Every economic indicator shows the U.S. economy is still in trouble; still declining. The promise of “green shoots” seems false. And yet, the American people seem strangely calm. Am I the only one who thinks it’s almost “too quiet”?
June 25, 2009
Notice vs. Notice Pleading
It’s a regular event for me to find myself somehow “compelled” to read something that I have no desire, energy or intent to read. Maybe I’m just obsessive-compulsive, but I think the Good LORD sometimes “forces” me to stick my snoot in a book or article until I suddenly discover something that (for me, at least) is an important and even exciting insight.
The following PDF file concerns an A.D. 1918 article from the Harvard Law Review that was written to advocate that the American judicial system (which started with “common law pleading” and later changed to “code pleading”) change again to “Notice Pleading”. The position advocated in this article was largely adopted and today “Notice Pleading” is the predominant form of pleading in the American courts.
I didn’t want to read the original article. Didn’t have energy to read it. Didn’t enjoy reading most of it. But I felt “compelled” to read it all, just the same–and sure enough, before I was done I found what was for me, a number of important and powerful insights. The effort was well worth my time and energy–and when the Good LORD “compels” me, it always is.
The entire text is about 10,000 words (about half is from the original author; half is my commentary and analysis). If you’ll take time to read it, I believe you’ll be at least intrigued and you may also even learn something important.
Click to download: 1918 NOTICE PLEADING Harvard_law_review EDITED
June 22, 2009
“Citizen of the United States”
The following quote is attributed to http://www.supremelaw.org/fedzone11/htm/chapter3.htm and apparently reports a dialogue between a litigant and some “insider” (perhaps a federal judge or prosecutor):
“Why are defendants in federal district court always asked if they are ‘citizens of the United States’?”
He replied without hesitation, “So we can determine jurisdiction. In many cases the federal court does not have jurisdiction over a citizen unless they testify they are a citizen of the United States — meaning a federal citizen under the 14th Amendment.”
I quickly interjected, “What if the individual denied being a citizen of the United States and claimed to be a sovereign citizen of Oklahoma?” The attorney bowled me over with, “We don’t get jurisdiction.”
June 18, 2009
Inquiries In Response to IRS Notice CP59
As I’ve explained in previous articles on the subject of “Notice” (try my search engine or click on the “Notice” category), I’m about 95% convinced that every notice creates the recipient’s right of inquiry. For example, if the IRS sends you a notice, the proper response is not to go silent or to to make statements, but instead to ask questions. If you can ask questions that the IRS is unwilling or unable to answer, you can argue that you’ve been denied procedural due process (notice + opportunity to be heard) by being denied “sufficient notice”. In theory, if the IRS refused to answer your questions, you would not have “sufficient notice” and the court could not acquire jurisdiction to conduct a “hearing” (”opportunity to be heard”).
In the past three weeks, I’ve also become about 95% confident that most of what transpires in our courts is done on the ground of an “action of account”.
What follows is a lengthy, pedantic and sometimes repetitious series of questions to an IRS Notice CP59 which essentially asked me to file a return for A.D. 2007. I don’t expect the IRS to read, let alone answer my questions. At least not at first. I don’t mind. I’m not simply asking questions; I’m also creating evidence. If push comes to shove, I suspect these questions (and more to come) may help persuade the IRS to retreat. If not, they’ll at least provide me with a significant education. The PDF document below attempts to incorporate both the “right of inquiry” strategy that I believe attaches to every notice and some questions on “actions on account”.
June 14, 2009
Actions of Account
This may be one of the most important (or perhaps misguided) articles I’ve ever published. This article describes my theory du jure that virtually all modern court proceedings (from traffic tickets to civil suits to felonies) may be, at base, “actions of account”—and, if so, how those actions might not only be stopped, but stopped easily, almost laughably.
The article is long (23,000 words). I haven’t proofread it. And it’s pretty much pure conjecture. I’m not sure how clearly I’ve conveyed my theory, but if you can understand this article, I think you might become as excited as I am. I could be wrong. I could be way wrong. But my intuition is screaming like a woman in orgasm saying: “Yes, Yesss, Yesssss!!!”
Unfortunately, I sometimes suspect that my intuition has learned how to “fake it”. If so, none of us, including me, can afford to absolutely believe the theory I’m advancing. Nevertheless, for me and for now, this feels more like insight than theory—and important insight, besides. I wouldn’t bet even money, but if you give me odds, I’d bet we just might be close to the proverbial “silver bullet”.
June 14, 2009
Numbers without substance
The “U.S. National Debt Clock” (http://www.brilling.com/debt_clock) reports that as of today (June 12th) the “Outstanding Public Debt” was about $11.4 trillion. When divided by the U.S. population, this works out to $37,000 for every American man, woman, and child. Given that the U.S. per capita income is about $39,000 per year, the previous national debt number is intimidating, but not completely unreasonable or overwhelming. If the federal gov-co only owes $11.4 trillion, we can probably work our way out of this debt over the next generation—provided the federales don’t borrow any “money”.
May 14, 2009
Investigating Argument
According to the A.D. 1992 edition of O’Connor’s Texas Rules Civil Trial, Texas courts recognized kinds of hearings: 1) evidentiary; and 2) argument. Neither kind of hearing was favored over the other. However, according to the A.D. 2005 edition of O’Connor’s same book, those two kinds of hearings are still recognized, but “evidentiary hearings are [now] disfavored”.
In other words, the modern court system prefers to reach decisions based on argument hearings wherein litigants advance premises (beliefs) rather than evidentiary hearings where litigants introduce facts (objective truths) into the record. As a result, someone skilled in the art of argument (like an attorney) could theoretically win in a hearing even when the facts (truth) were against him. More, it appears that the courts prefer that hearings be decided by argument rather than by factual evidence (truth).
May 12, 2009
Riding the Debt Tiger
I’m a long ways from being the first to observe that the total American debt has grown to dangerous proportions. But I may have been the first (July A.D. 2008) to note that the total American debt has now grown so great that it can’t ever be repaid and therefore won’t be repaid. (“What can’t be paid, won’t be paid.”) In fact, according to my guesstimates, at least 80% and perhaps 90% of existing debt instruments cannot—and therefore will not—be repaid.
May 5, 2009
Owing It To Ourselves?
An A.D. 2006 article entitled “The Lost Decade—Per Capita Net Worth and Living Standards,” declared in part that “as citizens of the U.S. we own the national debt.”
Technically, that’s correct. Whee duh pee-pul do “own” the National Debt. But 40 years ago, when gov-co was first going hugely into debt, it was borrowing from the American people and justified increasing the national debt by saying it was OK since we “owed it to ourselves”.
April 27, 2009
Notice Pleading Notes
I’ve been trying to make sense of our legal system for 26 years. So, I was much surprised when I recently learned that “notice pleading” is America’s “dominant form of pleading”. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I’d never even heard the term “notice pleading,” and now I find out that it’s the “dominant form” of pleading. As is often the case, I’m a little humiliated to learn that after a quarter century of studying this legal system, I had no clue to our “dominant form” of pleading.
However, I don’t feel too embarrassed because I’ll bet that you, too, haven’t previously heard of “notice pleading”. In fact, I’ll bet that 99.9% of Americans have not previously heard of “notice pleading”. If I won that bet, it would be evidence that something important might be concealed in the concept of “notice pleading”. After all, how can the “dominant form” of courtroom pleading be “accidentally” unknown to virtually all of the American people unless “the powers that be” were trying to hide something?
