No parsing. A gentleman’s bet. for fun.
Yeah, I’ve seen that one.
I could say “fair enough” or I could argue that it only seems that way to you left wingers who are so steeped in socialism that anything outside of the collective seems immoral. Let’s say it amounts to the same thing and pass on the customary argument.
Fair enough.
What elucidator said.
This is what I’m pitting. Even if the actual words “taxation is theft” aren’t used by posters on this board (although a google search turned up many libertarians who use that exact phrase). I’ll partially concede to Scylla on that one.
Trying to stay on track in this thread, I doubt people saying that being made to pay taxes is unethical would get pitted. GDed, perhaps. But my impression is that the people yelling about taxation being theft (with very little attempt at justification) are attempting to associate it with something everyone agrees is wrong. We’ve got tons of unethical laws (like marijuana laws) that people disagree about, so calling taxation the equivalent of a drug law (I can’t think of anything slightly more appropriate now) wouldn’t have the impact.
It is true we don’t have any choice about taxes, but we don’t have a choice about our electric bill either. We can reduce it by not using it, but we don’t get to argue about the rate. We can reduce our taxes by not working or any one of several other ways, but we don’t get to argue about the rate either. Is the electric company a thief? The phone company? The cable company? (Well, bad example there.)
I don’t think she ever said lazy drug addict. Lazy parent perhaps, which is worse than a drug addict in her book, it seems.
Hence why I said “very similar” as opposed to “exactly the same.”
That’s what they say, but that’s a blatant lie. You don’t want people to pay what they owe, you want them to pay what they can afford. Otherwise you would support a level of “taxation” that reflected the cost of providing the services you use, instead of being so fanatically in favour of soaking the rich that you support murdering innocent people if that’s what it takes to sustain your own life.
Since when are murderous extortionists innocent? If people put their profit above my life, of course I’ll kill them if I have to, to survive. So would many, perhaps most people if they could, including most of the people who normally go on about the virtue of making a profit even if it kills people. Because suddenly the situation changes when it’s you who are going to die for the profit of another.
Er, no. The legal concept of agency (upon which this argument rests) includes a duty on the part of the agent to use his delegated authority prudently. Imprudence breaks the contract.
“Worse” implies that there’s something wrong with the statement. In fact, even staunch advocates of government welfare agree that it’s wrong to provide it to people who could work if they chose to get off their butts (as opposed to people who legitimately cannot work, or who have failed in an honest effort to find work) – the former are parasites stealing what was provided for the benefit of the latter.
Memo to the sellers of food, water, medical care, and other necessities in Der Trihs’ neighborhood – hire extra security.
I’m honestly surprised that health insurance executives aren’t being knocked off left and right, considering all the life saving claims they have denied.
Heavens, the executives don’t deny valid claims, they have people for that. These are good men, Christians, mostly! They won’t kill somebody for a buttload of cash, they hire someone to do it for them, for far less.
Claims Adjusters (or whatever they’re called) aren’t a hazardous occupation either. But what does a person facing death have to lose? The irony is that being arrested they’d finally get health care.
You’d be surprised. There’s a very good reason why insurance carriers always have Post Office boxes. It’s certainly not unknown for some yahoo to firebomb an insurer because his claim was denied.
Define “imprudence”. Answers must be vetted by persons of three different political affiliations, who are each so vociferous in their affiliation that they will hate the other two persons based solely on their opposing affilitions. Keep in mind that the answers that cannot be tested for without the ability to read the supposedly imprudent politician’s mind will be rejected as unusable and given to the three partisans to be used against anyone who disagrees with them.
They aren’t very accessible. And they prey upon sick people who are generally in no shape to do anything.
There’s a rather large difference between running a grocery store and between jacking up prices massively in a disaster area to take advantage of the lack of alternatives and people’s desperation and letting those who can’t pay die.
But, hey, if they want your life savings or your daughter as a sex toy, you should just hand it or her over, right? After all, nothing is more important than profit.
A good example of a conservative making almost exactly this argument in the past couple of days:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11496137&postcount=2257
We’ve already been through this in another thread. So if there is some disaster that causes a temporary shortage, you think you have the right to loot someone’s store?
If the alternative is death, yes. Survival trumps property rights.
Thanks. Playing off of what Frank said, I will say that the right to bitch because your tax dollars aren’t being used the way you would like, is sovereign and of longstanding traddittion to whatever group is out of power.
However, as you say, suggesting that it’s theft when your tax dollars are used in a way you personally disagree with is idiotic.