In this FAQ, you will read many decisions of judges who refer to the views of tax protesters as "frivolous," "ridiculous," "absurd," "preposterous," or "gibberish." If you don't read a lot of judicial opinions, you may not understand the full weight of what it means when a judge calls an argument "frivolous" or "ridiculous." Perhaps an analogy will help explain the attitude of judges.
Imagine a group of professional scientists who have met to discuss important issues of physics and chemistry, and then someone comes into their meeting and challenges them to prove that the earth revolves around the sun. At first, they might be unable to believe that the challenger is serious. Eventually, they might be polite enough to explain the observations and calculations which lead inevitably to the conclusion that the earth does indeed revolve around the sun. Suppose the challenger is not convinced, but insists that there is actually no evidence that the earth revolves around the sun, and that all of the calculations of the scientists are deliberately misleading. At that point, they will be jaw-droppingly astounded, and will no longer be polite, but will evict the challenger/lunatic from their meeting because he is wasting their time.
That is the way judges view tax protesters. At first, they try to be civil and treat the claims as seriously as they can. However, after dismissing case after case with the same insane claims, sometimes by the same litigant, judges start pulling out the dictionary to see how many synonyms they can find for "absurd."
The frustration of judges is well described in the following opinion of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, responding to an appeal raising some of the ridiculous constitutional claims described in this FAQ:
"We are sensitive to the need for the courts to remain open to all who seek in good faith to invoke the protection of law. An appeal that lacks merit is not always--or often--frivolous. However we are not obliged to suffer in silence the filing of baseless, insupportable appeals presenting no colorable claims of error and designed only to delay, obstruct, or incapacitate the operations of the courts or any other governmental authority. Crain's present appeal is of this sort. It is a hodgepodge of unsupported assertions, irrelevant platitudes, and leglistic gibberish. The government should not have been put to the trouble of responding to such spurious arguments, nor this court to the trouble of 'adjudicating' this meritless appeal." Crain v. Commissioner, 737 F.2d 1417, 1418 (5th Cir. 1984).
The court not only ruled against Crain, but imposed a damage award against him (essentially a fine) of $2,000 for bringing a frivolous appeal. Id at 1418.
So, when a judge calls an argument "ridiculous" or "frivolous," it is absolutely the worst thing the judge could say. It means that the person arguing the case has absolutely no idea of what he is doing, and has completely wasted everyone's time. It doesn't mean that the case wasn't well argued, or that judge simply decided for the other side, it means that there was no other side.. The argument was absolutely, positively, incompetent. The judge is not telling you that you that you were "wrong." The judge is telling you that you are out of your mind.
http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html#purpose
