"This man is one of the most honorable men of character," said Robert Wall, CEO and president of World Black Belt, a martial arts training firm.

Another witness described how [the man] had helped train personnel from 33 airlines on safety techniques after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, without seeking pay or media attention.

In 1999 an armed gang began demanding payment from a man in a fashion similar to the mafia. While not stated implicitly, the message was clear. Pay up or bad things will happen to you. Being a man of honor he refused to pay. In 2006 this armed gang decided enough was enough. They claimed that by living in their territory, the man had accruded a debt of roughly $15 million dollars, money that (in the hands of the gang) would be used to fund the slaughter of foreigners, train assassins, invade the privacy of innocent people and sustain a regime of brainwashing and intimidation.

Despite the man's offerings of $5 million dollars and pleas to "have mercy", the gang reacted.

[This] should send a loud and crystal clear message to all [..] defiers that if they engage in similar [...] conduct, they face joining him, said Nathan Hochman, a spokesman for the gang. There's no secret formula, he went on to say. Pay up in a timely manner of face their reaction.

***

It plays like a Hollywood movie and conjurs up images of smoky speakeasies and men with bad accents. Men concerned with the fear that the public has seen someone "get away with it".

But the sad, disgusting reality is that this scene didn't take place in a movie that one could get up and walk away from if they found it distasteful. This scene happend in a federal courtroom.

Wesley Snipes, a world-reknowned actor who stared in films such as "Murder at 1600" and the Blade trilogy, was sentenced to 3 years in prison today for refusal to pay taxes. Taxes which would go to fund the war in Iraq, wiretapping of American subjects and the "War on Drugs" which uses violence against people who set plants on fire.

The fact that the gang call themselves "the government" matters very little in the end. The threats, the violence and the intimidation are VERY real. Pay up, or suffer our wrath. The fact that they call their bribe money "taxes" matters little, for a man who harmed nobody will spend the next three years deprived of his livelyhood and seperated (by fear of being shot) from his family.

A crowd stood by as Mr. Snipes exited the court room and said "Wow!" but this crowd was not enough to change the situation. Letters from some of the nations social elite made recommendations to the court for leniency but the only think in the minds of the government thugs was the impression their actions would make on the populace.

On you.

What impression WILL it make? Will you sit by and doublethink this action away, calling the man a "criminal" for refusing to pay blood money? Will you quietly reflect on the fact that 'it wasn't me" and move on?

Will you take a stand and say "This isn't right!". Will you add your voice to that crowd, and do exactly what those goons feared?

Will you say 'You have no authority over me!"?