I saw a poignant comment on Reddit the other day that encapsulates one of our fundamental disagreements in the USA: Taxes aren’t YOUR money. You may think of them that way, but you’re completely at odds with the philosophical underpinnings of our nation and the Western world. Our Constitution was based primarily on the philosophies of the Enlightenment, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract theory being prominent among these. Social Contract theory states that we have certain duties as citizens of a society. Among these is the financial support of that society. To whit, he meant Taxes. Rosseau also has a lot to say about the nature of the government and how it relies upon the will of the governed, but that’s tangential to my point here. Even Christ said in Mark Chapter 12 , Verse 17, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Notice he doesn’t say give to Caesar that portion of your wealth that is owed to Caesar. He says simply give to Caesar those things, as in coins, that are Caesar’s.

Do you see a theme here? Taxes don’t belong to you. They are your duty to pay and they belong to the government. If you don’t like how they’re being spent, vote. If you don’t like the options, then get active campaign for a third party. So, while I sympathize with people who day they didn’t agree with the various military adventures of the last decade and a half, that’s not your call, especially if you abstained from voting in elections because you were too busy or didn’t like the choices.

There’s a lot of ground here for tangents. from disagreeing with the philosophical underpinnings of our nation, I know some think were founded upon Christian ideals, which is fundamentally flawed and mostly untrue, to complaining about the use of a French Philosopher. Yes, Rousseau was French, but remember the French are the reason we’re all sitting here in the USA, not her Majesty’s Commonwealth of the American States. Trust me, Thomas Hobbes isn’t superior as an argument for the American state as he was a royalist and believed, sort of, in Divine Right.

TL;DR No matter what your Libertarian Uncle Tim tells you, Taxes don’t belong to you and cannot be withheld at your whim.