Looks like the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree—batshit crazy “Christian libertarian” Vox Day’s (real name: Theodore Beale) father is running from the law. Unfortunately, it’s not for cool reasons that could conceivably be worked into a shitty sci-fi novel. His dad is one of those conspiracy theory relishing tax evaders. (Via.)
Employees of Comtrol, a small computer products company in Maple Grove, had an unusual meeting in the firm’s cafeteria Tuesday.
The CEO and company founder, Robert B. Beale, 63, was on the lam, an arrest warrant issued for his failure to appear in federal court for his trial Monday. On Tuesday, his son Bradford Beale, a company vice president, apologized to employees for what happened.
Over roughly seven years, Robert Beale has waged a legal war with the Internal Revenue Service and Minnesota Revenue Department, filing rambling explanations in court, citing God, the Constitution and obscure legal decisions. He even published a full-page ad in a newspaper to make his case.
Read the whole thing. Beale appears to be deeply involved in his illusion that he’s above paying taxes, and like a lot of anti-tax nutcases, he seems to forever be concocting schemes to wrangle his way out of it. Naturally, he’s got some silly philosophical horseshit reason he thinks that taxation is persecution.
Beale’s court filings are filled with erudite assertions. “Political societies with sovereign rulers and foreign customs,” he wrote in one document, “have the tendency to become potent engines attempting to subjugate the masses under the illusion of superior authority.”
For all his supposed erudition, though, Beale is unwilling to face certain aspects of reality, such as breaking the law often results in having to deal with law enforcement.
“Robert Beale is a good man,” Bradford Beale, 35, said of his father.
“His philosophy on particular issues with taxes has taken him and his family … a little farther down the road than he would like to be,” Bradford Beale said. “He didn’t envision that this was going to be the conclusion of tax protesting.”
That’s the sort of idiotic self-assurance I often wish I had. How else did he think tax evasion would end? With a letter extolling his virtue from the President?
The level of entitlement that wingnut tax evaders have convinced themselves that they have is something to behold. For instance, while they’re pretty much all white, they often seek to lay claim to the right to call themselves and Indian tribe in order to escape taxes. Despite claims that they don’t recognize the sovereign nature of the government, they’re perfectly willing to file lawsuit after lawsuit to procrastinate paying their taxes. Beale is another level entirely of this kind of hypocritical tax evader pretending he’s got some philosophical objection to taxation—he’s been a Republican delegate and gives money to political institutions, all of which implies that he very well does recognize that the government has authority. He just wants to cherry pick whether or not he’s going to pay attention to the parts he doesn’t like, such as the parts where he’s obliged to help fund it.
For the record, it’s not unusual for these sort of tax evaders to be racist, sexist dickwads like the Beales. Across the board, the one thing they tend to believe is that they’re better than the rest of us and shouldn’t be required to lower themselves to behaving like the rabble.
Anyone ever notice that the less someone has to work for his money, the more likely he is to turn into a rabid anti-tax libertarian?
57 Responses to “But “Christian libertarians” are supposed to be above the law”
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Thoreau would not pay his taxes, either. He wrote On the Duty of Civil Disobedience all about it. He only ever spent one night in jail before his share of taxes was paid by his aunt. Those were different times, I guess.
Thoreau was not a tax protestor because he believed the power of taxation was illegitimate, however. He did not pay because he did not want to materially support a government that went to war against Mexico or permitted slavery. I only say this to point out that not all people who evade taxes are assholes. Some of them might be doing it for good reasons.
(Libertarians who think taxation is for the sheeple, while they enjoy the many benefits to life that taxation provides (for example, courts of law), are assholes, as you say)
A combination of poor reading comprehension skills and a demonstrated tendency to fantasy is what leads some of the wingers into these bizarre tax avoidance schemes.
John if you check the dates Thoreau died before the tax amendment to the Constitution in 1913. I think it was at least arguable that the government had no power to tax before that time. Tax protesters today do not and of course have the ability to lobby for a repeal of the same amendment.
John, apples and oranges. Thoreau was protesting a war. These tax protestors mostly just don’t like paying taxes and often have racist assumptions about welfare and “entitlements”.
It would be wrong to find it funny that a supporter of an authoritarian ‘tough-on’crime’ party that is running up a massive deficit was running from the law over failure to help pay for his party’s excesses. Oh yes, it would be terribly wrong. And shallow. And mean.
John,
Another difference was that Thoreau actually had the courage of his convictions; he went to jail. The conviction of the right wing tax evaders is they want to be richer. They have no problem using all the amenitities, enjoy all the freedom and securtiy, provided by the people of this nation, they just don’t want to help pay for it.
Our debased modern conservatives would do anything for their country, except pay taxes are take up arms to defend it. Scoundrels.
j swift, yes there was no federal income tax in the 1840s. Thoreau would not pay his Massachusetts poll taxes because it went to direct support of the MA government, which in turn supported the war and (in his opinion) slavery in the south. Thoreau was reportedly willing to pay his highway taxes because they went to support a public good (even though he could not, in principle, be sure that the money he paid would not go to support the war, etc).
Amanda, it is apples and oranges. Isn’t that what I said, basically? My point is that there can be perfectly legitimate reasons (from a moral if not a legal standpoint) for refusing to pay taxes of one kind or another, but that this does not excuse people like Beale, who simultaneously benefit from the systems and infrastructure taxation permits while refusing to support those systems.
For those of you unfamiliar with Minnesota, Maple Grove is one of the fasting growing, affluent suburban areas in the Metro. Filled with upscale chain stores, and rapidly destroying natural wetlands (swamp mostly) to provide enormous single family homes. Most of the people who live in Maple Grove drive long distances to work in either Minneapolis or Saint Paul in large SUV type vehicles, (and of course there’s usually only one person in the damn thing).
They complain about high taxes in our state - but seem to feel free to use all the things our taxes fund (public schools, roads, state and county parks, snow plowing, etc.) and call themselves libertarians.
asshats
Reminds me of this.
and yet strangely reluctant to enjoy the one amenity we’d love to see them useI do find considerable schadenfreude in contemplating that even VD’s family dont trust him to help run the family business: and even more in the (probably vain) hope that this might lead to confiscation of the family fortune, which might force VD to actually work for a living (and hopefully spell an end to his wretched literary efforts and squalid blog).
Mind you, I’m absolutely amazed that the IRS ever pursued the Beales, & that Papa Beale hasn’t been granted a presidential pardon already
Maple Grove has the same kind of surreal blandness that most new pre-fabbed suburbs that just seem to pop up out of the ground fully formed like mushrooms have. There’s nothing unique or distinctive about it. There’s no culture. No sense of history. It’s just kind of charmless and void. It’s a perfect setting for a nutty libertarian who is too crazy to pay attention to the world out there and too selfish to care.
The hypocrisy of someone enjoying the benefits that taxation provides them (public services etc) while decrying that other people shouldn’t be “entitled” to his money aside …
…
(give me a minute, this is a hard wall to climb)
—
Okay. Let’s say that this man has a belief that welfare and public radio are evil leeches on the teat of the populace; and that he doesn’t want to foot the bill for someone he thinks is just a lazy person.
(Of course, we have to cast away all of the racist baggage that comes along with that in order to try to come to some understanding of this, but work with me, here, people!)
Fine. Just like Thoreau couldn’t spend his money on an unjust war and a government that supported slavery, if this person feels that welfare and public radio are deep moral wrongs that he cannot financially support, whatever. That might shave a whole $3 off his tax bill.
The question, if he’s going to deny paying all of his taxes, is “how do you feel about the war?” If he thinks that running off to another country to bomb the everliving shit out of a bunch of brown people is a-ok, then I’m sorry, but he has to pay pretty much his full tax bill, because that’s where it’s going. And if he rejoins that he doesn’t support the war–then I’d like to see some proof of that. I want to know what antiwar rallies he went to, and how many times he’s written to his congressman and senator about the war. I’m guessing he didn’t.
Dipshit.
sorry, that should read fastest not fasting….
Ah, but Ponygirl, remember that they can fully support the war without sending their own children to fight in it, so why should they have to send their money either?
It’s all about believing you’re in that top 1% that gets to ride for free on the backs of the rest of the dumb animals. Unfortunately, a good 80% of America thinks they’re that 1%.
Triffid — this is what amuses the hell out of me about Americans who pine for aristocracy. They have absolutely no concept that they would be one of the rank.
JackGoff said something yesterday that seems to fit here:
“Or another one Mike: “Reiche Leute über alles!â€? The Objectivist slogan.”
“Reiche Leute über alles!� = “Rich People Over All!�? Pretty good translation of “libertarianism�…
“Yep. Ayn Rand would salute.”
My German isn’t good enough, but maybe we can add a variant referring to “Christians” being “over all” and not bound to comply with the laws of mere ordinary people…
My small home town had several of these types, one living two houses down from me. He was not particularly “activist” about it, near as I could tell. Not surprisingly he was a fundie too.
Some of these constitutionalist anti-tax nutjobs are really just con artists who are pissed that they don’t have the freedom to screw people.
Add to that, once they are called on it, they file frivolous law suits against people, file fraudulent liens against the judges, D.A.s, people they don’t like, and lawyers who are involved in civil cases against them.
And finally some have ties to right wing terrorist/hate groups.
Not that Mr. Beale is one of those but this bullshit gets passed from nutjob to like-minded nutjob. Sort of a conversion process.
Though now I suppose you can get The Anti-tax Crusader’s “kit” online for 19.99. (That in specie please none of that fraudulent federal reserve note stuff.)
I have some sympathy for anti-war tax protesters (there are some), but I think it’s propably tactically a poor choice. I mean, I don’t personally really think the Government ought to have the authority to tax, but that’s a pretty low priority for me, since taxes are at least mostly progressive, and I think that the various positive things taxation supports (Welfare, Healthcare, etc.) need to continue to be funded.
As for these folks, they’re obviously just selfish.
The (few) anti-war tax protestors I’ve encountered have taken it to the logical step: don’t make enough money to be taxed, but live a spare, monk-like lifestyle of self-reliance and poverty in order to avoid being “part of the system/against it or willing.” Very much in the spirit of Dorothy Day Gandhi et al.
Vox Day is a mouth-breathing dipshit. In his case, the apple apparently doesn’t fall far from the tree.
I love that the man who squirted out the wet fart that is Vox Day is headed to jail for tax evasion. The only way this could be any better is if Mr. Theodore Beale accompanied dear old dad to the slammer as well.
The only way this could be any better is if Mr. Theodore Beale accompanied dear old dad to the slammer as well.
You never know. That comment about never intending to lead his family down this path or whatever makes me think that this may be bigger than just Daddy Beale. The business might be involved, and he may have gotten the other family members to participate.
What exactly does this have to do with Vox Day?
Rumblelizard: has Vox been charged with income tax evasion?
It is one thing to hate Vox but I don’t see how this has anything to do with Vox, personally, who I believe lives in Italy (which would explain why he isn’t running the business while Dad’s on the run.)
Oh zuzu, you just about gave me an orgasm with that thought. Please let it be so…please let it be so…please let it be so….
Ah man, this bastard is from my state? Lame.
Maple Grove is a joke, a mixure of mini-malls and gated communities. They lost my respect when they moved to restrict low-income housing. God forbid the poor folks live ’round here - ‘cause we all know that “poor” actually means “black”! Eeeee!
From what I’ve gathered from some people that live there (before it blew up into the suburbanite paradise it is today, they are now being forced to move because of property taxes) the majority of people moved there from out of state.
So yes, they come here because Minnesota’s one of the “best” places in the country to live, we have good education, social programs, and culture. Then they turn around and balk at the taxes that they have to pay, and try and fight them. I mean, really. Why the hell do you think this state is such a great place to live? Jackasses.
Although it is quite hilarious to see Bush, Cheney et al hightail it out of Minneapolis and drive directly to Maple Grove whenever they come to Minnesota. Cowards just can’t take on the Cities, can they?
When I worked at a community newspaper and property tax bills were mailed out, the longest and loudest screams were always, ALWAYS from the people in the richest communities we covered.
Umm…as a non-Christian perhaps I fail to appreciate the subtle genius of Beale’s argument, but I kind of thought that Jesus had flat-out settled this dispute:
oh man…it’s been a long time since i read any vd, but i followed some links while reading this post and it made me SO ANGRY…he is really a piece of work, isn’t he?
What exactly does this have to do with Vox Day?
For one thing, he’s cited the lessons learned from his parents as one reason for his ’success’ in life. For another, he’s a craphead, and this is likely to upset him. It’s shallow to enjoy the misery of other people just because they are arrogant misogynist racists who glory in the sufferings of those less fortunate, but we liberals have to take our pleasures where we can. All the more so now that the Christian Libertarians are attacking our recreational mainstays of buggery, bestiality, and abortion.
“Christian Libertarian”? Because there’s too much asshole for just one or the other?
Christopher M,
Let me see if I can help out. The fundies find nothing more pleasurable or important than praising Jesus’s name (well, God’s too). His example, however, they freely ignore.
Because there’s too much asshole for just one or the other?
I think they become an asshole so big that they shrink into a black hole of stupidity.
Just so MAJeff, for certain fundies the Bible is a grab bag of justifications for their ideology and hypocrisy. The Bible justifies their world view, it is not the basis nor does it inform their world view.
You guys are totally misinformed on Libertarians (in other news, the sun rose this morning). Libertarians do not feel that we are “above” paying taxes. What we do feel is that about ninety-five percent of taxes are spent on things that are not authorized by the federal government.
Also, they feel that a problem inherant with the income tax is that people have to declare their own income. This leads to people under reporting their income which requires the government to form an IRS-like agency to investigate its own people. This is no way for a free people to live. The Founders knew this and that is why a Federal Income Tax was prohibited by the original Constitution.
Also, I don’t know where you get your idea of the idle rich Libertarian, but I have never met one. Most of the trustafarians I have met are advocates of the welfare state–all while Daddy’s accountants make sure that they themselves don’t pay any of the taxes.
The point of the Income Tax is to keep money from concentrating. Did you go read about the Gilded Age? What happened at the end of the Gulded Age, hmmm?
The point of the Income Tax is to keep money from concentrating.
Since there wasn’t any attempt to redistribute tax revenues to the poor at the time, this could not have been the reason. But what was going on at the time was that the government was getting restless and wanted to start waging foreign wars. And that takes a lot of money.
Did you go read about the Gilded Age? What happened at the end of the Gulded Age, hmmm?
The power of the Federal Government grew exponentially? We put troops in over 100 foreign countries? Civil rights were eroded in the name of wars on drugs and terrorism?
Shitty science fiction/Libertarianism.
I am not alone!
I’m Quaker, and there are quite a number in Canada who withhold the portion of their income tax relative to the percentage that gets spent on the Canadian military. HOWEVER - all have the tax money invested (usually in ‘ethical’ funds - it makes no sense to withhold from the government and then become a shareholder to a missile manufacturer), and they do not spend that money, and most are quite willing to do their time in prison. And have the money seized. It’s a matter of protest and point made, but it acknowledges the system as it stands. You cannot live in a society and decide to ‘back out’ of the rules the society has made - you can only fight for change.
I’m not misinformed on libertarian, Gimme. I’ll be honest.
I’m a recovering libertarian.
I was one briefly in my teenage years until reality smacked me upside the head in college and I realized that the college I went to, the roads I drove on, the public school I went to, etc. would not exist without taxes. And in the libertarian “utopia”, we’d all be working in factories until we died at age 35.
In other words, I grew up.
Of course, I was never the insane kind who thought I was above paying taxes. In fact, I wasn’t much of anything at all. Ignorance breeds libertarianism, and a little education woke me up.
One thing I’ve learned is that people who participate in elaborate tax evasion schemes under the banner of a fucked-up ideology are exactly the same people who think that Jews secretly rule the world. And that black helicopters follow them. And that a sawed off shotgun will protect them when the secret Jewish cabal, under President Clinton’s leadership, nukes their house away. Not the crowd you want to be running with, Gimme.
By the way, all people who have principled opposition to taxes need to get the fuck off the internet, which only exists because of massive government funding.
Oh yeah, that’s right. You’re not principled. You just want something for nothing.
Civil rights were eroded in the name of wars on drugs and terrorism?
Because of the Income Tax? Man, you are an idiot.
GBMD, Civil Rights were being eroded during the Gilded Age (read: Libertarian paradise). Read some history jackass.
They complain about high taxes in our state - but seem to feel free to use all the things our taxes fund (public schools, roads, state and county parks, snow plowing, etc.) and call themselves libertarians.
Y’see, they claim to support living in Freedom, but they actually support living in License.
Freedom = License + Responsibility. You pay for your liberty, one way or another.
Ah, but ol’ Vox had claimed his father had been vindicated in the fight with Minnesota. Looks like he really had to pay them a whole bunch of money.
Vox is a part of this because it’s his father promoting Vox’s company Treveda (and getting his friends to say good things about it in small newspapers) for him, and undoubtedly financing it. It was his father who arranged his Worldnetdaily column. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was his father who set up his fiction gig as well. Vox would not have his lifestyle if it wasn’t for his father’s money.
We all know you’re reading this, Vox.
oh man Maple Grove. My crazy freshman year roommate came from there. The Catholic I’m-half-Lebanese-so-it-means-I’m-exotic, I’ve got a boyfriend back home, so don’t tell him about all the guys I’m sleeping with (and there was a new one at least once a week, most of whom were almost as drunk as she was at all times)*, heavy-drinking, self-entitled, let my sorority sisters borrow your stuff and hack your computer while you’re out flake. She wasn’t actually mean or bitchy. She just had no concept of consideration for others. I’d leave for a weekend and come home to find her entire wardrobe piled on my bed. So yeah. Maple Grove.
I know my parents’ Twin Cities suburb, after being mentioned in Nickel and Dimed, put in a large quantity of low-income housing to counteract the suburban push - I was proud when I heard that. In the best elementary school district of the area, no less (there’s only one jr/sr high). And you know what, I bet they have less crime and more culture than Maple Grove, despite all the ‘poor immigrants’ living there (large Russian and Hmong immigrant populations especially. The Russian teen girls are known for always dressing extremely skimpily, but my mom pointed out that when you come from the northern areas like most of them do, Minnesota weather is tropical
.)
oh and the star was for, I don’t care how many people you sleep with, but getting drunk and just letting whichever frat boy will follow you home have at it, especially while you’re committed to someone else, is trashy and kind of gross.
The only thing I really hate about property taxes is that my mortgage escrow is always about $300 short, and I have to run around trying to scrape up an extra $300 from somewhere right after Christmas, when I’m brokest. It might not sound like much to try and come up with, but I’m a house-poor, living-from-paycheck-to-paycheck wage slave.
This year, that panic ain’t happening. I’ve already started saving aside a little money every month for the $300 property tax underfunding problem. I just hope it’s only $300.
Does anyone else have this problem, or is it just me?
I’m not misinformed on libertarian, Gimme. I’ll be honest.
I’m a recovering libertarian.
Then why do you ignore the tenets of libertarianism that don’t fit your “libertarianism == right wing of republican party” model?
In other words, I grew up.
Well, I guess I have not yet grown up. That explains why I cannot make sophisticated, adult arguments like:
Man, you are an idiot.
or
Read some history jackass.
You know, the traditional path is to be a liberal when you are young and a conservative when you are old. Do you think this means that conservatives are more “grown up” than liberals?
I don’t worry about making “adult arguments” to someone who thinks Ayn Rand was correct.
Ayn Fucking Rand? Clearly, you have your idea of what a libertarian is and you are not about to let facts get in your way.
Rumblelizard: You can thank the local taxing authority for that. Since the valuation of your home creeps up a bit every year (in their eyes) your property taxes will rise a bit each year.
Try this, if you dare, eliminate your escrow fund and put the money in a money market fund each month. Try to find one that pays a decent rate. You will find that the interest alone will cover most of any shortfall.
Also, any time you get a rise in your valuation call your relator for some comps and go to the tax office and try to get the valuation lowered.
I do this every year and this year they lowered my valuation.
Why?
Because her computer wouldn’t boot fast enough and she wanted to get on to other people.
If that won’t make you cynical, then nothing will
You know, the traditional path is to be a liberal when you are young and a conservative when you are old. Do you think this means that conservatives are more “grown up� than liberals?
No. More cynical or selfish, perhaps, but hardly more grown up. Especially modern-day conservatives. A bigger bunch of adult-sized babies it would be hard to imagine….
Rumblelizard,
If like me you have a mortgage company that does not allow Lamont’s suggestion, your way is pretty much the best. MA and it’s local areas has in the past had a habit of changing rates mid-year, via changes in rate and/or re-evaluations,leading to just such a shortfall. The mortgage companies also tweek as they are only legally allowed to carry over a certain amount. We tend to owe one year so our escrow rate goes up and get a refund check and lower escrow rate the next that leads to owing the year after.
You know, the traditional path is to be a liberal when you are young and a conservative when you are old. Do you think this means that conservatives are more “grown up� than liberals?
Conservatives, like children, have a heavily egocentric worldview and dislike change as a rule. They tend to prefer easy answers and appeals to authority over nuanced explanations. Many of them cannot conceive of a reality without a supernatural Santa Claus who will reward them and punish their enemies.
So, to answer your question, no.
First of all, Stacy, nobody has been “forced” out of Maple Grove. If you knew anything about the housing market, you’d know that Maple Grove and its officials have no control over land prices, labor costs, and material costs.
There has NEVER been a move to restrict affordable housing. If you believe there has been, back your claim with some evidence. If you are referring to the 1996 debate about Groveland Terrace… the City requires all developments to have poured concrete curbing, rather than poor-quality bituminous curbing, which deteriorates much more rapidly. The developer was too cheap to put in concrete curbing and the proposal was denied. The media all FLOCKED to Maple Grove and made a story about nothing into a something incorrect.
Developers don’t WANT to build affordable housing in Maple Grove because of A) exorbitant land prices, which the City has no control over and B) market demands.
In the future, please do some research before shooting your mouth off about a topic you clearly know very little about.
In the future, please do some research
You mean like looking at the dates on a thread that everyone else has forgotten about?
Everyone except for you, that is…