As Abra grew older he began to understand the world around him until one day he was able to communicate. He called to his father, who came immediately, surprised at Abra's ability at such a young age. Father, I would like you to explain a few things I don't quite understand. I've noticed that every day you arise, dress, eat, and go somewhere and don't return until after the sun goes down, except on those days when you rest. Where do you go?"
"Every day I go to the Pyramids and work, except 2 in every 7 days I am allowed to rest."
"It seems curious to me, father, that each day you arise in a slow plodding manner indicating little enthusiasm and when you return home you are worn-out and tired. You must enjoy working at the Pyramids very much to discipline yourself to rise at the same time every day and then to wear yourself out working. What is so attractive?"
"Son, there is nothing attractive at the Pyramids. I must do what the Masters say."
"The Masters?", he inquired, "What have they mastered and why must you do as they say?"
"You are only 2 years old, and too young to understand." said the father, becoming somewhat irritated.
"Well, father, I think if you explained it too me, I would understand"
"Okay." said the father, "I am a slave, son. I must work at the pyramids or the Masters will not give us food to eat."
"I am confused about the Masters. Who are they and what have they mastered?"
"They are the masters of fear and control, son."
"Why must you do what they say?"
"If I don't, they will hurt me."
"I see. You must be afraid of being hurt so you do as they say in order to avoid being hurt. Tell me father, is being a slave something you volunteered for?"
"Of course not, son! Nobody wants to be a slave."
"Then how did you become one?"
"The same way you will become one in a few years. I was born here."
"Are you saying that I will have to go to work everyday, and do as the masters say or be hurt, too?"
"I'm afraid so, son. It is the way of things, here. Everyone you know is a slave and must do what the Masters say."
"I don't understand father. Why is it that you invited me here, then. Surely I will become as unhappy as you and life will mean nothing but pain and struggle."
It was not like you were invited, Son. In the pleasure of loving your mother you were the outcome. We had no idea you would arrive, though one such as you is often the result. You are a delight to us and it is sad that you must live as we do but what can be done?"
"Delight to you? Are you nuts? How can it be delightful to grow a child that is made to become a slave? Something must be done or I will have to leave. I do not intend to be a slave."
"I'm sorry, son, but you have no choice. You cannot leave. We are stuck here."
"What are you talking about? What would stop me from leaving?"
"If you try to leave, the Masters will kill you."
"What happens if they kill you? What does that mean?"
This one stumped his father. How could he explain it.........
"Killing you will cause you to die. No one knows what happens to you when you die."
"I do not see the problem, father. If I stay, I will suffer. If I don't do what the masters say, I will suffer. If I leave, I will die and we don't know what that means, but what is worse than suffering? We should all leave tonight and be killed together. That way, no matter what happens
we could still be together."
"It doesn't work that way, son. We don't know if we will remain together if we die. Besides, I've been told that living is better than dying."
"Father, it sounds to me like the Masters have made you afraid of death as well! They must be very smart to have done that. Indeed, they are the masters of fear. They can apply fear to everything! I still think we should leave and take our chances. If we escape, there must be other lands we can go to where we can find food and shelter to live."
"You don't understand, son. It really isn't that bad, working on the pyramid. I get 2 days a week off, all my medical and dental benefits, and a retirement program, not to mention our food and shelter are given to us. It wouldn't be prudent to give all that up on the off-chance we could find food and shelter elsewhere. Besides, I've lived here all my life and I know nothing about surviving on the land. We could all die!"
"I see the problem, father. You are too afraid of dying to try something different. I can see I must do this alone."
When it comes right down to it, Abra's father was not forced to work. He volunteered. He found comfort in the notion that his plight was not his fault, but that evil masters were forcing him to work. True, if he resisted he might be killed, but he didn't resist regardless. it is the fear of death that caused him to never challenge his reality.
Fortunately, things are not really like that. We go to work everyday because we want to and we are not slaves because we are being paid. It is voluntary, right? Despite the fact that money won't buy anything that is permanent, such as land or housing or intangibles, and all the money we do have is given back to the Masters in the end, we volunteer to go to work. We must really like it! Money can buy you land, but you can't keep it unless you pay taxes on it, so you eventually give it back. You can buy a house but you can't live in it unless you pay your taxes on the land it sits on, so you eventually give it back, in a manner of speaking. The idea of ownership is an illusion if it can be taken from you if you don't conform to the rules of the Masters. Even the notion of voluntary compliance is an illusion, because if you don't volunteer, then you are forced, unless you chose death. Is death the only real freedom we have?
We can voluntarily exchange service for goods. This is trade. Unless the trade is a mutual agreement, it must be slavery. If someone promises you a meal for work, that is trade. If someone offers you something you don't want for work and will punish, hurt, or kill you if you don't accept the deal, it is slavery.
An employer gives you a federal reserve note in exchange for services. If have a note for $100, that means someone owes you $100. In the case of money, you have a note from the federal reserve bank. This means the bank owes you a dollar. Try and collect it sometime. When your employer gives you money, they are giving you a note for money the federal reserve bank owes them. This is a good deal, because they'll never be able to get any money from the federal reserve bank, and the sooner they can pass it on to you the better. Nobody knows what money really is, anyway. We just have notes for it. You, in turn want to get rid of the notes you can never get real money for as fast as possible by buying goods. Whew! You did it. you got some goods for the worthless notes. Now the store owner has the notes. This means, the store owner has loaned the federal reserve bank money. Where he got it, nobody knows, but he's got the note to prove it. He's not worried, though. He'll just give the note to his employees in exchange for services and it all works out. Is there real money in the faults at the federal reserve bank? No! If not, then what did the federal reserve bank borrow from whom, that necessitated the production of a note? Do you suppose that the federal reserve bank got a lot of people to provide a lot of services and goods in exchange for the notes which promise to pay real money that doesn't exists? Pretty tricky, don't you think?
In many respects, all this is a big so what. However, I believe there is something to do about it that can put more money in your pocket and give you command of more assets in your life. Before I lay out my plan I must thoroughly study the problems until I can find a way to free us from slavery without having to take up arms against the slave masters. As yet, I've not proven to myself that it can be done without being hurt or killed by the slave masters. I'll let you know.
Seven years ago I opened a business savings account with an Employer Identification Number (EIN) which is one form of Tax Identification Number (TIN). Banks will almost always insist on your using some form of TIN, which leads most people to give their Social Security Number for lack of anything else and because they don't know the liabilities of doing so or that they have other options.
Last year I opened a checking account using the savings account as my bank reference. When I opened the second account, I opened it as a Citizen of the California Republic, claiming nonresident alien status and declining to give any TIN. The bank's new-accounts representative opened the account but used my EIN to link it to my seven-year-old business savings account.
REMOVING THE TIN: Step One
In June 1994, I filed papers with the IRS declaring my status as a Citizen of the California Republic. This status is classified in their code as "nonresident alien." I gave them notice that: (1) they had thirty days to refute my eight pages of arguments and; (2) if they failed to respond or refute the specific points I had made, under their own Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) my statements would stand as truth and the doctrine of estoppel by acquiescence [estoppel: "a man's act or acceptance which stops or closes his mouth to allege or prove the truth"; acquiescence: "a silent appearance or consent." (Black's Law Dictionary, 3rd Ed.)] would prevail forever after. They did not respond within thirty days, nor have they yet.
At the same time that I sent the IRS my declaration of state Citizenship status, I sent them a scrambled version of my EIN in order to create a "99 number" (Nonresident Alien Identification Number or NRAI). I told them to check out this number and see whether it belonged to someone else, saying that their failure to inform me within thirty days that it was already taken would mean that I was free to use it as an NRAI. They failed to reply and therefore did not deny me its use. This came in handy later with the bank.
Step Two
When the IRS's thirty days had passed in August 1994, I sent three items to the bank officer handling my account: My declaration of state Citizenship. A Form W8 (the IRS Certificate of Foreign Status) which asserted my Nonresident Alien Individual and Exempt Foreign Person status. (Doing this allows you to open a bank account without a Social Security Number or any other TIN). An "in-lieu-of-W8" form which expands on the W8 with more specific arguments and supporting case law.
I enclosed a cover letter explaining that the IRS had failed to refute the arguments in my eight-page declaration so that those arguments now stood as lawfully accepted. I gave the bank thirty days to accept or reject my status and explained that their failure to respond would mean "that you accept my nonresident alien status and will remove my TIN from my bank account or substitute my Nonresident Alien Identification Number." I included the NRAI number to replace the EIN on my checking account. I never heard from the bank and did nothing about the matter for six months.
Step Three
I went to the bank in person to inquire what the TIN on the account was. The bank officer looked up the account in the computer and saw no TIN, not even the NRAI. She looked worried; she obviously thought there should be some number there, but read further and looked relieved. She told me that the reason stated (in the computer) for my having no TIN was that I had a nonresident alien status. She said this applied to both accounts. Then she asked whether my status had changed and whether I would "like to give a number now?" I told her that it had not changed and thanked her for the information. The result was even better than I had expected; the account was not only free of the EIN, it had no number at all.
SUMMARY
Trying to open a bank account with just a W8 and no Social Security Number
or other TIN is almost impossible; the bank officers and clerks will not understand
what you are talking about. If you fail in your attempt, just do what I did:
Open one the way they want you to by giving them your Social Security Number,
then amend the numbers by mail. Once again, here are the short steps to getting
a bank account free of a Social Security Number: Start with a conventional checking
or savings account with some form of TIN (usually a SSN).
Good luck! Let me know your results [c/o Perceptions].
The title of this article is a quotation popularized by noted author and gun enthusiast, Robert Heinlein. It pretty much sums up the etiquette of the armed citizen.
In a time when more and more states are becoming enlightened enough to pass Florida-type civil rights legislation, that reforms the concealed carry licensing procedure and allows all responsible, law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons in public once they've been through the paperwork, more and more of you are carrying loaded handguns concealed, in public, for the first time.
There is more to carrying a gun in public than meets the eye. The law holds an armed person to what is called a "higher standard of care." The law is saying, in other words, "You, of all people, have a particular, higher duty to make sure that deadly force is not used if it could possibly be avoided, because you were the one person at the scene who knew that a deadly weapon was present, and that a conflict could escalate to a killing situation."
Face it. Accept it. It's better to hear it from me, now, than from the district attorney later.
When you carry a gun, you can no longer flip the bird to a bozo who cuts you off in traffic. You can no longer yell an expletive back when someone yells one at you. You not only can't start a fight, but also you can't do anything that could be seen as "keeping the ball rolling" if someone else tries to start a fight with you.
Put your machismo in your locker. Put your territorial imperative in the safe and lock the door.
Don't talk crap to me about "honor." Guns aren't about defending pride, they're about defending life and limb.
Like it or not, your possession of what the law calls a "deadly weapon" puts the burden on you to abjure [to renounce, solemnly reject, abstain from -William] from a conflict and get out if you can, retreating from the scene even if you lose face.
The retreat requirement does not exist in all states it never exists when you are attacked in your home and it never requires you to retreat unless you can do so with complete safety to yourself and all other innocent parties.
That said, it remains obvious that you must not perpetuate a conflict. You should try to make some attempt --obvious enough to be witnessed and sincere enough to be believed-- to get out of a situation before you take recourse to the irrevocable act that is known as lethal force.
In virtually every issuing jurisdiction the exposing of a gun in public is grounds for revocation of a CCW permit. It's the mark of an insecure amateur.
I "came out of the closet" as an armed citizen when national magazines, TV shows and local newspapers did stories on me and my school, Lethal Force Institute, in the early '80s. People I'd known all my life would see me after one of those media things and look me up and down for weapons.
They didn't find them, and I would gently explain that one reason I lived in that community was that one didn't need to strap on a gun to go out for a quart of milk.
The discussions ended there, thankfully, with an ambiguous answer that kept me from having to either indulge in deceptive behavior or alarm people who were clueless. Otherwise, I'd have had to explain that yes, I was carrying a gun they couldn't spot or that, no, it was none of their business.
Never ask if someone is carrying a gun. That is an impolite question.
I carry a gun for the same reason I have a first aid kit in my car. If I had thought there would be need to use either, I wouldn't leave the house! But I have merely recognized the potential for life-threatening crises and equipped myself accordingly with the appropriate gear and appropriate training with which to hold back death.
I teach the defensive firearm as an analog to the fire extinguisher: a life-saving piece of emergency equipment that lets the first responder at the scene cut a lane of safety for himself and those innocents he can protect, until the designated professionals can arrive to deal with the threat.
I've seen homicide cases where someone being known to carry a gun was described by opposing counsel as good reason for the person they were attacked by, and had to shoot to be armed when they confronted the defendant. I don't want that to happen to me. And I don't want it to happen to you.
Someone is picking on you, harassing you, threatening you? Report it to the police immediately, and report every subsequent instance of such behavior. This creates a paper trail showing that you are the victim. If the harassment reaches the level of violent a assault and had to hurt this person in self-defense, you are now covered.
If you haven't taken this precaution, opposing counsel and the triers of the facts will see it as a Hatfield/McCoy feud, in which you and he were equally at fault, and when you had to blow him away, you were more at fault.
Beer and handguns are two of my favorite things, but I've learned to keep the use of one separate from the use of the other. In most jurisdictions, a drunk driving arrest is grounds for revocation of your concealed carry permit. The theory is that if you were reckless with one responsibility, you'll be reckless with another.
Many jurisdictions forbid the licensed gun carrier to be in a bar, even if you're not drinking. A vioiation can result in not just revocation of the permit, but conviction of a felony for the act itself.
If you're going to get fish-face drunk or find yourself becoming so, immediately secure your holstered pistol someplace safe. Do not attempt to handle the loaded gun to unload it.
One jury came in with a Murder One verdict on a man who had fired in self-defense, but who had described himself as "shit face drunk" at the time of the shooting. The jury explained later, in essence, "If he'd been sober, we'd have found him not guilty. His actions fit the judge's instructions on justifiable homicide in self-defense based on what a reasonable and prudent man would have perceived under the circumstances he was facing. But after he said he was snockered, we didn't think a man who was that drunk could be reasonable and prudent, so we found him guilty of murder in the first degree."
Dress good. I don't mean dress well in the current fashion sense, I mean, dress like a good guy. Evan Marshall, longtime Detroit homicide detective, wrote that cops see a man in a suit as a good guy and a person in dirty jeans and stained T-shirt as a bad guy. Perception is reality, folks.
I don't wear a suit unless I have to. However, I acknowledge what Marshall has observed, and my clothes are always clean when I'm out and about in public. I don't wear T-shirts with controversial slogans. The baggy, untucked T-shirt that conceals my hip-holstered handgun in summer weather is now actually in fashion; thanks to the youth of today.
Look at your wardrobe, and determine what you'll be comfortable with. Remember, in the '90s "image is everything."
In all the police training programs and armed citizens courses I've been to, there has been one vital piece of advice that was notable by its absence: Don't be a schmuck!
Use common sense. Be a good guy. Look like a good guy. Act like a good guy.
Don't flash your gun. Don't let anyone know you "carry" unless they absolutely need to know. Don't carry guns where you aren't supposed to.
Don't start fights, and do everything you can to de-escalate a fight someone else is trying to start. The gun is your last resort against deadly force, not the first resort against anything less, and never an answer to being badmouthed or being "slapped around."
Welcome to the wonderful world of being safe against the worst possible criminal threat. It's good to be safe.
Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont (No Permit Required!),Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming (26 States)
Alabama*, Calfornia, Colorado, Connecticut*,
Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Louisana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota,
New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island
*NRA considers a "Shall Issue" state (15 States)
District of Columbia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, Wisconsin (9 States)