Wednesday, April 16, 2008

War Tax Refusal

With "Tax Day" behind us, here are a few additional resources to think about.

First is a typical statement of the Christian duty to pay taxes:

The Bible and Taxes - What Does the Bible Say About Paying Taxes?

Without denying the duty to pay taxes, Rushdoony shows there's more involved in the classic passages:

Render Unto Caesar - The Tribute Money

Recently added:

The Chalcedon Foundation - Jesus and the Tax Revolt

The Roman Empire of Jesus' day was far worse than the American Empire. The Roman Empire was an Empire of perpetual war. Its economy was fueled by international conquest. Israel was a victim of barbaric Roman war, a chosen nation under military occupation by unclean pagans. The parallel between Israel and Rome on the one hand and Iraq and the U.S. on the other couldn't be more obvious. While we live in the invading country in the U.S. War on Iraq, Jesus and His fellow Jews lived in the invaded country in the Roman War on Israel.

And Roman governors like Herod did not think twice about mass slaughter of the innocents among the people he governed when it was deemed politically expedient, or just out of pure selfish vengeance for offenses real or imagined.

Clearly, but amazingly, the New Testament does not command or justify the refusal to pay taxes to the government that is not only waging war on the innocent (like the U.S.), but is waging war against those very people who are to pay the taxes to sustain that very same war.

This is why Christians who refuse to pay taxes, while more sensitive to the immorality of war than most tax-payers, are not following Christ and the Bible:

The Christian Radical: Tax Day Letter to the Editor from Don Timmerman - former Milwaukee CW

Democracy Now! War Tax Resistance: How a Portland Couple Have Refused to Pay Taxes for Over 30 Years to Protest Military Funding

Another story of the mounting tax burden:

DownsizeDC.org Blog: The Unknown Taxpayer

A non-Christian libertarian perspective:

Positive Liberty » Why I Have Not Participated In Any Tax Evader’s Project

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