Looks like Dave Ridley has signed on to Russell Kanning’s crusade to get IRS employees to reconsider the ethics of their line of work. Ridley went to the Nashua, New Hampshire IRS offices and stood there, quietly, holding a sign that read “Is it right to work for the IRS?”
The IRS employees summoned the police, who ordered Ridley out of the building after he’d been there for about half-an-hour.
Dave Ridley has signed on to Russell Kanning’s campaign to drive the IRS from New Hampshire.
While Kanning got arrested trying to hand out leaflets to IRS employees in Keene, New Hampshire that implored them to renounce their jobs, Ridley tried a different tactic in Nashua. He walked into the office holding a handwritten sign that asked “Is it right to work 4 IRS?” and just stood there, silently facing the office staff.
He describes what happened next in an article for the Keene Free Press.
I have the right to remain silent. IRS agents have the right to quit their jobs. If that is not possible, they have a responsibility to work as inefficiently as possible when taking our money, and as quickly as possible when returning it.
I’m here to respectfully ensure they know that I do not appreciate what they are doing and to make them feel uncomfortable… morally, not physically.
Dave Ridley, inspired by Russell Kanning’s attempts to leaflet the IRS office in Keene, New Hampshire, followed in his footsteps in Nashua (see The Picket Line ). He reports: “Nothing happened for two weeks, but after my article about this encounter appeared in the KFP, a Homeland Security officer attempted to cite me. The charge was ‘Distribution of Handbills.’ ” He has a court date .
New Hampshire protesters remember the fifth of November at the IRS office
Dave Ridley’s written up a report on the aftermath of his protest at the IRS office in Nashua, New Hampshire.
Excerpts:
I held a sign and handed flyers to IRS workers which question the morality of working for an institution which funds waste and torture. Respectful in tone, these leaflets list constructive steps IRS employees could take which would reduce the amount of harm they are causing. They are, in the purest sense, petitions for a redress of grievances.
I left the office (slowly) after being ordered to. But when an article about this demonstration appeared in the Keene Free Press, Homeland Security officers came looking for me and issued me a sort of Federal traffic ticket. It charged me, essentially, with… petitioning the government for a redress of grievances! Specifically the charge was “Distribution of Handbills.”
I think it’s better just to make the government violate the Constitution in full view and keep your attorneys fees to yourself, even if it costs you the case. So when I declined to accept the citation, and the authorities summoned me to court in , I happily dropped by with eighteen friends, two rattlesnake flags, one copy of the Bill of Rights and zero lawyers.
…I have no idea how to play lawyer, but I just quoted Amendment One above and requested that the judge throw out this “constitutionally challenged” case.… I did get him to admit that the Constitution takes precedence over laws and regulations. But he and the prosecutor both said that the government can institute “reasonable regulations” to maintain security in Fed buildings.… It was like to them the Constitution was an endearing legend but not quite real. They say it takes precedence, but apparently regulation — not even law — takes precedence instead.
After this the judge asked for closing statements, and I just said that I appreciated everyone’s politeness but that a conviction would be indicative that the Constitution is no longer in effect. Judge Muirhead said something like “not on my watch is it ever going to stop being in effect.” Then, of course, he pronounced me guilty. He said I could pay the $125 fine at the Clerk’s office.
I was more amused than angry and we had some banter after this; he suggested I should appeal and said he was always in favor of citizens exploring constitutional rights using the courts. I expressed reservations about running my own little crusade at taxpayer expense; he said the guys at Appeals Court aren’t doing anything anyway. I said then you should shut those courts down. He laughed, and away we went.
…It is great to be able to address some of New Hampshire’s most prominent (if polite) tormenters and do it, I hope, in a way that reminds them we are not vindictive against them on a personal level, that we are peaceably and respectfully trying to gain our freedom. We’ve had a chance to display for them the whole Gandhi approach yet again, and each time this happens they get to know us better. Assuming we have done our jobs and they have consciences, it gets a little harder for them to inflict yet another anti-liberty evil in New Hampshire each time this happens. By now they should have a very clear understanding that when they hurt us, they are hurting decent people who are peaceably risking their freedoms to protect the country from its government.
An update on Dave Ridley’s case: As you may remember (or you can review The Picket Line entries for , , , and 2006), Ridley went to the IRS office in Nashua, New Hampshire, to hand leaflets to the employees there “which question the morality of working for an institution which funds waste and torture” and that encouraged those employees to quit their jobs.
Later, after an article about his protest appeared in the Keene Free Press, Ridley was cited for “Distribution of Handbills.” He went to court and challenged this on First Amendment grounds (“the right of the people… to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”) without success, and was fined by the judge. He has refused to pay the fine.
He was recently served with a summons to return to court (his court date is ). He’s shared some of the letters he’s been sending to the court on an on-line forum.
Another update on the Dave Ridley case. Ridley went to court on after the court demanded that he explain why he hadn’t paid his fine after his conviction for “Distribution of Handbills” at an IRS office.
The judge told Ridley to expect another court date soon.
Ridley and his supporters, from the New Hampshire Underground that is also the stomping ground of tax resister Russell Kanning (whom I’ve profiled here on a few occasions before), seem to be hybrid constitutionalist tax protesters and conscientious tax resisters, and they use arguments from both camps.
“Don’t pay war taxes” read the sign carried by one of the dozen or two protesters outside the courtroom on ; “I won’t pay 4 torture” read another, while three other protesters nearby wore Abu Ghraib-style head-bags. Meanwhile Ridley was asking the judge to show how the U.S. Constitution authorized the proceedings, his fine, or the original charges against him, and when the judge then compared him to convicted constitutionalist tax protester Ed “Show Me the Law” Brown, the assembled supporters applauded the comparison.
Back in the day (see The Picket Line , , , & , and & ) Dave Ridley went to his local IRS office and handed leaflets to the employees there, asking them to quit their jobs and take up a more honorable line of work instead.
He was later charged with “Distribution of Handbills” — apparently it’s illegal to hand leaflets to IRS employees while they’re on duty.
Ridley thought that was ridiculous, and refused to pay the $125 fine.
his contempt of court was officially acknowledged, and he was sentenced to a four-day jail term.
If you want to drop him a line, he’ll be at:
David Ridley
Essex County Jail
165 Marston Street
Lawrence, MA 01841
The folks at the New Hampshire Underground, returned to the Keene, New Hampshire IRS office — to the scene of the crime where Dave Ridley had been arrested for leafleting. Ridley was serving a four-day sentence for contempt of court after refusing to pay a $125 fine for illegal “distribution of handbills.” (See The Picket Line .)
Undergrounder Kat Kanning announced that she’d be engaging in civil disobedience:
After seeing my friend Dave Ridley put behind bars for the “crime” of Distributing Handbills, I decided that I must stand up to this oppressive government, even if only a small way. So tomorrow I will sit in the Keene IRS office with a sign saying, “Taxes pay for torture” until I’m hauled away.
I first realized the federal government was completely evil when I watched as church people in Waco were burned alive by federal agents. Since then, this government has engaged in a war of aggression against Iraq, killing perhaps 700,000 Iraqi civilians. It has become the open policy of the US to torture prisoners and hold them without charges or trial. Somehow, good people in this country have been able to justify in their minds that this is necessary for our protection. I want to make a stand so people will rethink these kinds of justifications. How can our freedoms come from torturing others, who have not even been shown to have committed any crimes? I don’t want this kind of freedom. I want the kind of freedom where initiation of force against others is the exception, rather than public policy.
In times such as these, it is incumbent upon each individual to look at his own actions and decide, “Am I aiding this atrocity or resisting it? Am I giving them money? Am I working for them?” I don’t want to have to explain to my grandchildren why I didn’t stand up against the murder and torture — and at least attempt to put a stop to it, no matter if the attempt seems like “tilting at windmills.”
While protesters held signs outside the office pointing out the connection between federal taxes and the U.S. torture policy, two of the protesters — Kanning and Lauren Canario — went inside with signs and a stack of leaflets. They were arrested, processed, given citations for “disorderly conduct and loitering, failure to obey a lawful order,” and released. They, too, have no intention of paying their $125 fines. Writes Kanning:
When asked if I had any dangerous items on me, I answered that I had two very dangerous flyers in my pocket. The guy gave me this blank stare then said “Oh: sarcasm.”
Free Talk Life covered the protest and civil disobedience action:
Some short bits from recent days:
Dave Ridley has written up his perspective on the civil disobedience actions of himself and other members of the New Hampshire Underground. I publish it with the permission of the author:
, a jovial free marketeer approaches the Keene, New Hampshire IRS office on an illegal mission. Upon his head is a straw farmer’s hat. Over his shoulders a bib and blue overalls. Each hand holds an instrument of defiance, a specimen of contraband restricted from use inside the confines of this remote Federal outpost. One is a pitchfork, the other a wad of leaflets.
These devices, strangely feared and controlled by Washington regulation, are destined to set in motion a lasting, disturbing series of events. But the tall pacifist, backed by a collection of reporters and onlookers… broadcasts only mirth.
He has, some days before, announced his outlaw plans to drop the pitchfork, enter the office of this “Internal Robbery Squadron” and petition for a redress of grievances. His flyers ask that workers contemplate the ill uses to which their revenues are put, renounce torture and quit their jobs. Washington agents are waiting for him at the entrance, in force. They seize him and his straw hat long before he is able to present his handbills or trouble in person the minds of tribute collectors.
He is arrested, released, and immediately intercepted attempting the same endeavor. A court date is presented to him, along with petty charges of Federal origin. He assures authorities he will not attend such trial unless physically dragged to the Concord courtroom, one hour east. The next business day, agents from the increasingly resented Department of Homeland Security oblige him. Streaming through his front door they carry him to that very place, his wife of two years snapping a hasty but dramatic photo of the seizure.
Inside the courtroom he constructs paper airplanes as a shocked national magistrate ponders his fate. He is jailed for three weeks, released without fine or follow-up, left to pursue his libertarian agenda. Media attention is moderate. But an explosion of excitement and interest overtakes his New Hampshire-centric website and the small local paper he produces.
He is Russell Kanning, the Outlaw Leafletter.
A month passes. Then, disgruntled by news of the Federal overreaction at Keene, an imitator enters IRS facilities in nearby Nashua. Unannounced, he stands silent in the lobby, bearing a sign, a friendly expression and more forbidden but respectful pamphlets. Two reach the hands of “Robbery Squadron” agents, who eventually order him out. Upset by the slow speed of his backward withdrawal, they light Homeland Security hotlines and crowd the exit in manic impatience.
He is me, Dave Ridley, the Second Outlaw Leafletter.
Some weeks later, an article about this second protest appears in the Keene Free Press. Within days Homeland Security agents are again on the trail of a pacific petitioner. They attempt to levy me a $100 “Distribution of Handbills” fine. I am thrice summoned to petty violation dockets, thrice appear, thrice refuse to deploy lawyers. Thrice I fail or refuse to remit the fine, and swear I will never pay until our Federal overlords answer me one question.
U.S. Constitution, Amendment Ten states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
So I ask to know where, in the U.S. Constitution, is Washington authorized (at least vaguely) to levy this “Distribution of Handbills” fine? No answer is ever provided or attempted by the magistrate, nor any federal employee involved. I am told of regulations, of precedent, of fires in crowded theatres and a representative Congress which generates laws. But it is almost as though they are unwilling to speak of the Constitution itself, the flawed but acceptable document that overrules all laws with which it is in conflict.
That is the backdrop. Now we resume the story, and march it toward the climactic events of .
At the third hearing, on , I am asked to give some reason why I should not be held in contempt of court for refusing to pay the fine. As usual, I rally beforehand with a dozen or so demonstrators near the front of the courthouse. I introduce myself to the latest prosecutor of the case, Mark Irish. I treat him with initial respect and ask him if he feels comfortable with the task he is being asked to perform.
I’m doing my job, he says. That is sometimes a valid excuse in the eyes of history, I reply, sometimes not. He ends the conversation. Another new prosecutor appears.
I greet the Federal employees whose names I know. Normally chatty, they look down or away. I converse with friends who have come to observe, most memorably a grinning, excited Russell Kanning. I wear a T-shirt bearing his name.
Then the hearing begins. Courtroom decorum wavers. Clerks are already angry I was two minutes late and unhappy with our complacent reactions to their scoldings. The judge lectures his prosecutors on a matter of criminal vs. civil contempt and the need for witnesses. He says the trial is criminal and the attorneys retreat from their desk in disarray. I make a sort of zombie face at the scrambling lawyers; the audience laughs but I immediately regret it. Gloating isn’t good, and I know in any event I won’t have long to do it. They are sure to win this case, and I am sure to pay a price.
When given opportunity to declare why I should not be held in contempt I give the same answer I have always given, basically: No one should ever be punished for peaceably defending the Constitution. But I would be honored to suffer for this cause if need be, and consider this a good hill to die on. I question the lone witness, perhaps my chief tormentor. He is Mike Therrien, an ex-Air Force colonel now directing Homeland Security bureaucracies for northern New England. I ask him if he has sworn an oath to the Constitution. He has. I ask if he is familiar with Amendment Ten. He is not. I quote it and attempt to inform him that he is in violation. Attorney Irish objects and is sustained. Therrien looks uncomfortable. He is meant to be. But, to his credit, he seems to take no pleasure depositing his sabre in my gut.
The judge provides me three backhanded compliments. He says he believes I will pay no fines, that I will not likely comply with any probationary sentence and that I am not a threat to the community.
Then he finds me in contempt, sentences me to four days incarceration. You’re coming with me, says a gruff voice behind. The voice orders me to place my hands behind my back, but I just stand there. A Marshal seizes my wrists, places them behind me and secures handcuffs. I leave the room slowly to the chagrin of the officer, but our interaction is not destined to remain harsh.
Once away from onlookers our conversation evolves. Did you take an oath to the Constitution, I ask. None of your business, he replies… a little louder than need be. Is this the kind of thing you signed on for, locking people up for handbill distribution? I don’t lock people up, he says. He presses the button on an elevator which takes me to lockup. I thank him, and note that button pressing is easier for him than for me.
“That it is,” he replies.
Now more questions ensue, and he begins to answer them. Would you shoot Ed Brown? He would in certain circumstances, but would prefer not to. He refers to the Marshals’ relative restraint in the case. I inform him I appreciate that, as far as it goes.
A second Marshal or security person joins us. We enter a processing area. The environment continues to ease. Who is Russell Kanning, they ask me. He’s the last guy you arrested for doing this. He’s the man your boys inflicted pain on because he wouldn’t walk where they told him to. We discuss physical noncompliance, the “go limp” approach, which I’ve never tried. They are glad of this, inform me it serves no purpose and just makes it harder on the prisoner. Jailers arrive. I discover, or at least recall, the second Marshal’s name is Tom. They all react comfortably when I refuse to answer most questions and enter my birthdate as “1/1/20.”
Four of them are now with me in the room and engage me regarding my concerns. I thank them for this. One says he’d rather go after sex offenders than demonstrators like me. I say I would rather he did that and nothing else. His name is Deputy Barry, the picture of friendly professionalism. I should probably check the constitutionality of Federal sex crime hunts, but granting his wish would certainly would be an improvement over this!
I suggest they quit their jobs, but am half joking. I tell them if I were a Fed I’d probably keep my job and, from that station, try to minimize the harm such a job inflicts on the public.
Now I am moved to a holding cell in leg irons. This is where you’ll spend the afternoon, they tell me. Alone, I get to work scrawling “NHfree.com” on the seatbacks. The Marshal Mark returns to ask me a question. Instead he shakes his head in mild exasperation… are you doing that with your fingernails? Nothing else to do, I respond… does it look okay? He turns to leave. Didn’t you have a question for me? Seems to have slipped my mind, he responds dryly.
After six hours, men in blue appear with chains. County deputies. Secretly, they load me into a vehicle ominously decorated with Massachusetts tags. They ship me to the Essex County Jail in Middleton, Mass. Meanwhile a half dozen of my friends, perhaps cleverly tricked, proceed to besiege the New Hampshire facility I am mistakenly expected to enter.
Destined instead for an increasingly alien land, condemned to grapple with a more hardened and malevolent system than exists in New Hampshire… I jostle and squirm in a deathtrap excuse for a paddy wagon. Soon I will enter the dark world of penal Massachusetts, and my real trial will begin.
To be continued…
“This is the half history of ‘My Prisons,’ ” Thoreau might have said. I look forward to the next installment.
The Keene Free Press has published part two of Dave Ridley’s account of the jail time he did recently after his civil disobedience action at the local IRS office.
This installment is about how he went into jail (unexpectedly, in Massachusetts) intending to maintain a noncooperative though nonviolent stance. Along the way, he had to choose his battles: does he answer standard booking questions? does he take a tuberculosis test? does he keep his temper when prison workers taunt and deceive him?
Ridley shares his thought processes as he made these decisions and learned from his mistakes. It’s a good look at the sorts of issues that will come up for anyone who intends to maintain a stance of nonviolent noncooperation during a short jail stint.
I’ve picked up some flotsam and jetsam that have come bobbing by my raft as I veer off course whilst surfing this Internet.
According to the U.S. Department of Defense, during it used (in dollars) $7.62 trillion in capital resources. In , the Department of Commerce estimated the value of the nation’s plant and equipment, and infrastructure, at just over $7.29 trillion. In other words, the amount spent over that period could have doubled the American capital stock or modernized and replaced its existing stock.
More from the swarm of tax resisters who came out to play on :
“All I kept thinking about was just how many people oppose the war, wish the war wasn’t happening and don’t really see a clear way of doing anything about it. On tax day, everybody’s scrambling to pay the government and feeling like their hard earned dollars are being sopped up and wishing that that money went to roads and to schools and to healthcare. We were able to interject some information about where that money really goes — and to offer some alternatives… about how people can withdraw their own complicity.”
As best we can figure, we gave out about 2200 flyers on at the Brunswick and St. Simons Island P.O.s. Amazing!
We started at with 500 War Resisters League pie chart flyers at each P.O. We ran out of those at in Brunswick and on St. Simons at , just as I arrived to give Bill Jerome a stack of about 400 “Economic Costs of the War” flyers with info from the American Friends Service Committee. Milly Hastings reported later that when she & Steve Stevens finished their leafletting at , they had only 16 flyers left! Although our youth were ready to provide someone to take over on St. Simons, there weren’t flyers for them!
On the Brunswick side, Cathy Browning brought us a couple of hundred of the flyers addressed to Georgia taxpayers, giving figures from the National Priorities Project on how much the war is costing us locally and what else the money could have purchased in services and meeting community needs. Those weren’t going to be enough, so she went back and printed 600 more. These were all gone by , a half-hour before the P.O. closed.
It will be difficult to keep up this witness — my wages at the Fellowship of Reconciliation, as of yesterday, are now being levied by the IRS — but we are going to try. The most encouraging thing is the powerfully supportive response that we have received from so many people. Clearly, our small action has struck a chord with others who similarly oppose this war, and are unsure about what they can do to help stop it.
Eric Muller: “The paper tiger casts a shadow, but it’s a shadow of paper and of enforcement. What can they take from us? They can take our money. And that’s a very small damage compared to the damage we’re creating throughout the world and particularly in Iraq right now, as we speak, you know much more damage is being inflicted than will be on the tax resisters who are working here today.”
Muller and others in the community have donated six thousand dollars to local charities instead of paying their full taxes to the federal government. The money will go to Food for Lane County, Shelter-care, [and] peace groups, among others.
War Tax Resisters in New Hampshire are planning a get-together in Hopkinton on . The pot luck is being organized by Ginny Sсhnеider, and will be held at the First Congregational Church of Hopkinton at 1548 Hopkinton Road (Route 103).
Dave Ridley promotes the conference, and talks about the possible synergy between New Hampshire war tax resisters and the libertarian activists in the Free State Project, on The Ridley Report.
On the Ridley Report, Dave Ridley interviews war tax resister Ginny Sсhnеider about war tax resistance and the possibilities for a libertarian / progressive alliance over not being forced to pay for war:
One way a tax resistance campaign can get a leg up is through the acts of sympathizers within the tax collection bureaucracy itself. After all, they’re taxpayers too, and may feel more loyalty to their fellow-subjects than to the government they’re subjected to.
To this end, some tax resistance campaigns have made strides by encouraging resignations, defections, and goldbricking among those responsible for carrying out the tax laws.
In this, they’re following the lead of Thoreau, who wrote:
Today I’ll give some examples of tax resistance campaigns that tried to persuade the tax collector to switch teams.
A group of activists in Keene, New Hampshire, ranging from Christian anarchists to “Free State Project” ballot-box libertarians, has been experimenting with a number of creative civil disobedience projects.
In , Russell Kanning went to the Keene branch of the Internal Revenue Service and tried to hand out leaflets to the employees there. The leaflets quoted from the tribunal that presided over war crimes trials in Japan after World War Ⅱ to the effect that people are obligated personally to disengage from the crimes of their governments, and then provided a sample letter these employees could send to resign from their jobs.
Kanning was arrested by agents from the Department of Homeland Security and charged with distributing materials in a federal building and failure to obey a lawful order. After he was booked and released, he immediately returned to the IRS office to try again (without the leaflets, which had been confiscated). He was arrested again and charged with disorderly conduct.
A few months later, Dave Ridley followed-up on Kanning’s action, at the Nashua IRS office. He silently held up a sign that read “Is it right to work for the IRS?” and passed a leaflet through the window that read in part:
I have the right to remain silent. IRS agents have the right to quit their jobs. If that is not possible, they have a responsibility to work as inefficiently as possible when taking our money, and as quickly as possible when returning it.
The police were summoned and hustled him out of the building. They later cited him for “distribution of handbills.”
Kat Kanning and Lauren Canario were the next activists in line, going to the Keene IRS office with a “Taxes pay for torture” sign and a stack of leaflets. They were charged with “disorderly conduct and loitering, failure to obey a lawful order.”
At every stage in the process, they tried to directly but non-aggressively confront not only the IRS employees, but also the Homeland Security officers, court bailiffs, judges, and other government collaborators: asking them why they were interfering with American citizens “petitioning their government for redress of grievances,” and asking them to consider taking up a more honorable line of work.
At the launching of the first “intifada” resisting Israeli rule over Palestinians, Palestinians who worked for the tax department under the Israeli occupation resigned their posts. As a result of this and of organized tax resistance, only about 20% of Palestinians subject to Israeli taxes in the West Bank paid their taxes in 1993, the last year before Israel relinquished taxing authority there to the Palestinian Authority.
Complicating the Greek government’s campaign to bring in more tax revenue during the recent Euro-region financial brouhaha, bureaucrats in the Greek tax and customs office periodically went on strike to protest the accompanying austerity measures that cut funding for state employees.
British members of nonconforming Christian sects who did not want to see their tax money going towards schools that taught children the official, government supported faith, resisted their taxes. The newspapers reported:
In Lincolnshire, the sitting magistrate recently refused to try cases of resistance, and left the bench. Difficulty is experienced everywhere in getting auctioneers to sell the property confiscated.
As I mentioned earlier this month, part of the problem the fledgeling United States government had when trying to enforce its excise tax against the Whiskey Rebels was that it had a devil of a time convincing anyone to serve as a prosecutor or exciseman.
From the beginning, the Whiskey Rebels counted on being able to convince their neighbors not to help the federal government enforce the tax. George Washington’s Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton complained to him:
The opposition first manifested itself in the milder shape of the circulation of opinions unfavorable to the law, and calculated by the influence of public disesteem to discourage the accepting or holding of offices under it…
During the resistance against the Annuity Tax in Edinburgh, Scotland, a number of members of the town council who were members of churches other than the tax-supported establishment church resigned rather than be party to administering the act that enacted the tax.
Auctioneers whom the government usually could call upon to preside at tax auctions refused to take the contracts, and carters whom ordinarily could be contracted to cart the goods refused, and so the town had to hire someone new at a higher rate, and purchase new vehicles to haul seized property about.
Today, a pile of tax resistance links from hither and yon:
