War tax resistance started long before the internet — in people’s living rooms, where you had to know someone who was already doing it in order to get involved. […] Last spring, Jacoby, who had never been a tax resister before, took over for an older woman who ran the group for 40 years.

In extreme cases, tax protesters could face wage garnishment, property seizures or prison time, though criminal prosecutions are rare, according to University of Chicago law professor David Weisbach. “They don’t often do that, but they can. And so it’s a form of civil disobedience that comes with all the consequences of civil disobedience, which is that you are subject to legal sanctions, and they can be quite severe,” Weisbach said. “It’s certainly one way of protesting, but it’s a risky way, and it could be a very, very costly way.”

Weisbach said the tax protest movement isn’t necessarily about making a dent in the federal budget. “The whole point of civil disobedience is to change people’s views about the matter,” he said. “Martin Luther King, that’s what he did. They march on a bridge, they break the law, the law was unjust, and they changed people’s views about race. But did he directly change a law? Not so much. He changed people’s views, which caused laws to change.”

(Posting here not because I think it’s funny, but because it seems like satire exploring extremes of protest that aren’t mutual aid and on such overground groups that have been around for so long. Satirical actions need not be reprehensible.)