Opinion of the phrase "Taxation is theft"?
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  Opinion of the phrase "Taxation is theft"?
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Question: Taxation is theft, yay or nay?
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Author Topic: Opinion of the phrase "Taxation is theft"?  (Read 1647 times)
Torie
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« Reply #25 on: May 13, 2015, 03:13:35 PM »

Even if it is in some weirdo's semantic parlance, we could not exist without this form of "theft," so the point is moot in the sense that even if one lives in the weido's world, it would nevertheless be a necessary evil. Taxation in some form has been around since our species began.
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MATTROSE94
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« Reply #26 on: May 14, 2015, 02:37:39 PM »

So how do these people expect to pay for roads, schools, military installations, food safety, etc... All paid for by taxes, all wouldn't exist with taxation.


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Ebsy
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« Reply #27 on: May 14, 2015, 03:03:51 PM »

Hasn't he ever heard of the social contract?
He might counter by asking to see the terms of this primeval document and wonder how he came to be bound by it.
Yeah, because the Enlightenment is certainly way back in the furthest reaches of human history.
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shua
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« Reply #28 on: May 14, 2015, 03:17:06 PM »

Hasn't he ever heard of the social contract?
He might counter by asking to see the terms of this primeval document and wonder how he came to be bound by it.
Yeah, because the Enlightenment is certainly way back in the furthest reaches of human history.

The social contract of the Enlightenment philosophers was a hypothesized transition in some distant past from a theorized "state of nature."
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Deus Naturae
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« Reply #29 on: May 15, 2015, 06:39:21 PM »

Pretty much all anthropological evidence contradicts the social contract theory. States originally came about via conquest and plunder, not voluntary compact, that's just a historical fact.

 
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ingemann
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« Reply #30 on: May 16, 2015, 07:31:08 AM »

I think you should stop talking with this person, as you have described him, he's denser than a rock, and I doubt you will ever convince him that tax is not theft, no matter how good argument you deliver.

But if you want a argument, you can use in your mission as a modern Sisyphus, there's a very simple one. He can stop paying tax if he moves out of USA or if he decides to live completely of the grid. He choose to pay tax by using the services the state deliver like roads, internet, electricity grid. If you stopped using all these things, the state would no longer be able to find him.

He may not have made any written contract, but  when I eat at a buffet, I can't say afterward, that I haven't made any contract with to pay for the items I have eaten. I have used the service they deliver, and now they not only expect me to pay, they will force to make me pay (in this case the force the state delivers to them; the police).
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Deus Naturae
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« Reply #31 on: May 16, 2015, 09:16:20 AM »

But if you want a argument, you can use in your mission as a modern Sisyphus, there's a very simple one. He can stop paying tax if he moves out of USA or if he decides to live completely of the grid. He choose to pay tax by using the services the state deliver like roads, internet, electricity grid. If you stopped using all these things, the state would no longer be able to find him.
The ability to hide from a thief hardly legitimates his thievery.

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A better analogy would be a buffet that you would charged for regardless of how much you ate, or whether you ate at all. In that case, you might as well eat from it, but that wouldn't mean you voluntarily agreed to pay for the buffet.
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ingemann
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« Reply #32 on: May 16, 2015, 09:28:16 AM »

But if you want a argument, you can use in your mission as a modern Sisyphus, there's a very simple one. He can stop paying tax if he moves out of USA or if he decides to live completely of the grid. He choose to pay tax by using the services the state deliver like roads, internet, electricity grid. If you stopped using all these things, the state would no longer be able to find him.
The ability to hide from a thief hardly legitimates his thievery.

Well that's not hiding, it's not eating at the buffet.

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A better analogy would be a buffet that you would charged for regardless of how much you ate, or whether you ate at all. In that case, you might as well eat from it, but that wouldn't mean you voluntarily agreed to pay for the buffet.[/quote]

Well I don't pay tax to the American state, because I don't and haven't used the services it delivers. You on the other hand have used from it for years until you became adult. Yes you didn't have any choise, but your guardians did.

So you have already eaten from the buffet, and now you're calling it theft because you have to pay.
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Deus Naturae
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« Reply #33 on: May 16, 2015, 09:38:29 AM »
« Edited: May 16, 2015, 09:43:20 AM by Deus Naturae »

Well that's not hiding, it's not eating at the buffet.
No...that's still illegal. The U.S. government could seize your property and throw you in a rape cage for doing that. They may not want to invest the effort if you're just a hillbilly in the middle of nowhere, but that's just the equivalent of a thief choosing to let someone go because they have nothing in their wallet, not a voluntary service provider.

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But even if I'd never eaten...I'd still have to pay. If I wanted to stop eating now, I'd still have to pay in the future.

It's as if I walked into a restaurant, and then head a gun pointed at me by a waiter who said, "You will have to pay for meals here for the rest of your life. You're free to eat elsewhere, but you'll still have to pay us regardless. If you ever bring your kids to eat here, it's the same deal for them for the rest of their lives."
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ingemann
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« Reply #34 on: May 16, 2015, 09:49:54 AM »

But if you want a argument, you can use in your mission as a modern Sisyphus, there's a very simple one. He can stop paying tax if he moves out of USA or if he decides to live completely of the grid. He choose to pay tax by using the services the state deliver like roads, internet, electricity grid. If you stopped using all these things, the state would no longer be able to find him.
The ability to hide from a thief hardly legitimates his thievery.

Well that's not hiding, it's not eating at the buffet.

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A better analogy would be a buffet that you would charged for regardless of how much you ate, or whether you ate at all. In that case, you might as well eat from it, but that wouldn't mean you voluntarily agreed to pay for the buffet.

Well I don't pay tax to the American state, because I don't and haven't used the services it delivers. You on the other hand have used from it for years until you became adult. Yes you didn't have any choise, but your guardians did.

So you have already eaten from the buffet, and now you're calling it theft because you have to pay.
But even if I'd never eaten...I'd still have to pay. If I wanted to stop eating now, I'd still have to pay in the future. [/quote]

I have never eaten at that buffet and I don't pay, you have eaten at it from the day you were born, and so have every native born American who pay tax.

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Except you're free to leave the restaurant anytime you want, and stop paying. But you insist on keep eating at the restaurant, while saying you have no choice to keep eating.

Right now you use a pierce a infrastructure, which the American government have given you, and I don't talk the internet, but the grids which it use and the protection against theft (of the copper as example) the American state provide, while you complain that paying for both is theft.


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shua
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« Reply #35 on: May 16, 2015, 12:36:41 PM »

But if you want a argument, you can use in your mission as a modern Sisyphus, there's a very simple one. He can stop paying tax if he moves out of USA or if he decides to live completely of the grid. He choose to pay tax by using the services the state deliver like roads, internet, electricity grid. If you stopped using all these things, the state would no longer be able to find him.
The ability to hide from a thief hardly legitimates his thievery.

Well that's not hiding, it's not eating at the buffet.

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A better analogy would be a buffet that you would charged for regardless of how much you ate, or whether you ate at all. In that case, you might as well eat from it, but that wouldn't mean you voluntarily agreed to pay for the buffet.

Well I don't pay tax to the American state, because I don't and haven't used the services it delivers. You on the other hand have used from it for years until you became adult. Yes you didn't have any choise, but your guardians did.

So you have already eaten from the buffet, and now you're calling it theft because you have to pay.
But even if I'd never eaten...I'd still have to pay. If I wanted to stop eating now, I'd still have to pay in the future.

I have never eaten at that buffet and I don't pay, you have eaten at it from the day you were born, and so have every native born American who pay tax.

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Except you're free to leave the restaurant anytime you want, and stop paying. But you insist on keep eating at the restaurant, while saying you have no choice to keep eating.

Right now you use a pierce a infrastructure, which the American government have given you, and I don't talk the internet, but the grids which it use and the protection against theft (of the copper as example) the American state provide, while you complain that paying for both is theft.



[/quote]

In this example, even if you manage - perhaps through a lot of struggle - to get out of the restaurant you are in, you have to go to another restaurant.  You are actively prevented by the restaurants from just setting off on your own or with a group of others to start up your own buffet or pot luck.
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ingemann
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« Reply #36 on: May 16, 2015, 12:55:16 PM »

But if you want a argument, you can use in your mission as a modern Sisyphus, there's a very simple one. He can stop paying tax if he moves out of USA or if he decides to live completely of the grid. He choose to pay tax by using the services the state deliver like roads, internet, electricity grid. If you stopped using all these things, the state would no longer be able to find him.
The ability to hide from a thief hardly legitimates his thievery.

Well that's not hiding, it's not eating at the buffet.

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A better analogy would be a buffet that you would charged for regardless of how much you ate, or whether you ate at all. In that case, you might as well eat from it, but that wouldn't mean you voluntarily agreed to pay for the buffet.

Well I don't pay tax to the American state, because I don't and haven't used the services it delivers. You on the other hand have used from it for years until you became adult. Yes you didn't have any choise, but your guardians did.

So you have already eaten from the buffet, and now you're calling it theft because you have to pay.
But even if I'd never eaten...I'd still have to pay. If I wanted to stop eating now, I'd still have to pay in the future.

I have never eaten at that buffet and I don't pay, you have eaten at it from the day you were born, and so have every native born American who pay tax.

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Except you're free to leave the restaurant anytime you want, and stop paying. But you insist on keep eating at the restaurant, while saying you have no choice to keep eating.

Right now you use a pierce a infrastructure, which the American government have given you, and I don't talk the internet, but the grids which it use and the protection against theft (of the copper as example) the American state provide, while you complain that paying for both is theft.




In this example, even if you manage - perhaps through a lot of struggle - to get out of the restaurant you are in, you have to go to another restaurant.  You are actively prevented by the restaurants from just setting off on your own or with a group of others to start up your own buffet or pot luck.
[/quote]

There's a lot of countries where you don't pay tax, they're usual not very nice countries or they're very exclusive countries, who don't let everybody in.
But I fail to see why that's the "restarant" problem. If the tax free libertarian utopia was a viable model, some country somewhere would follow that model.

The problem is with all these "tax is theft" types are that they want to enjoy all the benefit of living in a modern state, but they think it's theft that they have to pay the price it cost. Well you either choose between a tax collecting state with monopoly on force or some warlord ineffected tribal society, at least if you want to live with other people.

There's always this alternative if you okay with being alone http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-russian-family-was-cut-off-from-all-human-contact-unaware-of-world-war-ii-7354256/?no-ist
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shua
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« Reply #37 on: May 16, 2015, 01:26:48 PM »
« Edited: May 16, 2015, 01:31:09 PM by shua »

States generally don't say to anyone who wants to that if they want to be left alone by them, not pay any tax and not receive any services that's ok.  The state lays a claim over all activity within its territory, and wherever on earth there are vacuums in state authority, a state and/or an aspirational state will try to take over through force.  If someone takes your money without permission and says it is the price to pay for being protected by them, is that not theft?  All societies require some pooling of resources, but taxation is something more than that.  It is the arbitrary nature of the taxation and the imbalance of power which gives taxation a character of theft. 
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ingemann
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« Reply #38 on: May 16, 2015, 01:49:24 PM »

States generally don't say to anyone who wants to that if they want to be left alone by them, not pay any tax and not receive any services that's ok.  The state lays a claim over all activity within its territory, and wherever on earth there are vacuums in state authority, a state and/or an aspirational state will try to take over through force.

Yes, I fail to see the problem, we all control property through force, the state are just better at it, because it's able to pool resources. But I promise you if you decides to dwell far from and without contact with other people the state will ignore you (like USSR ignored the old believers in the link above, until they interacted with other people). But if you interact with other people, who do have fealty to a state, the state will protect its citizens/subjects against external actors, which in this case will be you.

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No taxation are nothing more than the pooling of resources, there's nothing arbitary about it. It's a effient way to get rid of the free rider problem. It's no more arbitary than the state punish rapist, thieves and murderers, it's the state extending force to ensure that all people pay the price it cost to live in a modern society, whether it's follow a code or conduct (like not raping or murdering people) or paying the money the state need to run the system.

Just because a individual are too weak to force the state to back down, doesn't make the state arbitary or wrong, it just make the state better at push it will through with force. Of course you can say that's unfair, but I also think it's unfair that Paris Hilton have a lot of money and I don't, but few libertarians support my right to take her money from her.
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shua
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« Reply #39 on: May 16, 2015, 02:29:39 PM »
« Edited: May 16, 2015, 02:35:48 PM by shua »

States generally don't say to anyone who wants to that if they want to be left alone by them, not pay any tax and not receive any services that's ok.  The state lays a claim over all activity within its territory, and wherever on earth there are vacuums in state authority, a state and/or an aspirational state will try to take over through force.

Yes, I fail to see the problem, we all control property through force, the state are just better at it, because it's able to pool resources. But I promise you if you decides to dwell far from and without contact with other people the state will ignore you (like USSR ignored the old believers in the link above, until they interacted with other people). But if you interact with other people, who do have fealty to a state, the state will protect its citizens/subjects against external actors, which in this case will be you.

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No taxation are nothing more than the pooling of resources, there's nothing arbitary about it. It's a effient way to get rid of the free rider problem. It's no more arbitary than the state punish rapist, thieves and murderers, it's the state extending force to ensure that all people pay the price it cost to live in a modern society, whether it's follow a code or conduct (like not raping or murdering people) or paying the money the state need to run the system.

Just because a individual are too weak to force the state to back down, doesn't make the state arbitary or wrong, it just make the state better at push it will through with force. Of course you can say that's unfair, but I also think it's unfair that Paris Hilton have a lot of money and I don't, but few libertarians support my right to take her money from her.

The Soviets only ignored these people because they didn't know they existed, because they were in hiding. They were in hiding because the state was not leaving them alone.  In an era when the state has so much information in its reach, it would be a remarkable feat.  Being in contact with someone should not in itself make the state treat you as an aggressor giving them authority to act against you.

Taxation is arbitrary because it is a decision about how much someone else will pay. The decision to spend a certain amount is arbitrary, the decision to tax people or activities at a certain rate are arbitrary. They are not objective measures of what is, in anything close to an absolute sense, necessary.  And it is far different from a pooling of resources which may be freely entered into, or left.  If taxation were based always on a true consensus of all individuals, it would be something very different.  But states enforce the ability to make people pay not just against their will, but often beyond their ability to pay.
However unfair you may find it that Paris Hilton has more money than you, it is different from Paris Hilton coming and taking something you own - and that is not merely a difference about the math involved.
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ingemann
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« Reply #40 on: May 16, 2015, 02:49:10 PM »

States generally don't say to anyone who wants to that if they want to be left alone by them, not pay any tax and not receive any services that's ok.  The state lays a claim over all activity within its territory, and wherever on earth there are vacuums in state authority, a state and/or an aspirational state will try to take over through force.

Yes, I fail to see the problem, we all control property through force, the state are just better at it, because it's able to pool resources. But I promise you if you decides to dwell far from and without contact with other people the state will ignore you (like USSR ignored the old believers in the link above, until they interacted with other people). But if you interact with other people, who do have fealty to a state, the state will protect its citizens/subjects against external actors, which in this case will be you.

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No taxation are nothing more than the pooling of resources, there's nothing arbitary about it. It's a effient way to get rid of the free rider problem. It's no more arbitary than the state punish rapist, thieves and murderers, it's the state extending force to ensure that all people pay the price it cost to live in a modern society, whether it's follow a code or conduct (like not raping or murdering people) or paying the money the state need to run the system.

Just because a individual are too weak to force the state to back down, doesn't make the state arbitary or wrong, it just make the state better at push it will through with force. Of course you can say that's unfair, but I also think it's unfair that Paris Hilton have a lot of money and I don't, but few libertarians support my right to take her money from her.

The Soviets only ignored these people because they didn't know they existed, because they were in hiding. They were in hiding because the state was not leaving them alone.  In an era when the state has so much information in its reach, it would be a remarkable feat.  Being in contact with someone should not in itself make the state treat you as an aggressor giving them authority to act against you.

Of course it should, it's the primary reason the state have to exist, it's to protect its population against external actors. You don't like it, get your own army, which can scare the state away.

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You can at any point choose to not to pay, what you have a problem with are that the state doesn't extend its services to you, when you choose to do so, and it punish you when you partake in its services without paying.

Yes I know the world is unfair, which is why Paris Hilton is multi millionaire, I'm not and million people better than me live in deep poverty in African hellholes.

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I'm protected from Paris Hilton this by the same thing which protect Paris Hilton from the likes of me; the state. That's one of the service the state delivers to me.
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« Reply #41 on: May 16, 2015, 02:56:30 PM »

No. All money belongs to the government. The government just allows us to keep most of it.
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ingemann
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« Reply #42 on: May 16, 2015, 03:18:16 PM »

No. All money belongs to the government. The government just allows us to keep most of it.

Ownership doesn't exist, there exist only force, I only own what I have the force to keep or take, luckily for me the state have decided to create property rights and extend its force to make people accept it. But yes the state could take everything you, I or anybody else "owns", as our ownership of anything including our lives are fully depended on the force the state extend. Of course we could pool our forces against the state and hope we were strong enough to either replace, change or force the state to back down.
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Deus Naturae
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« Reply #43 on: May 17, 2015, 12:06:52 PM »

There's a lot of countries where you don't pay tax, they're usual not very nice countries or they're very exclusive countries, who don't let everybody in.
Such as?

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If animals do better in the wild, why are there so many (in some cases entire species) in zoos?

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The difference is that we assert these things could be provided without coercive taxation on a free market by voluntary providers at competing rates, as opposed to the unilaterally determined fixed price of taxation.

Basically, I think these benefits can be provided without stealing from people. As long as they're funded via theft, I'm not going to stop using them, but I'd obviously still prefer they they weren't.

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Trust me, I'm fully aware that I currently have no option but to live under some kind of government (whether tribal or modern) if I want to live in society, just as a dog in a city must either live with a master, go to the pound, or hide in dark alleys.

I don't see how the fact that I have to tolerate theft for practical reasons negates the reality of thievery.
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ingemann
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« Reply #44 on: May 17, 2015, 01:19:46 PM »

There's a lot of countries where you don't pay tax, they're usual not very nice countries or they're very exclusive countries, who don't let everybody in.
Such as?

Bahrain, Bermuda, UAE, Somalia until 2013.

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If animals do better in the wild, why are there so many (in some cases entire species) in zoos?[/quote]

If an entire species of animal only exist in zoos, it doesn't do better in the wild. It lack fitness to survive in the wild, just as the Libertarian ideology are a unfit species who can't survive without a state to mooch off and protect it.

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The difference is that we assert these things could be provided without coercive taxation on a free market by voluntary providers at competing rates, as opposed to the unilaterally determined fixed price of taxation.
[/quote]

Seeing as the model doesn't exist, you could just as well come with you theory about making food out of clouds.

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Yes we get it you're angry that the state doesn't allow you to be moocher of the services the state provides. Prove the viability of your own model and when we will talk.

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Trust me, I'm fully aware that I currently have no option but to live under some kind of government (whether tribal or modern) if I want to live in society, just as a dog in a city must either live with a master, go to the pound, or hide in dark alleys.[/quote]

Again you want to mooch of all the things the state provide. Yes we all think it's sooo sad that you have to pay the price it cost to live in a society. That you can't live like a wolf in a city. Of course I doubt you would survive a moment as a wolf among wolves, you would just end up dead or as a another's bitch, whiners rarely do well among the wolves. While if you live as a wolf among dogs, well dogs hunt wolves not the other way around.

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Oh it's word you have the real problem, so let me explain it you.

Property only exist as a extension of the force the state or state-like structure extend, as such your property are what either of those say it is. There's a reason that if two people fight over property the state decides what it is.

As such the state can only commit theft, if the state say it commit theft. 
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KingSweden
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« Reply #45 on: May 18, 2015, 08:50:31 AM »

I don't buy into the phrase, especially if the taxpayers vote for it through a referendum. Obviously tax dollars can be wasted but to say its 'theft' is something else.
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