Our country, founded on the principles of liberty and independence, is no longer our country, but instead has been hijacked by a group of con men who play politicians, bankers and businessmen who trample over our civil liberties and sell our independence to the highest bidder, both foreign or domestic. Today, corporations, not the people, write our laws and leave the needs of the nation to waste while money is spent for bombs and bullets and concentration camps. During the Bush years, the elections were stolen wantonly and openly and the mainstream media helped facilitate the fraud. During those years, Americans have seen their retirements funds stolen, the nation's treasure pillaged, their jobs outsourced, their infrustructure dismantled, and their country plunged into a never-ending war crafted by Machiavellian-Neocon minds controlling the White House.
Today, under the Obama administration, it looks like Americans will get no respite as the people controlling Obama have more piracy in mind and have gone at it in earnest with never ending taxpayer bailouts of financial institutions and banks. Congress, beholden to these same interests, have shirked their duties to represent the people and have colluded with the hijackers by passing unconstitutional laws like the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, the John Warren Defense Appropriation Act, and countless others laws that will further erode our liberties and freedoms.
Isn't tax resistance the least we could do in light of all these injustices? When do we start expressing outrage (as well as freedom and bravery) by stopping the blood money spigot which is financing this rogue state? Just when do we decide to pull the plug on this illegal war that we were lied into and that has already killed over a million people? Just when do we stop paying our legislators who are actively working to destroy the U.S. Constitution? Just when do we stop funneling our tax dollars to be used to build concentration camps here in the United States for our own enslavement? Just when do we stop aiding and abetting torture?
At what point do we say enough is enough!?
These are the moral arguments to not pay federal taxes, but, for those of you who are worried that you are breaking the law by not paying the feds, rest assured that the very law itself says that you have no legal obligation to pay if you know that these taxes will be spent in the commission of a crime.
For instance, if you know that the government is breaking domestic and international law, and we have ample proof that they are, see: "Summary of International and U.S. Law Prohibiting Torture and Other Ill-treatment of Persons in Custody"; "US War Crimes During the Gulf War," by Francis Boyle ; "A Chronology of US War Crimes & Torture, 1975-2005" it is incumbent upon you to resist these crimes by refusing to finance them because, according to U.S. law, if you don't, you will be considered criminal liability and subject to prosecution.
According to our legal system when a person kills someone in the process of committing a crime, his accomplice (who wasn't directly involved in the killing) would be just as guilty as his partner who pulled the trigger. It doesn't matter that the accomplice didn't actually do the killing or that he might have objected to the use of such violence, to the U.S. legal system he is just as liable for murder as his partner and would be charged with 1st or 2nd degree murder.
Here is the definition of an "accomplice" in the legal dictionary:
"One who knowingly, voluntarily, and with common intent unites with the principal offender in the commission of a crime. One who is in some way concerned or associated in commission of crime; partaker of guilt; one who aids or assists, or is an Accessory. One who is guilty of complicity in crime charged, either by being present and aiding or abetting in it, or having advised and encouraged it, though absent from place when it was committed, though mere presence, Acquiescence, or silence, in the absence of a duty to act, is not enough, no matter how reprehensible it may be, to constitute one an accomplice. One is liable as an accomplice to the crime of another if he or she gave assistance or encouragement or failed to perform a legal duty to prevent it with the intent thereby to promote or facilitate commission of the crime."I don't think it gets anymore explicit than that. The law is unambiguous: If you knowingly give assistance, or encouragement, or failed to perform a legal duty to prevent the commission of a crime, you are liable as an accomplice to that crime. So, when we send Federal taxes off to the state, and and we know the money will be used on an illegal war, and to pay torturers, and to destroy our Constitution, we are breaking the law and can be held accountable.
-- The Legal Dictionary
Once again, the law is unambiguous, you would be breaking the law by being an accomplice to a crime by paying your federal taxes.
Now, many tax resisters are using various constituional arguments to not pay taxes. Some use the excuse that the 16th Amendment was never ratified, therefore, it is null and void; others say that tax laws only stipulate paying taxes made on certain profits, but not on income derived from labor. There may be some validity to these arguments, but I believe that we need to take a moral stance similar to what Henry David Thoreau would have advocated in "Civil Disobedience." It's one thing to say that taxes are wrong because it wasn't codified, or was misused in a legal document, and another to say that taxes are wrong because they are being used to commit morally reprehensible and illegal acts.
The added bonus to this moral/legal argument is that it is unimpeachable in its logic: One doesn't have to be a tax law/Constitution scholar to argue the "accomplice to a crime" defense.
Please obey the law and refuse to be an accomplice to a crime. Stop paying your federal taxes.
Also see: National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee and WAR TAX RESISTANCE GROWS and www.warresisters.org (click on the pie chart to see how much of you tax dollar goes to war. War Tax Resisters league estimates 80%)
