Could someone be seeing pass the fact that there is no law? AND be asking what is wrong with our government?

Letter
 
  
Browns hurt no one; why imprison them? 
Jim Davies, Newbury 

For the Monitor
 
April 27. 2007 9:30AM

 
My attention was caught by two cases in which our neighbors have been imprisoned without having done anyone harm.

First, Ed and Elaine Brown of Plainfield, who, as your reporter Margaret Sanger-Katz reminded us, are barricaded in their home for fear of invasion and arrest by U.S. marshals for having declined to fill out IRS 1040 forms. The other is Russell Kanning, in Cheshire County Jail for having refused to fill out some other government form.

I don't know whether there is a law requiring Kanning to fill out his or the Browns to fill out theirs. Although Ed Brown has repeatedly asked to see it in his case, I've not heard that any government spokesman has identified that law. But let me suppose arguendo that there are such laws and that the three prisoners broke them.

What kind of a society imprisons people for refusing to complete a government form?

Ah, says the condescending government-school civics teacher, government decrees these things so it can serve all the people and gets its authority to do so from us the people.
 
Let's imagine the scene. Lady approaches policeman, breathless: "Officer, quick! Arrest that man, he's dangerous! He just didn't fill out my form!"
Clearly, the breathless lady is mad. She has no power to compel anyone to fill out her form. But she is one of those who, according to our civics teacher, delegated that power to government; so if she doesn't have the power, she cannot delegate it and government doesn't have it.

So what sort of a society is this? A crazy one, I'd say - as irrational as the breathless lady, but much more dangerous.

JIM DAVIES

Newbury

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