Two of my heroes are Larry Flynt and Dr. Kevorkian. Both of them treat
absurd laws (against obscenity, and against ownership of your own life) with
open defiance. I'd like to ultimately see government whither, by the method
of people just not taking it seriously. This happens once in a while but the
people who do it usually end up suffering. In Flynt's case, he got away with
it, though fairly bruised. Kevorkian, currently in prison, doesn't seem to
be getting away with it. I hope these two are the Galileos of a trend which
will ultimately cause the government to whither down to the size that the
Catholic Church has. You'll know it's a serious trend when you see large
corporations openly ignoring violations of their freedom. Here are two
things I've read which make me think, and hope, that this is starting to
happen.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/18/business/19TAX.html
This is an article about how several companies are refusing to take income
tax, social security, and medicaire deductions from their employees'
paychecks. They are also refusing to report their employees' incomes to the
IRS. So far, they all seem to have gotten away with it, according to this
article. My favorite parts of the article:
"How many businesses are taunting the I.R.S. this way is impossible to know.
At least 23... have made their decisions public. Sixty business owners and
their advisers met on the weekend of Nov. 11 in California to plan how to
persuade thousands of others to join them."
And this quote from a former IRS commissioner: "This is tremendously
significant because we have never before had responsible parties — employers
— refuse to withhold.. The system simply cannot work if they get away with
this."
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/112100/yahoo.sml
Another thing I've been impressed with is the French ruling on Yahoo
auctions selling Nazi war items. Everyone seems to think this is so terrible
and sets an awful precedent, but I think it's great, because Yahoo will not
pay the fines, and it will expose government as impotent when attempting to
act outside its jurisdiction. Hopefully this will lead to offshore-type
thinking and ventures.
"A Yahoo attorney, Greg Wrenn, contended that France had no jurisdiction in
the case... He said Yahoo, the world's most popular Internet portal, would
refuse to pay the fines. "
I only wish they were a little more brazen - like putting up something on
their site saying "We are fining the French government $130,000 per day
until they stop being assholes", with an applet counting up the fine. The
best that could come out of this case would be if a US court ordered them to
pay the fines, they refused, and got away with it. [on a side note, every
article on this seems to suggest it's Nazis who are buying and selling this
stuff. I'm sure some of them are Nazis, but if you have a grandparent or
uncle who served in WWII, you know this is not usually the case].
---------------------------------------------------
Zeb Haradon (zebharadon@hotmail.com)
My personal webpage:
http://www.inconnect.com/~zharadon/ubunix
A movie I'm directing:
http://www.elevatormovie.com
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