PATIENT
The rule of law
THREE PATHS
Refuse openly, deny it applies, use it to the letter
COURTS
Reject the second, accept the third
KEY IDEA
Accepting the penalty
CHIEF COMPLAINT
Everyone calls it 'beating the system.' Are refusing the law and gaming it the same thing?
HISTORY OF PRESENT ILLNESS
People handle laws they dislike in three different ways. Thoreau and King broke the law in the open and took the penalty. Sovereign citizens and tax protesters claim the law never applied to them, and courts have rejected those theories every time. Everyone else follows the letter of the law and uses all of it, which is legal until it has no purpose besides defeating the law. The same question comes up for states that decline to enforce federal law.
REVIEW OF SYSTEMS
REFUSING
Open, public, and the person accepts the penalty. Thoreau went to jail; King wrote from jail.
DENYING
'Sovereign citizen' and tax-protester theories. 'Uniformly rejected by the courts.' Penalties can be large.
GAMING
Legal avoidance versus a crime (evasion). Gregory v. Helvering: legal means are legal, a sham with no purpose is not.
STATES
A state may decline to help enforce federal law (Printz). It may not declare federal law void (Cooper v. Aaron).
BOTH SIDES
Examples run left and right: Catonsville Nine, clinic blockaders, Kim Davis, sanctuary cities, Second Amendment sanctuary counties.
PHYSICAL EXAM — STYLE & STRUCTURE
- —Thoreau spent one night in jail in 1846 over a poll tax. King's convictions for marching were upheld in 1967 (5 to 4).
- —Courts have rejected the claim that wages are not income and that the 16th Amendment was not ratified.
- —Tax avoidance is legal. Tax evasion, willful concealment, is a crime.
- —The Supremacy Clause makes federal law supreme. States cannot be commanded to enforce it, but they cannot nullify it.
ASSESSMENT & PLAN
Ask of any 'beating the system' story: does the person accept the penalty, claim there is none, or follow the rules to the letter? Every claim is tagged Settled, Disputed or Popular myth with a source, and the live arguments (is civil disobedience ever justified, is it wrong to use every legal advantage, is a state refusal non-cooperation or nullification) show both sides at equal length in the full Study Guide.