This Friday, April 4th, will mark forty years since the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. My friend and colleague Jesse, who oversees the Buddhist Chaplains Sangha blog these days, has been moved to organize students and others in Boulder, CO, to remember this tragic event with readings of “Beyond Vietnam–A Time to Break Silence”, Dr. King’s final speech. In a fiery email, Jesse asked if we saw the connections Dr. King makes in this speech to our own in/actions today. “What do we really know about the systems that oppress others that we benefit by?” he asked. “These systems are not invisible to all people!” Jesse concluded his email by inviting us to join him in honoring Dr. King’s life by thinking more about these and other questions raised by “Beyond Vietnam”.
In my own small way at this blog, I would like to join Jesse in his and others’ efforts. There are about a million things I could say and/or do. I’ll choose one thing to talk about–in part because it ’tis the season to talk about it: taxes. Specifically, I’d like to focus on the use of tax dollars to fund war. Since 1789, the United States Constitution has given Congress the authority to levy taxes for military purposes. Since 1972, legislation proposing an alternative “Peace Tax Fund” has been offered every year. The current proposal is called the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act.
When enacted, this law will restore the rights of citizens whose conscience does not permit physical or financial participation in all war. Federal taxes of designated conscientious objectors will be placed in a non-military trust fund, enabling these citizens to be free from spiritual bondage, increasing federal revenue, and restoring the balance of government between collective security and non-interference in an individual’s free exercise of belief.
In “Beyond Vietnam”, Dr. King says:
“A time comes when silence is betrayal.”
[...]
The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.
I cannot be silent about this issue. I urge you to visit the website of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund Act here. And also to think about the questions raised by Dr. King and my friend Jesse.
