Pro-life strike (abortion boycott) mission: To purify our prayers and other pro-life efforts, and to make a concrete difference, we refuse to fund the abortion industry. We boycott corporate abortion funding, and hold back abortion taxes. We pray for life; we will not pay for death!
In the U.S. and other developed democratic nations, there exist four levels or degrees of injustice with regard to the slaughter of innocent pre-born. In my estimation, the latter levels are more troubling:
The first level is the taking of the human life. The murderer who wields the scalpel or suction tube, the mother who makes the fatal decision to hire the murderer or to use the abortifacient drug or device, the boyfriend, counselor, friend, parent or pastor who agree to and affirm the crime, are all guilty of a most grave injustice toward a fellow human being and toward their Creator.
The state is guilty of the second level of injustice. The main purpose of human government, its raison d'être, is to protect basic human rights. To deny legal protection to the most innocent and helpless humans is an injustice in its own right. There have always been murderers; only a corrupt and evil government offers them legal protection.
The state is also guilty of the third level of injustice when it compels its citizens to cooperate in the crime via taxes and mandates. This is no mere failure to protect life, but is a proactive assault upon both human life and upon human consciences. The judges and legislators and bureaucrats who enact and enforce such measures damn themselves in a most despicable way.
Finally, there is the fourth degree, an injustice perpetrated by an acquiescent citizenry. These otherwise decent people might fast and pray and protest, but as long as they willingly obey the aforementioned government measures, they are guilty of crime as well. Mandates without compliance are meaningless and harmless; the obedient citizen makes the mandates effective. Willing cooperation with evil is itself evil.
Pertaining to U.S. citizens: The sign-up page now contains a checkbox for "No ObamaCare". If you refuse to comply with the mandates of the new health care bill, you may thereby count yourself as being part of the pro-life strike.
As a follow-up to the aforementioned phone call to Congressman Obey's office, here is the text of a message just transmitted to his official web site:
Tues. March 16
Dear Mr. Obey:
As a follow-up of our March 3 phone messages to Matt Rudig, your staff person in Superior, this message is our due notice to you that we may hold you responsible for any legal ramifications of a health care mandate that passes with your support. Whether it is done under the guise of some parliamentary trick or whether it is done openly: if you support any measure that results in federal health care mandates, you may be held legally responsible for its consequences to us.
To be specific, as we hope it was made clear on March 3, we will not obey any mandate to purchase health insurance, nor to take part in a health care program or any such similar measure. All the measures proposed have amounted to tax-funded murder of the innocents and tyranny for citizens. Even if abortion mandates were not included, government health care mandates are simply unjust and tyrannical. We will not obey any such tyrannical measure. If a fine is therefore imposed, we will not pay the fine. If further legal ramifications follow, we will hold you personally responsible. The respondent in any lawsuit will be Mr. David Obey, not Congressman Obey.
We hope this is quite clear. Do as you please, but beware the consequences. This message serves as legal notice.
Heretofore, my tax resistance strategy has been within the confines of civil law. As outlined on the manifesto page, Jerry DePyper has taken the "reduced income" approach, reducing or eliminating income tax liability by reducing or eliminating my income. But as I consider the looming "health care" tyranny being pushed by Democrats even as I write, I have come to realize that the time has come to take the next step.
Since tax-funded abortion is baked into all viable versions of recent U.S. "health care" legislation proposals, it necessarily becomes grist for the pro-life strike mill.
With federally mandated coverage, legal and passive resistance now seems to be inadequate.
So today I called the local office of my congressman, David Obey (pronounced Oh-bee). After a few busy signals, I got through and talked personally with a staffer named Matt Rudig. My message was that I would refuse to obey any health care mandates, and would hold Democratic Congressman Obey responsible for any legal ramifications, if he supports it with his vote. Mr. Rudig sounded a bit surprised at the message, a declaration of intent instead of a docile plea or an outraged demand, but he took my name and address, and promised to relay the message to Obey. Well, then: Jerry DePyper is now officially on record as being a potential outlaw, and an actual law-breaker if any of these tyrannical measures pass.
I do not take lightly the decision to disobey my government. Think of St. Thomas More, who obeyed his king for as long as he could, without disobeying God. But in the end, when forced to choose his first loyalty, More declared, "I die the King's good servant, but God's first." St. Thomas, pray for us.
OK, let me make one or two more arguments while I can.
I don't listen religiously to the Glenn Beck program, and, when I do listen, don't agree with everything he says. But a couple weeks ago, he made an emphatic point that made me pick up my ears, since it relates directly to the notion that we ought not be paying for tax-funded abortion.
Trouble is, Beck doesn't seem to realize the importance of his own point.
The context of Beck's animated sermon was an on-air phone conversation with a political candidate from Texas. Beck asked this gubernatorial hopeful for her position re. the "911 truthers", those who believe that the 911 attack was an inside job, the work of people within the U.S. government. When the candidate demurred from specifically denouncing these theories, Beck reacted with suitable outrage.
Beck's arguments went like this: If this candidate really believes there to be some truth to the notion that government forces were responsible for that mass murder, then she can not credibly pretend to have any other more pressing political concerns. If our government were actually engaged in the deliberate extermination of innocent people, then that government is evil. Not mistaken. Not corrupt. Evil. And that would be a deal breaker. No other political issue would matter. Beck asked pointedly: If you believe these theories, why wouldn't you work with all diligence to expose such evil? Why would you pay another nickel in taxes to such an evil government?
Suppose you surprise a burglar one night as you enter your home. The place is ransacked, he's carting off your most precious possessions,
and when he sees you, he pulls a gun and orders you to drop to the floor. "Just do what I say," he snarls, "and no one will get hurt."
Do you obey?
Probably you do. You obey the criminal, not because you want to obey, nor because you have a duty to obey, but because you're afraid of him. He has a gun, and you don't. So you obey.
Our government has turned criminal. Our government orders us to fund the slaughter of the innocents, which is against God's Law.
Some Christians would say that we ought to obey our government out of patriotic loyalty, and that we have a moral duty to pay our taxes. But is it ever a duty to obey a criminal?
Be honest. Is it not rather that you are afraid? The government has all the power, and so you obey. Not because you want to, nor because of a duty, but because you're afraid of what they will do to you if you don't obey. Just do as they say, and no one will get hurt.
But people are already being hurt. The babies are being slaughtered, with your tax dollars. Mothers are being maimed for life. Our religious freedom and our consciences are being trampled upon.
At least a few folks should resist the criminal. Please consider joining the strike.
A few years ago, my sister spoke of a conversation she had with a young lady from Vietnam. My sister asked what it was like to live under such an oppressive government. The young lady smiled and said
something to this effect:
"O, it's not so bad, really. Our government is kind of like a big rock in the middle of the road. It's there, and we can't pretend that it's not there, but we mostly just walk around it and go about our business."
Now, isn't that a beautiful attitude? We Americans can certainly take a lesson here, and I would like to propose just such an attitude adjustment for ourselves. This may be an essential prerequisite for any tax resistance effort. Scuttle the hat-in-hand servile posture of weaklings praying for mercy. And perhaps discard as well the shrill demands of anger. Let the bureaucrats be damned if their intent is to be damned. We may and must pray for their souls, but God will sort that out. Let us be about our business, and largely just ignore the pitiful fools and their unjust taxes and expenditures. We must take care of our own business and be careful not to be found paying for the slaughter of the innocents. We must simply find ways to walk around the damned rock.
In its denial of conscientious tax resistance, the muddled legal opinion cited in the previous post contains this pivotal statement:
Otherwise, everyone who disagrees with government policies and the expenditure of public monies in furtherance of those policies would be entitled to abandon their obligation to bear their proportionate share of the national debt while continuing to receive no-cost public benefits such as Medicare.
While this reasoning is rather infantile, there is something in its logic for us to be wary of. In his entire statement, Justice Robertson never questions the no-cost public benefits; their necessity is a foregone conclusion.
From there he reasons that we ought to be humble, grateful and compliant taxpayers before such governmental largesse and beneficence. The lesson for us is this: The Socialist road - and government aid is Socialist - may lead inexorably to a deadly and tyrannical end.
For example, a frequent complaint from pro-aborts is that they don't want to be burdened with supporting more welfare babies. Better that the taxpayer pay for their murder than to pay for their expensive little lives. Given a Socialist premise, their dour pessimism and murderous sympathies contain a certain sad logic. In sharp contrast, pro-lifers want to be more generous toward both mother and child, and see the new baby as a priceless resource, not a burden. But if both camps accept without challenge that the government (i.e. taxpayers) must fund and control the expenditures, it will just be a tug-o-war over money.
Or take the recent saccharin eulogies for the late Edward Kennedy coming from the mouths and pens of Christian leaders. After all, the good Senator worked hard to open the public spigot and fill the public trough. Yes, there was his unfortunate blindness toward the pre-born, but generally, he helped poor people, and surely that is the Christian thing to do, right? It's a balancing act - some good, some not so good. But consider that government aid programs and tax-funded abortion most usually have the same champions. Perhaps this is no anomaly; perhaps it's not a balancing act at all, but two threads in the same ungodly tapestry.
The confusion for Christians may begin in equating government programs with Christian charity. Rather than the Church or individual Christians giving from their own pockets, the deep pockets of government are tapped. This is so much neater, and seems so generous. The docile Christian taxpayer can now excuse his share in tax-funded abortion by noting that his taxes also help the poor. It's the balancing act again. How neat.
When the state becomes god, it becomes Moloch.
It's also neater for the recipient of government aid, who needn't humble himself before his neighbor. In the process, he, too becomes docile toward the government, afraid to challenge the hand that gives.
Ascribing such paternalistic power to the state is not a good thing, even when the results seem to be beneficial. Looking to the state to meet our needs, we become its slave. The state becomes our master, perhaps even our god. But when the state becomes god, it becomes Moloch. Or, at best, an incompetent god. The state that feeds you will eventually exhaust its food supply and starve you. The state that provides medical care will end up taking your life. The state that cares for you will soon ask for your soul. And will you, grown wan and dependent, acquiesce?
