Page:The Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist.djvu/145

CHAPTER 7. DOROTHY VISITS PHOENIX 132 escaped slaves. I am practicing the same idea as that of Thoreau who refused to pay taxes for the Mexican War and slavery.


 * The refusal of myself and a few others to pay taxes will not stop World War III, the continuance of conscription, and the fraud of the Welfare State now being slipped over on the American people. The question is not "Can we change the world?" but "Can we keep the world from changing us?" The Unforgivable Sin is that committed by our politicians, clerical and intellectual leaders when they make pipsqueaks of young folk who start life with high ideals. In the past a few men like William Lloyd Garrison and Eugene V. Debs stood in the way of evil politicians and corrupt union leaders. Today those few who might speak the truth have been fooled into becoming leaders of pressure groups. If they get something for their group at the expense of the rest of us they have won their battle—and their own individual life pension.


 * The fallacy of seeking to change the other fellow and to get his name on the dotted line for some party, union, religion, or other pressure group has prevented people from doing the one thing which they are capable of doing which is to change themselves, to refuse to be a part of the dominant lie, to live the truth no matter what the consequences. In order to do this one must not have much baggage; one must live a life of voluntary poverty, of dedication to the ideal.


 * The validity of this proposed action is supported by the following analysis of events and trends in present day society. The great mass of people are kept busy gaining a living and in being victims of "escape" activities of their senseless world, rather than in trying to think matters through on the coming war and the Servile State. To those who are ready to question the acts and purposes of their lives this summary, though harsh, is essentially true.


 * The whole propaganda of the capitalist and high-up clergy against Communism is a camouflage; their cry for Free Enterprise and Freedom of the Will, for the American Way of Life, and against the Servile and Welfare State does not come with good grace. The capitalist who grew rich at the expense of the small business man, the farmer, and labor, now cries against subsidies granted to others than himself. The dominant clergy, whose churches pay no taxes on their immense holdings and who do not have an Inquisition and a state-supported church, or the old Puritan Blue Laws and Prohibition simply because they cannot get away with it, now wish released time for so-called religious education in the schools and free bus transportation for parochial schools.