august 2003
Larken vs Rome
Better than anyone's writing ever has, Larken Rose's concise "Taxable Income Report"* clarified how the IRS code and regulations comply with constitutional restrictions in imposing no tax liability on American citizens whose income is derived exclusively from sources within the United States.
If you love watching truth being discovered, own his brilliant but unfortunately-titled homemade video "Theft By Deception" and watch it often.
I say TBD is an unfortunate title because it tries to criminalize activity that is legal in commerce, whose controlling maxim is caveat emptor—which is Latin shorthand for "let the buyer beware of becoming ensnared by the illusory language lawyers use." Most Americans have been making themselves liable for income taxes not because of what the laws say but because of their illusion of what the laws say.
Larken has attracted a huge host of intelligent followers, and his plan is to rub the noses of tax professionals from Congress to H&R Block in what the laws say. The idea is to pose a few simple questions to the experts and authorities which, if answered truthfully, would prove that the IRS code and regulations exclude most Americans from liability to any income tax. The IRS collapses in humiliation.
Understandably, the experts go blind and deaf and dumb when Larken appears. Some time back, Larken challenged the DOJ to prosecute him, and he heard nothing for a while....
My question is, if you know that the law excludes you from its purview, why ask the IRS or anybody else if you're liable? If you're not an alien, and have no gross income from anywhere (the code defines gross income as something no U.S. citizen ever has, as long as his earnings are derived solely from sources within the United States), why would you ask anything of an agency set up to administer people having gross income? Or as Matthew Henry, in his commentary on Lev. 20:27, put it: "What greater madness can there be than for a man to go to a liar for information, and to an enemy for advice?"
It's as pointless as my asking a Cardinal to show me where in the Holy Bible a saved Christian must buy indulgences to attain Christ's salvation.
When one intrudes belligerently upon a jurisdiction from which one is legally excluded, one enters as an assailant. The ROE love to defend against assailants, because assailants permit them to invoke the strange and powerful war reality. In the war reality, law and reason sleep.
We've seen a lot of war reality in our lifetime. It's the reality in which the WTC can be imploded into its footprint by Boeing jetliners striking high up from the outside. It's the reality in which the Pentagon can be crashed into by another Boeing jetliner whose body parts still cannot be detected by any known instruments. It's the reality in which Oswald shot JFK simultaneously from in front and behind, in which McVeigh's truck could perform impossible feats of demolition. It's the reality in which Livy prayed on an altar in his home to the God Augustus Caesar. It's the reality of Loyolaworld, where black is white if the hierarchy says so, and whoever disbelieves is destroyed for disobedience.
Larken's weapon against the ROE is truth. But the war reality has its own truth—call it anti-truth. It's something that works as well as truth in keeping the system sailing along. Moreover, the ROE have the muscle to kick down a belligerent's door and rummage through his belongings for eight hours wearing armor and talking rude and carting stuff off. They did this recently to Larken.
I'm not sure Larken fully understands the authority of the rulers of evil. I personally handed him one of the first copies of ROE to come off the presses. I urged him to read it. He never indicated to me that he did; I gather from his silence on the subject and his conduct toward the IRS and DOJ that he didn't. Or perhaps he did, but disagreed with it.
What's happening to Larken and his beautiful little family will happen to anyone who attempts to enforce a judgment of condemnation on the rulers of evil. Larken is armed with truth, the actual words of the IRS code. But he's also burdened by a big lie: that an agency whose laws exclude him is bound to answer his questions.
He's also burdened by unscriptural conduct, which the ROE have authority to prosecute within the war reality: he's wise as a serpent but using his wisdom to destroy the IRS, which is not being harmless as a dove. This is contrary to Christ's commandment. The ROE are justified in regarding his campaign against them as terroristic. His invitation to Ashcroft to prosecute him appears to have been accepted. The DOJ will be proceeding as against an alien terrorist, and the government artisans are already developing the copy for it. The truth, which Larken has so beautifully discovered and reported, will no more get into the official record than did the teachings of Jesus make it into the official histories of Rome.
Larken now finds himself on essentially the same course travelled by the tax movement, which he despises. The movement, which was reactive rather than independent, was easily manipulated and devastated by the willfulness and volatility of its members. Larken's belligerence means only that the IRS must hire more imaginative expertise to neutralize, marginalize, or demonize him and his work. It will have nothing to do with the law and everything to do with plotting, creation of circumstances, and in the end, entertainment. War reality is surreality.
Larken has put himself on the stage as an actor thinking he has written the script. It would be wonderful if the play followed his script. But I believe the writer is someone Larken does not imagine, as are the director and, more importantly, the producer. The great test will be how well he sustains his integrity as new and surprising situations are thrown at him. I know him well enough to bet money that he and his issue will prevail, but not in the way any of us, including Larken, can predict.
This is not a time either to criticize Larken or march in the streets waving flags for him. I'm on his list, and the image he conjures up of frightened people shrinking in the shadows I find rather distressing. This sounds like a patriot leader rallying for support, as if enough people alleging fraud would overcome the IRS. Even if allegations of IRS fraud were to reach critical mass, the media have power to neutralize, marginalize, or demonize them.
To attempt to overcome the IRS generally by networking for its destruction, I think, is to insult many citizens who, for whatever reason, consent to being presumed aliens having gross income so that they can file income tax returns and pay taxes or receive refunds. To characterize these people as dupes of a fraud is reminiscent of the way the movement thought people who paid taxes were fools. There are millions of people who still derive great pleasure from buying indulgences from Rome so that the Virgin Mary might reduce their burden of guilt. What good does it do to call Rome fraudulent or those people stupid?
The great lesson of Scripture is that our lives are the result of the choices we make. We seek the truth, and make choices accordingly. If lies feel better, we make wrong choices, and work through the consequences. Whole industries—indeed the rulers of evil—operate to manage people who have made wrong choices. It's such a booming business that they maintain subdivisions dedicated to encouraging wrong choices.
The only action that can overcome the IRS is for a U.S citizen, residing in the U.S. and having income derived exclusively from within the U.S,, to terminate (once outstanding debts are discharged) any conversation with the IRS. In that citizen's life, IRS has been instantly eliminated—and in good Christian form, by a simple act of reconciliation completely void of condemnation. No charges of fraud. No glove in the face. No headlines in the paper. Yet the IRS is overcome in that one household.
That's being wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove, the way Christ counseled.
* September 2006 UPDATE: As punishment for slapping Authority in the face with his glove, Larken was court-ordered (among other horrific things) to remove "Taxable Income Report" from the internet. But its void has quickly been filled, just as Luther's Bibles proliferated in geometric proportion to Rome's attempts to obliterate them. Here is a particularly nice legacy of Larken's, but I regret the anger it conveys. If the statutes exclude the parties meant to be excluded, it's frivolous to declare them fraudulent.