“Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's” is NOT a release from the First Commandment.
Now let's think logically. The words, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's; and render unto the Lord that which is the Lord's” have as a direct corollary the asking of a question. What is that question?
The question is, what rightfully belongs to Caesar and what rightfully belongs to God? The God part is easy. EVERYTHING belongs to God. Uh-oh. Now we have a mathematical conundrum, don't we? If we believe in God, and we believe in the First Commandment, then “Caesar” is truly OWED nothing. We can CONSENT to pay taxes in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity and freedom, but only if those four specific ends are served by our taxes.
Let's go through each of the four:
TRUTH:
Barack Obama is a usurper. He is constitutionally ineligible to hold the office of the presidency, and he knows this, the entire Congress knows this, the entire upper-echelon of the military knows this, the entire intelligence community knows this, and the SCOTUS knows this. Barack Obama is an enemy of the United States, who is in a state of open, declared war upon it, its constitution and its people. This is the absence of truth. We are being “led” by a human lie, backed by an entire government of oath-breaking liars. Therefore, the government is illegitimate and has forfeited its licitness.
JUSTICE:
The Rule of Law is effectively dead. From the presence of Obama himself in the White House, to the lawless Department of Justice, to Fast & Furious, to Solyndra, to the unconstitutional “czars” and “executive orders”, to the Federal Reserve, this is a society ruled by a government of men, not laws. When government is ruled by men and not laws, the determining criterion of how government relates to people becomes brute force of arms and violent coercion, and not transcendent truth. We are utterly deprived of justice by the government itself, and thus the federal government has forfeited its legitimacy.
SOLIDARITY:
The government is inciting both race-centered, age- centered and class-based antagonism and violence. In declaring pre-born children non-human, a genocide has been legally sanctioned that has cost 50 million lives AND COUNTING. ObamaCare is poised to exterminate the elderly by determining that their lives are not worth living. The government is consciously and expressly trying to break down solidarity amongst citizens along race and class lines, and in that action it forfeits its legitimacy.
FREEDOM:
From ObamaCare, to the TSA, to the forced acceptance of sexual perversions, to forced “political correctness”, to the overt support of Sharia law and muslim sedition, to the destruction of the Free Exercise and Equal Protection clauses, this government is working consciously and overtly against fundamental human freedom, and has thus forfeited its legitimacy.
1-2-3-4. I don't owe Caesar a damn thing, and it is now to the point where the continued subsidizing of this utterly lawless and illegitimate government puts me in violaton of the
First Commandment (I AM the LORD thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before me.) by forcing me to break God's Law - the Natural Law - in order to follow the laws of the state;
the Second Commandment (Thou shalt not take the Name of the LORD thy God in vain.) by punishing and imprisoning my fellow citizens (See Lakin, LTC Terry) who attempt to uphold their sworn oaths, and by forcing me to subsidize a government that is, to the man, populated by oathbreakers;
the Fourth Commandment (Honor thy father and thy mother.) by actively and consciously destroying the family, discouraging right-ordered marriage through the welfare state, legislating perverted “false marriage” paradigms, facilitating the murder of children by their parents, and pitting society against their parents by encouraging or even mandating euthanasia via ObamaCare;
the Fifth Commandment (Thou shalt not murder.) through the “legally sanctioned” and MANDATED taxpayer subsidizing of the holocaust of preborn children via abortion as well as the premeditated murder of thousands of Mexican civilians via Operation Fast & Furious;
the Sixth Commandment (Thou shalt not commit adultery.) through the forced “legalization” of sodomite faux-marriage and the discouragement of chastity and marriage itself via the HHS contraceptive and sterilization mandate as well as welfare state;
the Seventh Commandment (Thou shalt not steal.) via the government sanctioned, legalized and protected confiscation of private property, the illegal nullification of contracts by the federal government, and the stirring-up by the government of envy and the sense of entitlement to the property of others;
the Eighth Commandment (Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.) by forcing me to subsidize and give my tacit approval to the lie of Barack Obama's presidency and the fundamental dishonesty of the Eric Holder Department of Justice, in addition to the mathematical lies regarding the state of the banking sectors and the mathematical impossibilities of the government run entitlement ponzi schemes;
and the Tenth Commandment (Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods.) by forcing me to subsidize a government that is built on a premise of and is attempting to fully convert to a system based wholly upon coveting the property of one's neighbor and the forced redistribution of private property.
We're batting .800. Enough is enough. You CANNOT subsidize this government and still claim that God is “first” in your life. It is mathematically, metaphysically and morally impossible. You must choose your allegiances NOW. You must NOW choose who or what it is that you truly worship. Do you worship God or do you worship your wealth? Here's a simple litmus test for you: are you or are you not willing to give up all of your wealth in bearing witness to God in His Truth? If the answer is no, then…
If you don't like people speaking the truth to you like this, I'm sure Pastor Jason or Father Liza-Judy will be very happy to lie to you and dry your tears with the rockband playing proudly behind.
If you don't want to take my word for it, that is fine. Here is paragraph 2242 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which specifically cites the Tribute episode as the ratification of civil disobedience:
The citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or the teachings of the Gospel. Refusing obedience to civil authorities, when their demands are contrary to those of an upright conscience, finds its justification in the distinction between serving God and serving the political community.
"Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."
"We must obey God rather than men." -CCC 2242 Now to the question of imprisonment and even execution. Again, I can not understand how Christendom has become so monstrously illiterate. “…you can't do any good in prison”, and “leave the pointless martyrdom to the muslims”.
HOW. DARE. YOU. How DARE you piss all over the true Christian Martyrs. How DARE you call their deaths “pointless” and how DARE you equivocate the deaths of these saints to the murderous suicides of pagan musloids. Why don't you turn off your precious TV for a few minutes and actually READ something? Like the biographies of the saints, for example? Or even just the Bible.
Do you not realize that St. Paul wrote a goodly portion of the Epistles from prison?
Do you not realize that St. John the Beloved spent most of his life either in prison or in remote exile?
Do you not realize that eleven of the twelve original apostles were EXECUTED along with St. Paul? (Only John died naturally in old age.)
Why don't you tell me about the massive wastes their lives were. If they had only lain low and watered down the Gospel, they could have lived long lives and “accomplished” so much more. Is that right? Isn't that your argument? Well, why don't you just make that argument for Our Lord while you're at it? There are plenty of leftist pseudo-“theologians” running around saying exactly that. Jesus was a fool to have only led a three year ministry. If He had just been more politically savvy, He could have lived for decades – and then think how much He could have taught the world! The Incarnation really was a waste in terms of earthly accomplishment. Right? RIGHT?
St. John the Baptist: Beheaded
St. Stephen: Stoned
St. James the Great: Beheaded
St. Philip: Crucified
St. Matthew: Impaled on a halberd
St. James the Less: Clubbed to death after crucifixion and stoning
St. Matthias: Beheaded after stoning
St. Andrew: Crucified
St. Mark: Beheaded after being dragged
St. Peter: Crucified upside down
St. Paul: Beheaded
St. Jude: Crucified
St. Bartholomew: Flayed alive and then crucified
St. Thomas: Impaled with a spear
St. Luke: Hanged
St. Simon: Crucified
St. Antipas: Roasted alive
And that is just a few of the more “famous” Christians of the first century, whose deaths history recorded. Please understand that being a Christian was an assumed death sentence for the first several centuries. Thank God that they had real courage and real fortitude and didn't immediately water-down the Gospel into some filthy, narcissistic heresy just so they could stay in the good graces of the governments. Thank God that they actually understood their faith, and didn't regard Jesus as a mere “philosophical construct” or “imaginary friend” and actually acknowledged that He is True God and True Man.
Whether you care to admit this or not, people are responsible for their government. And We The People of the United States of America have perhaps the most personal responsibility for our government than any other nation in history. Why? First, because we are a representative republic founded upon a foundation of Judeo-Christian law and philosophy. This was the best set-up in all of human history, and it also therefore bestowed the most responsibility upon its people for the government itself, up to the very top.
The other reason we are the most culpable nation in history for our government is because we are an armed nation. The people of North Korea, because they were disarmed decades ago, bear less responsibility for their government than we do – but they are still responsible. If the people of North Korea, disarmed and half starved to death, are responsible for their government, how much more are We The People, armed and fed, responsible for the absolute abomination that is our Federal government? This concept of citizen culpability for governance is why it was morally licit to firebomb Dresden, Tokyo and finally drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The civilians of Japan permitted, allowed and cooperated with their government in its wars of aggression during WWII. The same goes for the German people. They could have and should have put down their respective governments – but they didn't and so they paid for it.
The exact same dynamic applies to us. We have let this happen. We have sat by, complacent, impotent and self-absorbed, coveting our personal wealth and possessions above EVERYTHING. And now that there is no denying or escaping what our duty is to God and neighbor, we can only concoct fictions about the omnipotence of the Internal Revenue Service in order to convince ourselves that we aren't to blame, and that we have no duty except to ourselves. Because you refuse to act to correct your lawless government via the most effective, simple and utterly non-violent method, namely a tax strike, you are guaranteeing hot war, bloodshed and catastrophic suffering.
The fact is that every single Christian clergyman should have called for a national tax strike on Sunday, January 28, 1973. Why? Because that was the Sunday after SCOTUS legalized the murder of preborn children. Because of that first moral failure, here we now sit, and it is no one's fault but our own.
I fear God, and God alone, and thus I will render unto Him EVERYTHING, up to and including my wealth, assets, freedom and life, if that is what is required to remain in compliance with His commandments. The early Christians went to their deaths rather than offer a pinch of incense on the altar of Caesar. Incense is merely symbolic and burns away. Money subsidizes, finances and enables activities that break God's law - the Natural Law. Therefore I will not file, and I will not pay income taxes unless and until the Federal Government of the United States is reformed under the Constitution of 1787 as amended, and the Rule of Law is reasserted, necessarily and non-negotiably including the arrest and trial of Barack Obama, and the re-criminalizing of abortion in all cases, or until a new, legitimate government replaces it.
This has been a repost of an edited ARR post dated Nov 16, 2011 that had been a repost of a Nov. 6, 2011 barnhardt.biz post titled “Rendering unto Caesar”
My view: April 15th 2013 will be when the tale is told. If nothing changes between now and then, I cannot see how any Christian, in good conscience, can file an I.R.S. income tax form for the purpose of complying with Federal Tax Laws.
By change I do not accept Romney being elected. Romney is not our national savior- he is every much the problem as any other socialist. The Republicans are not our national savior – they have proven to be every much as complicit as the Democrats. Neither the parties nor their leaders have God’s blessing on them. The change I refer to is a totally new political party made up of true Christian conservatives -
willing to take all the current socialistic strongholds to the mat;
willing to say enough is enough tolerating a
lawless government;
willing to declare not one more baby will be slaughtered at the altar of the ungodly;
willing to declare not one same sex marriage will take place in this country;
willing to say today prayer to the one true God and the Pledge of Allegiance will be spoken uninhibited in all schools, school activities, and all government facilities and activities;
willing to stop all government support in the distribution of all contraceptives;
willing to stop the spending of borrowed money;
willing to demand an instant return to the gold standard;
willing to begin a concentrated roll back of all socialist regulations;
will to… etc., etc.,…
If such a party is not in place and actively holding our clerical, political and governmental leader’s feet to the conservative fire in just a matter of months – certainly before 2013 – there is no point to life in these United States except to fight for the liberties of all – or – surrender all of the liberties.
It is increasingly becoming more difficult for me to stand by while fellow Christians continue to support godless local and national governments hell-bent in removing God from every vestige of what was once a god-fearing Judeao/Christian society. We do nothing except repeatedly throwing our support behind the leaders of these government offices. We watch our clergy roll over to the acceptance of every immoral act demanded by the godless people who listen to them.
Christians miss read Romans 13 and inadvertently use it as a road map to travel down a prim rose path to destruction. Anytime godly people use scripture to support their complacency towards evil, one can be sure the results will be death.
The Democrats have lost their soul. No question about that fact. Therefore the responsibility of stopping this wickedness must come from the pulpit of God fearing clergy and the leadership of the God fearing Republicans. If they are not willing to step up, and step up quickly, militia freedom fighters will have to assume that responsibility. Thousands of freedom fighters have been patiently waiting in the wings for Men of God, political leaders of the people, and most of all the Christian people themselves to do the right thing and bring righteousness back to America. Fighters for freedom will not wait much longer - they can't afford to.
