Serious question: what year was this case decided?
Because civil society*.
- You said one good argument. You said nothing about an argument that you’d be willing to accept on pure merit or one that has to comply with your ill considered and narcissistic world view.
Um… Read this thread.
Taxes are not theft because they pay for the things that people use. If you wish to use public roads and avail yourself of other public services, and you refuse to pay for them, then you are the one committing theft.
1930, apparently. That from a Wiki page that quotes the passage in this thread.
Searching on “Thompson v. Smith” “154 SE 579” turns up a buttload of pages that remind me of the Freemen on the Land style of thinking.
Have to been told you can’t travel to another state or city by a government agency?
Just because you have to obey traffic laws doesn’t mean you’re not free to go where you want.
How can driving be a human right when the car was only invented relatively recently?
Ah, I see. It is funny how the little fact that gets omitted in all those mentions is that the Supreme Court that made this ruling is actually… the Supreme Court of Virginia.
I said INCOME taxes are theft, not ALL taxes. I don’t remember the exact percentage, but the federal income tax only makes up like ~44% of what the federal government brings in yearly.
How do you plan to pay for all those programs you use with 44% less money?
Nearly half the budget is a pretty big percentage.
If not income tax, how do you propose to get people to pay to support everything our taxes support?
EDIT: Or what runner pat said.
.
Where does the money for national defense come from?
Who provides millions of dollars in disaster relief?
National Institute of Health medical research is funded by…?
NASA?
National Arts and Sciences?
Student loans?
Veteran benefits?
…etc.
They work. They bring in the revenue and they spread the tax burden around bearably. That’s why most governments rely on them.
Here’s a crazy idea: the government may have to cut wasteful spending and actually budget.
Who decides what is wasteful, and what isn’t? You?
5% of the budget goes to waste.
I would suggest you try reading a few more intellectual Libertarians. Try Samizdata
Your ‘definition’ is interesting as many would characterise Libertarianism as maximum freedom and maximum personal responsibility.
We’ve differed but its always been pretty polite.
Libertarians, what I think of more as the Old School heart of the movement, comes down to “do not tell me what to do on my own property and with my own property unless it unavoidably harms you. And for stuff off my property or things that could harm you, make damn sure its equal - fully equal”. That’s why I will debate that if we are going to control “second hand smoking” we need to equally battle “second hand driving”. (Remember me now? <G>)
Taxes? No issue as long as you and one of the Kennedy’s are paying the same percentage/fashion. Cut taxes? 10% across the board. Regulations on property? Tougher. Lets take the toxic waste thing. If – and note the if – my toxic waste stays on my land and out of the groundwater, that’s a good thing. If it doesn’t, I need to be made to pay the consequences. No outs, no exceptions and don’t even bother with bankruptcy – any dime we can find, you lose. We’re willing to bust unions and corporations equally if we have to; sort of like FDR. But always with/for a reason; not just because we can. You’ve always had a certain element of “Cause Libertarians” - pro-nuke, anti-nuke, anti-tax, pro-drug - but not so many who have adopted it as a general lifestyle across the board.
New School libertarians? Maybe more “Teabagger”? Or basic nihilists who haven’t quite picked out their favorite form of collapse yet? Not so sure there. But considering “our” record of being able to elect or influence anyone, I wouldn’t lose a lot of sleep over it.
Sorry, I got 3 posts in and hit a doozy.
The “right to travel”?!? WTF does that mean? Who has this right, how is it limited? I can travel into your house, using your car? Where did this “right” come from? Who or what espoused it specifically as a right to travel?
I forget what Doper first posted this but it bears repeating here:
Saying you’re going to solve the budget crisis by eliminating waste is like saying you’re going to solve the energy crisis by eliminating friction.
No time to read your link right now. (I’m actually working.)
But you’re right. ‘Maximum freedom and maximum personal responsibility’ is what Libertarians claim. In theory. In practice, they – like all of us – rely on government services, some of which have been enumerated in this thread.
If we assume that ‘maximum freedom’ includes the ability to travel efficiently, then we must concede that roads are necessary. If roads are necessary, then they must be built and maintained. Since we cannot have armies of slave labour to do this, we must pay people to do it. Since we cannot simply take the materials needed, we must pay to procure them. If we must pay for material and workers, then we must get the money to do it. The fairest, most efficient way of procuring the necessary funding is through taxes. But we have people saying:
So ISTM that many Libertarians want to [del]steal[/del] take advantage of services, but they don’t want to have the responsibility of paying for them.