Should Conscientious Objectors Be Required to Pay for the Military?

Mr. Kinsey spoke yesterday about an assignment he is working on for a class at American University Law School. He says he'd be grateful to hear other readers' thoughts. The assignment is due early this week.

You were talking to me about something that you have to do for school.

The question presented is whether or not someone who is a Quaker has the right to withhold taxes because they conscientiously object to the war in Iraq. They do have conscientious objector status not to fight in the military — so would it stand to reason that they should also be able to exempt themselves from a portion of the tax since killing is always wrong to them?

The actual essay, a 10-page paper, needs to argue whether or not a lower court's ruling to imprison someone — the Quaker — because of his withholding of the tax, should be reversed or should be upheld.

And I'm looking for arguments either way — whether or not the person who withholds the tax should go to jail or should be allowed to assert their moral claim against the war. Should they be able to withhold the tax? And what kind of issues come along with that — would everyone then be able to withhold their tax for whatever reason they like, or is this a special case because it's against someone's religion?

Is it justifiable in that one circumstance? That's my real question. Because the First Amendment guarantees someone's freedom of religion. So is there a moral justification for their withholding, or are they not exempt from paying taxes? Does the moral objective supersede the tax code and Congress's right to levy taxes against individuals?

And the actual facts of the case —

— It's hypothetical. It hasn't really happened. But a person who's a member of the Society of Friends, which is also known as the Quakers, withheld his tax, because he theoretically knows how much of his tax will go to the Department of Defense, so he withholds that money and gives it to a charity — Habitat for Humanity, for example.

And the government sees that he has not paid his taxes to them — whatever percentage that might be — and they put him in jail, and he's appealing that to the Supreme Court.

My job in this essay: I'm a member of the Supreme Court and have to convince the rest of the members of the Supreme Court whether or not this case in the lower court should be reversed or not — whether he should sit in jail.

And I have to argue that on the basis of different ideas of interpretation of the Constitution. If you're a textualist, [you] believe that exactly what the Constitution says is exactly what it means. Or [you might] believe there's some kind of abstract principal underneath the Constitution — what the framers' intentions were at the time they made the [freedom of religion] clause.

So did the framers really mean that all of us had a moral claim to be exempt from whatever our religions said against the government? In this case, if you had a conscientious objector, does it then stand to reason that he doesn't have to pay taxes, because that's what the framers' intent was — because the freedom of religion supersedes all other rights? Are there really individual rights against the state, or the government, and do they supersede other law that are passed de facto, after the Bill of Rights?

And what do you think?

My personal opinion? I think if someone has a religious claim, it makes sense to me that — though there's a conundrum there — conscientious objectors to the war would not have to pay the tax.

However, the problem would lie in that every group who has an objection could then exempt themselves from taxes — and then who would be paying taxes?

And then it gets so ridiculous and ludicrous and out of control, that those who never flew on an airplane could say because of their socioeconomic status, that they're not required to pay a portion of their tax, because they'll never fly on an airplane, or never own a car. Or never send their kids to public school. It could be a ton of different reasons. It could spiral out of control, and that's the problem.

It's such a libertarian idea, that we would only pay for exactly what we use, and I think it's good on its face, but it doesn't make much sense in practice because we wouldn't have roads, we wouldn't have public school systems, so that's where it would get out of control. I understand the principal behind it, but I don't support the actual idea fully.

If anybody has any ideas, are you looking for them?

Sure! They can send me an e-mail, to dk2844a@american.edu.

And if they don't have e-mail —

— They can drop a note or ring my buzzer at 524, Apartment A.

Cool. Thank you!

Thank you. §