Richard Barrett of Crosstar has long maintained that David Duke deserved to go to prison. Recently he sent me a series of four URLs which he considers to support his position. These are the URLs:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,80944,00.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,73340,00.html
http://www.usps.com/websites/depart/inspect/bull03/bull03_4.pdf
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/lae/hotnews/duke_sent.htm
As readers may remember, I have posted favorable material on Duke, including an article from Stormfront's Don Black and musings from Germar Rudolf. My view of l'affaire Duke is this: There doesn't seem to be any doubt that Duke gambled away a lot of money, so that asking for contributions and then going on gambling excursions seems of dubious propriety. But does this mean he was guilty of mail fraud? Perhaps and perhaps not, but on the other hand, suppose he was gambling in hopes of making money (Don't all gamblers do that?) In such a case it is not at all clear that Duke would be acting illegally or even unethically, in spite of the fact that we might think that gambling was a poor choice for supporting the Cause. In fact, we might even say that if supporting a gambling habit is the 'price' we have to pay for David Duke's services, very possibly the price is worth it.
As to the other charges against Duke, they do not seem substantial, but I don't have sufficient information to make a judgment.
HOWEVER, the Duke prosecution raises another important question, namely, the tax status of donations. From reading the third article, it appears that the government wants to treat donations to a 'cause' as income by the person receiving the donations, rather than gifts. Here is a relevant quote from the article:
"Postal inspectors discovered Duke ... used donations to cover personal living expenses, although many of his supporters could hardly afford their generous contributions to his cause. Then he failed to report the donations as personal income when filing federal returns. Worse, Duke's 'living expenses' included huge sums he spent gambling in Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada and offshore casinos." --http://www.usps.com/websites/depart/inspect/bull03/bull03_4.pdf
The government's rationale for treating donations as income would probably be that the person's efforts for the 'cause' are 'services provided to the donor' for which the donor 'pays'. Needless to say, this is absurd: Outside of the fact that the Income Tax is completely illegal, donations are a completely different animal than payment for services: In the latter case, there is an agreement of one person to provide services to another, and an agreement of the other to pay for those services; whereas in the case of donations, there is no agreement of one party to provide services to the other, and no agreement of the other to pay for those services. Yes, one party generally DOES supply some services, but they are not personal, and he is not bound to supply them; and there is no commitment by any of the parties so supplied to pay anything for receiving them. Thus on both sides there are GIFTS FREELY GIVEN, and NOT a contractual arrangement in which A gives x to B and B pays A for x.
But there is more to the argument when it comes to my website. The people who visit and read our postings know one thing before almost any other, namely, that the federal government of this country is perhaps the most lawless and depraved government on the planet, and certainly the most immoral one that America has ever experienced. From torture, drug-running, installation of tinhorn dictators, and lavish support of the terrorist state of Israel to Waco, 911, the illegal income tax, the legalized robbery perpetrated by the Federal Reserve, and the attacks on dozens of countries around the world, the leaders of this country deserve to burn in Hell for an eternity, and even that is much too good for them. This is what readers of my website know, and this then would clearly make them wish to keep as much money out of the hands of the government as possible. In particular, they would not wish to give me anything other than gifts, because anything other than gifts can be taxed, which means that perhaps 40% of that money would go into the hands of the government.
So why is this important? Quite simply because I don't want to be placed in a situation where the tax authorities can say that money from donors can be taxed. I want a public statement up front for all donors to read that they are making gifts, not taxable payments. That then gives me 100% flexibility to use the money as I see fit (including personal living expenses, gambling, whoring or anything else), and it gives donors the satisfaction of knowing that no portion of their donations are going to support the latest and currently most evil of Evil Empires, namely, the one in Washington Dee Cee.
In conclusion, I would like to repeat here a piece of wisdom my mother passed on to me: "If you are going to steal, steal big." As it happens, because I don't steal, I have never had the opportunity to put her wisdom into practice. But I have come to realize that her wisdom goes a lot farther than merely saying that if you are going to risk stealing, you may as well take the risk for a large amount rather than a small one. What I mean is that her wisdom recognized that little thieves are the ones who go to jail when they get caught, whereas big thieves aren't considered thieves, but just people who are 'doing business'. For example, the administration of George Bush is the biggest criminal organization in the world, but the people making up the administration are unlikely to ever go to jail because, like the banks that are Too Big To Fail (TBTF), they are criminals who are Too Big To Be Criminals (TBTBC). That is, the banks that are TBTF are supported by the Establishment when they are bankrupt because it is thought that their collapse would 'bring down the system'; and likewise, the people who are TBTBC are supported by the Establishment because if they were brought down, then the Establishment might topple as well. For my part, however, I think that bankrupt banks should be allowed to go bankrupt, and I think that criminals should suffer the penalties of criminality; but then maybe I am just too old-fashioned for this modern world.
But if I am, I am damn proud of it. -j
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