User talk:69.245.136.69

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[edit] Welcome to Wikipedia

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia!

I note that you've made similar postings on various talk pages, including the talk page for Tax protester constitutional arguments, regarding the Brushaber case and Federal income tax. I've tried to respond in all the various places. For ease in discussion, however, please place your future comments in the talk page for "Tax protester constitutional arguments".

The Brushaber case is a complex case, and you are not the first person to raise these arguments, which have already been addressed in Wikipedia. With all due respect, it sounds from your comments like you have been reading tax protester web sites on the internet. Those web sites will steer you completely in the wrong direction. Believe me I know. I have studied these materials for years. I have also studied the actual texts of thousands and thousands of Federal court cases for over 20 years. Neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor another other Federal court has ever ruled, even once, that Congress cannot validly impose the Federal income tax on the income of individuals. Never. Not even once.

The internet is full of misinformation. There is a lot that you need to know about how to analyze court cases before you can properly learn to analyze Federal TAXATION cases. Many of the principles of legal analysis have nothing to do with "taxation" in particular. You have to read more that one, or ten, or even a hundred court cases, in order to learn the rules.

Again, welcome to Wikipedia. Yours, Famspear 10:37, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I would strongly urge you to read the article on the most recent Supreme Court decision on tax protesters: Cheek v. United States.

The critical test when you read any court decision is to ask yourself "What specific issues did the court say the litigants were fighting about?" and "What, if anything, did the court actually decide about those specific issues?"

Tax protester material is riddled with errors that are based on a failure to understand how to answer these two questions.

For example, in the Brushaber case, there were only three basic issues that Frank Brushaber was arguing about. The Supreme Court ruled against him on all three of those issues (there were other sub-issues as well, but let's stick to the three main points). The three main decisions rendered by the Court in that case are called the main holdings in the case. Those holdings are listed in the article on Brushaber, I believe.

When you read a court opinion, especially an old one like Brushaber, you have to cut through all the verbiage, ultimately, and get to the actual DECISIONS made by the Court. Any verbiage in a court opinion that does not constitute part of an actual holding, or decision, is nonbinding. That is why you and others have had such problems understanding cases like Brushaber. You are reading quotations from the cases and taking those quotations out of the context of what the Court ACTUALLY RULED. In Brushaber, the Court actually ruled that the Federal income tax was valid. Mr. Frank Brushaber was trying to say the tax was invalid, and he lost the case. He was the "appellant." Look at the text at the very end of the case and you will see the word "affirmed." That is legal jargon that means that that the appellant (Frank Brushaber) lost the case.

This is just one of the many legal concepts that you would have to master before you could learn to properly analyze a case like Brushaber. Again, I urge you not to be sucked in by tax protester web sites. Believe me, I have been studying this material for years. Yours, Famspear 10:54, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Dear user: Another way that I can tell you have been reading tax protester web sites is that you cited Gould v. Gould. Legal analysts can always spot tax protester material a mile off. The references to this case are copied and pasted over and over on the internet. Guess what. Gould v. Gould was overruled long ago. Because very few tax protesters are formally trained to analyze legal texts, they have no way to figure out whether a particular court case has been overruled. Watch out for this kind of thing. Yours, Famspear 10:59, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Examples of policies, guidelines, etc.

Since you are fairly new to Wikipedia, here are some links that may be helpful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view (official policy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ (official policy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV_dispute (maintenance process, including the rule prohibiting drive-by tagging)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Attribution (proposal; combined from

"Verifiability": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability

(official policy)

and
"No Original Research": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research)

(official policy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus (official policy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources (guideline)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Using_online_and_self-published_sources (guideline)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources (style guide)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not (official policy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fringe_theories (content guideline)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith (official policy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three-revert_rule (official policy)

The three most important concepts are Verifiability, Neutral Point of View, and No Original Research. Yours, Famspear 11:05, 13 August 2007 (UTC)