What if 50 million Pro-Lifers stopped paying income taxes simultaneously?

[Bartolome_Casas]

How on earth could the government arrest, prosecute and imprison all 50 million of us?

The Catholic Church has approved of non-violent civil disobedience at times, for example during the Solidarity movement actions in Communist Poland, and during some Civil Rights actions in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s. Catholic priests and nuns were arrested for trespassing and disobeying police orders. In ancient Roman times, early Christians refused to obey certain Roman laws and were tortured and killed by the government.

Wouldn’t such a mass action wake up America, and shake things up. Are we going to just wait 500 years for abortion to eventually be made illegal? Considering the gravity of what abortion is, and how many are occuring every year, shouldn’t we be doing something (nonviolent) that is likely to change the status quo?

 

[Nate13]

How on earth could the government arrest, prosecute and imprison all 50 million of us?

The Catholic Church has approved of non-violent civil disobedience at times, for example during the Solidarity movement actions in Communist Poland, and during some Civil Rights actions in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s. Catholic priests and nuns were arrested for trespassing and disobeying police orders. In ancient Roman times, early Christians refused to obey certain Roman laws and were tortured and killed by the government.

Wouldn’t such a mass action wake up America, and shake things up. Are we going to just wait 500 years for abortion to eventually be made illegal? Considering the gravity of what abortion is, and how many are occuring every year, shouldn’t we be doing something (nonviolent) that is likely to change the status quo?

It would set a dangerous precedent that the government could not allow. Imagine every special interest group with a sizable following doing the same thing. Refusing to pay income taxes is not a non-violent solution. It would result in a lot of violence.

 

[DihydrogenOxide]

It would set a dangerous precedent that the government could not allow. Imagine every special interest group with a sizable following doing the same thing. Refusing to pay income taxes is not a non-violent solution. It would result in a lot of violence.

That’s not true. It’s a boycott.

Anyway, I’d never want anything to do with paying for someone else’s abortion, just because “I want to be nonviolent”. There’s a point where you have to draw the line. Those that don’t either don’t really believe what they say they believe or they are cowards.

 

[trickster]

What if we were not only to stop paying taxes, but defer the money into a central account that would provide socio-economic support for women and families keeping their children?
|
Bruce

 

[cerad2]

Aren’t we forgetting the Jesus himself said to pay Caesar whatever he wants? And we all know that the IRS is always careful to have at least one employee named Caesar. Not paying taxes would be blasphemy.

 

[Ridgerunner]

What if we were not only to stop paying taxes, but defer the money into a central account that would provide socio-economic support for women and families keeping their children?
|
Bruce

A wealthy guy I know suggested almost the same thing. If even 8 million wealthy people donated their incomes to charity for one year, the government would be helpless to do anything about it and would be on its knees financially. He pays his taxes like a slot machine, but is very prolife (Evangelical) and was as serious as he could be. He had it all figured out, right down to the amount of the shortfall.

 

[Allegra]

I would say this is directly violent, but I imagine that it could cause many deaths. Tax dollars seem to be feeding alot of people these days as well as providing medical care. Hundreds of thousands of people are employed on tax dollars and it would certainly cause even more poverty for them all to lose their jobs at once. Who knows how many children would die of hunger, sickness, and the free-for all that would insue when the police departments and courtrooms shut down?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Aren’t we forgetting the Jesus himself said to pay Caesar whatever he wants? And we all know that the IRS is always careful to have at least one employee named Caesar. Not paying taxes would be blasphemy.

I don’t recall Jesus saying we should support Caesar’s efforts to promote abortion (which Caesar wasn’t, anyway). Besides, Jesus also encouraged giving to charity, and our own Caesars have made it easy to favor charity over Caesar, and legally.

I suspect Caesar has thought some about that potential, which is why he is proposing to cut off charitable deductions. Can’t trust that Caesar.

 

[Allegra]

If you donate enough money to charity, you may not have to pay taxes anyway!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I would say this is directly violent, but I imagine that it could cause many deaths. Tax dollars seem to be feeding alot of people these days as well as providing medical care. Hundreds of thousands of people are employed on tax dollars and it would certainly cause even more poverty for them all to lose their jobs at once. Who knows how many children would die of hunger, sickness, and the free-for all that would insue when the police departments and courtrooms shut down?

Of course, if the government knew exactly what the objectionable expenditures were, then that wouldn’t happen, would it, unless Caesar is a whole lot more cruel that even he seems to be. But one has to realize that if my friend’s 8 million rich people donated to charity, there would be a lot of it to pass around to the poor the unemployed, the children, etc by the various charities.

Imagine for a minute what an infusion of even a billion dollars would do for Catholic Charities. What about 100 billion? Does anybody really believe charitable organizations would do a worse job with it than the government does?

 

[Ridgerunner]

If you donate enough money to charity, you may not have to pay taxes anyway!

Exactly my friend’s point, though he favored one year’s total income for a dramatic effect all of a sudden. Sometimes it seems we’re all so stupid. No, it isn’t a dollar-for-dollar thing. You donate $100, you only get to deduct that percentage of it that is your highest rate. But still, if you did it enough, you could minimize or eliminate your tax. But we pay governments our earnings for nearly half a year and think somehow we’re doing okay because we can buy a few trinkets with what’s left over after taxes and our real needs. So we live with it, and the government people buy votes and luxuries for themselves with our money, and the charities go begging, and the trinket money goes to places like China.

One would think we could think our worlds out better than that. One truly would. Maybe we couldn’t do it all at once. Maybe it would take years for us to become big donors and small taxpayers. But we could get it done. It’s the trinkets that keep us in harness and that keep charities strapped. We whine a lot about our incomes, but we buy the trinkets anyway.

 

[Hokomai]

In fact, a very small percentage of anti-abortionists feel this strongly about the issue, and you would get nowhere near your 50 million. Some people are pro-life, but do not see the issue as particularly important. You would also have problems in determining at what point you would start paying taxes again. some pro-life people would not start again until the morning after pill, IUDs and oral contraceptives in general were banned. Others would be happy to pay for abortions in the case of rape. The fact is that the pro-life movement is not cohesive, or coherent in its demands. The conservative Catholic position represents an extreme at one end of the pro-life spectrum.

 

[George_Stegmeir]

How on earth could the government arrest, prosecute and imprison all 50 million of us?

The Catholic Church has approved of non-violent civil disobedience at times, for example during the Solidarity movement actions in Communist Poland, and during some Civil Rights actions in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s. Catholic priests and nuns were arrested for trespassing and disobeying police orders. In ancient Roman times, early Christians refused to obey certain Roman laws and were tortured and killed by the government.

Wouldn’t such a mass action wake up America, and shake things up. Are we going to just wait 500 years for abortion to eventually be made illegal? Considering the gravity of what abortion is, and how many are occuring every year, shouldn’t we be doing something (nonviolent) that is likely to change the status quo?

The courts would get clogged, people would lose their homes, Holy Mother Church would lose its tax exempt status and lawyers would get rich.
Think again-Nevah Hoppen. If it did, the secularists would see to it that they would end up owning everything that the Church and its members have. Anyway, not to worry, contemporary Catholics are not that unified or gutsy to even try.

 

[Khalid]

The country would go bankrupt and hundreds of thousands or millions of people who rely on government assistance for food and housing would end up homeless and/or die (causing more additional unnecessary suffering and death), while the government used the last of its borrowed money - and tried to borrow more - to insist on a “woman’s reproductive liberty” to “keep your laws off her body” (and homosexual marriage). I imagine the President would stop paying the troops before he’d let a woman in poverty carry a child to term if she didn’t feel like it.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The courts would get clogged, people would lose their homes, Holy Mother Church would lose its tax exempt status and lawyers would get rich.
Think again-Nevah Hoppen. If it did, the secularists would see to it that they would end up owning everything that the Church and its members have. Anyway, not to worry, contemporary Catholics are not that unified or gutsy to even try.

You might be right. Perhaps “Atlas” is incapable or afraid of shrugging. Maybe so. But it isn’t a certitude. After all, the small business people who won’t hire and won’t invest…that’s a shrug of a sort. At a point, people simply do things they would prefer not to do because the alternative or the fear of it is just so much worse.

 

[Jaypeeto4]

Jesus never said to give Caesar “whatever he wants.”
Be careful how we word things. Hitler was Germany’s Caesar and he “wanted”
the German citizens to help him murder all the Jews, and many of them in fact
did help him. And, sad to say, Christian, including Catholic, resistance to Hitler
was limp and absolutely nonviolent, and look what ended up happening.
In other countries during the Nazi years, the pro-Nazi forces appealed to the Catholic people’s fierce nationalism to get even large populations of Catholics to support, or at least not fight against, horrifically murderous regimes (such as Catholic Croatia’s
diabolically murderous Ustashi Regime under the Poglovnik, Ante Pavelic).
Do you really think we could get 50 MILLION proLifers to stop paying taxes, or even get 50 MILLION alleged ProLifers to do ANYTHING at ALL???
If there are 50 MILLION prolifers, WHY isn’t the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) absolutely AWASH in money from $25 annual donations from the 50 MILLION proLifers?
The truth is, people SAY they are proLife, but don’t care when push comes to shove. I am poor and went into credit card debt giving large donations to National Right to Life and other proLife groups. Then I learned that they take in far less than 25 million dollars a year for their vital work. Now lets see, I often gave them HUNDREDS of dollars a year, so did quite a few of their other supporters. Now, taking away all of us who gave them hundreds per year, let’s break down that $25 million annual take by NRLC by 50 MILLION alleged ProLifers. That means that the average ProLifer contributed about 50 cents to the NRLC, the nation’s largest proLife group. Judie Brown’s American Life League takes in much less than that. So the average proLifer, out of 50 MILLION of them, gives about less than 75 cents a year to the ProLife movement.
You call that commitment? I sure as heck don’t.
I can’t afford to support NRLC anymore with anything more than a $25 annual donation.
No more hundreds of bucks a year from me, for I am way too poor for that.
Saving this country from abortion can’t be placed on the backs of a handful of proLifers who are willing to spend their life savings, and go deep into debt, to support a cause that MOST alleged prolifers won’t even give $1.00 a year to support.
It is absolutely disgusting and very, very disheartening.
Get 50 Million proLifers to stop paying income tax? Fat chance.
First of all, that’s not the answer, but EVEN IF it WAS, most would never commit.
They won’t even give NRLC and ALL a total of ONE BUCK a YEAR, what makes you think they would do something like a National Boycott???
Heck you can’t even get 50 million Christians to STOP VOTING for PRO-ABORTS.
Even RELIGIOUS Catholics will come online and attempt to justify their deliberate voting for proAbortion politicians. It makes me want to vomit.
So I just offer a few hail Mary’s for the proLife cause, or a Rosary, and send $25 bucks a year, and hope that God will stir up enough people to HELP do the rest.
I, myself, and the others who gave GOBS of money to this cause, and basically bankrupted ourselves to help it, cannot continue to do so anymore, especially since MOST proLifers won’t lift a financial FINGER to help out.
And I am not wrong about this. A $25 million annual take means less than 50 CENTS a year on average from each proLifer. For such an IMPORTANT cause, this is almost obscene.
Sorry if I sound bitter, but I am. If people DON’T want to help financially, they shouldn’t call themselves Pro-Lifers (unless they are really poor and can’t afford to give 25 bucks annually each, but we all know that in America that is not True at all of the majority of professed ProLifers). This is a very well off country, even WITH the current recession.

 

[Ancient1]

This is bigger than a pro-life issue. It’s a freedom issue. Why go by half-measures of a failed system? Repeal the 16th Amendment entirely! Then we will all have much more discretionary income to put to whatever we like: charities, causes, inventions, new business, education. Get the government out of being a Nanny State, and don’t start whining about the poor. With the alleviation of the unjust (and originally declared unconstitutional) tax burden, we will have the more liquid economy and the greater financial choice to help others and to help our own families as well.

 

[Jaypeeto4]

**It’s a freedom issue. **

Yes, in a way it is.
I don’t agree with your call to abolish income tax, even if it was originally unconstitutional. I don’t worship the Constitution (some Mormons DO claim it is directly Inspired of God, though), I worship Jesus Christ.
Sorry, but people in general are NOT really generous to the poor and needy.
Some ARE, true enough, but MANY, a GREAT MANY, unfortunately, are NOT.
At church our weekly take averages less than $4.00 per parishoner.
We are NOT a POOR parish. This is unconscionable. People won’t even support their parish. Most drop a buck in the plate, then drive off after Mass in their LEXUS to a nice expensive Sunday brunch. I’m not judging motives, I am merely observing. This is happening. A buck to the House of God, and $40 or more for brunch at Roasters and Toasters. Priorities???
And the “poor boxes” of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society? Your lucky if they take in a few bucks a week from a parish of over 2000 members. With Cadillacs, LEXUS’s, Lincoln Town Cars, etc.
The Saint Vincent de Paul Society sometimes publishes it’s annual intake, from a country with 67 million mostly middle class Catholics. You would be appalled at how low their donations are, and we can’t blame it on the fact that people pay income taxes, either.
People, in general, just DON’T GIVE, or even give very much. And, sad to say, the more they make, the less they give IN PROPORTION to their income. Jesus observed this of the well-to-do when they would come to make their numerically-large, but PROPORTIONATELY SMALL, donations to the Temple. So he praised the poor widow instead, who put in her last two copper coins that she had to live on. They gave, PROPORTIONATELY, a LITTLE, out of their SURPLUS. HER gift, by contrast, was a REAL SACRIFICE. Unfortunately, most of us aren’t willing to make real financial sacrifices. Some CAN’T, and that’s absolutely understandable and no shame at all.
But MANY who CAN, simply don’t or won’t.
So we have to have, despite it’s ineffiency (and I agree with you about that inefficiency), government programs to help the needy, and that requires TAXES unfortunately.
We also have to have NATIONAL DEFENSE and INFRASTRUCTURE, and those things also require taxes. LOTS of them. Therefore, though it would be LOVELY to not have to pay any income or sales taxes, it would not be REALISTIC to do away with such things, and nor would it be truly wise. I wish we COULD, but we can’t.
God bless you.

 

[Jaypeeto4]

re: IT’s A FREEDOM ISSUE.
Forgive me, stupid me, I went off on a tangent again and didn’t address the above comment you made. It IS a feedom issue in so many ways.
Because there are way too many of the WRONG freedoms in this country.
Freedom to corrupt the minds of the young.
Freedom to corrupt the morals of everybody by filth on regular and cable tv, and
porn on the internet and some cable channels.
Freedom to openly blaspheme God and all that is holy.
But no freedom to block the entrance to a killing clinic. THAT can get a person
thrown in the slammer.
This is so very, very sad.

 

[Speedypizza]

50 MILLION I myself would be very impressed if you could get 1 million people to go along with your plan. There is one large thing you don’t seem to realize… In America there are on paper 68.5 million Catholics. However lets consider that less then 1 in 4 even show up to mass every week. Out of those who show up every week, How many of them are devote, pro-life, hard core Catholics? Well let me see here…

In my Parish when I make it to weekday Mass, if there are 25 people there, I think we are doing well. Now we have 2 masses, so lets double that number to 50. Now the ironic thing is who do I see at Eucharist adoration on Thursdays? THE SAME 50 PEOPLE! I know in fact many of them by name. Now let us say that there are double that amount who are really devote, but for whatever reason (family or work) are unable to attend these extra events. So that is 100 for a parish, that on paper has 1400 FAMILIES! Now let us pretend that we are able to get 1/3 of these people to go along with your plan, and I would be shocked if you got even 1/10th myself.

So that is 33 Catholics per Parish, if some have many more devote people, many others will have far less. There are 17,782 Catholic Parishes in this country. That gives you a WHOPPING 586,806 Catholics for the whole country! Now from a few Anti-Abortion activists I know, they tell me that Catholics are about 50% of the people who will show up for any kind of Anti-Abortion rally, pray group, etc. So I will double your number to 1,173,612. I don’t really think you could get anywhere near that, but even if you did, it would not bring the Government to its knees.

Also remember Our Lady of Fatima, what was here message for us? To try to change the culture of death by not paying taxes? No, her message was penitence, conversion and the rosary! If you really want to fight for the unborn (and I think it is great that you do) how about if you work on getting that 1 million to say the rosary every day for an end to abortion. I believe if you did that, you really might start to see some change.