Why do tax protesters keep violating the laws, and keep litigating, even after it is clear that they have lost and have no valid arguments?One answer, and simplest answer, is greed. People would rather have more money than less, and the appeal of not paying income taxes is enough to make at least some people believe almost anything.
“Some people believe with great fervor preposterous things that just happen to coincide with their self-interest. ‘Tax protesters’ have convinced themselves that wages are not income, that only gold is money, that the Sixteenth Amendment is unconstitutional, and so on. These beliefs all lead--so tax protesters think--to the elimination of their obligation to pay taxes.” Coleman v. Commissioner, 791 F.2d 68, 69 (7th Cir. 1986).
Pure self-centered avarice can explain the initial appeal of tax protester arguments, but why do tax protesters become so mindlessly devoted to their beliefs? In many cases, judges have taken the time in pre-trial conferences to explain to tax protesters that they are totally wrong, and that if they persist with their arguments, the judge will not only rule against them but will sanction them (i.e., impose a fine) for wasting court time with their nonsense. And yet the tax protesters persist. Why?
My own observations of tax protesters lead me to believe that the actions of tax protesters are driven by emotional or psychological needs that are more complicated than simple greed, and that the “arguments” they present to the IRS and the courts are really nothing but elaborate rationalizations (or delusions) that they have constructed in order to avoid a reality that they are unable to accept. Sometimes the unacceptable reality is a sense of personal financial failure. Unable to accept the idea that their own incomes (or the lack thereof) might be the result of their own lack of skill or effort, or a matter of impersonal economics, tax protesters instead decide that the income tax system is the problem and begin finding reasons why it should not exist. In other cases, the unacceptable reality may be a moral or legal failure. An unhappy encounter with the government, such as a bad result in a divorce or a child custody dispute, or even something as minor as a speeding ticket, can lead to a belief that the government is broken, corrupt, or otherwise dysfunctional, which can then lead to a fixation on the federal tax system as symbolic of that dysfunction. In the case of almost every persistent tax protester, there is some personal, financial, or legal trauma or crisis that precedes the tax protester’s obsession with the tax system.
What the narcissist is unable to work out through fantasy is simply repressed, put out of mind and kept from awareness. Beyond these, narcissists invent alibis, excuses, and “proofs” that seem [to themselves] plausible and consistent, and convince them of their continued stature and perfection. These flimsily substantiated rationalizations are offered with an air of confidence and authority. As noted earlier, however, narcissists may never have learned to be skillful at public deception; they usually said and did what they liked without a care for what others thought. Their poorly conceived rationalizations may, therefore, fail to bring relief and, more seriously, may evoke scrutiny and deprecating comments from others. At these times narcissists may be pushed to the point of employing projection as a defense. Unable to disentangle themselves from lies and inconsistencies, and driven by their need to maintain their illusion of superiority, they may begin to turn against others, accusing the latter of their own deceptions, their own selfishness, and their own irrationalities.
http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html________________________
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To summarize, pay your goddam taxes and take pride in the fact that you are supporting the greatest nation on earth.
Doesn't that last paragraph of the cited material sound like a lot of GetBig members? Especially the projection part.
