Conrad Black

I am victim II: A dialogue with Steve (a progressive Christian)

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Craig Carter has written an interesting post entitled, “Secular Politics Infiltrating the Church: Hell’s Scheme to Bring Down Evangelicalism.”  There I’ve entered into a rather lengthy discussion with a self-proclaimed progressive who apparently believes himself to be Christian.  I reproduce here my comments and his responses.  I think it demonstrates that while progressives claim to care about people, they really despise people and are more concerned about re-engineering society to make it more equal–who cares who dies or suffers along the way, just so long as the rich can no longer parasitically leech off of others.  I responded first to his manner in which he responds to Craig Carter and Gordon (another correspondent), while mercilessly libelling the Tea Party.  Later, I explained how progressive, with their need to enlarge the state, had forced me to renounce my US citizenship, resulting in my suffering the loss of my birth right.  The reason that I insist on telling my story about how I’ve suffered is that I still can.  Those whom the progressives around the world have murdered can no longer tell their story.

Peter W. Dunn said…

That’s amazing Steve. You praise Craig and Gordon for civil tone of their responses to you, and then insult the Tea Party, libelling them as liars. Wow. An entire movement of people who want smaller government libelled as liars. You called Ron Paul demonic.

I think you should read my blog Steve: The Righteous Investor. You could start with this:  Worship the invisible God or our modern Idols:  which? 

You wrote:

“Progressives are not trying to replace a deity through gov’t, as you suggest, but progressives do not believe in a theocracy. We believe that ended with Jesus. The gov’t should meet the needs of all people, not just those who are wealthy or favoured by majority status.”

Well with these lines you have proved Craig Carter’s main point in the post. Because a god or an idol is what we have faith in to meet all our needs. You suggest that it is government. I suggest that Jesus is still alive and that it didn’t end with Jesus but he still lives in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. I’m not advocating theocracy–like the progressives who believe in big government that meets all our needs–I believe in small government that doesn’t suck up all the oxygen in the room and thus allows other institutions, like the family and the church, to breath a little too. But you advocate government as panacea and that ultimately is evil.

The socialists, of course, reject God as Jehoveh Jireh, because they believe in government-jireh, which provides everything we need. Who needs faith in a God who strictly prohibits in his Ten Continue reading →

Wesley Snipes: Tax Hero

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Wesley Snipes is in a Federal prison.  The reason is that the IRS needs to make victims out of some in order to make compliant sheep out of the rest.  This website, Freesnipesnow.com says that he is innocent.

I think it is a perverse form of justice when the law chooses to make an example of you so that others will be compliant.  Funny thing is that liberals* who don’t believe that the death penalty is  a deterrent, think it is perfectly fine to punish a man more severely than he merits so that others will fear and will comply with the tax law.  (*Liberals:  The majority of Federal bureaucrats are democrats.  Their jobs depend on it.)

In my book, any man that goes to a US federal prison unjustly is a hero.  Conrad Black is a hero who is suffering his punishment for conducting and selling a business in a manner that conformed to Canadian law (non-compete payments are normal up here) and because he committed an act in Canada (clearing out his office) that a jury decided was an obstruction of US justice.  The arm of US justice is long indeed.  Black is a hero.  Snipes is a hero.  Juries found both Black and Snipes guilty on the basis of the testimony of a scoundrel.  But the Feds don’t care about justice; they just care about convictions and breaking legs.  Just ask Scooter Libby or the late Senator Ted Stevens.

The IRS and the Federal justice system are the villains.  If you break the legs of one man, the others will be sure to pay their gambling debts:

Time has come to kill the behemoth.  States need to outlaw officers of the Federal government in their jurisdictions.  I’m just glad that I live in a country away from their reach.

Criminalizing Republicanism and conservatism

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We’ve seen how Tea Party Movement, Sarah Palin and Talk Radio have been blamed for the shooting of Congress woman Gabrielle Giffords. But another event this week is also deeply disturbing–the sentencing of Tom Delay.  He has been convicted of money laundering and sentenced to three years.  I searched two pages of Google before coming across an NRO article that explains Tom Delay’s crime: he had soft money exchanged for hard money so as to elect Republicans in the state of Texas.  According to Republican strategist Ralph Reed, this commonly practiced and it is not illegal; he writes:

If DeLay’s operatives made any mistake at all, it was being too good at negotiating: They exchanged the funds dollar-for-dollar.This even exchange enabled prosecutors to later claim the funds were “laundered.” But money laundering requires an underlying crime. There was nothing illegal about supporting state House candidates with the funds so exchanged, and the transaction was reported publicly by both DeLay’s state committee and the RNC.

Reed says that this conviction will not likely withstand appeal.  And yet the judge in the case claims it is not about politics.  But it is about $190,000 of soft corporate money that was swapped for hard money sent to candidates in Texas.  That’s politics, isn’t it.

In my opinion, this is all about the Left, having lost the war of public opinion, using the courts and the media to destroy the lives of conservatives.  The criminal cases against Senator Ted Stevens, Scooter Libby, and Sir Conrad Black were of the same stuff.  This is a disturbing trend, which is more reminiscent of totalitarianism than of free countries.

Message to investors: Stay out of the USA

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The Globe & Mail tells us that Conrad Black has just been sent a 70,000,000 (on 116,000,000 income!= 60% tax rate) bill from the IRS. This is as he is about to have his felony conviction overturned by the US Supreme Court.  Judging by the comments section, the readers of the Globe & Mail are ok with this.  But supposing Black paid his taxes as a Canadian resident, there is no way that he would owe any taxes in the states, because the rates here are higher, and Black, who shouldn’t have to file personal tax for his income by virtue of being neither or a resident nor a citizen of the US, would be in any case entitled to the foreign tax credit, which is a dollar per dollar tax deduction for taxes paid in another country (in this case Canada).  Canadian taxpayers should be furious because this is a blatant attempt to steal their tax dollars.  If Black is required to pay in the US, he would then file amendments to his Canadian tax and get a refund from the Canadian government.  No!  I presume that the money has already been collected and spent here by the Canadian federal and provincial governments.  The IRS is not entitled to a penny.  In any case, the message from the IRS to foreign investors is clear:  keep your money and your butts out of the US lest we imprison you and send you an exorbitant tax bill.  My investments are all in Canada as a result of the current investment climate in the US.  It is not an investor friendly region anymore.

Note:  Black’s defense is that he wasn’t a US citizen or resident during the period in question.  A few others related to the same case have been sent very large bills:  Forbes comments:

McCallum [attorney for Radler] said U.S. tax jurisdiction extends only to U.S. citizens, permanent U.S. residents with green cards and people from other countries meeting a “substantial presence” test, generally defined as spending 183 days or more a year in the U.S. McCallum said a U.S.-Canada tax treaty specifies “tax-breaker” criteria to be used in identifying a sole country for taxing jurisdiction.

So the case will hinge upon whether Black stayed longer than 183 days during the years in question (i.e., more than half of the year so that the US has more claim than any other country).  It would appear to me that Black’s case is one of competing jurisdictions and that the CRA better make sure that they don’t get ripped off by the IRS.

Paranoid fear of government

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Craig Carter wrote an insightful post at his blog, “Applying the hermeneutic of suspicion to the state.”  Liberals, he says, are afraid of big business but trust the state.  He shows that such trust is utterly unfounded.  In my view there is insufficient fear of government.  Consider if you were a car manufacturer.  Now you are competing with Obama Motors (GM, Chrysler) and the US government is your competitor.  Wouldn’t it be frightening if all of a sudden your company was being investigated because of floor mats? I mean it isn’t as if everything in my GM cars works all the time.

Lord Conrad Black is in a federal prison today because he received non-compete payments which are perfectly acceptable in Canada. The Canadian media was urging the confinement of this Canadian because he is rich and a conservative.  But if you are terrorist in Guantanamo or subject to extraordinary rendition, or if you are on death row, the Canadian media gets out the handkerchiefs and begins weeping for you.  But with Lord Black, it was, “Throw him in prison and lose the key!”  Black’s conviction has put a huge dampening effect on my desire to do business in the United States.  In fact, forget it.  I told my brother on Saturday that I wanted to settle my 19% interest in our limited partnership in Austin, Texas, before the end of 2010.  It is too much hassle for me to conform to all the tax regulation.  I have enough problems worrying about what the CRA is going to do to me.  I want to stay out of US federal prison.  But I assure you, dear Reader, that the US federal government already has the power under the current federal law to throw me in prison for a very long time–not for substantial crimes but for procedural errors.  Not that the Feds would want to throw me in jail–there are bigger fish to fry–but the very existence of such powers makes me afraid, very afraid.

We test drove a RAV4 last week.  We made an offer and hopefully our new vehicle (for my wife) will be delivered by Saturday.  It was built here in Ontario.  It is our first “foreign” car (before we were married I owned a Mitsubishi pickup).  Currently we drive a Chevy Malibu and Pontiac Montana (which I’m keeping).  The 2002 Malibu has an appraisal value of $900 CDN from the original price of $28,000.  The A/C and heat don’t work, the ABS brakes are faulty, and the electrical system diagnostic light is malfunctioning.  Apparently, our new car is much more likely to maintain its value over the long haul.  As consumers, we are voting against government owned car companies and we believe that it is incorrect for the government to harass the competition. Therefore, we are using our own funds to support a NGCC (non-governmental car company).  We believe that the government should not have the power to eliminate their competition through unfriendly regulation and harassment.