Co-Dependency and The American Taxpayer

Americans, according to the IRS, are some of the most compliant people in the world when it comes to paying taxes. According to a 2008 Gallup survey sponsored by the IRS Oversight Board, "72 percent of citizens said they 'completely agree' that it is every American’s civic duty to pay their fair share of taxes, and 89 percent – the most ever – said it is “not at all” acceptable to cheat even a little. The most recent IRS review of compliance found that, in tax year 2001, an estimated 86 percent of taxes owed were collected." When it comes to taxes, more Americans than ever say, ‘Pay up’, The Christian Science Monitor

What an amazing finding. Americans, beaten, robbed, raped and lied to, still feel that it is their civic duty to pay for their fair share of the abuse, and that to cheat in funding that abuse would be totally unacceptable to their sense of fairness. If this doesn't sound like a dangerous co-dependency situation, I don't know what would.

To verify this diagnosis, let's see what Wikipedia has to say about co-dependency:

"The co-dependent is a person who perpetuates the alcohol or drug dependence of someone close to them in a way that hampers recovery. This can be done through direct control over the dependent or by making excuses for their dysfunctional behavior or relieving them of the consequences of the dependence. In an act called enabling, this can have negative social and health consequences for both parties."

If we just substitute the phrase "who perpetuates the alcohol or drug dependence" with "who pays taxes" I think we can be sure that we found the source of our national psychosis.

Today, this co-dependency has taken off to stratospheric heights as American's are making excuses for the massive debt spending that Obama and his Goldmen Sach's financial advisors are proposing. Today, they believe that America can spend itself to salvation, a sentiment that has long been contrarian to good-'ol fashioned economic conservation, and common sense.

Because of this willingness to enable and make excuses for bad government policy, we see the continuation of the spurious War on Terror and its destruction to Iraqi, Afghani, and American's psychological and physical well-being; the increasing militarization of the state based on the Great Lie of the century – 9/11 (which most Americans are loathe to contemplate); the rigging of the financial system leading to the inevitable bailout of the banks; and, the allowance of a preposterously high federal deficit, that if not forgiven through jubilee or the "odious debt" doctrine, will surely enslave ourselves and our children's children for perpetuity. Does paying for this sound sane to you?

Sanity, however, is a relative state of mind for those who can justify the follies and foibles of the failed state; they will call you irresponsible and crazy when you mention your intent to not pay taxes to finance these delusional fantasies and crimes. Alas, you will be labeled a bad citizen and blamed for the sorry condition of the state because of your unwillingness to pay to play. You are deemed a pariah to their ordered state of mind. Shame on you.

This indignation by the obedient taxpayer gets more pronounced when the crime of tax evasion is committed by the people who want to be their shepherds, people like Timothy Geithner, Tom Daschle, and Nancy Killefer – Obama's cabinet picks for Treasury Secretary, Health and Social Services Secretary and Office of Management and Budget. The taxpayer asks, "Why should the political elite get to play by a different set of rules than I? And, why are these powerful people only called out when they are running for office and it's politically expedient for them to do so." Life is unfair and they plead for the IRS to go after these fraudsters in a vain attempt restore their abiding sense of American propriety.

The problem is, the American state has never been about fairness, no matter how flowery or egalitarian the language of our founding documents. When Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal," he meant all white, land-owning men, not his hundreds of slaves, or his concubine, Sally Hemings.

Today the American people, like Sally Hemings, are captive to a system that takes from them their labor, their pride, and their freedom. However, that captivity has always been reinforced in their minds. When Hemings had a chance to escape her bondage and live as free person in France, she concluded that living the life as a pampered slave was better than having to fend for herself in a new land, with a new culture, and new system of government. Her conscious probably tugged at her some, but just like the taxpayer today, her co-dependency on her master's largesse, and society's acceptance of the flawed, unjust system, enabled the system to survive much longer than it should have.

Today, the flogging and the chains may be gone, but in essence the American people are still slaves. How can they call themselves anything but? They obediently send their kids off to kill and subdue other people in countries that they know nothing about; they willingly pay for the phosphorus and cluster bombs that burn and dismember Palestinian and Iraqi kids; they submit to their and their children's debt bondage by playing the rigging of the system deficit/credit game. The chains on their minds are still there.

Americans need serious help if they want to kick the codependency habit. They will need to cut the umbilical cord and learn to walk, talk, and think on their own if they are going to rid themselves of this destructive problem. Some of the things they must to to do so is get rid of the debt-interest-based financial system that is enslaving them. They need to demand a substantial cut in the military budget that now exceeds 50 percent of tax expenditures, and, most importantly, they have to demand a real independent 9/11 Truth commission to look into the crime of 9/11 (and prosecute those responsible). This is unarguably the most important issue of our time. This is the fulcrum issue of the War on Terror, which is still brought up by the politicos and pundits as the reason we are in Afghanistan and Iraq. We need to remind ourselves that Obama is still fighting this war based on this event. Without examining and holding accountable those involved we are never going to fix this dysfunctional state and our codependent nature.

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Art above by Sudden Impact Studios

Tax Resistance - The Moral and Legal Defense

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."

-- The Legal Dictionary

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.

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%)