Jerry DePyper Tries to Get the Anti-Abortion Movement Resisting Taxes

It’s seemed to me that there must be right-wing counterparts to left-wing war tax resisters out there, folks who refuse to pay taxes because they don’t want to support abortion and secular education and what have you. But until I’d never actually seen a specimen in the wild.

Jerry DePyper appears to be such a creature. On his blog, Dogpatch, Ergo Sum he discusses how he tried to promote the idea of a tax strike to anti-abortion groups and leaders like the American Life League and James Dobson, with no success, and eventually decided to go at it alone:

i began to seek ways to keep my own counsel, which is basically why for i have been living in the north woods, paying only local taxes, and more or less trying not to partake of the orgy of economic and political activity that comes with such a bloody price tag. I am, in effect, on strike. I know, i know — conventional wisdom dictates that we not seek “an idyllic retreat” but bravely stay in the fray and resist the evil while still maintaining our lives in the world. Sounds fine. Is that approach effective? Honestly now, is it??

Through the teaching of John-Paul , i also came to realize that consumerism, along with materialism and hedonism, has been fueling the culture of death and its growth all along. So a secondary motivation for me has been to reject the dogma of consumerism, and to try to live in a way that is as sustainable and non-consumeristic as possible. It really isn’t all that difficult, once you start ignoring the cultural expectations that militate against such non-conformity.


Bobby Smith at Buzzsaw Haircut takes a gander at the Ithica War Tax Resisters and quotes resisters Pete Meyers, Mary Loehr, Laurie Konwinski, Ruth Benn, Peter Goldberger, and Joe Donato. Excerpts:

Pete Meyers, a member of Ithaca’s War Tax Resistors, said there are many ethical and personally fulfilling benefits to resisting federal war taxes that go beyond the monetary opposition.

“Having done this for eighteen years, it’s not so much whether it’s denying the military money, but what it has done for me. And it has been profound.”

Meyers, like many war tax resistors, calculates what he owes to the government and funnels the money to philanthropic organizations.

“If I give my money directly to people who need it, I can avoid going through a big government bureaucracy,” he said.


The edition of More Than a Paycheck (NWTRCC’s newsletter) is out, with articles on the expanded frivolous filing penalty, actions, a review of Aaron Russo’s constitutionalist tax protester propaganda flick “America: Freedom to Fascism,” a report on the NWTRCC meeting, and an article by Ed Hedemann on “War Tax Resisting ‘Orphans’ ” — people who become war tax resisters on their own, without being persuaded by the war tax resistance movement or even (in some cases) knowing that there is such a movement. I was such an “orphan” when I started.