Nick Assimenos
366 posts
Going to prison for the rest of your life over non-violent tax offenses is absurd. The case against Roger seems very politically motivated; like with @RealRossU, there have been plenty of people and corporations who have been accused of far worse and yet faced sentences far milder than what Roger is facing. The argument that the flashlight on him is motivated by things he said (namely, his advocacy of freedom and refusal to accept legitimacy of coercive state power) seems compelling. This is worth standing against, because selective prosecution for unrelated offenses is a common way of circumventing protections like the First Amendment (or in more authoritarian countries, even more basic things like the moral prohibition against punishing people for the crimes of their family members). The US tax-by-citizenship and associated exit tax regime is extreme; the former is shared by almost no other countries in the world, and the latter is on the high end of what countries do (eg. UK only charges capital gains if you return within 5 years). If the IRS did intimidate Roger's lawyers to get privileged information, that is a bad faith move; the right to consult lawyers in confidence must be kept sacrosanct. Genuine good faith mistakes should be treated by giving the actor the opportunity to pay back taxes if needed with interest and penalties, not with prosecution. @FreeRogerVer
The EU leaders and Zelensky having fancy dinners while men die in trenches. How many parents will never see their son again? How many children will never see their father?
Going to prison for the rest of your life over non-violent tax offenses is absurd. The case against Roger seems very politically motivated; like with @RealRossU, there have been plenty of people and corporations who have been accused of far worse and yet faced sentences far milder than what Roger is facing. The argument that the flashlight on him is motivated by things he said (namely, his advocacy of freedom and refusal to accept legitimacy of coercive state power) seems compelling. This is worth standing against, because selective prosecution for unrelated offenses is a common way of circumventing protections like the First Amendment (or in more authoritarian countries, even more basic things like the moral prohibition against punishing people for the crimes of their family members). The US tax-by-citizenship and associated exit tax regime is extreme; the former is shared by almost no other countries in the world, and the latter is on the high end of what countries do (eg. UK only charges capital gains if you return within 5 years). If the IRS did intimidate Roger's lawyers to get privileged information, that is a bad faith move; the right to consult lawyers in confidence must be kept sacrosanct. Genuine good faith mistakes should be treated by giving the actor the opportunity to pay back taxes if needed with interest and penalties, not with prosecution. @FreeRogerVer
The Future of Forecasting and the M6 Competition Conference @spyrosmakrid @Assimenos @UNIC_ENG forecasters.org/blog/2023/07/2…
