War Resisters: 'We Won't Go' to 'We Won't Pay'

The New York Times ^ | 8/3/02 | Felicia R. Lee

[KarlInOhio]

earmark the tax revenues that would go to the military — usually around 50 percent — for nonmilitary purposes

50%? Let's see, about $350 billion of $2 trillion (rough estimates on my part) = 17.5%. Very hard to round that up to 50%. Even if you go through some flips to remove SS and medicare from the budget because they have separate taxes, you still won't get near 50%.

[Pistias]

95% sounds about right, but why conquer the world? Far most cost-effective to be unassailable.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Will of the people! NOT. When is someone from the NY Times going to the pokey for slander?

[jumpstartme]

Shirley, you jest. :)

You left yourself wide open for that one. ;o))

[Salman]

Who can forget the boxer, Mohammed Ali, who refused to be drafted because he said pacifism was required of him as a follower of "the religion of peace."

Not exactly. Ali said "No Vietcong ever called me a nigger" and that he had no quarrel with them. He naver claimed to be a religious pacifist.

[07055]

I don't have any books on Ali to contradict what you are saying. However, several Ali biographies on the web (and my memory) put it this way:

"Citing his Islamic faith, Ali refused to serve in the U.S. military during the war in Vietnan..."

"I ain't got no quarrel with those Vietcong." —refusing military induction based on religious grounds (1966)