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I think it's wrong to say Jesus supports taxes, based on that text. Jesus merely said it was lawful to pay taxes to state authorities. You don't see the gulf between "Yeah, that's lawful" and "Yeah, I support that!"? Evidently not. I didn't say taxpayer money wasn't ever spent on the poor. I...

This was your claim, Buck: "taxes are voluntary. and jesus supported taxes (especially those that might go to feed the poor, like food stamps), he said so specifically in his "render unto caesar" schtick." Jesus said that paying the tax in question was lawful. That's it. I already quoted the...

In that case, I presume Obama would veto anything the Republicans do to the ACA (unless everyone gets together and tries to fix/patch certain parts viewed as objectionable by people on both sides). The Republicans would need 67 votes in the senate to defeat a veto. Even if they swept the...

What is the AFA? My googling yields nothing that sounds like a law.

Story: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/203161-king-may-flip-to-gop-in-2015. This development makes a Republican takeover of the senate even more likely than it already is at this moment. If King switches sides, Republicans only need to gain five seats. Montana, South Dakota, and West...

You're on to something here. Arabs have oil. That's really the only reason they're prosperous: they had the great fortune of finding this very valuable and relatively easy to extract and sell thing in the ground. They aren't superior to anyone, merely lucky. Just as Europeans were lucky to...

Context, Buck. Here's some help for you: -"Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?" -Jesus asks to see the tribute and they show him a Roman coin. -"Whose is this image and superscription?" -"Caesar's." -"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's." The tax discussed in...

You just called the Arabs prosperous. Are tribes inferior or not? Make up your mind. Or are black tribal structures inferior to Arab tribal structures for some reason? You're basically pretending that advantages and resources were equally distributed and accessible to all people. The simple...

My original point was that Jesus didn't advocate governments forcing their citizens to help the poor. He wanted the rich to give to the poor voluntarily. You attacked that with "No one is forced to pay taxes." Why does it matter if paying taxes is voluntary or not? Paying taxes is not...

I didn't realize Gabon, Botswana, South Africa, and others were Arab countries in North Africa. Thanks for the geography and demography lesson. And again you neglect to mention the Arab North African countries that are shitholes. "The prosperous nations of Africa are in the north and are Arab...

You're seeing what you want to see. Libya, Botswana, South Africa, Tunisia, Angola, Algeria, Namibia, and Egypt have higher GDP per capita than India, Indonesia, or Vietnam (I'm excluding the island countries and some other dubious ones). Some of them beat Malaysia too. The only true standouts...

Stable governments and stable economic environments would increase the outputs of and lower the prices of the resources you're speaking of. Stability, not strife, would be far more economically advantageous and thus beneficial to the "first world." There is no plot by the world's powers to keep...

100,000+ people died in the breakup of Yugoslavia, and that death toll would have climbed substantially higher without extensive international involvement in the conflicts. More than a decade later, how many thousands of foreign troops are still stationed in the former Yugoslavia, keeping things...

I was once invited to have a good time with another staffer in an apparently infrequently visited bathroom in the basement of a House office building. I didn't go though. The only time I ever got naked on the Hill was to change out of my work clothes for evening softball games. (For the record...

I already answered this. Half the population pays no federal income tax because credits and deductions have worked to prevent them from owing anything. If I make $20,000 and have 4 kids, I owe $0 in federal income tax. If I make $1 million a year from municipal bonds, I owe $0 in federal income...

Jealous because you're a loser doing nothing with your life? Sorry, Buck, that doesn't erase everything I've done in my life. :) I have worked on Capitol Hill, spent time in those congressional office buildings and in the Capitol itself. Ask me questions about the basements or the non-public...

It's exactly what you said it is: a withholding agreement. It is an agreement with the federal government to withhold money from your pay, in advance, in partial or total satisfaction of the taxes that will be due at a future time. Whether you have taxes withheld by an employer or not you still...

Your fixation on this document is puzzling. It has absolutely nothing to do with the obligation to pay taxes. You owe taxes regardless of the document, whether it exists, whether you signed it, and so on. The document is irrelevant. If you're self-employed--as millions of people are, as I have...

Paying taxes is not voluntary. You owe taxes whether you sign a W4 or not. If you don't pay the taxes you owe, that makes you a tax evader. With that said, I agree that Jesus took no issue with the state's taking of money from people or its use of that money, hence the phrase you quote. This is...

The government indisputably forces citizens to help the poor. Paying taxes is not optional. This would not satisfy Christ. That's all I'm saying. You can speak of the merits of the rich supporting the poor through taxation all you like, but don't suggest or imply that Jesus supported it...