Dispatches from the Creation Wars

Why Hovind is Going to Jail

Posted by Ed Brayton on July 22, 2006
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Because of breathtaking logic like this:

The grand jury alleges Hovind failed to pay nearly half-a-million dollars in federal income, Social Security, and Medicare taxes on his employees at his Creation Science Evangelism ministry in Pensacola. Hovind, who is known as “Dr. Dino,” says even though the 30 people who work for him are paid in cash, he is not a tax protestor and is not violating any laws.

“Nobody’s an employee, and they all know that when they come. They come, they work,” Hovind offers as an explanation. “The laborer is worthy of his hire — we try to take the purely scriptural approach. We do the best we can with helping people with their family needs. There are no employees here.”

They come, they work, we pay them. But they’re not employees. Of course, it’s difficult to explain how he pays them, since he claims to have no money. Maybe Jesus does it for him when he’s not looking. What a fraud.

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Comments

  1. #1 Roger Victoria
    July 22, 2006

    I seem to remember a biblical passage about Jesus sending his disciples to catch a fish and that fish having the coins with which to pay the temple tax. Perhaps, just perhaps, Hovind is expecting that sort of biblical event to come to pass in his life?

  2. #2 Jeff Rients
    July 22, 2006

    In my employment as a credit collector I sometimes speak to my co-worker about how many of our customers can be fitted on a spectrum between the extremes of Stupid and Con-Artist. Some folks are trying to get away with not paying, and are at the Con-Artist end of the spectrum. Some folks are unable to manage their finances and tend toward the Stupid end. Most of the customers I deal with are somewhere inbetween, where they are attempting to use the trickery of a Con-Artist to escape the problems brought on by their own Stupidity.

    But this Hovind guy forces me to rethink my model. I suspect I need to add a third parameter, Crazy. Clearly he’s not interacting with the same universe as I am, but those parts of his brain that do function are pulling overtime to try and maneuver himself out of this mess. Until now I have lumped the insane in with the Stupid, but Mr. Hovind makes it clear that I am being unkind to Stupid people to do so.

  3. #3 Kev
    July 22, 2006

    An entertaining writeup on a visit to Hovind’s ‘theme park’ appeared in the Nov 2004 Skeptical Enquirer:
    http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-11/hovind.html

  4. #4 Gerry L
    July 22, 2006

    Jeff,
    I don’t know that you need to rethink your spectrum. Hovind, IMO, is at the far Con-Artist end — but he thinks everyone else is Stupid. The downfall of many people is that they believe they are smarter than they are.

  5. #5 goddogtired
    July 22, 2006

    Hovind is one of the rare people, and I can only think of members of the Bu–sh– junta that are in the same catagory, that I believe should (and even wish to see), openly and fairly, crushed into dust. If ONLY he were as crazy as he pretends!

  6. #6 Matthew
    July 22, 2006

    I think he’s right; his system sounds more like third world day-labor (paid in cash, have to take care of taxes yourself, no guarantee of future work) than employment. I bet Jesus is proud.

  7. #7 wamba
    July 22, 2006

    Anyone else notice that the article on Agape Press doesn’t offer even a token contrary opinion to Hovind?