Wow. I noted the quick media and web blizzard of war tax resistance commentary that followed in the wake of John Christoffersen’s Associated Press-syndicated article. The blizzard kept up through .
I fielded calls from all over the country from radio hosts who wanted me on their shows — ranging from “progressive talk radio” to “let’s find a cheese-eating surrender monkey to yell at radio” — and lots of email as well. I did one radio show, with John Scott on 960 (The Quake) — here’s the audio — and I thought that went well. I don’t feel quite up to the shout-format shows, though.
The blog commentary continues:
- Right Wing News lobs some dung in my direction, then speculates that maybe right-wing government-skeptics might want to get in on this tax resistance action, then gives that thought a partial-birth abortion.
- Moorewatch can’t resist a comment on those “anti-war hippie types refusing to pay their taxes to support a war they don’t believe in,” and wonders whether Michael Moore would approve.
- Needs of the Many says of the “Anti-War Fruits [Who] Refuse to Pay Taxes” that “I disagree with their stance on the issue, but the idea that you can refuse to pay taxes to a government that will use your money on programs you don’t support is intriguing.”
- Associated Content reads the article and is shocked to announce that Around 1 in 6 Americans Do Not Pay Their Taxes.
- David Z at paulie cannoli rips into the IRS spokesperson Dianne Besunder, who said that “Tax resisters place an undue burden on taxpayers who pay their fair share of taxes” — “I freaking love this argument! Hey Dianne! You don’t fucking get it! I don’t want to bomb people. If you want to do it, then do it without me. Don’t tell me that I have to help you carpet-bomb a third world country back to the stone-age. On second thought — I bet Dianne isn’t paying her fair share of my car payment. I know this, because she hasn’t given me a single dime, ever.”
- The Chicago Tribune comes out with a tsk-tsk editorial that reads like it was written by a high school civics textbook editor in his sleep: “If paying taxes was like ordering off a menu, most people wouldn’t eat their veggies.… You can vote. You can run for office. You can march up and down Michigan Avenue wearing a sandwich board and barking into a megaphone. You can cover your car with anti-war bumper stickers, write your congressman, impeach the president, start a blog or bury your local newspaper in letters to the editor. But pay up.”
- And the pro-tax liberal blog Talking Taxes takes the same pedestrian tone: “this could do great harm to the underpinnings of our democratic society. We all seem to agree, implicitly, that decisions made through our democratic process are legitimate (if not always wise) and will be followed by all.” And we all seem to be in a fine mess, don’t we?
