Three Tune Tuesday & Tax Day Rant

Here in the US, April 15th is the deadline to file taxes with the federal government. When I was a librarian, this meant dealing with the last-minute filers as they tried to handle online forms without much computer experience, or find paper forms for them to fill out at our tables and desks. There was also some concern about people just clicking the first web search result to scam sites for "tax help."

I don't miss that part of the job.

People say, "nothing is certain except for death and taxes," but that sounds like a proverb coined by a tax collector, as does, "taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society." What is civilized about institutionalized extortion to fund a bureaucratic mess which hides behind secrecy?

https://youtu.be/gMdcE8jdz70.

People say, "but without government, who would fund education, roads, welfare, mail service, police, fire protection, and innumerable other services?" I ask in turn, if these services are necessary, why would you need to force people to pay for them? A government monopoly funded by extortion guarantees waste and abuse, not provision of necessary services.

Additionally, taxation means we are compelled to fund systems we may oppose, including the war machine turning our neighbors into cannon fodder around the world. People focus on the government projects that give warm fuzzy feelings, but ignore the police state at home and militarism abroad. The US is among the most egregious at both in spite of proclaiming itself the "land of the free."

The Left acts as if Republicans pulled their authoritarianism out of thin air while ignoring their own party's trespasses and overreaches, and vice-versa when power switches party. But the war machine rolls on, and people die, sometimes long after the conflict officially ends. That is what taxes make possible.

And how do we fix the war machine? Is it by electing new leaders? Bush campaigned on a humble foreign policy in 2000. Obama offered hope and change, and won a Nobel peace prize, but then escalated every single Bush war and opened new fronts like Libya. Trump ran on "Make America Great Again," but largely failed to end the militarism while doing plenty of his own sabre-rattling. One of his last acts was the assassination of an Iranian general in Iraq with an airstrike.

Wouldn't it be a shame of peace were to break out instead?

I don't know whether that is possible, but the war I fight isn't one of guns and bombs, it is one of ideas. I can only poke at the assumptions people have about the world we live in, and ask you to question those preconceptions.

Christians, you claim to serve the Prince of Peace. Can you truly support war for the pride and ambition of men? Christ said to "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's," but what is Caesar's? Not your soul. Not your life. Not your love. Not even necessarily the denarius with his face on it.

Replace the sophistry of political excuses with scripture and reason.

*The earth is Yahweh’s, with its fullness; the world, and those who dwell in it.*—Psalm 24:1 (WEB)

*Therefore, whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.*—Matthew 7:12 (WEB)

*Now I pray to God that you do no evil; not that we may appear approved, but that you may do that which is honorable, though we may seem to have failed.*—2 Corinthians 13:7 (WEB)

Of course, test anything I say against reason and scripture, but I remind you to also do the same with your own ideas just as vigorously as you challenge mine.