‘The government has decided on a new tax on
everyone.’
‘A new one?’
‘Yes.
It will be used to set up a grant system to aid farmers.’
‘That sounds very good. Farmers need this sort of assistance from
time to time so that droughts, storms, insect infestations, and the like do not
wipe them out. Anything else?’
‘Well, I don’t suppose people who are not
farmers will object. They will benefit
even so: everyone needs to eat!’
‘No, they should not object.’
‘Still, I wonder about the stipulation for
acquiring a grant.’
‘And that is…?’
‘If a farmer wants any of the grant money
from the government, they must become pig farmers as well as whatever else they
farm.’
‘Everyone a pig farmer?’
‘If they want government grant money.’
‘They don’t do enough by growing crops or having
cattle or sheep, they also have to have pigs?’
‘Yes.’
‘What if they are Jewish farmers? Or Muslims?
Or vegans?’
‘Well, they can farm whatever they like,
but they won’t get any grant money if they do not raise swine.’
‘That seems like an infringement on
people’s beliefs to me. And it is very
heavy-handed.’
‘I was thinking the same thing. It seems as though such a government has
forgotten that here we have government by the people, of the people, and for
the people. They take money from
everyone in the form of a tax, and then they offer it to a group that could
well use it, but then they withhold it from those whose consciences or religion
or even preferences will not allow them to raise pigs.’
‘Surely that is an abuse of power—a
coercion against one’s beliefs. It is
not as though the grant is for people to go on holiday. It is money to be used to keep farmers on
their farms and not be wiped out if a plague descends on them. I just can’t believe that the government can
do this.’
‘Well, they aren’t! I was just getting to see what you thought in
principle about something like this!’
‘Why on earth?’
‘Because the government is doing this in
medicine. They are now taxing everyone,
giving some of the money to hospitals—we all need hospitals—and then insisting
that, whatever else the hospitals do, they must provide medications and
surgeries to people who want to change their gender.’
‘But Evangelicals, Orthodox, and Catholics
could never do that—it is against their beliefs.’
‘And the government is saying that, despite
taking their money in the form of taxes, they can’t have it to provide medical
services to those in need unless they do transgender surgeries.’
‘I remember reading this somewhere--oh, here, right on the wall: “We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among
men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That,
whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government,
laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such
form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”’
‘That is in the Declaration of
Independence.’
‘Ah, of course. And wasn’t the cause of writing this
something like taxation without representation?
We have not only this but also now taxation with coercion against
religious beliefs.’
‘Well, one thing is for sure. The Christians who started this country would
find it destructive of the ends for which they established it.’
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