Which is worse, voting for evil, even if it is the lesser, or funding it?
Discussion
One is voluntary, the other is taken under the threat of violence. Even if one gets around paying income taxes, it is all but impossible to avoid taxes altogether. So voting is far worse IMO as it allows the continuation of the theft that funds the atrocities.
So we're choosing to fund violence toward others to avoid violence to ourselves? đŸ¤”
That's not what Im saying at all. Taxes are completely unavoidable. Literally everything is taxed. But voting can be avoided and once enough do so, the scam of government will slowly erode. As long as people keep voting, the tax collection continues unabated
I want the scam of voting to be eroded as well, but I think if we stopped funding the scam of government it would erode more quickly. When you fund it, you prop it up and support and continue it. And become a participant in it's evils:
Taxes are impossible to avoid. Everything is taxed. Literally. Every purchase, no matter what it is, is taxed. Literally. As long as government exists, there will be taxes. And as long as people keep voting, government exists.
I voted one time in my life, close to 30 yrs ago. That's a choice. But I like a roof over my head and food. And for either of those to happen, taxes get paid, hidden in the costs. That's not a choice. Taxes cannot be avoided.
I hear what you're saying, but I also think that as long as we continue to pay taxes, we remain part of the problem, and perpetuate it. People can make the choice to resist, but it comes at a cost. Just like with the COVID injections, almost no one was physically forced to get the shot. Some people were coerced and had a hard choice to make, but they could have declined it and took whatever the consequences were (loss of job, income, etc.) So long as there is mass compliance and obedience, things will continue as they do and get worse.
> "I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you **support him no longer**; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces."
>
> –Étienne de La Boétie, *Discourse on Voluntary Servitude* (1548)
And I know, people can cite scriptures that say Christians should pay taxes. That does conflict with my philosophically anarchist views and my desire not to participate in and fund evil. I still wrestle with it. Perhaps just paying taxes to keep the peace in your life is all we're asked to do. But I think the American in me also wants to resist unjust government!
Assuming you mean the 'render unto Caesar...', People who say that about Scriptures have it quite wrong. Jesus was making a point that since it was whichever Caesar's face on the coins, that he can have them. The dialogue leading up to that point is alwsys ignored by state-cuck christians who want Biblical justification for their placing government over God.
No, I think I've resolved that one in my mind, although if you're using the government's fiat currency with Washington's face on it then you have to render to Washington what is Washington's. All the more reason to transact in Bitcoin.
I'm referring to other passages like Romans 13:7 - "Pay your obligations to everyone: taxes to those you owe taxes, tolls to those you owe tolls, respect to those you owe respect, and honor to those you owe honor."
And there's an example in the Gospel where Jesus paid a tax even though He made the point that He didn't have to, just to avoid offending people, presumably thereby setting an example.
When the Jews indicted Jesus in front of the Roman governor they accused Him of opposing payment of taxes to Caesar (Luke 23:2), among other things. The question is, did they misunderstand what Jesus had said about "render unto Caesar...", or did they have it right in this case?
Does that necessarily mean taxes as we understand them today though? Or could it be maybe what perhaps a sharecropper owes the land owner? Or at least, does it really imply an income tax or similarly unavoidable one?
Here's a comment I once came across on that subject:
"Grotius observes that the Greek words here used, answer to the *tributum* and *vectigal* of the Romans; the former was the money paid for the soil and poll; the latter, the duties laid upon some sorts of merchandize."
–Jonathan Mayhew, *A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-resistance to the Higher Powers* (1750), p. 9.
'Some sort of merch' reads to me as usage taxes. Not obligatory taxes that must be paid no matter what ie income tax
Also, 'Money for soil' is very likely a sharecropper's due to landowner. If one goes back to older translations, and with ability to compare to the original texts/languages, almost all this 'tax' talk is actually fees due in private/voluntsry contracts. Back then, one could actually go live in the woods and be left alone. But some would rather have the security of paying rent (tribute) to a landowner, in one manner or another.
If you have any ideas how to avoid em Im all for it, but when income tax is taken before a person gets paid, its not really possible for people who get pay checks. Hell, I tried ignoring just a local tax bill from deductions being too low earlier in the year. Took it right out my paycheck. There is no voluntary nature to something that is taken by force. As for the covid shots, cant really compare it. Unpaid taxes come with prison or worse. Refusing the shot at worst was a job loss (which I actually went through unfortunately).