Bottom line - the government is ready to kill your sorry @ss if you don't pay your taxes - and you have neighbors that approve of such actions...
(Which is why I employ a very cautious tax attorney - every freaking year... ;>)
Nothing new there. Ever heard of the Whiskey Rebellion? Happened during the Washington administration. The national gubmint, eager to establish its dominance, marched thousands of troops to the site of the rebellion, with Washington and then Hamilton riding at the head of the march, rounded up and imprisoned whoever they could find.
While the tax was supposedly supposed to help pay off the national debt (they had assumed the state debts from the war), Hamilton stated that the tax was ""more as a measure of social discipline than as a source of revenue."
The Federalists, so loved by conservatives, were the big government taxers and social engineers of their era. They seem tame by today's standards, but back then, real conservatives OPPOSED them.
Bottom line: What is happening now is nothing new. It is merely the continuation of things set in motion in 1787.