NUFA thinkers were in a quandary.
Is the National Union of Friendly Americans a social group for charitable purposes, eligible for tax-exempt status and able to hide donors from scrutiny?
NUFA, after all, has been the recipient of some pretty big stuff over the years and someone in the IRS may just wonder where we got the wind towers and motorized rum buckets so plentiful around NUFA headquarters. The IRS just might target NUFA and wonder if we aren’t just a little bit political, maybe a tad over 50 percent, as we point out the flaws and foolishness of the New Conservative Neanderthal Party and the Fee Party whose “Rebellion to Stay the Same” is led by all those white folks who haven’t noticed that the 1950s they believe in never did exist other than on black and white TV shows that starred white folks in nice neighborhoods.
I’m sure that the IRS would be questioning NUFA for “The Machine That Runs The World” with its thousands of moving parts, the legions of workers running the robots that push the buttons and pull the levers that keep the planet from wobbling horribly out of orbit.
At least, that’s what we tell people who ask. It is an impressive sight and the IRS would certainly over-estimate its value and NUFA claims to be a social group for charitable purposes.
The Machine That Runs The World, kept out in the shed with its miles of electric cable, blinking lights, lasers, wheels, conveyor belts, solar panels, steering wheels and turn signals, is merely a metaphysical device meant more to soothe the soul than turn the planet. It makes a lot of noise when we wind it up and let’er rip at full capacity but truth be told, it’s more a symbol of an age in time that needs such grandiose things in order to feel wanted in a larger historical perspective.
Tell that to the IRS once they’ve zeroed in on you.
“Where’d you get that thing?” an IRS agent with a narrowed eye might ask. “There are thousands of miles of conveyor belts humming at supersonic speed. Just what kind of social group for charitable purposes is this NUFA that you were able build, manage and maintain such an elaborate structure that life as we know it has come to depend on?”
To  deflect the IRS attention we’d have to stop by the The Camp Shack Meteorological and Tectonic Administration of the National Union of Friendly Americans (CSMTA-NUFA), always on the job, always busy gauging the movement of the continents in relation to the realignment of the stars toward their summer positions in the skies.
The good news, we would tell the IRS agent with narrowed eye, is that the tectonic plates are currently on schedule and we in North America should arrive at the doorstep of northern Africa in another billion years or so. Those of you who like to keep appraised of the arrivals and departures of the various continents can do so by standing in a precise location in Lake County noted by range, township, section and quarter, triangulating the position against the movement of the path of the sun’s center on the celestial sphere and dividing that number by the square root of the relevant social security number.
At some point the IRS agent with narrowed eye would ask the obvious.
“Who’s in charge of this operation?”  
With that we’d have to hide the Exalted Shack Master pretty quickly. Resplendent in his sash and cummerbund, epaulets on his shoulders, swagger in his step and wink in his condescending eye, he’s awfully difficult to hide in even the largest space. His ego and Napoleanic nature can’t be hidden from view. The IRS would see him beaming like the sun unless we shot him into a neatly trimmed sub orbital trajectory from the Chef Leinenkugel Memorial NUFA Launch Pad in the recently restored space shuttle we purchased very affordably and without dollars from hidden donors out of the NASA surplus catalog.
I’m just not sure the IRS would allow such pompous behavior to exist in a social group with charitable purposes and we’d have a heck of a time explaining the many lounges equipped with personal bartenders for all guests. We aren’t a fancy-pants organization, there are no millionaires in our midst, no corporate sponsors, but try to explain that to the IRS when they see just how happy we are to share the hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands we have at our disposal in this land of plenty, to share our NUFA-sponsored Camp Shack Health Care (“Real Cheap Care for You and Your Loved Ones”), to share guaranteed workplace protections, rights that have now been banished for over 90 percent of the working population by the overlords of capitalism.
You know, the more we think about this 501 (c) (4) application process for social groups for charitable purposes, the more it sounds like a big pain in the ass. NUFA just doesn’t need that trouble. NUFA pays everything in cash, we have no debt, need no hidden donors to fund our operations political or otherwise.