Let’s go back to two of the most valiant protesters of the Vietnam War era,
the Berrigan brothers, Daniel, the Jesuit and Philip, the former priest (now
dead), who were at the center of lots of disruption as the anti-war movement
found its way. I’m not here to argue about those positions. But the Berrigans
at least were effective.
That was because they were willing to give up everything they had, including
their freedom, for their causes. You don’t take a hammer to the nose of a
warplane unless you are willing to spend some time in a prison cell. You
don’t spill blood on draft board records, or burn them with homemade napalm,
unless you understand there are consequences, and those consequences become
part of the protest effort.
So, here’s my question: Are you angry enough about taxes to go to jail? Are
you angry enough about taxes to forfeit some of the federal benefits you
might collect, starting with Social Security and including Medicare (if that
relates in your case) or any other benefits? Are you angry enough to go
stand at the gates of Ft. Bragg
and set fire to copies of your taxes to protest federal spending on the
military? Are you angry enough to break into an
IRS
office and spill cow blood on some records?
His conclusion: “Will the tax protests become more serious? No. The problem
with getting the right-of-center middle class involved in much of anything is
that it likes too much being right-of-center middle class.” Well, tea
partiers? You gonna take that kind of abuse?
