Mitt Romney paid his taxes. You can’t blame someone for paying their taxes as the law proscribes. If one is in the %15 tax bracket first there are a lot of deductions to arrive at the Adjusted Gross Income which is, well, adjusted. Then you pay your taxes. And if you make $50 or $50 million in the year you pay your taxes according to tax rules for you. If you drive a car you put on your seat belt and drive under the speed limit following the laws. If you do these things you are within the law and no one should have any problem with you following the laws. If you qualify for welfare, you can receive welfare. If you qualify for Social Security, WIC, HUD, government loans, whatever, no one should have a problem with that.
If, however, you don’t like the laws, well, then you have a problem with our government, not with the people who are following the laws you don’t like. In my opinion we should all have a problem with our government. Our government wants complicated, stupid laws to support lawyers, politicians, and government employees.
In my case, the Microsoft suit against me wasted lots of community resources, lots of tax pay money, for nothing. People make their living following the rules of our government, following the law, and extorting money from people like me who never did anything wrong. Perkin Coie LLC lawyers, on behalf of Microsoft, tried every trick they could to circumvent justice and gain a win at my expense. They tried everything short of showing I broke a law in order to get me to pay them. The tricks they used were all legal, and in my case Magistrate Judge Donna F. Martinez did not fall for those tricks. I was lucky in that regard.
Judges do not have to be fair. It is not in the job description. But if there is any fairness in the system that fairness will come from the judge. There is no fairness in the proceedures, only the possibility of fairness. They have to be impartial, they do not have to be fair.
So do we blame a lawyer who has no proof I did anything illegal, but prosecutes me? Do we credit the judge who, after listening to nonsense for a year and allowing hundreds of stupid pages of disputes and explanations and arguments to be filed, guides a settlement? The lawyers and the judge make their living like that. I am defending my business, my livelihood, from predatory litigation.
And the main tool the predators have is confidentiality and the law. They are allowed to seek confidentiality and they are allowed to follow stupid, confusing, arcane and skewed laws. No one has to listen to them but the judge. And the judge makes a living listening to this stuff and does not want to alienate that livelihood by actually making sense until the end. Log in the hours listening, then make sure both sides get thrown a bone so they will come back.
I just argued a case in Connecticut small claims. Me versus Dr. Patrick Pollak, DMD of Aesthetic Family Dentistry on 454 Prospect Street, Torrington. As I argued small claims several times before, probably with the same judge. This judge is anonymous. He had no name. I asked him and he did not answer. He said that we have no recourse if we don’t agree with his judgement. There is no appeal, and he can assure us that neither of us will be happy with his decision. I do not know how he decided or will decide, he will mail us his response. In my opinion Patrick negotiated a service I performed on his computer, agreed on the price, wrote me a check, then stopped payment on the check. Patrick said I charged too much and kept changing my price. I honestly don’t know what the judge heard and what he thinks is complicated about it.
Almost daily, but at least weekly, I run across incompetent workers, strange problems. I bought a product from China that I received broken in the mail. It was very cheap, and I told the vendor of the problem and they asked for a picture of the broken item. They sent me two of a completely unrelated item. I told them and they asked for a picture. I said I already sent one, but here is another. So they sent me a refund. Go figure.
Here is a rough transcript of me giving an ATT employee hell for incompetence:
Mrs. Hitchens, ATT on the phone: But I don’t feel like I am incompetent.
K (looking at paper): Do you remember telling me you were writing down the first harassing call I marked was Sept 14 at 3:38 PM, and that I need to make a police report so that I can see who the calls are from?
H: Yes, but I didn’t know that there was a five day limit….
K: What is your job title?
H: Executive Aid.
K: Had I gotten the police report as you directed me two days ago that information would have been useless, now, according to what you tell me today, unless and until I file Federal Civil charges against ATT and get a subpoena to find out if you are in fact indirectly responsible for the harassing calls I have been receiving for months.
H: Civil Charges?
K: I have no other alternative, Ms. Hitchens, according to what you say now, but focus. ATT was wrong to charge me, was wrong to not send me a bill, was wrong to turn the account over to collections, and you were wrong to tell me to make a police report. You are a bad part of a bad team, from my experience with you.
H: I can see why you say that Mr. Johnson, but I am trying to help you.
K: How?
H: I can assure you the calls from NCO Financial will stop soon, and you will receive a letter from us…
K: But you say there will be no specific information in the letter, no apology, no recourse, no assurances this won’t happen again to others except by my berating you here and now perhaps you will remember not to tell your customers to file a police report when your flunkies at NCO financial are harassing them…
H: I didn’t know that, and it is our policy to send letters before turning accounts over to collections….
K: But to quote you: What good would it do now to go back over that? …
Mrs. Hitchens was just doing her job. Microsoft hired Katherine Dugdale of Perkins Coie to prosecute me and she was just doing her job. Presidential Campaign Mitt Romney paid 15% taxes on his AGI. None of them have any blame. None of them considered fairness because, well, fairness is not their job. The system makes no sense, the system has the blame.
Copyright Kent Johnson 2012
