Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay
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One of the principal roots of the Religious Right's anti-government stance goes back to the Old Testament. The Israelites, concerned over being led by Samuel's corrupt and incompetent sons, went to the prophet Samuel and demanded a king. Samuel warned them:
This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you in that day. (1 Samuel 8 11-18)
Before then, Israel was governed by what may have been the most archetypal libertarian government ever, a loose system of judges selected mostly by self appointment and consensus. In fact, I suspect what would appeal to many would be those intervals when things were like this:
In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit. (Judges 21:25)
Unfortunately, the Book of Judges records numerous cases where Israel was occupied by foreigners as punishment for idolatry. Israel didn't do very well as a kingdom, either, but at least it wasn't subjugated by every penny-ante bandit clan.
Although the Protestant Reformation is widely thought to have liberated northern Europe from the tyranny of the Church and ritualism, it loosed some singularly gloomy and self-righteous theologians on the world, probably none more than the Swiss Jean Cauvin (Anglicized to John Calvin). Calvin attempted to sort out the apparent conflict between free will and omniscience by arguing that certain people were predestined either for salvation or damnation. Calvin also, more or less incidentally, paved the way for a basic element of modern capitalism by rejecting the traditional condemnation of usury (though he did call for interest free lending to those in need and a modest rate of 5% for others).
Numerous historians, notably the German Max Weber, have argued that Protestantism fostered the growth of capitalism by not only permitting interest, but also by encouraging secular trades and particularly by stressing hard work as a form of devotion. It's sometimes claimed that Calvin's notion of predestination was too harsh for many, since in principle one might be spotless in conduct yet still predestined for Hell. One of Calvin's doctrines, "perseverance of the saints," held that the saved would play out their predestined role by persevering in their faith, and that seemed to offer hope that one could gain a clue as to one's fate by how well one persevered. It's a short step to the notion that perseverance in other areas might also be a sign. There's no simple doctrinal succession from predestination to the notion that prosperity is a sign of God's favor, but by the 19th century the notion had become widely rooted in America.
Many people try to settle some moral issue by simplistically citing "thou shalt not kill" or "love thy neighbor," but the Biblical book that most explicitly deals with the tangled complexity of reality is the Book of Proverbs. And there are lots of verses in Proverbs that extol the virtues of hard work:
Hard work means prosperity; only fools idle away their time. – Proverbs 12:11
Lazy people want much but get little, but those who work hard will prosper and be satisfied. – Proverbs 13:4
Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty. – Proverbs 21:5
But then again we also find these:
The generous prosper and are satisfied; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed. – Proverbs 11:25
Those who listen to instruction will prosper; those who trust the LORD will be happy. – Proverbs 16:20
To acquire wisdom is to love oneself; people who cherish understanding will prosper." Proverbs 19:8
So we read that goodness and hard work mean prosperity. It's easy to turn the argument on its head and say that prosperity is a sign of hard work (very often true) and goodness (not so much). But once you have the idea that prosperity is a reward from God, taxing it isn't merely taking from the individual, it's taking from God.
The Old Testament settlement of Israel
"God so disposed, that the place where they afterwards settled was much depopulated by a great mortality amongst the natives, which fell out about two years before their arrival, whereby he made way for the carrying on of his good purpose in promulgating of his gospel as aforesaid." Morton
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