Being a navy brat, I lived among quite a variety of cities, towns, and military bases. Even at a young age, I occasionally caught glimpses of tears in the fabric of society, even if I could not really comprehend what they were. When I would ask about them, the answer was always designed to make me believe that what I was seeing either wasn't accurate or was just fine. Little did I realize that such things were probably more to make those saying them feel better than they were to hide anything from me.

These days, even though I can see the cracks clearly and know them for what they are, I know that they are much larger than they once were and that, if nothing is done about them our societies will completely fall apart, devolving into the type of totalitarianism we have only ever heard about or read about in science fiction. A land where genetics is used to decide who is suited for what kind of job, who is fit to live, and what status one will have in society.

In small towns, the source of the cracks is easy to see. Typically, a handful of families own or control most everything via local governments. Ordinances ( military parliance for weaponry ) are used to keep any perceived competition in check. Police forces are used to get revenue, where peace officers were used way back when you could call on one for help and be sure that they would do what they could rather than deciding to oppress you.

My small town is like this. So are all of the other small towns around where I live. And so are the larger cities which lie further away. It is the same as one looks at county governments, state governments, and the federal government. Some people rule over others.

I hope to present some ideas that might help at least a few out there seeking remedy to take back their power. Government was created to be our servant. I think we can get it back under control if we put our minds to it.

To help put things in perspective, one has only to ponder how it is that cities and such come to be. Somehow I expect that they did not just pop into existence, rulers and all.

Logically, all of what we are taught to think of as cities, towns, states, and otherwise had to have started somewhere as voluntary societies.

Two or more families or people decided to live in close proximity to one another. Over time, more people moved into the area. People started to specialize their knowledge, working together so that everyone had more than any of them would have had individually.

Eventually, these voluntary societies grew large enough that those within them got together and decided that perhaps they should create small structured societies to take care of various aspects of things. The holding of judicial proceedings to allow the people to settle their disputes in a public forum, the maintaining of structures and areas for people to interact and discuss issues they felt were pressing, etc.

As time progressed, these societies decided to create mental and legal constructs called governments, limited improvement districts, schools, and a variety of other things.

Surely, these things must have been at least primarily voluntary to start with. Over time, however, small groups of people realized that by using a specialized language (law), not teaching it in the schools they had volunteered to run, and keeping children away from their parents as much as possible they could condition them and, in as little as two generations, have them convinced that the governmental groups incorporated by the people to carry out specific tasks were actually governments having the rightful power to tax them and order them around.

Today, we do not know who we are. We do not recognize that we are the ultimate creditors of those calling themselves "the government" and that those in government were given a duty to perform certain tasks only. This is why when you start mentioning oaths of office many of them get quite nervous. An oath is a serious matter which, if violated, carries serious penalties.

While rising up in protest may one day make sense, at this late stage in the game those who call themselves "the government" control the thoughts and perceptions of the majority of the populace, demonizing good people who stand up for themselves while covering their own malfeasance with sugar and spice...or changing everyones attention to something completely different.

I am of the firm opinion that there is a better, nonviolent, way to stand up for ourselves and each other that involves nothing more than writing letters.

We grow up being taught that we have to pay taxes. We must pay taxes to be allowed to work, then be taxed again if we want to spend what we have earned, and be taxed sneakily via stamp taxes, regulation costs, and so called corporate taxes that are all passed on to us in the form of price increases.

We must pay taxes to keep our land and to keep using our automobiles upon the very roads we paid to build. We must pay taxes to have the government condition our children to believe they are citizens via forced schooling. We must pay taxes to pay for the very agencies that extract them from us by threat of force and actual force.

We must even pay taxes to send our children over seas to kill others or die trying.

In short, we spend most of our lives working to pay the very people who oppress all of us. That, however, can be changed.

The fatal flaw in the systems which encroach upon us is that it perports to do so for our own good and makes some effort to appear to offer access to the law. We are told as children that we live in the land of the free and that our courts were created to avoid arbitrary punishments.

How does one not pay taxes by using a pen?

Counter-intuitively, you begin by writing up a check for the amount that they demand. After all, being a good man or woman you do want to pay all that you owe.

Once that is done, you draft up a letter to tell them that to show your intent of good faith, you have enclosed payment for the full amount of the tax which they claim you owe.

However, you give them notice that cashing the enclosed check (number, date, amount) before answering your questions on how it is claimed that you owe the tax in question to your satisfaction, they will be giving tacit agreement that you do not owe that particular tax and that they have willfully stolen your money. Because stealing from people is beyond the authority of the government, anyone cashing the check is stealing from you in their personal capacity and lacking any claim of immunity to prosecution.

From there, you proceed to ask them how it is, specifically, that you owe that particular tax. What law, applicable to you, obligates you to pay the tax they ask for? How, specifically, is it applicable to you? Does it apply to all of the people generally? Or does it only apply to people who have received certain benefits from the government? If it only applies to people receiving certain benefits, what are the benefits that attach the tax?

If you have never stopped to ask yourself how it is that you owe a particular tax and you think that you are paying too many taxes of various stripes, perhaps it is time you started making your public servants show you how each tax applies to you.

Make them answer your questions until you are comfortable with the answer. Then, and only then, let them know that they have satisfactorily answered your questions and have your agreement that they may tax the check.

They will try to trick you by using legal english or making statements that you were previously trained to accept. They will try to avoid signing documents with bogus answers on them.

Think about that. If the system were lawful and not just legal, they would simply come right out and show you what makes you liable for a particular tax and show that either (a) it is a public law applicable to everyone without regard of anything beyond being part of society or (b) it is tax which you become subject to when you decide to partake in a particular benefit.

An honest man would tell you straight up or admit that they do not know but will be glad to research the matter and get back to you. The fact that they never do so pretty much shows that they are not honest.

A while back, I accidently wrote a check off of a closed account to pay for three months of preschool for one of my children.

Realizing my mistake a few days later I went down to city hall with cash to pay what I owed.

Once I found the one I was supposed to pay, he demanded that I not only pay the money I had agreed to, but an extra thirty five dollars because I had written a bad check.

Being a reasonable man, I noted that I would gladly pay the extra thirty five dollars should he provide proof that the cities bank charged it thirty five dollars for trying to cash a bad check, or if, in the alternative, the city had suffered thirty five dollars in damages due to my mistake.

He turned a bit red at that point and told me that I had to pay it because "the law" said so.

Being me, I just smiled and agreed that as soon as he could show me the law which applied to me, denoting that such a fine was owed, I would pay it.

He grabbed another guy nearby and stormed off, returning about five minutes later with a photocopy of a city ordinance decreeing that anyone who write a bad check to the city of everett must pay a fine of thirty five dollars.

I glanced at it, noted that I had never seen such a piece of paper before, and asked him why he thought that anything on it applied to me.

He looked a bit taken aback, but answered that "the mayor" signed it.

So I asked him why he thought that Mr. "themayor" had any right to represent me or make legal decisions for me without my consent.

That seemed to stump him. His underling started looking a bit skittish and quietly asked if perhaps he aught to call security...which just made my grin widen.

I offered the hundred dollars I owed one last time and offered it as payment, noting that it was my last offer and that should he refuse to accept it as payment in full he was, by act of commercial law, agreeing that any and all debt previously owed was extinguished.

He still refused so I thanked him for the free sunday school classes and went on my way.

Two weeks later, I got a letter from a debt collector. ( I love those guys...so easy to get rid of or sue as one sees fit ) I wrote back with my standard question asking how it was that he claimed any right to be involved in this matter. Not long after, I received a second letter demanding payment of $175. I copied that letter, wrote a response outlining what had transpired so far and then noted that if he sent me any more letters or made any more calls to my house without proving he had a right to collect the demanded money from me, I would be more than happy to proceed with bringing an action for extortion against him, his firm, the man from city hall, and the city and consider bringing a federal action under the RICO statutes. I copied my response and sent one to him, one to the man who turned it over to collections, and one to the mayor.

I never heard anothe peep out of either him or the city. And it has never shown up on my credit report.

Not a big win by any means, but if one learns what law is, what kinds of statuses there are in law, and how to properly use administrative default proceedures, it is quite easy to make them pay good money for every last dime they extract out of you. Learn civil process and it is also possible to get some of your money back from them via judgments.

Even if they prove that each and every tax is valid, can you imagine what would happen to their slick, streamlined money making machine if even one percent did this?

There is a quote somewhere out there that denotes some English official was complaining that "Every american colonist is a lawyer!".

It was not because they actually were lawyers, but because they were studying the laws it was claimed applied to them, questioning them, and going to court over them. I have to find that quote again...but I remembered running across that and wondering why that would be any big problem. Now, comprehending how law works and the options available to resist non-violently, I can see clearly why that englishman was complaining.

Can you imagine if a city hall demanding money from its 800 or so "citizens" had to take even eighty of them to court each time it did so? or if it took them into court and they stuck to hard facts and logic to show that even if the tax was technically owed, the government, as a tool of the people, had no right to levy it in the first place?

Talk about some serious clogging of the machine. If you had to hold actual jury trials over and over, when would you have time to process people for pretended traffic infractions?