If you can find no logical difference, why is calling it extortion considered “the hallmark of an extreme position” as suggested by one individual?
So you are proposing taxes are immoral. That’s nice. Let’s just say you’ve convinced us all that you’re right. What follows from that?
Because it is backed up by the threat of force. Business owners willingly pay ransom to mafia members as well.
All your four "refutations are such textbook examples of begging the question–assuming the conclusion you want to prove and using it to argue for your [position–that they aren’t worth noting.
But I get that this is an article of faith with you, and I’ve learned a long time ago not to argue with religious zealots. When I get back from the bathroom I’m sitting at the other end of the bar.
How can a moral society be constructed on an immoral edifice?
OP’s thesis mystifies me. Would it violate the rules of GD to pronounce it odd that anyone gives the thesis enough credence to bother with a rebuttal?
An interesting fact is that the very earliest written records, some even predating the Sumerian alphabet, appear to document “taxes” of crops paid into a chiefdom’s storehouse for future needs.
“Taxation” is even earlier than that, of course. Daddy Baboon grunted at Kid Baboon that he should share a banana with his baby sister.
I’ve asked before and never gotten an answer: What would Farnaby’s Utopia resemble? Lord of the Flies comes to mind, though even that “political system” had elements of “taxation.”
What makes you think that the natural state of affairs without government is to have private property in the first place? If A, B, and C are on an island with some food, who is saying that some portion of that food is C’s in the first place? If C is an asshole who claims all of the food, and A and B are starving, who is to say that A and B shouldn’t ignore C’s claim?
It is government that allows people to have claims to property beyond what he can personally defend so that when you leave your house you can be confident that no one will break in and take over before you return, and if that does happen it is government that you appeal to to enforce your property rights through force.
Well-defined property rights are a good idea, which is why democratically-elected governments have them, but they are not “natural”. Taxation is also a good idea, which is why the government’s well-defined property rights are not absolute. Your “right to your property” is not being broken by government through taxation because the property rights given to you by government were not so absolute to prevent taxation in the first place.
Because it’s preposterous to put an inflammatory label on something and thereby suggest that it should not be tolerated, when in the real world, there is no fricken way for society to operate without it. It’s either an “extreme position” or the rantings of a 15 year old who just read Ayn Rand for the first time. As I posted upthread, there is* a lot* of room for debate about taxes, but calling for the elimination of them by equating taxes with extortion is indeed an “extreme position.”
Evidently nothing, or its a thread hijack. We are only permitted to express agreement. Everything else is off limits. We also cannot ask about what would result from having no taxes.
I think this ‘debate’ is over then, right? Since anything other than ‘I agree’ is verboten as per the OP?
Slavery was considered a necessary evil by many in the antebellum South. I would consider labelling anything a “necessary evil” a failure of human morality.
Also, in your argument you imply that ALL government revenue is “needed”. Are you prepared to take that position?
So are property rights. Does that make them immoral?
If you want to live where the government is weak, and tough guys can do what they want, you can always move to Somalia.
But what I don’t understand is that as few as ten years ago, something like the OP would be laughed off as nutty. Today, I can think of several people in Congress who would say exactly the same thing.
There are* a lot *of things immoral in the world. Why are you starting with taxes?
Because your choice of terms reflects an extreme viewpoint?
I think you missed my post where I explained that there are perfectly legitimate arguments over the amount of tax the government collects and what it is used for. Arguing that taxes, per se, are improper is what I thought we were debating. I paid more taxes this year than I even earned in my first 10 years in the workforce. Believe me, I’m open to a conversation about how to lower taxes. Calling taxation “extortion,” however, doesn’t advance the conversation.
Virtually all laws are “backed up by the threat of force”, i.e. you can be imprisoned if you refuse to obey them. Many carry potential fines for disobedience, which one can call “extortion” if so inclined.
Yelling that government is tantamount to the Mafia because it requires you to do things that annoy you is kind of silly, but in keeping with what we regularly hear from Rand Paul groupies.
Yes, it is.
Taxation is legal.
Extortion is illegal.
Easy peasy.
Can i summarize your argument as follows?: “Oh, its cool, we’ve always done that” We have also always participated in wars of aggression, is it off limits to question the morality of doing so?
The right to private property isn’t a gift from government. It proceeds logically from a concept of self ownership. Do you own yourself? Well then you own the product of your labor. No need for government to decide that for us.
Society operates just fine without coercion. Happens everyday in fact. If you want to demagogue the issue with ramblings about Ayn Rand, save your energy.
If you want to address the question i’d be happy to respond. You haven’t. See every time i post different people repeat the same arguments page after page. I thought i’d knock a few down right off the bat. Since nobody has refuted any of these arguments so far, i see no need to address them.
Nobody is forcing you to pay taxes. You’re free to leave the country if you wish. But as long as you stay here, you’re benefiting from the services the government provides and it’s unreasonable to want to get these benefits without paying your fair share.
If you don’t want these benefits, you have two options. One, vote for representatives who will repeal the laws that provide the benefits. Two, leave the country.
And it’s not unreasonable to force people to pay for public goods that they’re using, to prevent free-rider problems.
It is fairly simple to demolish all this nonsense. Let’s start with the definition of a “state”:
So right away although “taxes” and “extortion” are similar in that the collection of wealth is backed up by force, “extortion” by definition uses an illegitimate threat of force. This is the key difference; if you want to argue they are the same, you’re arguing for a new definition of what a “state” is.
Going further, I think most folks here would refute the OP via some form of (3) “Taxes are the price paid for living in society.” To which the OP retorted:
It is not possible to live in an area and not benefit from the society which also occupies the area itself or its surroundings. The very fact you are able “cut yourself off” is enforced by the society. How long do you think you could last as a hermit if you didn’t have a society around you that agreed to leave you alone and enforced that right with laws? The American fantasy of the rugged individual dependent on no one else is false; even Thoreau depended on the charity of others.