The Tank and the Coffee Tree

by Patrick McCuller

When I left the United States, I gave varying reasons for leaving to my friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances. Each reason was tailored for its audience. there were many to choose from. But having lived outside madhouse USA for a little while, I think this is the best one.

Responsibility

Funding an activity creates a moral responsibility. If I fund Nazis, I foster murder and destruction. If I fund Amnesty International, I foster (some) human rights. The relationship is obvious: by knowingly and intentionally giving money to an organization with obvious goals and activities, I accept some responsibility for what happens as a result.

Taxes and Funding the Federal Government

There is no way to determine what my tax burden is; so many things are taxed directly and indirectly that it is impossible to make an accounting of how much one pays. When I went to the 7-11 convenience store in MacLean VA, and pick up a pack of Twinkies and a Coke, I really had no idea how much of my two and a half bucks went to the federal government in one way or another. Look at a tiny part of the spectrum of taxes: the store pays taxes on its profit on the Twinkies and Coke, Hostess and the Coca-Cola company pay taxes on their profits, the wrapping plastic and paper label companies pay taxes on their profits, the raw materials for the plastic, paper, Twinkies and Cola are taxed, especially if imported. The electricity that lights the store and powers the register is bought from a company that pays taxes, the gasoline the delivery trucks use is taxed, the delivery trucks themselves are taxed, the clerk who rang up the sale is paid a salary that is taxed, the accounting firm that designed the advertisements that enticed me to buy pays taxes, as do the media firms that ran the ads, and all of their employees, and so on, and so forth.

I don’t know what the reckoning is. I don’t think anyone could really give a straight answer to the question "How much of those two and a half bucks went to the federal government?" There is no way to know how much any particular purchase finances the government, but there is no question that it does. I make lots of purchases just to survive: rent, food, medicine, clothes, and tools.

On the one hand there are the direct and obvious taxes, like income tax. On the other are the indirect and hidden taxes. It’s not even clear which tallies higher, but what is clear is this: simply living in the United States generates a lot of purchases, and those purchases fund

government activities. All the money is thrown into one big pot and doled out to a seemingly endless array of activities, most of which are simply wasteful but some of which are distinctly and unarguably evil.

The Choice

The United States of America is engaged in warfare against the human species, murdering tens of thousands of people every year. It does this obviously: anyone can see by simply looking. It does this intentionally: it invades and occupies territories all over the world, drops bombs on assorted places, and unleashes military might decisively. If I choose to fund the USA, I must accept some responsibility for the murder that happens as a result: the dead children, the maimed, the sick, the suffering, and their bloody remains. I must accept personal responsibility for toppled cities and ruined lives.

Maybe I could cleverly structure my income taxes so I paid none. Maybe I could withhold taxes altogether, risking imprisonment. But even if these schemes worked, I have established that mere presence in a government’s jurisdiction funds it.

When I understood these things, I had a choice to make: continue funding with my taxes and presence the destruction of human life, or withdraw to a distant place where my trip to the corner store produces a bill that isn’t tallied in both cash and broken lives. A place where tax money, while arguably misspent, buys no tanks, no stealth bombers, no nuclear warheads, no invasions, no mass destruction, and few broken lives. There is such a place, and I live there now.

In this place, the government spends no money on aircraft carriers, two thousand pound bombs, or tanks. They have no army. Instead they waste their money subsidizing coffee plantations. The choice is: live in the USA or live elsewhere. Tanks or coffee trees?

August 28, 2002