It was either a conspiracy, or perpetrated by a single person.

Do you think the police profiling of stoners is either a conspiracy, or perpetrated by a single person?

... many things can be gleamed... such as the fact that you are not a lawyer... and probably not very good at whatever job you do

By the immediacy with which you sink to personal insult rather than argument, it can be easily presumed that you aren't a lawyer either. If you do plan on becoming one, you would do well to remove that arrow from your quiver right away. It does not impress. But hey, your life, do what you will.

You know... a black person is more likely to be convicted and sentenced to jail for a drug crime than a white... by your logic... or as you would say "and thus"... wouldn't any randomly selected black person be more likely to be engaged in the drug trade than a white "and thus" be fair game for further scrutiny?

By the logic of profiling, absolutely. Which also proves that profiling is something done by individuals, and not as a planned conspiracy let alone one requiring top-down orders. Nor does it even require a personal animosity towards the targeted - all it requires is an assumption - which can be right or wrong - that the target is more likely to be breaking the law.

So, thank you for proving my own point, that the profiling by the IRS did not require some sort of top-down orders OR personal animosity towards Tea Partiers and other conservative anti-Tax groups to happen. : )

You do seem to have some aspect of my entire argument misconstrued. In no way am I saying this profiling was awesome, enlightened or even something that I approve of. What I was, and am, saying is that this sort of profiling was based on assumptions that I can see the IRS coming to - and, once again, assumptions that didn't require any basis either in orders from the top or animosity towards the Tea Party.

And it seems to me that the only fair AND logical position is either no groups are profiled, or any group can be profiled. So if you don't like the idea of Tea Partiers being profiled, then you need to be against Muslims being profiled too.

Here's a simpler answer: The Tea Party's initials are supposed to be "Taxed Enough Already".

What other US political group has anagrams of it's initials that mention taxes?

I eagerly await your response.

I'm not saying it was right. Once again, I'm saying that this seems to me to be profiling and not persecution. Saying something was assault and not murder doesn't mean I'm saying assault is awesome.

Oh, come on now. You really want me to go this degree, to demonstrate something I'm sure we both are reasonably sure about? OK.

Here's a list of US political parties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States

The Tea Party isn't on it, but the libertarian party and other parties are.

Here's the estimated size of people who consider themselves to be in the Tea Party, according to the Tea Party: 8.9 million people. And at least 1.7 million attended Glenn Beck's rally. So just in case the Tea Party site is inflating it's own figures, I'll split the different at say 5 million. If you have other estimates you'd prefer, then please post your own. http://teapartyorg.ning.com/page/tea-party-groups

Here's the Tea Party platform. Again, if you know other info then you post it. Note that # 1 is "eliminate excessive taxes". http://www.teaparty-platform.com/

I just looked at the pages information for each of the other parties listed. Not one has the Tea Party's 4 million members. The closest is the Libertarian party; they cast 1.7 million votes in 2012 for Gary Johnson. So, let's generously double that to 3.4 million members. They mention taxes 9th in their platform. So, they still have fewer members and less of a focus on taxes. The next largest, the Green Party, has 500,000 members and no mention of taxes. The 5th, the Constitution party, had 125,000 presidential votes. Double that to 250,000 and that's nowhere near the Tea Party's size. Now, the Constitution party does appear to have quite a focus on taxes. But they are, at their highest estimation, much less than half the Tea Party's size.

So, there you have it. My statement stands: the Tea Party is far more anti-tax than any party that is even close to their size. Which, by the way, I remain convinced you were aware of but for some reason you were attempting to deny.

If you disagree, please prove that some other group is angrier about taxes and is more driven to reduce taxes than the Tea Party, by showing a) more members and b) more virulence in their platform. Or, come up with some other way to prove me wrong.

No, that doesn't fit the analogy. It would be more like a company saying they don't believe the DMV has the right to say whether or not people can drive, and then the same company applying for a set of commercial driving licenses for a fleet, and the DMV making extra sure that they had fully documented drivers.

I.e. not a great thing for the DMV to do, but more likely as profiling than as some sort of punitive task.

Glad we can agree on something. In that case... do you support the idea of the president resigning from office over his unconstitutional NLRB appointments

I support the President resigning for any reason he wishes. : ) but if you mean, do I think he should be forced from office, no. Just as I don't think GWB should have been forced for office for his (successful) attempts to use recess appointments when he felt thwarted. Or for any of the other things that Bush tried to do, where the SCOTUS ruled against him. The SCOTUS ruled, the appointments were voided, that's that. I will say that the GOP congress is very much operating to the letter of the law and not the spirit - they are doing whatever they can to keep a legitimate government agency unstaffed and crippled because they don't like what it does, but they can't muster the votes to get rid of it. That's slimy, but that's within their rights to do.

You are free to draw that conclusion... that is not however what is being alleged (even though the Pres did in 09 joke about sic'ing the IRS on his opponents)

Ok, well that seemed to me the very clear implication of the article that I'm responding to. And judging by the many responders to my comment, both for and against, it's clear I was not alone in that interpretation. But if so, great.

1.oppress people: to systematically subject a race or group of people to cruel or unfair treatment, e.g. because of their ethnic origin or religious beliefs 2.pester somebody: to make somebody the victim of continual pestering or harassment Seems rather apt... doesn't it?

That hinges on a) whether or not you consider profiling to be intrinsically unfair, or b) whether in this case it was so extreme that it's more unfair than other profiling that you agree with. Personally I think a better case can be made for a) - which I must say I have not found to be the position of most conservatives, at least until now.

No, I disagree that the presence of profiling requires the presence of a conspiracy. A conspiracy requires secretive group planning with malicious intent, by definition. And other cases of profiling don't have this - cops all across the country don't have to get together and plan to pull over kids who look like stoners. Nor do the TSA or others have to get together and collude to be immediately suspicious of Muslims.

Please note that I'm not referring to the fairness or even the usefulness of profiling. All I'm saying is, this looks like profiling to me - and profiling is not at all dependent on conspiracy.

Oh, ok. : ) Good to know people aren't necessarily actively being dicks then.

I agree with you, and I think it's a shame you've been voted down. I do wish people wouldn't vote others down for simple stating of an opinion, with insult to none.

I'm saying that this seems clearly to me to be a case of profiling, rather than willful political persecution.

But, with that in mind, I do think that those who support profiling in all of the other cases you mention but not in this one are being hypocritical. And yes, any who support profiling in this case with the IRS but not in those other cases you mention, are being hypocritical as well.

I don't know, I'm not trying to apologize. That might be why it seems like such a weak apology - it isn't one.

It's profiling. It could even be lousy profiling. All I'm saying is that this is almost certainly not some kind of gubmint conspiracy.

That's a case of a real-world implementation that makes sense to me. It does seem that it's pretty hard to review an organization's tax-free status without knowing who they support, however. So I don't think that removing political affiliation would work.

What would probably work best is not profiling in this manner, unless there was evidence of a systemic effort on the part of a certain type of *organization* to cheat taxes. And even if so, that profiling should only apply to the organizations and not any individuals within it.

Oh, come on. The Tea Party probably helped Obama get elected. He should thank them. That endless parade of Tea Party-pandering GOP candidates was amazing to behold. It was like a reality TV show.

So, I assume you've got a list of actual tax dodging right wing political advocacy groups to back up your profiling comparison to Muslim radicals with a very real body count.

No, of course I don't. And I don't need to. Whether it's accurate or inaccurate profiling, the point is that it's still profiling. If you think the profiling is wrong, take it up with the IRS.

All I'm saying, once again, is that the IRS doing this makes much more sense as a case of profiling than as a case of willful political persecution.