And taxing isn't exactly stealing. I accept the working of a democracy.
(Enforced) Taxation is legalized plunder (criminal theft inside of the law) as opposed to illegal plunder (criminal theft outside of the law).
I for one do not believe that one class of people may steal (government) and do no wrong, whilst another class are locked up for it (those who steal privately).
What say ye?
In a word, nonsense!
If you don't believe in enforced taxation or indeed any taxation then don't use highways, hospitals, schools, universities, don't have your rubbish collected or street lights around your house illuminated. Don't expect the UK military or police to protect you and don't leave your house at all since you'll be walking on pavements paid for by tax-payers.
You're the one who is stealing, by expecting public services and then not wanting to pay for them!
Not nonsense. Nations have not always regulated their affairs in the same manner as we do today
Services can be provided for privately or by governmental user fees if necessary in some cases; and as for such things as armies and constabularies, these can be financed by contractual voluntary taxation.
The bottom line really is this: If I have an inherent and inalienable right to own and control property (freedom), and a reciprocal duty to refrain from violating that right in others, then how can I delegate to government, my servant, a power that does not first exist within me? I cannot take what is not mine, so I cannot authorize my servant government to do it for me.
If theft is entered into by a group rather than an individual it does not make it right. Are groups subject to a different morality than individuals?
Social democracy (socialism), I would submit, is thus incompatible with our natural rights and thus freedom. I want to live in a free world where contracts, including constituions, are established by *voluntary* agreements.
Dubhdara.
