Would you believe I have been so busy since I first posted here, that I have only come on here sporadically, trying to close out windows in order to shut this whole mess down to reboot. I usually get sidetracked. I just opened this a few minutes ago and didn't reply just then because I was on a mission to see if I could find the government's definition of 'State', and lo and behold, ran right into this:
"...Taxation has always been big business, the biggest business of government. Hebrew complaints about the "oppression" of the Egyptian pharaohs seem to have been chiefly about the taxes imposed on them, which often amounted to, and were hard to separate from, slavery. (The Egyptians were cruel taxers, even sending scribes into every home to make sure people weren't preparing their food with untaxed cooking oil!) Sometimes we hear of taxation so casually that we hardly notice it, as in the Gospel accounts of Joseph and Mary going to Bethlehem to submit to a great Roman tax census....." From THE LAW and TAXATION By Joe Sobran
Funny coincidence!
We still have our tree up. Since we didn't put it up until a day or two before Christmas, I think we might keep it up until the needles fall. Our own little protest against all the little antichrists in our society. We don't appear to be the only ones in the neighborhood, either. I've seen quite a few others that still have their trees up as well.
Have a happy and blessed new year.