In message <9408101428.AA26732@snark.imsi.com> perry@imsi.com writes:
My point is that checks made out to cash are not regarded as an alternative currency.
My point is that the government doesn't give a flying fuck. They are simply trying to stop you from playing games. The law isn't like geometry -- there aren't axioms and rules for deriving one thing from another. The general principle is that they want to track all your transactions, and if you make it difficult they will either use existing law to jail you, or will produce a new law to try to do the same.
On what experience or observation do you base these rather extreme remarks?
Your hair spliting is really completely irrelevant.
If you are saying that any form of legal argument is irrelevant to the issues being discussed, then you are simply wrong. The government is staffed by a population which has more or less the same distribution of attributes as the rest of the population of the US, except that, probably they are on average somewhat better educated, somewhat more intelligent, somewhat, generally, more middle class. There are thugs working for the government who will speak and reason much as you do. There are also many reasonable and intelligent people. And there are real, genuine lawyers who understand precisely what they are doing and are moved by legal arguments. Demonization of the government is simply silly, as is dismissing all logical argument. -- Jim Dixon