Harper's: Why I Pay My Taxes

[headexplode]

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/04/0081964

Why I pay my taxes

BYBen Metcalf

And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute?

He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers?

Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free.

–Matthew 17:24–26

I hope and intend, by the placement of this note in what I understand to be a venerable publication of record, to distance myself from those millions of Americans who find their government incompetent and cruel, and so, as a matter of course and conscience, absolutely refuse to pay it any taxes. Just how many of these protestants exist out there I cannot say with any accuracy, as I have not bothered to check, but given the heartfelt expressions of anger from so many different quarters for so many difficult years, and given the American’s well-known reputation for courage in the face of tyranny, I assume the number to be of a size by now that it will very soon bring the world’s largest federal apparatus to its knees and bind it once again to the will of a proud and furious people.

Before that happens, and I am condemned as one of the few holdout collaborators with an unpopular and, yes, murderous system, I would like to explain why it was that I paid my taxes at the start of the twenty-first century, when so many of my peers risked both fortune and freedom to make their heroic stand. In truth I can find no fault with these revolutionaries, nor is that my purpose here. Our nation was birthed, after all, by a similar protest during the late eighteenth century, wherein the inhabitants of this land found themselves tithed but unlistened to, devoid of either say or advocacy in a governance they were required by law to fund. The people did more than simply withhold their monies then: they raised up and paid for an army to go against the red-coated tax collectors sure to come, and with God on their side (and the French) they prevailed. A second try at the money, in 1812, fared the English no better and saw them sunk in New Orleans (for lagniappe, I suppose) even after the debt had been canceled and the account in perpetuity closed.

No, I would not dare speak ill of any American who today dodges a bill he finds politically ruinous or morally obscene. Nor would I look to deny him his right to dispute that bill out of everyday penury or greed: our nation owes at least as much to its hopelessness as it does to its celebrated faith. I seek only to convey why I myself have continued to offer up indulgences to an institution my fellow citizens have so bravely contrived to destroy, as I would greatly prefer to be thought a pervert in this matter than I would an outright coward.

[headexplode]

Really interesting essay, headexplode. Especially the part about goat-****ing hermaphrodites.

[Corcaigh]

Really interesting essay, headexplode. Especially the part about goat-****ing hermaphrodites.

Dear Taxpayer,

Your contribution this fiscal year was put toward the maintenance of an F-15 fighter jet, which on October 16 dropped a bomb on the town of Ramadi, in Iraq, killing, among others, Muhammed Salih Ali (age six) and Haifa Ahmed Fuad (age eight) and Saad Ahmed Fuad (age four). Little Haifa and Saad were sister and brother; you helped accomplish their deaths by a jet very similar to, if not exactly the same as, those that fly over the stadium just after the

American Idol

winner sings “and the home of the brave” at the Super Bowl.

Thank you and congratulations.

[headexplode]

Dear Taxpayer,

Your contribution this fiscal year was put toward the maintenance of an F-15 fighter jet, which on October 16 dropped a bomb on the town of Ramadi, in Iraq, killing, among others, Muhammed Salih Ali (age six) and Haifa Ahmed Fuad (age eight) and Saad Ahmed Fuad (age four). Little Haifa and Saad were sister and brother; you helped accomplish their deaths by a jet very similar to, if not exactly the same as, those that fly over the stadium just after the

American Idol

winner sings “and the home of the brave” at the Super Bowl.

Thank you and congratulations.

The last paragraph is particularly enjoyable:

Before I am dismissed here as a mere nihilist or blasphemer, I would like to point out that it is not clear what either my tax-collecting Quaker ancestor or his violent rebel son would have done in my stead. Peacefulness and taxes mix uneasily, if ever. I can say for certain only what Jesus would have done: in Matthew 17:27 Our Lord instructs Peter to

go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee.

That is to say, Jesus paid his taxes, and who knows but that this very coin was then passed up the line until it reached, by chance or by magic, the Roman hand from which it would eventually go forth to purchase the cross to which the original payer would in agony be nailed, in forgiveness of all our sins.