-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- TruthPastor wrote:
Jim Burnes wrote:
On Wed, 5 Nov 1997, Anonymous wrote:
Churches, like governments, corporations, or any other organized entity, have some wonderful people in them, doing wonderful things. The problem, as always, is what our founding fathers realized--these types of organizations/structures tend to grow and attain power which is then used for the purpose of self-sustained growth (survival). Humanity tends to evolve, while organized humanity tends to de-volve. Biped humans, walking upright, form organizations which move toward becoming quadrapeds dragging large clubs.
Ha! This is pretty interesting. Rather than the typical cypherpunk approach of eliminating such inefficient and corrupting methods as income taxation and tax exemption we are playing by their game.
Pathetic, isn't it?
Taxation and exemptions are, conceptually, no different than a tribal agreement that those who bring home the deer will share with those who guard the campsite, and that the shaman who keeps the evil spirits at bay has to do neither.
The important word in this sentence is "agreement". If the American taxpayer does not agree with how his tax money is being used, does he not have the right to demand that it be used in an appropriate way? If his demands go unanswered, does he not have the right to refuse to continue paying? If the American taxpayer does not like substandard education, abortion, weapons manufacturing, destructive environmental legislation, and so forth, why should she be forced to pay for it? The simple fact is that taxation in America has ceased to be an agreement, and has devolved into extortion with the threat of jail/forfeiture for "non-compliance".
The whole of [Orwell's] warning to society was that by systematically altering the language, you alter the things that can be discussed.
I believe that half of the disagreements on the cypherpunks list, and the vast majority of disagreements in the world in general, are the result of disputes over semantics, rather than beliefs.
If one were to break down the anti-Income Tax argument to its most basic level, it would be that the government does not have the right to extort money from its citizens to promote agendas which are destructive of the citizens' persons and property. Basic Common Sense (TM). Nerthus -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBNGHX9uFWwZe05jcJAQGj8AgAhPmUFgdrB5Wf5TYARJs7BovxFd+irLSA DlSehEMQfzergb3hsl90rW+HFxlw01CueQrkZpCKlRoHUxeoj3vimgpXBJRwjFDE ky2qhCSlFcjXEtqB6IBvPkzqd7lUK/lpv7VQzgsUrz6kS97l566sQTSILzF10mN2 NUT2CawCaU+69ZzR+oNwe6V8Yf1CWygIDYKnOiSpwRYsB6AV0kZcb5RKIYfDnNe7 FFjLsbg6L7LhQvvHHcs8CRkzjwo70sDI6kLOdUJvWPhyzuf4laam8L+tguTxrA96 2TUsMuG6Hi3WJVcUkabkx8J4D6yy3Pqep/scSgaqvwAr6VFJBh+KLg== =32Dc -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----