Honoring America’s Tax Resisters on April 15

Kevin Van Horn of the Beyond Ballots or Bullets project is joining up with some other folks “along the Wasatch Front in Utah” to organize a local “freedom activist” group. They’ve got a project on their plate that sounds worthwhile:

Its purpose is to attract and recruit hard-core libertarians, as well as beginning to publicize our cause. The idea is to hold an event on to honor America’s tax resisters. While the statist media condemn tax resisters, we’ll eulogize them as great American patriots who have taken substantial personal risks in refusing to financially support a dangerous criminal organization. We can talk about specific, known tax resisters, and list all of the criminal activities that they didn’t fund. If we can figure out how to do it, I’d even like to erect a (temporary?) monument to the unknown tax resister, in analogy to the tomb of the unknown soldier.

Utah-area readers who would like to join in can find Van Horn’s email address on the Beyond Ballots or Bullets site.


Donna Freedman, whose “poor like me” journalism I mentioned has another article on Living “poor” and loving it.

Being poor is what my dad would call a “useful life skill.” (He used this phrase when he wanted us to carry cinder blocks or weed the tomato patch.) And I happen to believe it’s a life skill that plenty of Americans could use, saddled as they are with credit card debt, college loan debt and mortgage debt. Being “poor” for a while — that is, making a conscious choice to manage money differently — would be good for them.


The Apotheosis of Washington

Lew Rockwell turned me on to this amazing bit of insight into the self-importance of politicians and the idiotic idolatry of patriotism:

The Apotheosis of Washington in the eye of the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol was painted in the true fresco technique by Constantino Brumidi in . Brumidi () was born and trained in Rome and had painted in the Vatican and Roman palaces before emigrating to the United States in . … The figures, up to 15 feet tall, were painted to be intelligible from close up as well as from 180 feet below.

In the central group of the fresco, Brumidi depicted George Washington rising to the heavens in glory, flanked by female figures representing Liberty and Victory/Fame. A rainbow arches at his feet, and thirteen maidens symbolizing the original states flank the three central figures. (The word “apotheosis” in the title means literally the raising of a person to the rank of a god, or the glorification of a person as an ideal; George Washington was honored as a national icon in .)