Letter: Anti-war activists who pay their taxes are just being hypocrites (June 12)
The recent publicity your paper recently provided to anti-war activists like Cindy Sheehan and Benji Lewis caused me to pause and reflect. And after re-reading Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience,” I was reminded that virtually all who proclaim the injustice of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are hypocrites. Here’s why:

The same people who take a stand against injustice collaborate in the same injustice by paying taxes. They contradict themselves every April 15 by funding the very government that is conducting the wars. Shouldn’t they dissolve this relationship through principled action? Thoreau asked it thusly, “Why do they not dissolve it themselves n the union between themselves and the State n and refuse to pay their quota into the treasury?”

Perhaps principled behavior is a bit too revolutionary for anti-war activists. Perhaps the consequences of lending themselves to injustice are easier to tolerate than the consequences of taking a principled stand. Whatever the case, it is clear that anti-war activists who pay taxes are enablers of the very injustice they so condemn. Shame on them.

Gordon L. Shadle, Albany