Kat's Message re: EN

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

K S SWIGART   katswig@earthlink.net

Randy Eiland said:

> I remember the ill advised debate you encouraged on ridecamp in 1998
> over the IRS required change of wording to allow AERC to be in accord
> with proper 501c3 regulations. You questioned the Board's action in
> recommending the AERC membership approve that modification of
> semantics, then when I had our Legal Council answer your comments,
> you questioned his expertise in recommending the AERC Membership vote 

Indeed, I asked for the expert opinion of a tax attorney and I was 
given the opinion of a fireman and somebody else whose qualifications 
you couldn't or wouldn't provide, and could provide me with no reason to 
believe that he understood the tax law any better than I do...and I 
don't understand it all that well (but at least I understand it well 
enough to understand that I don't understand it well enough to give 
expert opinions about it)*.

And if you will remember, this was the same election in which the Board 
of Directors also recommended that the membership approve the change in 
the By-Laws redefining Limited Distance from 25-35 miles to 0-49 
miles...and this was such a well advised action that after the 
membership passed it (by the required 2/3 super-majority), 
reconsideration after the fact put the issue on the ballot once again 
only for it to be reversed (once again by the required 2/3 super-
majority).  So, I can honestly say that THAT election wouldn't be the 
one I would choose (if I were a member of the Board of Directors) to 
demonstrate that the recommendations of the Board of Directors are well 
thought out and carefully considered, before putting them before the 
membership...and that we should all just "take their word for it."  Had 
the IRS issue been as ill-conceived as the LD issue, the legal tangle 
with implementing it and then reversing it would have a much knottier 
mess than the reversing the LD decision.  And there was no evidence 
provided at the time that the IRS issue had been any better thought out 
than the LD issue.

> to approve the IRS required change. A change, I might add, that did 
> not in any way alter the way we do business or the historic intent of 
> our founders.

And, I might add, had the change not been made, and the AERC had lost 
its 501(c)(3) status, it would probably "not in any way alter the way 
the we do business or the historic intent of our founders."

> If you had been successful in convincing the 
> membership to vote against the IRS requirements, it is very likely 
> AERC would have lost its 501c3 status.

If you go back and re-read the archives, you will note that I did not 
attempt to convince the membership to vote against the IRS requirements 
(in fact what I said was that in general it might be best to do what 
the IRS asks you to do, just as "banks generally don't do what the Bank 
of England asks them not to do" no matter what the law says).  What I 
did was to provide RideCamp with the outcome of my own research 
(because I wasn't convinced that anybody on the Board of Directors had 
done it themselves or solicited an expert opinion) and state that given 
the fact that my own research (admittedly not that of a tax attorney) 
could find no reason to vote either for or against it, _I_ was going to 
ABSTAIN!!  

It is a bit difficult make the argument that I was trying to convince 
the membership to vote against something if I, myself, stated quite 
plainly that I didn't have a strong enough opinion one way or the other 
to even cast a vote.  Which would suggest that, despite Randy's 
assertion that he "reads and take into consideration the opinions that 
are expressed," in fact, he doesn't read those opinions carefully 
enough to even understand what they actually say.

> So, while I encourage everyone to express their thoughts and I read
> and take into consideration the opinions that are expressed, at times 
> it is best to consider where those ideas are coming from.

And while I might sometimes encourage people to consider where ideas 
are coming from, most often, it is best to consider the ideas on their 
merits rather than their source.  A good idea is a good idea, no matter 
whose idea it was; and a bad idea is a bad idea, no matter whose idea 
it was.

If people think that my opinions about the _Endurance News_ are either 
good or bad ideas, they are either good or bad ideas completely 
independent of my opinion regarding the tax status of the AERC.  

It is no more appropriate to dismiss somebody's opinions about the EN 
because you didn't like their opinions about the IRS, than it would be 
appropriate to dismiss their opinions about the EN because you don't 
like their choice of toothpaste.

kat
Orange County, Calif.

*  It is interesting to me to note that a recent study by (I think) 
Cornell University found that one of the incompetencies of incompetent 
people is that rarely ever do they know that they are incompetent.  I 
can remember being in a job interview right after I got out of Business 
School, and being asked, "What would be your approach to solving a ____ 
(fill in the blank) problem?" To which I responded, "Call in an 
expert."