User:Famspear

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This user is a citizen of the United States of America.

dad

This user is a father.

CPA

This user has a CPA designation.

BS	This user has a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting.

This user is a Lawyer.

This user has a law degree.

JD	This user has a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree.

INTP

This user has an INTP personality
per the Myers-Briggs typing system

This user loves The Beatles.

This user is a member of the Taxation WikiProject.

8 000

This user has over 8 000 edits on the English Wikipedia.

I am an American attorney and a Certified Public Accountant with an interest in Income tax in the United States. I have a background in the entertainment business and I have also worked as a broadcast news reporter. I am interested in cinema, broadcasting, politics, international relations, military aircraft (especially fighter planes), and languages.

My childhood heroes included Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Sandy Koufax.

With respect to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, I have been tested and determined to be an INTP.

[edit] Cool things I have seen

Some of the most impressive things I have ever seen include: the birth of my son, the Musée d'Orsay, the Musée du Louvre, L'Arc de Triomphe, la Tour Eiffel and la Gare Montparnasse in Paris, the Palace of Versailles near Paris, the London Underground, St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Liverpool Street Station, Paddington Station, and Abbey Road Studios (just the outside of the building) in London, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, the United States Capitol, the White House, the court house of the Supreme Court of the United States, Arlington National Cemetery, the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Golden Gate Bridge, Mount St. Helens, the cockpit of a Grumman F-14 Tomcat fighter plane, the Bavarian Alps, Yosemite National Park in California, and Willie Mays hitting a home run at the Astrodome in Houston when I was a boy.

[edit] Barnstar

		The Original Barnstar
		I Morphh award Famspear this Barnstar for the large efforts and contributions to income taxation articles. Many Thanks!

Danke shoen! Yours, Famspear 20:12, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cluestick for Famspear!

As a show of WikiLove for all the times you had to deal with outrageously stupid and uncivil tax protesters and their frivolous arguments, I, Eastlaw, award you the Cluestick.

You, my friend, are an inspriation to law students and aspiring attorneys such as myself, especially when I encounter so many similar arguments on Internet discussion boards. You rock. --Eastlaw 01:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Additional note: Wikipedia had a server error and logged me out as I posted this, so if the edit history of your talk page looks weird, now you know why. :) --Eastlaw 01:30, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Dear Eastlaw: Wow, seriously you made my day! Thanks! Yours, Famspear 02:05, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some of the jobs I have held (in no particular order)

Convenience store clerk;

"Roadie" for a rock band;

Furniture mover;

Gardener;

Broadcast news reporter;

Public affairs talk show host;

Practicing attorney;

Practicing certified public accountant and auditor.

My current activities include representing real people in their dealings with the Internal Revenue Service.

[edit] Official policies, guidelines, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view (official policy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ (official policy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Attribution (official policy; combined from

"Verifiability": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability

and

"No Original Research": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:ATT/FAQ (proposed policy, guideline or process)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources (guideline)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Using_online_and_self-published_sources (guideline)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources (style guide)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not (official policy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fringe_theories (content guideline)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith (official policy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons (official policy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines (guideline)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links (guideline)

[edit] Tax stuff

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:WikiProject_Taxation_articles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:United_States_federal_taxation_legislation

[edit] Examples of important concepts

[edit] Undue weight

Regarding undue weight:

NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a verifiable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all (by example, the article on the Earth only very briefly refers to the Flat Earth theory, a view of a distinct minority). We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view, and views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views. To give undue weight to a significant-minority view, or to include a tiny-minority view, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties. This applies not only to article text, but to images, external links, categories, and all other material as well.

Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements. An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements.

Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them — Wikipedia is not paper. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, it should not be represented as the truth.

From Jimbo Wales, paraphrased from this post from September 2003 on the mailing list:

If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it is true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.

Views held only by a tiny minority of people should not be represented as significant minority views, and perhaps should not be represented at all.

If you are able to prove something that no one or few currently believe, Wikipedia is not the place to premiere such a proof. Once a proof has been presented and discussed elsewhere, however, it may be referenced. See: Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Verifiability.

Copied from [1] at 11:00 pm CST on 2 March 2007.

[edit] Minority views

"[T]he Wikipedia neutrality policy certainly does not state, or imply, that we must "give equal validity" to minority views. It does state that we must not take a stand on them as encyclopedia writers; but that does not stop us from describing the majority views as such; from fairly explaining the strong arguments against the pseudoscientific theory; from describing the strong moral repugnance that many people feel toward some morally repugnant views; and so forth." from [2] on 3 October 2006.

[edit] A bit about fringe theories

Articles which cover hypotheses in detail should document (with reliable sources) the current level of acceptance among the relevant academic community of the hypothesis. If proper attribution cannot be found among reliable sources of a hypothesis's standing, it should be assumed that the hypothesis has not received consideration or acceptance. However, a lack of consideration or acceptance does not necessarily imply rejection; hypotheses should not be portrayed as rejected [ . . . ] unless such claims can be documented in reliable sources.

Hypotheses which have been rejected, which are widely considered to be absurd [ . . . ] should be documented as such. Copied from [3] on 8 January 2007.

[edit] Reliability and self-published materials

“Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources.

“Exceptions may be when a well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field, or a well-known professional journalist has produced self-published material. In some cases, these may be acceptable as sources, so long as their work has been previously published by reliable third-party publications. However, exercise caution: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so.” Copied from [4] on 3 October 2006

"A self-published source is a published source that has not been subject to any form of independent fact-checking, or where no one stands between the writer and the act of publication. It includes personal websites, and books published by vanity presses. Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources." Copied from [5] on 5 October 2006.

[edit] On false authority

“Look out for false claims of authority. Advanced degrees give authority in the topic of the degree. Web sites that have numerous footnotes may be entirely unreliable. The first question to ask yourself is, "What are the credentials and expertise of the people taking responsibility for a website?" Anyone can post anything on the web.

“Use sources who have postgraduate degrees or demonstrable published expertise in the field they are discussing. The more reputable ones are affiliated with academic institutions. The most reputable have written textbooks in their field: these authors can be expected to have a broad, authoritative grasp of their subject. In general, higher education textbooks are frequently revised and try to be authoritative. Textbooks aimed at secondary-school students, however, do not try to be authoritative and are subject to political approval.” Copied from [6] on 3 October 2006.

[edit] Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence

"Certain red flags should prompt editors to closely and skeptically examine the sources for a given claim. [ . . . . ] Claims not supported[,] or claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view in the relevant academic community. Be particularly careful when proponents say there is a conspiracy to silence them." Copied from [7] on 5 October 2006.

[edit] How to determine whether a view is established

The inclusion of a view that is held only by a tiny minority may constitute original research because there may be a lack of sufficiently credible, third-party, published sources to back it up.

From a mailing list post by Jimbo Wales, Wikipedia's founder:

If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not. Copied from [8] on 9 October 2006.

[edit] Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought

Wikipedia is not a place to publish your own thoughts and analyses or to publish new information not heretofore published. Please do not use Wikipedia for [ . . . ]:

Personal essays or Blogs that state your particular opinions about a topic. Wikipedia is supposed to compile human knowledge. It is not a vehicle to make personal opinions become part of human knowledge. In the unusual situation where the opinions of a single individual are important enough to discuss, it is preferable to let other people write about them. Personal essays on topics relating to Wikipedia are welcome in your user namespace or on the Meta-wiki. There is a Wikipedia fork at Wikinfo that encourages personal opinions in articles.

Copied from [9] on 6 December 2006.

[edit] Kinds of sources

Although most articles should rely predominantly on secondary sources, there are rare occasions when they may rely entirely on primary sources (for example, current events or legal cases). An article or section of an article that relies on a primary source should (1) only make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and (2) make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims. Contributors drawing on entirely primary sources should be careful to comply with both conditions.

Copied from [10] on 22 March 2007.

[edit] Expertise

"[ . . . ] Wikipedia should report all major points of views; however, it should do so in proportion to the credibility of the experts holding the various theses.

"One measure of a view's importance is the credibility of the experts who hold that view. What makes an expert credible? Some criteria include:

"* The reputation of the expert, the reputation of the tradition within which he or she works, the reputation of the group or institution for which the expert works

Whether the expert uses the common methods of the field or completely different ones
Whether the expert has or has not failed to respond to criticisms
Whether the expert has reputable supporters of his or her claims

"[ . . . ] If you are not an expert in a subject yourself, your intuition that an article is biased may not be reliable. [ . . . ] Points of view held as having little credibility by experts [ . . . ] should be reported, but as such: that is, we should expose the point of view and its popular appeal, but also the opinion held by the vast majority of experts." Copied from [11] on 18 November 2006 (bolding added).

[edit] Vandalism: persistent insertions of non-neutral point of view material after having been warned

NPOV violations: The neutral point of view is a difficult policy for many of us to understand, and even Wikipedia veterans occasionally accidentally introduce material which is non-ideal from an NPOV perspective. Indeed, we are all affected by our beliefs to a greater or lesser extent. Though inappropriate, this is not vandalism in itself unless persisted in after being warned.

Copied from [12] on 15 February 2007 (bolding added).

[edit] Links normally to be avoided

"In addition to the restrictions on linking, and except for a link to a page that is the subject of the article or is an official page of the subject of the article, one should avoid:

[ . . . ]

Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research. See Reliable sources.
Links mainly intended to promote a website.
Links to sites that primarily exist to sell products or services. For example, instead of linking to a commercial bookstore site, use the "ISBN" linking format, giving readers an opportunity to search a wide variety of free and non-free book sources.

[ . . . ]

Links to blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority.

[ . . . ]"

Copied on 12 December 2006 from[13]

[edit] Other

A guideline:

"Wikipedia articles are supposed to represent all views (more at NPOV), instead of supporting one over another, even if you believe something strongly. The Talk ("discussion") pages are not a place to debate value judgments about which of those views are right or wrong or better. If you want to do that, there are venues such as Usenet, public weblogs and other wikis. Use the Talk pages to discuss the accuracy/inaccuracy, POV bias, or other problems in the article, not as a soapbox for advocacy." Copied from [14] on 20 October 2006.

[edit] Tax protesters and my twenty-five cent psychology lesson

On 5 October 2006 an anonymous editor at IP 216.81.197.249 inserted the following commentary in the article page for Tax protester, which later was moved to the talk page:

Note: Whomever wrote this is obviously biased against any attempt to hold the US Government accountable to the Constitution, and/or loves paying taxes to no end!

From a psychological standpoint, the quoted commentary from the anonymous user at IP 216.81.197.249 is interesting. I have no specialized expertise in psychology -- but since this is Wikipedia and I don't need to have expertise in a particular field to write or edit in that field, here goes my 25 cents worth.

To some degree, most if not all of us in our daily lives may from time to time engage in a mental process called Transference, which one psychiatrist has defined as "the inappropriate repetition in the present of a relationship that was important in a person's childhood." (Leonard H. Kapelovitz, M.D., To Love and To Work/A Demonstration and Discussion of Psychotherapy, p 66 (1987)). Part of the animus behind the ravings of some tax protesters is the burning, infantile urge to rebel against an Authority Figure (probably in many cases a parent). Much of what is behind the activity of some tax protesters is an attempt to work out an unresolved situation or problem with a parent (an Authority Figure) that developed in infancy or early childhood. The subject tries to work through the problem by inappropriately substituting a present-day person (or an object or concept) for the parent, and dealing with the Substitute as though it were the parent. This means that instead of consciously attacking "Mommie" or "Daddy" directly, the subject subconsciously substitutes a presumably safer and more distant target -- such as the government in general, the central banks, and so on.

A possible psychological aspect of all this is the deep seated infantile feeling among some tax protesters that they have been lied to or misled or neglected or abused or otherwise treated unfairly by a parent or parental figure. The trust that should have been felt in the relationship with the parent was supplanted by fear, mistrust, etc. The resulting unhappy feeling sometimes manifests itself in what I call the "you can't fool me" syndrome -- a conspiratorial view of the world, perhaps bordering in a few cases on a paranoid view. This can be seen in the numerous references in tax protester literature to putatively malevolent authority figures -- judges, lawyers, CPAs, congressmen, bankers, etc. -- massive numbers of people over a period of at least the past 93 years (since the advent of the modern U.S. income tax in 1913) who are supposedly engaged in a vast, selfish conspiracy to "hide the truth" about the Federal income tax.

"You can't fool me" is sometimes the feeling or emotion, or "affect" behind all this. Some tax protesters, like conspiracy theorists in general, work up a magnificent, elaborate, totally improbable Weltanschauung. If the subject can create a fully elaborated explanation that connects the dots he or she feels in his or her mind should be connected, then he or she feels somehow "safer" or protected from the real or imagined predations that might come from the putatively malevolent parent, and cannot be "fooled" by that parent's real or imagined actions.

Now, let's look at the verbiage again:

Whomever [sic] wrote this is obviously biased against any attempt to hold the US Government accountable to the Constitution, and/or loves paying taxes to no end!

The tax protester may feel he must deal with an early childhood conflict with his parent, but does so "safely" (or so he feels) by not confronting the parent directly. The protester, through a transference, substitutes the Federal government or the central bank, or the tax law, etc., which becomes the Substitute Authority Figure. The protester subconsciously attempts to weaken the perceived "power" or even omnipotence of the parent by consciously attacking the validity, the legitimacy, of the Substitute Authority Figure. "There is no law that requires me to pay income tax" and so on.

In effect, the protester may be consciously trying to hold the Substitute Authority Figure accountable to the infantile standard (of fairness, etc.) set by the protester in his early, uncomfortable dealings with the parent. The protester consciously attempts to hold the Substitute Authority Figure accountable to the standards the protester subconsciously feels should have been used by his parents with him in early childhood by indirectly and unconsciously denying the legitimacy of the parent's authority and power -- through the device of directly and consciously denying the authority or righteousness or validity or power of the Substitute Authority Figure.

The protester is disturbed, however, when reality infuses the protester's attempt at the use of the transference to resolve the infantile conflict. That is, the tax protester becomes upset when third parties (in this case, other Wikipedia editors) point out massive amounts of authoritative information that contradict the protester's view of the tax law (the Substitute Authority Figure) -- and the protester responds to this reality check very consciously and emotionally. This response is seated ultimately, however, not in the protester's present-day relationship to the tax law (the Substitute Authority Figure) but instead in the protester's past infantile relationship with the parent, which relationship is now being dealt with subconsciously and inappropriately. If the Substitute Authority Figure is shown to have validity and power, then in the subconscious mind of the protester the parent must also have been legitimate and powerful -- and the protester decompensates in a very emotional, angry, or otherwise uncomfortable way.

A further possible aspect of this in the process of editing Wikipedia is that third party editors who present authoritative information that contradicts a tax protester's view may, in the mind of the protester, be closely but subconsciously and inappropriately associated with the parent, and the anger, hurt or mistrust resulting from the infantile relationship with the parent may, through another transference, be expressed by the tax protester toward the third party editor. Essentially, an attempt to provide data that contradicts the tax protester's view may be subconsciously but inappropriately viewed by the protester as an attempt by the third party Wikipedia editor to "take the side of the parent" -- or even be the parent -- in the dispute. One tax protester explicitly (but, in his own mind, subconsciously) apparently made this inappropriate connection on the talk page for the article Tax protester on April 3, 2006, when he said, in response to something I wrote, that "because you say so on the (alleged) authority of your education is no different than: 'Because I'm the Mommy, that's why.'"[15]

"[T]he patient misunderstands the present in terms of the past" (Kapelovitz, at p. 66, quoting Fenichel O, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis, p. 29 (1945)). "[ . . . ] [A]ll symptoms and neurotic patterns were originally solutions. Unfortunately, they were childhood solutions that have persisted into adulthood." Kapelovitz, p. 81.

So, Wikipedia editors, bear all this in mind when editing the tax-related articles. On the other hand, hey, I'm not a psychologist, so I could be all wrong! Yours, Famspear 22:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The road runner

The following is an excerpt from some of my commentary in March of 2006 in the talk page archives for Tax protester (see [16]):

With respect to the Federal income tax on individuals, the basic tax is imposed by 26 U.S.C. § 1. Under that statute, the tax is imposed on a legal concept called "taxable income," which in turn is defined at 26 U.S.C. § 63. Taxable income basically means "gross income" less the allowable deductions. "Gross income" is defined at 26 U.S.C. § 61. Many tax protesters are well aware of these provisions, but for many of them it does not really matter how much law they read; they simply refuse to accept it. All tax protester arguments, by definition, are feeble. Not only are the arguments incorrect as a matter of law, they are so flaccid that they are legally frivolous. As fellow editor BD2412 has said, tax protester arguments are based on very fundamental misconceptions about how law and the legal system actually work -- not just Federal income tax law, but law in general. As a result, tax protester arguments are easy to refute. Tax protesters are also hampered by the fact that there are so many different tax protester arguments and theories -- and these theories have been rejected over and over by the courts for so many years. Tax protest theories were fatally hampered many years ago -- because of the foolish insistence by many tax protesters that the theories actually be litigated. To litigate a tax protester argument is to lose. [ . . . ] The tax protester is a real life equivalent of the poor "coyote" in the "Road Runner" cartoons that used to be popular on television in the United States. [ . . . ]

Post-script: For those who are not familiar with the old "Road Runner" cartoons on U.S. television (see Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner), the coyote character was a character who tried, over and over each week, to capture the road runner (a bird) with one elaborate but ridiculous scheme after another. Each contraption fabricated or acquired by the coyote to capture the road runner failed miserably -- with the virtually inevitable result that the coyote was horribly (but, to the television viewer, hilariously) smashed against some rock or cliff or otherwise crushed, burned, etc. Despite always losing, the coyote never learned his lesson -- always coming back with yet another ridiculous contraption to defeat the road runner -- and always failing in the most miserable and silly way.

[edit] Edit counter

Number of edits, from 22 November 2005 to 22 March 2007 (11:14 A.M., Central Daylight Time USA): 8,653.

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~essjay/edit_count/Count.php

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/Tool1/wannabe_kate

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