Heh. Your arguments somehow remind me of a certain Carl Hiaasen character (hint: read “Lucky you”)
Nobody’s forcing me to pay my taxes. I’ve made the choice myself. I’ve voted for the system I live under. If I found the system oppressive, I have a number of options, like voting for a different tax regime, founding my own political party and soliciting support to overthrow the system, or emigrate. To e.g. the US, where y’all supposedly are the most generous people in the world. For some weird reason, I don’t believe that the poorest among us have a better life on your side of the pond than on our side, even if you should happen to be the most generous people in the world.
Weirdly enough, I don’t feel oppressed and I don’t feel any strong urge to emigrate to the land of the most generous people in the world. Even after having lived and worked there.
I heard your claim the first time. It doesn’t get stronger just by being repeated. Pro tip: Generally, if one wants to strengthen one’s arguments in a debate¹ it pays to add to those arguments and elaborate, not just repeating them like a broken vinyl record.
¹ Checking forum: Yep, Great Debates is where we are right now
The idea people in countries with social services are not ‘free’ because of tax seems illogical. Americans pay tax. Even if there was no welfare we’d still have to pay tax, governments would want it for wars (what it was originally used for) and other things. Even if you say socialism requires higher taxes, how does that make us less free? At what cut-off point do you decide paying tax has become about freedom or not? Are you going to draw an arbitrary line in the sand and say ‘everyone over this line’? Not only that, but as europeans electing a socialist system have chosen where our tax-money will go, one could make the argument that we are more free than those whose governments take money for their own internally-selected purposes while giving less of it back to the people: like, say, America for example.
The argument you’re really looking for is probably this one.
And, yeah, what checkedible said. If you persist in claiming that I’m forced to pay taxes even though I’ve voted for the tax regime I’m currently living under and freely choose to live here, I don’t think I’m able to get my message through to you.
He personally may love paying taxes. That doesn’t mean that tax-supported social services are not “forced charity”. When two wolves and a sheep vote what to have for dinner, the sheep is “part of the decision making process” as well.
I’m a bit of a limited government advocate myself, but this analogy really doesn’t hold. One very obvious way in which tax payment is voluntary is that you(especially if you live in the first world) choose to live in the country where you’re ‘forced’ to pay taxes. You can always move to Dubai.
The more people explain why Terr is wrong, the more right he sounds. The truth may be somewhere in the middle, but it seems closer to his end of the spectrum. “You could always try to overthrow the government. Since you don’t, taxes are really voluntary” won’t do the trick either.
You’re just being obstinate for the sake of winning. You understand his point. You may not agree with his choice of phrasing, but you understand what he’s trying to say. This is pedantry which simply halts the conversation for the sake of a choice of phrase rather than detail which enhances it.
You’re not arguing against his position, just against his grammar. That’s not particularly useful.
I understand that HE likes paying taxes. And HE likes where his taxes are going. That doesn’t mean that everyone around him does. Those that do not are forced to donate to the causes that HE likes. That’s “forced charity”. Hope this makes it clearer for you.
Only in the same sense that anything a society collectively decides for itself is forced. That’s merely commentary on the rule of law. Because you don’t like a particular decision your society democratically made doesn’t make it objectively better or worse.
The whole line of reasoning is almost meaningless.
If you want to describe it and everything else by an emotive term like “forced” then that’s your prerogative. But attaching such loaded terms doesn’t help the discussion any; it simply gets people’s hackles up (which may be your intention, I suppose).
It derails the conversation rather than furthers it.
“If you want to live here, pay your taxes” is hardly the same thing as “You could always try to overthrow the government”.
At the same time, it is the tyranny of the majority that rules in a democracy, and hence taxes/government should be limited to the extent possible. ‘Forced charity’ is definitely a candidate for what should be limited. And it isn’t correct to say that if you don’t like what taxes are used for, vote differently. Consider - A majority of people, say 51%, believe that it is right to redistribute resources to help the suffering, but 49% do not believe so, how is it right that taxes should be used to help the suffering? Wouldn’t it be a much fairer solution to let the 51% voluntarily donate what they will to charity? In leaving charity to the private sphere, there are no significant positive/negative externalities, no free rider problems, no worries of market failure, nothing, in short, that makes a compelling case for government involvement beyond regulation of fraud. Why should government be involved?
No. Only what society “collectively decides for itself” that requires it to collect taxes to implement.
Did I say “better or worse”? I said it is forced charity. You may think (as the other guy apparently does) that forced charity is just as good if not better than voluntary charity. But it is still forced.
“forced” is not emotive in this case. It is factual. I guess it is “emotive” in the sense that you don’t like that fact.
In that case, “mutually agreed” is equally factual. :shrug:
Pick whatever word you like. You’ve successfully detailed this thread into a semantic discussion of the word “forced” because you’re so determined to win and that’s rhe best point you can score out of this entire subject. Well done.
Every democratic decision is forced upon that society’s members. Tax is nothing special.
They both reside toward that end of the spectrum I would describe as “unrealistic alternatives if you’d prefer not to pay taxes,” however much they differ in terms of their rank. “Move to Dubai if you don’t like U.S. taxes” is technically an alternative, yes. So is “try to overthrow the government.” Neither is a small matter to most people; in fact, IMO, they are both such a burden that they are silly if offered as a rationale for why taxes aren’t coercive.
I support a societal safety net, and believe that provides a useful function. I suspect I draw the line at a different point than many others do, though, in terms of where it becomes an overbearing burden and an undue infringement on personal liberties.
