ON DEATH AND TAXES

Or is it taxes and death?

Spirit of ‘76, by Archibald Willard (1836–1918), from http://brimblecomb.com/explore-historic-marblehead/, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.¹

“In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

— Benjamin Franklin

Today our taxes facilitate death and destruction.

The patriots of 1776 held that taxation without representation was tyranny. They would accept no monarch over them— will we?

Our treasury is being drained. Our taxes are paying for the Middle East and Caribbean adventures of a wannabe king, the POTUS. That wannabe king is turning out to be a petty war lord. He takes direction from Netanyahu and the oligarchs who funded his presidential campaign. The POTUS is conducting the unconstitutional, immoral war in the Middle East for 6 weeks without Congressional approval.

Certainly, the waste of taxpayer funds is being felt and will be felt for decades. It is painful to see our taxes finance a war to benefit the business interests of Big Oil and armament dealers.

But the saddest part is to know that the genocide under way in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, and the attacks on Venezuela and the Caribbean are being financed by the American taxpayers. The corrupt POTUS, for the sake of obfuscating the Epstein sex and national security scandal that haunts him, has painted our hands with the blood of over 165 innocent children and thousands of Iranians, Lebanese, and Palestinians which our armed forces have attacked, directly or through the Netanyahu government, as well as countless deaths in the Caribbean.

What has gone wrong, sons and daughters of the patriots who birthed this nation?

Is the US not the wealthiest nation in recent history?

Has the US not the wherewithal to lift humanity out of this morass of suffering and want?

Have we not also the capacity to destroy the world gifted to mankind by the Creator and send it reeling back to the age of cockroaches and dinosaurs through unfettered plundering of natural resources, global warming and nuclear war?

There are many questions before us...

We see our natural resources plundered, our personal treasure looted, our dreams of a just, equitable world ignored, the wanton destruction of entire nations, the murder of thousands of people.

How is this possible?

The regime is not only one demented POTUS.

The regime is not only a covey of oligarchs.

The regime is propped up by millions of Americans accustomed to obeying the law, whether the law is legal or not, moral or immoral.

Law-abiding citizens also support the regime through indifference, by going about business as usual, by supplying the life-blood of the regime’s operations through dutifully paying taxes that go towards the armament manufacturers and military contractors, and result in death and suffering for thousands of human beings.

Are we guilty by association— by not being forceful enough in opposing the POTUS’s massive corruption?

Are we not responsible for creating and promoting the hellish conduct of a regime that plunders the planet? Are we not complicit by sending our armed forces to wars, to loot other countries for the benefit of the POTUS regime and business interests?

Can we, the people, refuse to fund the regime? Can, we the people in the Armed Forces refuse to murder others? Can we, the people, find the moral courage to stop the current madness?

Hold the POTUS regime accountable for the Epstein scandal, for genocide in the Middle East and killings in the Caribbean, for rampant corruption.

Unrelentingly wield the sharp bayonets of loud protests; beat the drums of freedom; fire volleys of love, justice, nonviolence; work for peace. Let that example be our resistance to greed, to power, to oppression. It is our duty.

⚖️🕊️

20260413

¹ This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1931.