I’m not sure how I missed this article the other day, but I came across it a few minutes ago when researching a small e-book I’m throwing together regarding property taxes and how I believe the are the most unjust tax that exists today — above and beyond even the income tax and the payroll tax.

AZCentral has a few comments regarding their recent voter shut down of another property tax bill. What is different about this referendum was not “How much will we increase property taxes?” but “Should we even have a property tax?” The smart residents said no.

Mesa, Arizona has existed without a city property tax for 61 years. You own your home and you don’t have to pay the city for the right to live on property you own. Unfortunately the county and state still enact property taxes, but I think we’re seeing a good position here.

The first comment is hilarious because the negative opinion of the writer signifies all I believe in. He comments how Mesa might lose public teachers, public workers and public services — yes! Good! Congratulations, and where can I buy property? The surrounding communities can look forward to an increase in highly qualified applicants for municipal positions, an influx of additional home buyers and steady growth of our own coffers in order to serve our citizens. Perfect. Let the other communities pay for unnecessary labor.

The third one is just as funny. Now we will watch as the immediate budget cuts begin, watching the results of the lost chance to have a stable revenue source and the effect it will have on our current and future situation. Excellent! Revenue can not be created by government force, and the people of Mesa are able to keep their money to spend it where they need it. If they need educations, they’ll find great private ones. If they need security, they’ll call ADT. If their roads decay, they won’t be able to drive to businesses who should focus on financing the best quality roads with the least congestion to get customers to come to them over businesses who don’t care. Yes!

The last comment states For many families, the lion’s share of savings is in their homes, and those savings are already threatened by existing state, county and special-district property taxes. And there’s the remainder of the problem. You still rent your property from someone. How about the residents of Mesa seceed from the county and form their own? What does the county have to do with individual families who just want to survive and exist as they want to?

Do you know of another city without local property taxes? How do you feel on property taxes in general? Discuss it at the anarcho-capitalism forum.

Crossposted at the Church of Twenty blog.
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I’ve been thinking about regular contributor LexNaturalis’s recent article titled On the Necessity of War, and here are my views that I gleaned from a few days reading of the Bible. This is from my perspective of the Christian doctrine, and I hope to hear LexNaturalis’ rebuttal so I can further delve into the Bible.

The relative who I speak about regularly again condemned me as against Christianity when I told them my view on the currently warmongering by the government of the U.S. and various other supposedly Christian-driven countries. They shouted at me and become quite riled up, offering the worldly excuse that the Christian talk show radio hosts were constantly demanding that war be continued and that Madonna should be condemned for her concert antics.

The Christian war-mongerers that exist in society today ignore God’s Word repeatedly, instead they fall on the word of man to defend their belief in the idea of a “just war.” The “just war” idea came from Augustine of Hippo, which was furthered by St. Thomas Aquinas — another human with a wrong view of God’s Word as testified to within the New Testament.

Augustine believed in a just war under certain circumstances and requirements, such as that only duly constituted public authorities may use deadly force or wage war. Many Christians wrongfully believe that Romans 12 and 13 force us to follow all governments, even tyrannical ones. The Book of Romans was a letter from Paul written to the Christ-followers in Rome following their conversion to faith. The Book of Romans is NOT a letter to Christians everywhere, which is something Christians today seem to ignore. If duly constituted public authorities may use deadly force or wage war, it would accept the wars of Adolf Hitler who was appointed by the elected President to Chancellor in 1933, or Jozef Stalin who was elected in April 1917, or Saddam Hussein who was elected to the position of Vice Presidency before becoming the President by right when the previous one stepped down. All of these leaders were duly constituted public officials — would you have obeyed them and their laws?

Augustine also believed that the overall destruction expected from the use of force must be outweighed by the good to be achieved. This means he is OKing any destructive action as long as there is good achieve that outweighs the bad. Who judges what is good and what is bad?

Augustine also believed there were 3 causes to wage a just war: punishing people who have done wrong, recapturing things taken and defending against an external attack. All of these reasons would require a decision by some people that might be denied by others.

None of Augustine, or Aquinas’, reasonings are Biblical. All are counter to what God offers us in the New Testament, and all that He offered us by sending His son to die for our sins. War is caused only by sin, as we can see even in Augustine’s 3 reasons to wage a just war. Punishing people who have done wrong is unbiblical as it calls us to judge the actions of others. Recapturing things taken by others is unbiblical as it asks us to not love our neighbor — no matter what wrong they have done to us. Defending against an external attack is unbiblical as Jesus asked that we turn the other cheek when we are attacked. Jesus’ result of turning the other cheek is to shame your enemies into realizing that their sin is the cause of the problem: you refuse to commit a sin in response to theirs, even if yours is lesser or might create good out of the use of evil.

My relative condemned me again as again Christianity when they asked what I would do if I was attacked by an enemy. They said if I let them attack me, I would die and they would win. Matthew 5:44-45 (NLT): But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. Where does God tell us that a little evil is OK to rebuke an enemy? We are to love them with open arms, and if they are going to harm us, we must continue to love them up until we are dead or they admit their sin. Jesus did this as he did not fight his death at the hands of multiple governments. Should we have sided with the Pharisees and Rome when our Lord was to be killed?

Some Christian friends of mine believe that we can commit war against non-Christians because they do not have to abide by the Word. This reminds me of 1 John 2:15 (NLT): Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love the world, you show that you do not have the love of the Father in you. We are not to be of this world as Jesus was not of this world either — how can we use evil to fight an enemy if this is not what the Word provides as our path? Are we not to be the light and salt of the world? When the world sees Christians using force to try to make good, the world will mimic us just as we are — evil and revengeful.

My most aggressive Christian friends believe that America is God’s country. This was a view of the Puritans, and one that is completely false when we realize that the last true country blessed by the Lord was the original Israel — a country that collapsed itself and ceases to exist. The Israel that exists today is not God’s people and not protected by God but by force of weapons and more evil. I believe in letting peaceful people congregate with one another on land they make their own, but I don’t believe in protecting any one people over another, especially with the use of force and weapons and war. If the people of Israel and the Middle East want peace, they should follow the Prince of Peace. The original Israelites have been scattered and lost — the tribes are gone with only false tribes remaining. This is not to say that I am anti-Semetic (I am married to a Jew), I am just not believing in the use of force to uphold a country of man, not a country of God. 2 Kings 22-23 showed that God warned the Israelites of the pending judgement against their nation — a judgement that ended in the dispersal and loss of the original and only true Nation of God.

The Beatitudes of God in Matthew 5 show that God blesses the peaceful: Matthew 5:9 (NLT): God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God. The children of God are not war-mongerers, they work for peace. Creating war to fight evil is not working for peace.

Some Christians believe that war is justified in the Bible because the Bible commands against murder, not killing. But the Old Testament laws are no longer valid in many cases where Jesus replaced old commands for a chosen people with new commands for the salvation of all, as in Matthew 5:22-24 (NLT): But I say, if you are angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the high council. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell. War brought on by anger is sin. Cursing someone is sin. Calling someone names or labeling them is sin. Can you imagine a war with none of these attributes? It is impossible, and what we have is unholy.

So what do we do when evil is brought on us? As Christians, Paul offered us the right answer: Romans 12:19 (NLT): Dear friends, never avenge yourselves. Leave that to God. For it is written, “I will take vengeance; I will repay those who deserve it,” say the Lord.” Again we look at Paul’s letter specifically to the Romans — normally that would mean we are focusing on what the Romans were to do. But in this case, Paul is referencing a letter outside of his own — God’s own Truth. In situations such as Romans 13 which most Christians believe is written for all Christians, we only see Paul’s own words for the Romans as inspired by God’s desires for them. In Romans 12, we see Paul referencing God’s Word for all here, apart from his letter to the Romans.

What about when your pastor quotes the Old Testament in support of the authority of man and the evil wars that follow? We must understand that the Old Testament was all prophecy intended to show us that we are sinful and we can not follow the Lord perfectly — we can not absolve ourselves of sin. Even God’s long gone chosen people did not follow His commands, and the lessons he taught them in war were that they were not perfect and had no option to find salvation. God finalized His prophecies by sending His son to die for our sins. Once Jesus came and returned, we were absolved of the price of trying to pay for our sins with our lives or the lives of others. God made things easy on us — so easy that we can now be a beacon of His love without the need for weapons and bombs and war. How can we ignore that?

Above all, remember Acts 5:29 (NLT): But Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than human authority.” We MUST obey GOD rather than humn AUTHORITY. That is all that is necessary for me to realize that the worst cause for Christ is the destruction of Truth as set forth by war-mongerers, started by Augustine and Aquinas and continued in the hearts of millions of Christians today. When an enemy comes to my door, I will turn the other cheek. If they jail me, I will sing praises in jail as Paul and Silas did in Acts 16:25. I will rejoice in my suffering as Paul said in Collossians 1:24. I will repay their evil with God’s good as I noted above in Romans 12:19. As they kill me, I will love them and remember that God will judge their evil and see that I shared my love with them. If their souls are saved because of my words helping them find their savior, then it will be 2 souls that are saved, not just 1.

Discuss this article at the anarcho-capitalism forum.