Is it true that your tax dollars pay(s) for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan (lately Pakistan) and wherever else the USA decides to go?

We sort of tried that in 1776, and it worked then. I’m not sure that we’re at a similar tipping point where it could work again, but it will someday.

That would mean not going to work, never buying anything and starving to death while you bum change offa people after you get evicted.

I agree, war sucks, but boycotting the government is slightly impossible. Or, you’d have to drastically change your life style to do so. I’m sure some people can do it, but not everyone can, or is willing to, and that’s pretty much what it would take, lest you will a civil war or something similar.
I don’t know what the solution to death and conflict is, but I don’t think that your idea would work, especially not when most of us are so subscribed to modern society that we basically live with a ball and chain.

or you could find a job slinging chicken for min wage and then never worry about income tax. In fact you could get some of my money I’m sending in. It’s a win, win!

Aside from it being a crime to stop paying your taxes (the IRS is really into cracking down on those who don’t) they don’t just pay for wars with our taxes. If we do that, we also loose things like police, firefighters, paramedics, libraries, roads, parks, playgrounds, search & rescue, sanitation, flood/drought/fire relief, etc.

If this is so, can we not simply stop sending money until Our government begins to behave less recklessly and less murderously with our hard-earned money?.

No.

Or you could stop electing warmongers. That would have the advantages of being easier to do and not being a crime.

And when in the near future do you foresee the end of warmongers being elected to office?

When people start reading the manifestos and stop letting the media do their thinking for them?

We have a way to change policy. It is by voting.

The greatest majority of your tax dollars are spent on social welfare programs like Social Security, unemployment, and Disability payments.

The second largest expense is the defense of the American way of life. If we were not diligent in defending our country from aggression, we would become as helpless against terrorists as Mexico and several other South American Countries, and most of the African countries.

Do you want a country where the person with the biggest gun rules the land? Well, I don’t.

@YARNLADY “_Do you want a country where the person with the biggest gun rules the land? _”

Isn’t that exactly what we have become?

Yes, that is exactly what we’ve become.

At the end of the day I’d rather be holding a gun than have one pointed at me.

If voting actually accomplished anything, voting would not be legal. Elections are bought & sold among the wealthy, & the wealthy do not live by the same standards as the rest of the US. The names of the people in office change ever so often, but the policies rarely do. As long as there is money to be made in waging war, the US will continue to engage in it.

If voting actually accomplished anything, voting would not be legal.
I know some important political dude said that, but I totally forgot his name. Any ideas?

@Linda_Owl Right on!

@Symbeline I’m not sure either, but I’m remembering a few quotes from Boss Tweed.

“Vote for whoever you want, as long as I make the nominations.”

“As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it?”

@jerv I’m thinking Ken Livingstone, but only knowing the man by name and barely anything else makes it hard to find out. Good quotes though. ^^

Essentially I’d like to make a note about the voting thing some peeps mentioned, that voting won’t single handedly solve so much, since we only have, usually, but a few people to go on, and they may all be bullshit, and that’s not even including my hippy father’s constant conspiracy theories about how it’s all rigged and that in the end, voting does fuck all and never really changes the current state of anything.

Not saying that Communism is the answer though, haha.

@Ben_Dover @FutureMemory I don’t know what country you live in, but I can still go to the polls and vote without any fear of reprisal, I can even run for office, and would likely win on a local level, since there are few willing to do the work necessary.

I can walk to my grocery store all alone any time of the day or night with no fear of being robbed and abductions are extremely rare. I can drive my children to school or the playground with out being accosted.

To enumerate the amount of freedom we have in this country is useless against the mindless, knee jerk reactions to the most innocuous comments. Example – if I see someone with a gun in my neighborhood, I call the police and they will surround the block and not leave until that person is disarmed. I challenge you to tell me where the man with a gun is immune to the law in the United States.

@YARNLADY All well and good, but has no bearing on the fact that our tax dollars pays for the murder and mayhem committed world-wide by the US.

But yes, it is nice to know that while my country is fomenting revolutions worldwide, and stealing what we could have just as easily gotten had we bartered for the oil and poppies; it is nice to know that you feel secure in your neighborhood.

@Ben_Dover All sarcasm aside, you are using hyperbole to bolster an untenable position, when faced with the facts.

@YARNLADY I agree.

@YARNLADY That is what the Internet is all about though; sarcasm and hyperbole.

@jerv (sigh)