Man Who Refuses to Pay Taxes Until Abortion Is Defunded Wins Huge Court Victory

Looks like he avoided the serious felony charges but still owes the $300K plus in back taxes and fines.

Henry David Thoreau an American a famous essayist, poet and philosopher, not to mention one of the first to coin Civil Disobedience did not pay his taxes to protest slavery and the Mexican war.


Thoreau stated that those who followed his civil disobedience should expect to suffer the consequences of not conforming to society. He was consistent. How far will Bowman go, time will tell.

SinoBen said:

Wow!

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On Tuesday, Bowman elaborated on his stand in an interview with CBN News.

“First, I would love to pay taxes so as to have a normal life, however, our government is using the tax dollars to fund Planned Parenthood; which commits abortions – the death of the innocent,” Bowman said. “Apparently, a woman has the right to choose, but evidently, I do not.”
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Source:
Man Who Refuses to Pay Taxes Until Abortion Is Defunded Wins Huge Court Victory | The Washington Pundit

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Jesus was faced with paying taxes to the Roman occupiers, who were totally godless. His attitude was to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and render to God what belongs to Him. He then told Peter to cast a fishing line into the sea, and he caught a fish with a coin in its mouth and with it paid the taxes.

A person who is refusing to pay his taxes is not representing Christ who did pay His taxes to the authorities. He did not worry about how His taxes were going to be used, and probably knew that it was not going to be used for godly purposes, but to support a brutal and pagan political system.

Oscarr said:

Jesus was faced with paying taxes to the Roman occupiers, who were totally godless. His attitude was to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and render to God what belongs to Him. He then told Peter to cast a fishing line into the sea, and he caught a fish with a coin in its mouth and with it paid the taxes.

A person who is refusing to pay his taxes is not representing Christ who did pay His taxes to the authorities. He did not worry about how His taxes were going to be used, and probably knew that it was not going to be used for godly purposes, but to support a brutal and pagan political system.

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Do you feel that it's immoral to not help fund immorality? Seems paradoxical.

TuxAme said:

Do you feel that it's immoral to not help fund immorality? Seems paradoxical.

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Jesus didn't have a problem with it. His view was that because Caesar's head was on the money, it belonged to Caesar, and if the law was that one had to pay tax to Caesar with Caesar's money, then there is an obligation to pay it.

In the same way, our money is produced by the government, and therefore the money belongs to the government, and if we earn a certain income, then a proportion of it has to be paid to the government. If the tax rate is, say 30% of income, that money doesn't belong to us anyway, it belongs to the government already, so if we withhold our taxes, we are robbing the government.

Jesus knew full well that some of the taxes was going to be used for immoral purposes along with providing civil services. But He was not going to be a party to robbing the government of the money that belonged to it.

I think it is better to get our eyes off what others are doing, and take special care of our own walk with God, to make sure that we are walking in righteousness. We would not walk into a convenience store and rob it, so why would we commit the same sin of robbery in relation to the government?

Oscarr said:

Jesus was faced with paying taxes to the Roman occupiers, who were totally godless. His attitude was to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and render to God what belongs to Him. He then told Peter to cast a fishing line into the sea, and he caught a fish with a coin in its mouth and with it paid the taxes.

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I don't think it's safe to assume Jesus held the two different taxes in the same regard. The temple tax was something instituted by Moses (Ex 30) where the tribute tax was something instituted by Caesar on the people Rome conquered.

I've taken the other side on the tribute tax. I don't think Jesus told them to pay the tribute tax - I think he told them not to. I think his audience understood it this way too which comes out at his trial:


I'm less certain on what, if anything, is being communicated by the fish with the coin in it's mouth. But it seems that in the passage (Matt 17) Jesus is telling his followers that they are not obligated to pay the temple tax either. This seems to be the whole point of what he says: who do kings collect taxes from - their citizens or foreigners? Foreigners. So the citizens are free. Yes, Jesus pays double the temple tax for himself and Peter, but he does so freely, under no obligation, and it seems that his main purpose for doing so is so that he doesn't offend his questioners and not because he is forced or obligated to pay it.

Oscarr said:

Jesus was faced with paying taxes to the Roman occupiers, who were totally godless. His attitude was to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and render to God what belongs to Him. He then told Peter to cast a fishing line into the sea, and he caught a fish with a coin in its mouth and with it paid the taxes.

A person who is refusing to pay his taxes is not representing Christ who did pay His taxes to the authorities. He did not worry about how His taxes were going to be used, and probably knew that it was not going to be used for godly purposes, but to support a brutal and pagan political system.

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There is a thing about tax. Highly suggest ya watch this . There is actually no law to support a tax on labor. Even today.

The above is not a judgment on the author of the post quoted... Far from it. Concepts of generational fraud have to be took into consideration. In picture it looks like this... Mom and dad say and the gov say I must. Two of these we love very much and the other is the authoritarian .

Oscarr said:

Jesus didn't have a problem with it. His view was that because Caesar's head was on the money, it belonged to Caesar, and if the law was that one had to pay tax to Caesar with Caesar's money, then there is an obligation to pay it.

In the same way, our money is produced by the government, and therefore the money belongs to the government, and if we earn a certain income, then a proportion of it has to be paid to the government. If the tax rate is, say 30% of income, that money doesn't belong to us anyway, it belongs to the government already, so if we withhold our taxes, we are robbing the government.

Jesus knew full well that some of the taxes was going to be used for immoral purposes along with providing civil services. But He was not going to be a party to robbing the government of the money that belonged to it.

I think it is better to get our eyes off what others are doing, and take special care of our own walk with God, to make sure that we are walking in righteousness. We would not walk into a convenience store and rob it, so why would we commit the same sin of robbery in relation to the government?

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Indeed, Jesus did not resist evil persons, he lived what he preached. This is far different from American evangelicals that want to act passive-aggressively.

FireDragon76 said:

Indeed, Jesus did not resist evil persons, he lived what he preached. This is far different from American evangelicals that want to act passive-aggressively.

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Jesus never involved Himself in Roman politics. He never dealt with the issues around Herod and his activities. The issue with John the Baptist was that Herod had married an inappropriate woman and was sinning against the Law of God in the matter. When Jesus came before Pilate, he found Him totally innocent of anything that would have offended the Roman government.

Therefore, evangelicals who come out in criticism of the government are not representing Christ, and therefore any punishment or penalty they receive from the police or government is totally their own fault, and not because of persecution arising out of sharing their faith.

Persecution arises only when a government decides to enact laws that contradict the freedom of believers to practice their faith without interference. If a Christian is living in an Islamic country and comes right out and criticises the government, then suffering the penalty for it is the appropriate outcome. But if the Christian is persecuted for just being a Christian who has done nothing offensive to the government, then that is entirely another matter.

The the matter of the street preacher who was arrested. He was arrested for making Islamphobic comments. In other words, he broke a law which prohibited from anyone using hate speech against those of different faiths. He wasn't arrested for just preaching the pure gospel, that Jesus came to save sinners and died on the cross for them. He was arrested for slagging off Muslims. It doesn't matter whether we think that Islam is good or evil. We can say what we like about it in private before God, or in a church Bible study meeting, but if making public comments against it is against the law of that particular region, then it is right and proper for a person to be arrested if he breaks it.

Jesus never slagged off the paganism of His day, nor did Paul in public, although in his letters to the churches he said that pagan gods are not gods at all. But in public, Paul preached the resurrection of Christ and the necessity of turning to Christ as Saviour and Lord.

"Render to Caesar that which is Caesar's" is a good example of what Lutherans call the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms.

Government taxes in the US does not fund Planned Parenthood's abortion services. The government provides other funds to Planned Parenthood to help women obtain healthcare services, but not abortions. So I don't think this man has a case to stand on, and is perceiving participation in sin where there is none. It's another case of some religious conservatives seeing sins where there are none.

FireDragon76 said:

Government taxes in the US does not fund Planned Parenthood's abortion services. The government provides other funds to Planned Parenthood to help women obtain healthcare services, but not abortions.

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So money leaves government accounts and is transferred to PP accounts, right? Government gets this money from where? Taxes. And does PP provide abortion services? Yes.

Assuming I have all of that correct, then your mistake is to think that money from the government is only used to pay for non-abortion services at PP. In reality, money from gov't accounts is simply transferred to PP who then allocates to their various services along with all of their funding.

By analogy, if you have me $50 and told me to only spend that $50 on lunches, I could say, "very well" and stick it in it's own separate checking account to be used for lunch spending only. But that is really irrelevant. I've simply redirected other dollars from another account that would have been used for lunch spending. It doesn't really matter if I spend $50 from the "lunch account" or my "other accounts." It's just $50 more than I would have otherwise had.

Your mistake is a a fallacy of mental accounting. What you haven't realized is that dollars are perfectly fungible for other dollars. But hey, if it helps you sleep better at night...

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.174.2961&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Fungibility

I'm pretty sure the laws were more specific than allowing public money to be transferred covertly like that, there has to be better accounting practices than merely giving money and looking the other way.

Conservative evangelicals seem to think is impossible to cooperate with somebody you disagree with towards a common goal, and that is their ethical error. Christians are not called to be quarrelsome with the world for the sake of moral purity, but to seek the common good.

FireDragon76 said:

I'm pretty sure the laws were more specific than allowing public money to be transferred covertly like that, there has to be better accounting practices than merely giving money and looking the other way.

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This isn't about money being transferred covertly. If you give me $50 and tell me to use it only on lunch spending, it is irrelevant whether or not I give it a separate "lunch account" or pool it in with my main checking account. Because that $50 is perfectly fungible for other dollars, I simply have $50 more than I would have otherwise had. Had you not given me $50, then I would have had to use other dollars from my main checking account to fund my lunches. In fact, when I go to spend money for lunch, it's immaterial which account I spend from as all dollars in the accounts are mine and dollars are perfectly fungible for other dollars. But, because I'm a nice guy I tell you that I will only spend the money you gave me for my lunch, even though I know full well such accounting isn't relevant.

It's just accounting gimmickry. The fallacy is one of mental accounting (see previous references) in violation of the economic principle of fungibility. But that accounting gimmickry seems to give many people a false sense of a peace of mind.

Most of the federal funding is through Medicaid or Medicare reimbursement for medical procedures:

How Federal Funding Works at Planned Parenthood

Those reimbursements can definitely be structured to deny funding to abortions, since it is on a per-procedure basis. Your characterization of the accounting at Planned Parenthood is incorrect. Most of the money PP receives the result of Medicaid recipients seeking their services for non-abortion procedures.

Oscarr said:

Jesus was faced with paying taxes to the Roman occupiers, who were totally godless. His attitude was to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and render to God what belongs to Him. He then told Peter to cast a fishing line into the sea, and he caught a fish with a coin in its mouth and with it paid the taxes.

A person who is refusing to pay his taxes is not representing Christ who did pay His taxes to the authorities. He did not worry about how His taxes were going to be used, and probably knew that it was not going to be used for godly purposes, but to support a brutal and pagan political system.

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Taxation needs to be represented.

The Word of God wants you to be a steward of righteousness. If your own nation isn't properly following its law, there is a problem. We are expected to follow the Law of the land until it conflicts with the Word of the Most High God.

FireDragon76 said:

Most of the federal funding is through Medicaid or Medicare reimbursement for medical procedures:

How Federal Funding Works at Planned Parenthood

Those reimbursements can definitely be structured to deny funding to abortions, since it is on a per-procedure basis. Your characterization of the accounting at Planned Parenthood is incorrect. Most of the money PP receives the result of Medicaid recipients seeking their services for non-abortion procedures.

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I think you're missing my point. I'm not arguing about the mechanics of how the operations at PP are executed. I'm saying it doesn't matter from which accounts funds are spent. Sure, let's create a "Preventative Care Account" that will be used to spend on preventative care (in principle, it doesn't matter what we call the accounts; label them A-Z or 1-100 or name them after your favorite team if you want...). The Federal Gov't funds that account through various reimbursements. PP could easily fund that account by reallocating other funds from elsewhere. It doesn't really matter because dollars are perfectly fungible for other dollars. If the gov't is reimbursing PP for preventative care, then those are funds they would have had to allocate from elsewhere. And that increase in Federal funds for preventative care means that PP can allocate those funds (that would have been used for preventative care) to accounts for other programs instead.

In the end dollars are perfectly fungible for other dollars. When PP receives federal funds, sure, it can engage in a sort of mental accounting fallacy to help those would morally object to some of their operations to have a little more peace of mind. In fact, it's in their interest to do so otherwise their source of funds could be in jeopardy as more people might object. But this doesn't change the fact that federal funds are calculated in their allocation decisions and helps support all of their operations, not just the account we've labeled "Preventative Care Reimbursements."

I'm wondering; is abortion the only issue to which this applies?
I mean, I oppose my money being spent on fossil fuel subsidies and incessant wars.

FenderTL5 said:

I'm wondering; is abortion the only issue to which this applies?
I mean, I oppose my money being spent on fossil fuel subsidies and incessant wars.

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Exactly. Apparently it only applies to one's "pet sins".

Oscarr said:

Jesus was faced with paying taxes to the Roman occupiers, who were totally godless. His attitude was to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and render to God what belongs to Him. He then told Peter to cast a fishing line into the sea, and he caught a fish with a coin in its mouth and with it paid the taxes.

A person who is refusing to pay his taxes is not representing Christ who did pay His taxes to the authorities. He did not worry about how His taxes were going to be used, and probably knew that it was not going to be used for godly purposes, but to support a brutal and pagan political system.

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For some context, the reign of Tiberius was defined by Tiberius creating/reinforcing peaceful relations with neighboring countries, building up the Roman military while avoiding pointless wars and strengthening Rome's borders.