Why I’m Suing to Reclaim Our Republic
How a spiritual war tax resistance case challenges American imperial over-reach and the corruption of our democracy
Today, July 4th, 2025 — the 249th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence — I filed a federal lawsuit that goes to the heart of what America was meant to be and what it has tragically become.
The United States of America has achieved extraordinary greatness over nearly two and a half centuries. This nation has served as a beacon of hope for millions seeking freedom, justice, and opportunity. We’ve pioneered democratic governance, protected individual liberty, fostered unprecedented prosperity, and repeatedly risen to defend freedom against tyranny. The founding principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence — that all people are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — have inspired liberation movements across the globe.
But our great republic has become corrupted in sundry and profound ways such that we no longer live in a republic where citizens meaningfully govern themselves through elected representatives.
The symbolism of today’s filing is not accidental. Earlier today, President Trump issued a message invoking “the sacred ideals articulated in the Declaration of Independence” and proclaimed his administration’s commitment to “revive our sovereignty” and “reclaim” founding principles. This afternoon, he signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) — legislation that polling shows vast majorities of informed Americans oppose.
Multiple major polling organizations found Americans oppose the OBBBA by overwhelming margins: Washington Post/Ipsos found 42% opposed versus 23% supported, Quinnipiac showed 53% opposition versus 27% support, Kaiser Family Foundation revealed 64% unfavorable versus 35% favorable, and Pew Research found 49% against and 29% in favor. Most significantly, The Washington Post reported that “those who have heard a great deal or a good amount about [the bill] oppose it by a roughly 2-to-1 margin, 64% to 33%” — meaning more information produces MORE opposition. Yet Congress passed it anyway, with Republican representatives literally changing their votes after personal calls from Trump.
This is taxation without representation in its purest form — exactly what sparked the American Revolution 249 years ago.
The American Revolution began not with the shot heard ‘round the world, but with taxpayer rebellion. When British authorities imposed taxes to fund imperial wars and oppressive policies, American colonists refused to pay, declaring “no taxation without representation.” The Boston Tea Party of 1773 was fundamentally an act of tax resistance — colonists destroying property rather than allowing their money to fund policies they found morally abhorrent.
My lawsuit follows this same moral logic. As someone who has held sincere spiritual convictions against warfare for over 30 years — beliefs grounded in contemplative practice, ethical philosophy, and wisdom drawn from Christian pacifist theology and Buddhist principles of ahimsa — I cannot in good conscience continue funding military operations that enable genocide and systematic war crimes.
The Factual Foundation: Three Ongoing Genocides
This isn’t abstract political protest. The lawsuit documents, with comprehensive evidence detailed in a substantial exhibit, how U.S. taxpayer funds currently enable what international courts, UN experts, and leading genocide scholars have characterized as genocide in three countries:
Yemen: Through decades of weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, plus Trump’s 2025 “Operation Rough Rider” bombing campaign that has killed dozens of civilians in direct U.S. strikes. Trump even posted video of one strike on social media with the caption “Oops… There will be no attack by these Houthis!” — celebrating mass killing with casual indifference.
Gaza: Through $3.8 billion annually to Israel, plus $17.9 billion in additional weapons since October 7, 2023. The International Court of Justice found South Africa’s genocide allegations “plausible” and ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts. Leading genocide scholars show “surprising unanimity” that Israel’s actions constitute genocide.
Sudan: Despite the U.S. formally determining that forces are committing genocide there, we continue massive arms sales to the UAE, which provides comprehensive support enabling these genocidal forces.
These operations violate multiple provisions of U.S. domestic criminal law, including the War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 2441) and Genocide Convention Implementation Act (18 U.S.C. § 1091). American taxpayers are being compelled to fund conduct that constitutes federal crimes.
The Constitutional Claims
My lawsuit advances six legal theories, but they center on three core principles:
Religious Freedom: Just as the Supreme Court in Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) exempted the Amish from Social Security taxes based on spiritual convictions, the government must accommodate sincere spiritual objections to funding warfare. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act requires that government use the “least restrictive means” when substantially burdening spiritual exercise.
First Amendment Speech Rights: Taxation constitutes compelled participation in government “expression” through military force. When the government uses tax revenue to systematically target civilians and enable genocide, it compels taxpayers to “speak” through instruments of violence. This violates the principle established in West Virginia v. Barnette (1943) that government cannot force citizens to express messages that violate their conscience.
Equal Protection and Due Process: The government provides extensive accommodations for some forms of spiritual exercise while denying accommodation to spiritual pacifists. Military personnel receive conscientious objector status, religious organizations receive tax exemptions, yet spiritual objectors to war taxes are denied similar accommodation.
Perhaps most significantly, the lawsuit draws on the landmark Princeton University study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, which analyzed 1,779 policy issues over twenty years and found that “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscular, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
The study concluded that the United States functions as an oligarchy rather than a democracy, where “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.”
The OBBBA’s passage despite overwhelming public opposition perfectly illustrates this finding. When Congress consistently authorizes military spending that enables genocide despite public opposition, Americans face the same fundamental injustice that sparked the Revolution: taxation without representation.
Henry David Thoreau, writing from his jail cell after refusing to pay taxes that supported the Mexican-American War and slavery, understood that individual conscience must supersede state authority when government abandons its moral foundation. In “Civil Disobedience,” he declared that “the only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.”
Thoreau’s central insight was that government derives its legitimacy from moral authority, not mere power. When international bodies, genocide scholars, and the U.S. government’s own determinations characterize ongoing military operations as genocide and systematic war crimes, moral citizens cannot remain complicit through forced financial participation.
I’m not asking to avoid paying taxes entirely. I’m seeking either exemption from the military-related portions of my federal taxes (roughly 30% of the federal budget) or the right to redirect those payments to civilian government programs. This would parallel existing protections for military conscientious objectors while preserving government revenue for legitimate constitutional purposes.
The lawsuit seeks declaratory relief establishing the constitutional right to spiritual objector accommodation in taxation, and injunctive relief providing that accommodation. This could set precedent for other Americans whose spiritual convictions prohibit funding warfare.
This case is ultimately about whether America will remain a constitutional republic governed by moral principles, or complete its transformation into an oligarchic empire that compels citizen participation in policies they cannot influence or control.
The founders designed a system of limited government with constrained revenue precisely to prevent the kind of imperial overreach that unlimited federal taxation has enabled. Since the adoption of mass income taxation during World War II, the United States has engaged in continuous military interventions that would have been financially impossible under the constitutional system of limited federal revenue.
As Thomas Paine observed in Common Sense: “Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.” The unlimited taxation capacity of the modern income tax has transformed necessary government into the “intolerable” evil of unaccountable empire.
A Personal Journey
Thirty-five years ago, during Basic Training for the U.S. Army at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, I experienced a profound spiritual awakening that led me to embrace pacifism. I served my adopted country honorably for four years (exiting with an honorable discharge), but my spiritual convictions against violence have only deepened over the decades.
For me, being compelled to fund military operations through taxation constitutes direct participation in unjust violence and killing, violating my core spiritual identity in precisely the same manner that forced military service would violate the conscience of a traditional conscientious objector.
The government already recognizes this principle for military personnel who develop spiritual objections to warfare — they receive alternative service rather than being forced to violate their conscience. The same constitutional protection must extend to civilian taxpayers.
Reclaiming the Spirit of 1776
Filing this lawsuit on Independence Day 2025 is my attempt to reclaim the spirit of 1776 — not through destruction or violence, but through the peaceful assertion of constitutional rights and moral conscience. The Boston Tea Party was fundamentally about refusing to fund government policies that violated colonial conscience. This lawsuit follows the same principle through constitutional legal process.
The American Revolution was fought to establish a republic where citizens could govern themselves through elected representatives, not to create an empire where elites make decisions while ordinary people bear the costs. When that system breaks down — when polling consistently shows that informed public opinion has “near-zero impact” on policy — we face the same constitutional crisis that justified revolution 249 years ago.
But unlike the colonists, we still have functioning courts and constitutional protections. This lawsuit asks the federal judiciary to vindicate the founding principle that legitimate government derives from the consent of the governed, and that citizens cannot be compelled to fund government conduct that violates both their deepest spiritual convictions and federal criminal law.
I don’t know whether this lawsuit will succeed in court. Constitutional litigation is always uncertain, especially when challenging entrenched government practices. But I know that remaining silent while my tax payments enable genocide would violate everything I believe about spiritual responsibility and moral courage.
As the Declaration of Independence proclaimed 249 years ago today, there are certain truths we hold to be self-evident — that all people are created equal, that they are endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When government systematically violates these truths through policies that enable the destruction of innocent life, citizens have not just a right but a duty to withdraw their support.
This Independence Day, as we celebrate the founding of our republic, we must also confront the reality of what it has become. The question facing every American is whether we will continue accepting taxation without representation, compelled participation in policies we cannot influence or control, and the systematic corruption of the constitutional system our ancestors died to establish.
My lawsuit is one small attempt to answer that question with the moral courage our founders demonstrated 249 years ago today. Whether in victory or defeat, it represents a refusal to remain complicit in the destruction of the republic they envisioned and the values they died to defend.
The spirit of 1776 lives on in anyone willing to take a stand for the principle that legitimate government must serve justice, not power, and certainly not serve genocide to populations in three countries — and that no citizen should be forced to fund policies that violate their deepest convictions about human dignity and the sanctity of life.
Today, on this Independence Day, I’m proud to carry forward that revolutionary tradition through peaceful constitutional means, in the hope that future generations might inherit the republic we were promised rather than the empire we’ve become.
Tam Hunt filed his pro se lawsuit today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii. For media inquiries, contact tam.hunt@gmail.com
[Claude 4.0 helped to write this essay]
References and Sources
Legal Cases:
- Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972)
- West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)
- Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682 (2014)
Federal Statutes:
- Religious Freedom Restoration Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb
- War Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2441
- Genocide Convention Implementation Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1091
Historical Documents:
- Declaration of Independence (1776)
- Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” (1849)
- Thomas Paine, “Common Sense” (1776)
Academic Research:
Polling Data:
- Washington Post/Ipsos Poll on OBBBA
- Quinnipiac University Poll
- Kaiser Family Foundation Survey
- Pew Research Center Polling
- G. Elliott Morris, “One Big Unpopular Bill”
International Law:
Government Documents:
- Presidential Message on the 249th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 2025)
- State Department determination on Sudan genocide
Expert Analysis:
