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Taxing question on military spending
TO THE EDITORS:
According to the American Friends Service Committee, the federal government will spend 60 percent of its budget in 2013 on the military, which includes defense, war, veterans affairs and nuclear weapons programs.
That means that for every $1,000 that I pay in federal income taxes, $600 goes to the military, which means that 60 percent of my taxes go into war-making, i.e., killing people.
I believe it would be wrong for me to kill someone even if I wore a soldier's uniform and did so on orders of the commander-in-chief. I would be breaking the law of God.
If it is wrong for me to kill someone else in uniform and on orders of the commander-in-chief, is it not wrong for me to pay the government money to enable it to kill other people? Is that not also a violation of the commandment "Thou shalt not kill"?
In other words, am I sinning if I pay my federal taxes knowing that 60 percent of it ($600 of every $1,000 of my taxes) is used to make weapons and use them to kill people in our wars?
Need I erect an altar to God every evening and pray God to forgive me for the taxes I have paid, which were used by the American military to destroy and murder the peoples of the Earth?
Daniel Riehl
Manheim Township
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