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Is taxation moral?

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Lakeside

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Except that government goods and services aren't being forced on him, they are only being made accessible to him.  I want to go back to a point StrictlyLogical made that I think best accounts for what is being made available and why...

 

"When the police stop you they are not rescuing the victim, they are rescuing civilized society and putting you away for their safety and for deterrence." ~ post #473

 

... the service is an offer; acceptance is the agreement to terms.

Edited by Devil's Advocate
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So I do have the right to trade my value for yours, DA, without your consent; to take $20 from your pocket as long as I put $20 worth of something back into it.

Given that, what's wrong with a little bit of nanny statism?

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"You can be a millionaire, and never pay taxes! ... First, get a million dollars." ~ Steve Martin

 
My first real job was working as a commercial diver in the Gulf of Mexico.  Once after returning from an extended offshore project, a coworker told me the CEO had stopped him in the hallway (thinking that he was me) and barked, "You missed a call to go offshore!"

 
Being filled with righteous indignation (as the young often are), I made my way to the CEO's office to let him know I missed that call because I was already working offshore. When he heard I was waiting to see him, he grabbed everything he had on me (which didn't make for a very large file), and made sure I saw it as I entered his office.

 
After I introduced myself and made my case, he replied something to the effect that while it was good I came in to straighten things out, if I didn't like the way things were being handled in that office, "Highway 90 (the route in and out of town) goes both ways".  Shortly after that, I took him up on his offer and relocated to another office in the adjoining state.

 
The point is, of course you can decline the service.  Just act on your convictions and choose another provider, or provide for yourself.  But hanging around complaining about house rules doesn't make you a victim.

Edited by Devil's Advocate
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If anything, that particular example should point to the benefit of maintaining the 2nd Amendment as a backup for asserting the right to abolish our own government if necessary.  Look Harrison, I get that you don't like paying the cost of maintaining government, given that you'd prefer not to be governed in the first place.  Now if you can just point to someplace or somewhere it's actually possible to pull that off we can have a viable taxation alternative to choose from.

 

Until then, I'll continue to contribute to your coverage while you continue to noodle it out.

 

edit:  It occurs to me you could attempt to preserve your life as an anarchist according to the maxim, "Live free or die!"  That just doesn't offer much in the way of a Plan B :P

Edited by Devil's Advocate
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I can't locate the quote. It went something like this: "Those who are in the fight for the future, are living it, today."

 

When the founding fathers saw the necessity of individual rights, they made it happen.

 

Devil's Advocate,

To argue that because some individuals may use their mind to decide for themselves they don't want to pay for "justice for all" — somehow translates or equates to depriving the moral basis for making such a decision from all, or in other words, an immoral basis of "injustice for all" — while playing hide and seek among economic details.

 

.

Edited by dream_weaver
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It occurs to me you could attempt to preserve your life as an anarchist according to the maxim, "Live free or die!" That just doesn't offer much in the way of a Plan B :P

“A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as ‘state’ and ‘society’ and ‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame . . . as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world ." -Robert Heinlein, the Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Trying to live perfectly, in an imperfect world, is neither a straightforward nor an easy affair. It is worth it.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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The point is, of course you can decline the service.  Just act on your convictions and choose another provider, or provide for yourself.  But hanging around complaining about house rules doesn't make you a victim.

 

So now I can choose a different service, which means another Government to provide the service. This is the competing Governments argument of the anarcho-capitaists.

 

Seriously - Abort mission.  This what I was trying to prevent.  

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So now I can choose a different service, which means another Government to provide the service. This is the competing Governments argument of the anarcho-capitaists.

 

Seriously - Abort mission.  This what I was trying to prevent.

I agree that the government qua business description misses the mark. A sports analogy is somewhat better, where government acts as referee for a set of rules know to all players. Most of the problems we see today have occurred as a result of government acting as both referee and player. At least with the sports analogy there's still room in the bleachers for anarchists to root against every team and heckle the refs.

Edited by Devil's Advocate
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I can't locate the quote. It went something like this: "Those who are in the fight for the future, are living it, today."

...

 

"Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today." ~ Ayn Rand

 

The argument against government persists primarily because it is secured by a right to free speech.

Edited by Devil's Advocate
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