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Conversations with World War II Conscientious Objectors

To the Editor: I am delighted by the correspondence in Western Friend concerning war tax resistance. (I will use the term “refuser” in this statement. I like this fairly new way of expressing out war tax actions.) I have been a war tax refuser since 1980, and David Hartsough’s letter reflected well my own view. Nancy Haimes argues that war tax refusal is ineffective, maybe even counter-effective. She believes that we should devote ourselves to influencing Congress and to effective participation in the political system. I say that these are not either/or responses. Most of us who are war tax refusers also write and lobby our members of Congress. We demand a vast reduction in the U.S. military spending, and we yearn for and seek the passage of national legislation that would make war tax refusal legal. For information about the bill that is currently before Congress, go to peacetaxfund.org.

The Mission Field of Washington, DC

Dear Friends: Our First Amendment right to free expression is sometimes called the “crown jewel” of the Bill of Rights. That somewhat oxymoronic metaphor – a fundamental democratic principle sparkling like a diamond in the coffers of a monarch – reveals an uneasy tension between our democratic freedoms and the worldly powers that guard them. Yet even though any government must place some limits on individual freedom, the expectation is that those limits will benefit the common good. In the document that established Pennsylvania’s first legislature in 1682, William Penn wrote, “The glory of Almighty God and the good of mankind is the reason and end of government, and therefore government in itself is a venerable ordinance of God.”

Dear Editor:  Friends want to know what to do about violence in Central America. I have lived in Honduras long enough to make some recommendations. Friends can ask the President and Congress to close the School of the Americas, to support House bill HR2989, to stop foreign “aid” that contributes to violence, and to support foreign aid that is positive. Here are some parts of a letter that I just sent to President Obama:

Dear Editor: I enjoyed Robert Levering’s interview in the July/August issue, “A Great Place to Work,” because amongst all the negativity and suspicion today, it is uplifting to know that many corporations are great (not perfect) places to work. He identified trust between employee and management as the key ingredient. Trust develops at many depths, but perhaps at some level, there is a connection between good corporate governance and Quaker worship values. William Taber (Four Doors to Meeting for Worship) expressed it well: “….trust [is] a synonym of faith, for it takes trust to go out into the deep water.” Wading into any community generally involves some deep water. I’m grateful to Robert for rediscovering trust as essential.

Some rules are written down, like those in law books. Others are unwritten rules, which can be even more stringent and unforgiving than statute, like the unwritten rules that whisper to dictate which emotions each gender is supposed to feel and show, or not. Lately, various new and somewhat inconsistent rules have arisen concerning speech that some people experience as offensive, and these rules have been causing occasional havoc.

The GI Bill was a White guy thing. Yes, the famous law that gave so many young veterans a good start in life after World War II. Although technically, it was for all veterans, in practice, African-Americans found it impossible to get the promised support. Before long, they stopped applying for it. And that was only the beginning. In his 2017 book, The Color of Law, Richard Rothstein shows that many housing laws were designed to discriminate against African-Americans. He shows that it was in fact the policy of the federal government to discriminate in housing. And he shows how racial discrimination in housing led to the segregated society we know today; divisions by neighborhood, by financial situation, by profession, and by level of education – all come out of housing discrimination.

Schools don’t have graveyards. At least, that is what many believed until some gruesome recent discoveries.

Quakers of the early 1800s would not have approved of the flamboyant lifestyle of the poet Lord Byron. But they might have approved of his poem “To a Beautiful Quaker” (1806), in which he associates Quakers with the attributes of peace and virtue. And although Harriet Beecher Stowe’s best-selling anti-slavery book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), was written in a genre not approved by Friends – a novel – Friends would not have objected to Stowe’s portrayal of heroic efforts by Quakers to help their fellow man. When Quakers are portrayed by others as positive role models, depending on the circumstances, such portrayals might deserve praise, sufferance, or condemnation.

We can envision a universal parameter of dignity for individuals: Each person is owed fundamental respect simply by virtue of being human. We can also appreciate the importance of ensuring dignified treatment of the myriad of groups that comprise our society, and in particular, those that have been exploited, marginalized, and disempowered. For Friends, the importance of human dignity rests on a strong spiritual basis:

My Quaker values motivate me to befriend those experiencing homelessness at Tempe's Moeur Park. I will continue, even if that makes me a criminal.