Posted on 08/16/2019 11:43:37 AM PDT by Morgana
An Oregon man is back in court this week after he refused to pay taxes because they fund the killing of unborn babies.
A lawyer for Michael E. Bowman, of Columbia City, said his client has deeply-held convictions against abortion, in part, because his own unborn child was aborted many years ago, The Oregonian reports. Matthew Schindler told a federal jury that when Bowman was a teenager, his pregnant girlfriends parents forced her to have an abortion, and he could do nothing to stop it.
Bowman, a pro-life Christian, has refused to pay income taxes or file tax returns for more than two decades, National Review reported earlier this year. He repeatedly has made it very clear why: He believes unborn babies are valuable human beings, and killing them is wrong.
Bowman lives in Oregon, one of 16 states that forces its taxpayers to pay for elective abortions through its medical assistance program. Nationwide, taxpayers also give about half a billion dollars to Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion chain in the U.S.
In 2018, Bowman won a victory in court when a federal judge dismissed one of the charges against him: felony tax evasion, the Miami Herald reported at the time.
However, he still faces four misdemeanor tax charges, according to The Oregonian. His jury trial in the case began Monday in Portland.
Heres more from the report:
Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Rachel Sowray argued that the 54-year-old man who worked independently as a computer contractor acted deliberately because he disagrees with the law.
Disagreement with the law is different than misunderstanding the law and disagreeing with the law is not a valid defense, Sowray told jurors in her opening statement.
Matthew Schindler, Bowmans defense lawyer, said his client never acted with criminal intent, but instead was driven by his deeply rooted Christian conviction that human life is sacred and his desire not to give money to the government to fund abortion.
Bowman isnt some kind of mumbo jumbo tax protester who doesnt believe wages arent income, Schindler said. Instead, it was Bowmans good faith belief that the IRS had to make an accommodation for his views under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the First Amendment and the Oregon Constitution.
He also noted that the IRS did not contact Bowman, even though he did not file a tax return for 18 years.
It never collected a single dime from him during those 18 years. That inaction, that failure, convinced him that he was right, Schindler said.
Bowman is a self-employed computer software developer and owes at least $800,000 in back taxes, according to the Herald. If convicted, he could face an additional $25,000 in fines.
Many Americans, like Bowman, oppose their tax dollars being used to pay for abortions. A recent national poll by Marist University found that a majority of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortions, while just 39 percent support them. Similarly, a 2016 Politico/Harvard University poll found that 36 percent of likely voters supported taxpayer funding for abortions, while 58 percent opposed it.
oregon ping
Already decided by SCOTUS back when people were withholding taxes to protest the Vietnam War.
He is gonna lose and go to prison.
Yeah, that’s not gonna work out well.
Despite my respect for all veterans, I have no problem with protest based on unconstitutional wars or spending programs.
I hope he prevails, but it would seem unlikely.
So they’ll enforce tax laws, which feed leviathan, and they’ll enforce gun control, which insulate leviathan, but they won’t enforce border/immigration.
Why are we taxed for exchanging our labor for money? Is the employer taxed for exchanging money for labor?
Of course not. The employer is able to deduct the exchange as a cost. Why can we not deduct our labor as a cost?
Please note that the feds already approved an exemption for the Obamacare penalty based upon abortion.
thanks for the post. may God bless this man’s efforts. if i thought that God would hold me responsible for everything the gov’t is doing with my money, i’d have to be right there with him. fortunately, i don’t yet believe that.
still he’s doing the Lord’s work for us all, and i pray and commend his efforts! may the Lord smile down on him, may the Lord bless and keep him.
as one of the greatest men in the Lord Jesus once wrote:
This law of nature dictated by God Himself is binding over all the globe in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this. ”
—Blackstone
I hope he prevails. The consequences will be incredible.
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponents Argument
Establishing constitutionally bogus (imo) federal agencies like the IRS is how the corrupt feds get around the 1st Amendment prohibitions on certain federal powers imo.
From related threads
More specifically, patriots are reminded that the Founding States made the first numbered clauses in the Constitution, Sections 1-3 of Article I, to clarify that all federal legislative powers are vested in the elected members of Congress, not in the executive or judicial branches, or in constitutionally undefined, so-called federal regulatory agencies like IRS and EPA, agencies run by non-elected bureaucrats.
Congress not only wrongly weakens constitutionally enumerated voting power by establishing such agencies, but in the case of the religious convictions of the referenced taxpayer versus IRS, Congress is unthinkingly creating religiously objectionable taxation without representation with such an agency.
And what's even worse than non-elected federal bureaucrats exercising legislative powers is that Congress lets bureaucrats get way with stealing unique, 10th Amendment-protected state power to do Congress's dirty, unconstitutional legislative work for it.
Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States. Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added]. United States v. Butler, 1936.
It wouldn't be surprising if federal lawmakers let third-party bureaucrats get away with stealing and exercising state powers so that lawmakers can keep their voting records clean. After all, keeping their voting records clean undoubtedly makes it easier for career lawmakers to fool low-information voters to repeatedly reelect them.
And speaking of state powers, since the referenced gentleman is also fighting state-authorized murder of unborn children, neither is the corrupt, post-17th Amendment ratification Congress exercising its express 14th Amendment power to make penal laws to discourage state actors from abridging constitutionally enumerated protections.
After all, the misguided, activist state is forcing citizens who value their freedom of religious expression to likewise pay taxes that are used to pay for murder of unborn children.
From the 14th Amendment:
"Section 1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States [emphasis added]; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
"Section 5: The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."
The remedy for constitutionally failed federal and state governments
All patriots in the nation need to come to the rescue of the defendant and other citizens in his situation by doing the following.
Patriots need to elect a new patriot Congress in the 2020 elections that will not only promise to support PDJT's vision for MAGA, now KAG, but will also promise to surrender state powers that the feds have been stealing from the states and exercise its 14A powers to make penal laws to discourage state actors from abridging constitutionally enumerated protections.
And to make such changes permanent, patriots also need to support PDJT in leading the states to repeal the 16th and ill-conceived 17th Amendments.
Additionally, patriots need to work with their state lawmakers to legally define embryos as persons so their lives are protected by 14A due process of law.
Remember in November 2020!
MAGA! Now KAG! (Keep America Great!)
"The Holy Grail of organized crime is to control government power to tax." me
"The constitutionally undefined political parties are basically rival, corrupt voter unions, union dues paid by means of unconstitutional federal taxes. me
"The smart crooks long ago figured out that getting themselves elected to federal office to make unconstitutional tax laws to fill their pockets is a much easier way to make a living than robbing banks." me
"Federal career lawmakers probably laugh all the way to the bank to deposit bribes for putting loopholes for the rich and corporations in tax appropriations laws, Congress actually not having the express constitutional authority to make most appropriations laws where domestic policy is concerned. Such laws are based on stolen state powers and uniquely associated stolen state revenues." me
BOOKbump
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