside. For the first 3 years, it was ‘roughing it’ like in the 19th century style of living. Some of the heat came from a wood burning stove in the basement, when the concrete was finally poured. I hustled to get the walls insulated and sheetrock put up. Slowly, funds were accumulated to we could hire a well digger and that went in. Then the septic eventually went in, then the 2000 gallon in ground oil tank, and finally I installed a cast iron furnace and spent the next several months sweat soldering hot water baseboard piping. After that, came the water plumbing for the sinks and toilet, bathtub and so on. A third of the house was just roughly framed-in with plywood and tarpaper on the outside for quite a few years and no insulation or sheetrock on the inside. It wasn’t until 1976 that all the sheetrock was finally done. But the exterior was still in tarpaper. The roof wasn’t finished either, and it leaked in several places as a result. That was to be a regrettable oversight many years later. The bottom line is, the house is makeshift, and neighbors that built homes within 1/3 mile of us have complained about it eroding their property values. At the same time, the community, over 42 years, went from the boondocks (nowhere) to an upscale community with 5-10 acre lots. A golf course and a country club went in to our west, which overlooks the lake. An upscale cul-de-sac of 5,000 sq ft homes went up to our east. And our taxes shot up from just $92 in 1966 to where they are today. The paradoxical thing is that I can’t get my valuation lowered any more than it is. If there was a normal home here, the tax would be $5,000 more than it is now. The board of assessment review actually commented that they thought my taxes were low for the area. So to summarize the problems of sale: Environmental issues House structural issues Temp electric service (still) unapproved septic system nothing to “code” In short, it’s such a disaster from the perspective of those who do things legally by the book, that no one –not even a contractor—wants to have anything to do with the property. In short, I’m stuck with it, and the taxes, with the only option being to stay and pay, or walk away and abandon and move somewhere out of the jurisdiction that they never catch me and hold me financially responsible for things. And let’s fantasize for a moment that I WAS able to sell it. Guess what? The town would take their tax off the top and chances are that would leave me with a couple thousand, if anything, not enough to buy more than a down payment on an apartment. Ugh! That said, it’s been my home for 42 years. I was here before anything else was (except the radio tower) and people pretty much can pound sand when I play my stereo, because I was here first. I went through the whole ‘stay or leave’ thought process, writing pros and cons down on a lined pad. The reasons to stay far outnumbered the reasons to go. I know the house—I built much of it, with occasional help. This place has and will always be ‘home’ to me. I looked at the Carolinas in 2005 and realized I didn’t like it there, or in Florida. I’ve been in California too and I couldn’t wait to leave. Simply put, I’ve got roots here, in addition to the issues cited. So why did I risk my life and health trying to rebuild this house, you wonder? Because I realized that to do nothing would be a slow, agonizing defeat. The wife and I would have had to close off a room at a time, as the roof rot progresses and as sections started to collapse in on the rooms. The bathroom was like that for the longest time, as was the spare bedroom. You could look up and see the sky through gaping holes in the roof. That room was sealed off in 1999 and the heating system disconnected. I rebuilt it in 2004-2005, so my daughter would have a nice room. I’d already talked to some contractors and had two estimates which were ridiculous. That’s when I realized it was me doing the work, or watch the house collapse until it becomes so bad that the wife might leave. I figured, if I die of a heart attack while repairing the roof, then so be it. Damn the torpedos. I took it easy, worked slowly and steadily. You’d be surprised how much you can do, as long as your legs still can carry you. Of course, I’m not that steady and I get dizzy spells, so I usually crawled on all fours when working near the edge of the roof. I hated every moment of it—it was both terrifying and extremely physically exhausting work. But over many weeks, I slowly reached my goals for a certain amount of roof completed. When you have that much blood, sweat and tears into your home, it can’t be compared to a contractor-built home that you purchased with a mortgage and can easily say goodbye to. It’s a part of you—your life, your body, your spirit went into it. A part of you has been consumed in the construction of that home. It is irreplaceable. That is the other reason why I cannot sell it, even if someone would buy it. I always hold out hope that something will avert the coming conflict. But plan B is to send the wife and kid to live with her aunt in Cali, while I face my “lion.”

I will readily admit that I feel uncomfortable with the methods espoused in training sessions on how to sell Primerica. But I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a dishonest business. Let’s just say that we hold divergent opinions on the sales methods for insurance and leave it at that. Tax lawyers can assist with IRS INCOME TAXES and often the IRS will accept an “offer in compromise” when they realize that the defendant has not a snowball’s chance in hell of ever repaying the full tax + penalties in a lifetime, and perhaps the person is divorced and already paying child support. In rare cases, people have had their FEDERAL taxes reduced. However… this does not happen with towns. Because the towns can always forclose and obtain the money through auction sale of the property. In the IRS case, the person has no assets approaching the value needed to pay off the tax and no income to support the payoff, so the IRS accepts the compromise with the realization that it’s more cost effective to get the person off the books and move on to bigger fish than to collect $50/month for the next forty years. With the house tax, the town has a close to 100% chance of recovering the full tax due through the sale of the property. I have spoken to many tax attornies over the years. There is absolutely nothing any of them could do.

The real number of income tax protestors in the US is about 11,000, total. Not the millions that the conspiracy folks claim. There are plenty of prison cells to house the current lot of tax protestors. In order for a tax protest to be effective, it would take probably 30-40 million taxpayers withholding their returns in an organized fashion--but it would only hurt them, since most are eager to file and get a refund and this would delay the refund. People would have to first get employers to stop withholding taxes from their paychecks. Then they could do the protest more effectively. However, the vast majority of people won't protest because they believe in taxation as the only way to support the nation. They are Altruists and especially in the Bible Belt, are firm believers in supporting the country through their taxes. The situation is hopeless, approached in this manner. The only positive effective option is to campaign heavily for the Fair Tax and the elimination of the IRS. Get your band of merry men to organize and mount a write-in effort targeting key legislators.

fatdogs12: Yes, I’m depressed. Because the government is making our lives miserable. The constant hounding, the sheriff’s visits, the visits from the police investigators are really getting to wear me down. They want what I cannot give them and they know that I won’t just walk away without a war. Taking a man’s home is the equivalent of killing him. I’ve told them already that any initiation of force by them against me will be taken as an act of war and that I will respond in kind. While I could probably stand to eat better and get more exercise, I believe that 90% of the problem is my philosophical premises—how I stand with the irrationality I must deal with. It’s 12ºF here. That precludes me going outside for a walk. I used to take walks at night, but during the warmer seasons, I expend all my energy rebuilding the parts of the house that have collapsed from rot, termites, carpenter ants, water damage. I hate the agony of that work, but I do feel somewhat better after the first month of being fully engaged in the carpentry work. I derive some degree of satisfaction as I beat back the decay, one agonizingly slow step at a time. I spent all spring, summer and autumn just rebuilding a corner of the house. This has been going on since 2003 and won’t be done until 2010, as I am now about halfway through with the repairs. Part of me wonders why I bother, since the town is probably going to take the house anyway for back taxes, but I suppose the optimist in me says to just push onward and to heck with the town. My wife seems to think that somehow things will work out. I see no rational evidence of this, but she’s been right so often in the past that I sometimes regard her powers of prediction to be almost as if supernatural. At least I’m eating better than when I was alone, which was peanut butter sandwiches every day because that’s all I could afford. The wife feeds me pretty well. I gained another 40lbs since we’ve been married. And she complains that I’m an elephant now. I know that a vegetarian diet can help, but in the winter, I need calories. We keep the house at 58ºF to keep our energy costs as low as possible, so we can’t be living on carrot juice as we do often try in the summer. However, what plagues me is a problem of IDEAS not so much of diet. You’re quite correct that lack of revenue had something to do with why my businesses failed. But moreso, lack of business acumen—I’m good at technical stuff, but I can’t balance a checkbook to save my life! But I certainly could have used advertizing revenue. Sadly, that was not possible when you have to choose between running a newspaper ad that may not work, and buying groceries for the month. Thank you for citing the “No Cash No Fear” book title. I’m building a reading list, and my wife graciously ordered the other book by Edwin Locke, mentioned earlier in this thread. I’ll order this one eventually, as I read the others first-suggested. Now see, here’s the difference between you and I—you started from nothing and, while holding a job, managed to figure out how to start and succeed in a business at the same time. If that were me, I’d still be working the menial job and living in my car. Sure, I’d be trying to start businesses to, and failing, because there’s something about the way I go about things which is incorrect. And I agree that money isn’t all there is to life! I really don’t have any interest in money, beyond the fact that it buys me food and subwoofers. I would be happy enough just living off my land, raising a garden for food, chopping my own firewood and so on. But the problem is the local government wants American dollars. I can’t just hand them a bushel of potatoes and pay the taxes off. They want the kind of money that successful businessmen can afford. The average tax bill around here is $15,000/year. Even though I pay a bit less than that for my ramshackle abode, it’s still way more than I earn as net income in a year. Fall three years behind, and with interest, penalties and lien fees added on, and it becomes almost as much as I’ve earned during my entire life as an employee. So you see, although money isn’t all that important to me, there are men with guns who want large sums of it from me, so I need to earn larger sums still, so I can pay the randsom and still have enough left over that I don’t feel devastated when I write out that check for eleven grand and more, each year. Money is, in this Socialist society, very important. You can’t live without it. Money is protection from enemies like the government. Money buys good legal protection. It makes problems go away. Only the poor get harrassed by the government because the feds know that the poor cannot afford a defense. Ever notice that the bulk of IRS audits are upon the working poor? If the government went out of existence tomorrow, it would be the greatest feeling in the world for me. Really. I would be so happy and full of joy and hope once again.

Inspector, I use IE 6, not Firefox, and it doesn’t increase the size of fonts. My workaround now is to type my replies in Word, with a 36 pt font so I can see it (letters about ½” tall) and then paste it into the browser. It’s saved me a couple of times this week when I hit post and the forum went into la la land and lost my post. At least I was able to paste again and re-send when the forum came back. I’ll say this about Primerica: I was very critical of them for the first few months. But as I learned what competing insurance companies were doing to deceive and overcharge their clients, I realized Primerica was a much more honest company, as insurance companies go. They paid on claims in which there was a dubious legal distinction, and the paid on all the 9/11 victims’ claims, where other companies invoked “war clause” and told their policyholders to go pound sand. Primerica is far more than insurance. They provide counceling on finances and help the families with high interest debt consilodate that into low interest 2nd mortgages and use the savings to put into retirement and college funds if they have kids. The company is really helping the less financially-smart families to solve their problems and build a modest nest egg for the future. I believe in the products and services and I am convinced they are valuable to a segment of the population. The drawback is that this grass roots marketing system only works well for people who have a lot of friends and relatives. The concept of it is to eliminate the salaried salesmen so they can offer term insurance and still make a profit. Eliminating the overhead means that money becomes available to offer good incentives for good performance. Primerica rewards the people who conduct lots of business quite well. The average insurance company’s life policy includes $833 of the premiums going to advertising costs. Primerica’s life policies have an average advertising cost of $0.63 by comparison. They don’t advertise. They get the product out there by network marketing. There’s nothing morally objectionable with this method, in fact, I give them credit for coming up with an innovative way to compete in a tough market (since most insurance companies don’t offer Term Insurance because it’s not profitable with their marketing structure). Having studied the differences between Term and Whole Life, it’s clear that the latter is just short of a scam and a fraud, because the buyers of said policies are led to believe that they’re building a savings acount that will go to their spouse when they die. But that money goes back to the insurance company and only the death benefit is paid (most of the time, except in the case of 9/11 for many insurance companies invokes their ‘war clause’). So that’s part of what motivates me to stick it out with Primerica. I genuinely believe that because the more I investigated the company, the more I found that was good about it, therefore, I discount the naysayers who are made up mostly of competitors making bogus complaints and former reps who, most of which, never bothered to get licensed to do business in the first place. That said, Primerica isn’t for everyone. And I do take issue with some of the things our trainers want us to say to prospects. But I think an intelligent person can use his own honest methods of communicating and achieve the same end result. Just not folks like me, however. I failed to get business for my graphic design business 20 years ago for the same reason—I just don’t have credibility. As one friend put it, “you can see the desparation of a starving animal in your eyes.” No, I don’t think it’s a dishonest business, only that some of the selling methods are a bit retarded, or geared toward ignorant people. Perhaps religious people. About the technician comments, I can’t imagine that you did mean “line monkey” as in some production level job. R&D however is beyond my credentials. I wanted to work in engineering, but I only got as far as Prototype Wire Worker. That was a guy soldering parts together, based on a schematic written by an engineer. You’re absolutely right about needing a business partner!! I agree totally! Back in ’87, I posted an ad, looking for a business partner with marketing and business skills. I got one call on that ad and he was looking for a large salary and when he found out I was a one-man operation, that was the end of it. Even my own friends aren’t confident in me, nor interested in partnering with me in some sort of business. So I’m always back to being a sole proprietor. As for the Shawshank comment, I had to make that decision back when my father passed away, leaving me to be the last living Weiss, and totally alone with no family left, no advocates to stand up for me. I gave it long hard thought for about two weeks. I chose to live. And then I struggled to sort out the incredible mess that was left behind. I struggled, and it was overwhelming. And then I decided not to take on the whole Big Picture at once. I chose to take on a small piece at a time, and in that way I found it to be a manageable burden. I slowly worked through it. I’m still working through the remnants of that mess today, but at least now I have a wife and a cute little precocious 2-1/2 year old daughter to kick me out of bed and to cheer me up. If they didn’t come into my life, I’m convinced I would have died, Waco-style by now because I was the epitomy of the disillusioned, angry, fifty-something, potbellied, balding right wing anti-government gun nut with an unlicensed radio station that I was going to defend until death. My action to pursue a wife displaced me from that path and most definitely saved my life from certain firery demise and notoriety of the sort David Koresh’s name enjoys. It’s now the property taxes that threaten my otherwise idyllic lifestyle. First they take your home, then they take your children, because a homeless family cannot properly take care of their children. Wonderful, eh? So what am I to do? The government is powerful, and it wants something from me that I cannot give them in the time frame they demand it in. And that term, “taxes in arrears PLUS current taxes” assures that one can never catch up and keep up.

I don't know what to choose for a successful career because the things which I am good at, are the things which 10,000 other people in the local area are good at, or at least the public perceives as such and will buy the cheaper service at a price which I cannot compete against. It's fairly clear to me that the real money is in the commodities trading markets and financial services, and since I am not the founder of YouTube or Google, I'm not likely to make that kind of money doing something I enjoy. I'll admit that it was probably a mistake for me to go into financial services (Primerica) because it is against my grain (the selling methods are against my personality type) and the thought "what am I getting myself into?" kept echoing in my mind. But I believed I would have no trouble convincing my friends to get involved with this and my first mistake was making a bad judgement about my friends' interest in this. Thus, my warm market disappeared and I was now stuck with a vested investement and the need to reach a milestone in order to be reimbursed my initial training fees. I believe that you are correct, that I COULD do Primerica and succeed, which is why I didn't quit. I'm just backing off a bit so that I can recompose my mental state of mind, as the telemarketing rejections sent me hurtling into a deep depression over several months. I was cheerful and optimistic about this business before I got worn down with telemarketing and not just the hang ups, but the people who'd screw around with me and set appointments then never show up, just to waste my time. This is why I'm vascillating now. Because I tried this and I tried that and neither netted the results I wanted, or even a shadow of the results I wanted and, having exhausted so many options, I'm left thinking my mind is defective somehow. Hence, the inability to decide what to do next. As such, I've chosen to read books and try to see if I can make some important integrations that may change the way I feel about making money from the premises on up.

If there was such a thing as a "Malevolent Government" premise, I would be in full agreement that this is what ails me. I do not consider the universe itself to be malevolent. I consider it neither good nor evil. It just is. However, it is people--particularly those with Altruistic premises that they choose to force upon me--that I consider a plague which is overtaking this world. Since religion is so prevalent, and one of the primary pillars of religion is Altruism, this provides the so-called 'moral foundation' behind taxation. It is the biblical 'man is they brother's keeper' concept upon which the justification of taxation is rationalized. Since these blind followers of dogma, who lack the creative ability to see how any alternative to taxation can work, are in the majority, and since majority rules (Democracy is just two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner), folks like myself are going to face constant turmoil as long as we exist on this earth. That is the whole crux of my problem--my sense of morality is incompatible with Fascist socialist society.