Terror is where you find it

If you think bin Laden is bad wait until you are forced to deal with the IRS......

The sentiment is great, the emotion is positive, the solution unworkable. Trust me I know about back taxes, huge penalties and enormous interest payments. When you pay fifteen hundred bucks towards a tax bill and over a thousand of it is penalties and interest you will be sorry you tried to buck the system in this fashion.

Throw the bums out via the vote, force our elected officals to pass real campaign finance legislation, end the corporate stranglehold on our government, but for heavens sake pay your taxes.......

by ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments) on Friday, August 17, 2007 at 7:26:10 PM
 

I will not be afraid of my government

And neither should you. Nowhere in your comment do you explore the rightness of the argument, only which parts you are afraid.

Our tax system is unconstitutional, and the way it is spent is immoral. That's all she wrote. End of story.

I've heard there are always two wolves fighting to win over the other. One is evil and one is good. The one that wins is the one you feed. If you want to fund this beastly government, go ahead. But as for me, "I (will choose) the road less traveled by, and that (will make) all the difference."

It gives me a cold *Frost* just thinking about it.

by sherry clark (28 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 68 comments) on Friday, August 17, 2007 at 9:48:50 PM
 

absolutes

Where in my response did you note fear?  What I posted suggested practicality and a warning about the future of your refusal to pay taxes. Using an epithet to respond to one who read , considered and posted a reply is simply childish and implies a shallow political grounding, in my opinion.  Also a lack of thought about what was actually posted.

Have you read "On Civil Disobedience" of late? Thoreau refused to pay his poll taxes in protest of his governments support of slavery, he languished in jail until his Aunt payed it for him. All I noted is that there are effective ways to change our political landscape and ineffective and childish ones doomed to failure. Sorry you are not sharp enough to understand such an elimentary point, and Im even sorrier that you respond to honest critique with insult.

There are those who  are useful in creating a new political landscape and then there are those like you...ahh this blogosphere.

by ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments) on Sunday, August 19, 2007 at 9:32:41 AM
 

Tax Resistance Is An Old and Honored Form of CD

I agree whole-heartedly!

War Tax resistance, since the monies usually go for humane purposes as well as waging war, should never be done, or even considered, lightly. And yes, it is true that the government can make one's life a living, burning hell if they decide to. So it is all about committment, and therefore a decision each person shoud make for themselves. If I had 3 kids and a mortgage, I might feel differently about it.

Instead I am a 58 year old woman with no children at home. I served in the U.S. Navy Hospital corps during the Vietnam war and have protested on and off down through the years. One might say that I am a rainy day activist. I have never made a career of it.

Having come of age during the 60s, I saw the nation ripped apart by Vietnam, violence in the streets, college kids blown away on their own college campuses and beaten senseless in the streets. I watched with horror as the Nixon administration came completely unraveled, revealing some of the scariest behavior by a president and his administration in history (until now, that is.).

During the 80s, there was Iran/Contra, for which no one paid any price at all, and Reagan's "secret" wars in Central America, funding death squads and the like.

Therefore, I was not surprised when the Bushites set their sights on Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and was a very broken country. When you look at the Bush administration from it's illegitimate beginnings until now, you can easily see that it is populated by the same criminals who propped up Nixon and Reagan, and those are just the ones who are in the government. There are others, outside the governnment, who are, as David Kelly said, "dark actors playing dangerous games."

By October, 2002, I knew we were heading down a path that could well destroy the country; that we were about to take actions that were not only immoral as hell, but illegal, according to international law and our own Constitution, not to mention the Nuremberg accords. I made the decision then, that I could in no way support what was about to happen. I haven't paid taxes since 2001 and I will not, for the reasons you mentioned and others. 

U.S. Taxpayers are not only paying for an illegal and immoral war, but for an administration and a congress that are dysfunctional at best and criminal at worst, they are also paying for American mercenaries, like Blackwater for example, who torture, kill and maim as they see fit and who are answerable to no one and accountable for nothing they do. Run by a fundamentalist Catholic nutjob, they are waging a modern-day crusade, nothing less.

The government can put me before a firing squad before I will pay for that.

Life really isn't about how successful people can be, how much money they can make nor how much power they can accumulate. It is far more about what we do with what we have, making hard decisions knowing full-well that those decisions may not lead to the life we had envisioned for ourselves.

Again, we are faced with those times that try our souls. This time, in our country and in the world, is not normal or ordinary. It will take Americans who see that clearly; extraordinary people of strength,  courage and peace, to reinstate Democracy in this country and stop the fascism creep, dead in it's tracks.

Fear is our very worst enemy and it will cause many to look the other way, trying to ignore their own complicity in something they know is WRONG, in every sense of that word.  Adrenalin, as a dear friend of mine once said, is stupid juice. It can also paralyze good people.

Nevertheless, I don't judge those whose fear is too great. I'm scared too. There is not much, in this old world, more terrifying than falling into the hands of one's own government.

We have called for massive civil disobedience for well over three years now, but it really has to be a well-thought-out, personal decision. It should not be impulsive. It should not be made while a person is feeling very passionate, like rage, for example. 

A committment to civil disobedience at a time like this, when many of us are mad as hell, humilitated, embarrassed, just absolutely appalled on every level, still must arise out of a sense of of peace within; a knowing deep within.

As long as the action proposed is not violent, I'm there. 

"I hope, someday, you will join us...... "

http://independentsunbound.blogspot.com

by wintefire6 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 88 comments) on Saturday, August 18, 2007 at 6:55:41 AM
 

Aluminium covered hats time

As I have commented before the  first victim and perhaps the greatest in the 911 tragedy is/was perspective. Truth just gets left at home.

911 if we are to believe the hype was a categoric disaster comparable to the Holocaust or even the tragedy that is Dafur, Congo et al. At 4k people it wasn't so why the hysterics. Two reasons

one- It was a slap in the eye of  American pride. America may think it's the greatest most powerful nation in the world  but embassy Hostages in Iran, The US inability to  solve the Israel/ Palestinian problem, 911 and now Iraq reality should be sinking in by now. Remember Vietnam which has been fought in the movies for 30 years. Focus now has been to portray battles where American Pride is restored. Not many show the true or why it was a defeat. This doesnot  disparage the honour and baveryof most soldiers.

Two- Big or little powerful or not the world has moved on and terms like the most powerful nation on earth no longer mean what it did. Now the power is with the corporations $s. It's time that everyone awoke to the  new reality. Holding back tax or even the personalities infesting the White house are irrelevant. The US brittle pride is its weakness. A wise man once said "patiotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" . Which means that if someview can't stand on its own  without the weight of nationalism, National security secrets it's probably bogus and hiding a more self centred motive...POWER. Don't underestimate the seduction of power to these types. Money is the measuring stick.

by Andris (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 532 comments) on Sunday, August 19, 2007 at 1:12:54 AM