Thou shalt not steal even a little bit, but killing is probably OK

Great Debates
1

If taxes are theft, isn’t war murder?

Some people are fine with torture, arson, & mass slaughter if it “keeps the country safe,” but raise their taxes & they call you a thief.

Worse, some people think it’s theft if a new regulation prevents them from making as much money in the future as if the regulation hadn’t been written. Because they see their personal income level as more important than the health & welfare of the society.

So any loss of wealth or even income, even as a side effect of some policy not even directed at you, is “theft,” & deplorable, because, “Thou shalt not steal.” But, “Thou shalt not kill,” becomes “Thou shalt not murder,* i.e.*, consciously kill [del]someone[/del]a fellow American citizen who is not threatening your life or on your property, unless there’s some other qualifying reason.”

Anyone else know people like this?

Maybe this belongs in the Pit.

But this is why I can’t take seriously the teabag-wasters’ objections to taxes; nor people whinging about how any use of their intellectual property on YouTube is just like taking money out of their pocket. :rolleyes: Unless you also are a total pro-lifer opposed to all war & the death penalty & whatnot, I don’t think it’s really your high sense of morality telling you that you should make more money & pay less.

Oh, I suppose many people really think that property is the one thing that separates us from the [del]animals[/del] gibbering Lovecraftian horrors behind Arcturus, whereas death is just the cost of doing business, but I call general bullshit. If your moral sense is indistinguishable in effect from selfishness, maybe it’s just selfishness. In this case, I agree with B. F. Skinner. It’s functionally the same.

We accept that death is sometimes necessarily imposed. Loss of property shouldn’t be more abhorrent.

2

I wonder if these people ever stop and think where the money to pay the troops comes from. I think Cecil had a comment about that. (I’d look it up, but I’m about to go to bed – it was someone proposing no income tax, and he pointed out that he’d send the army to the guy’s house to collect their pay)

3

In case it isn’t clear. I believe in killing. Sometimes killing is OK. Sometimes it’s the humane thing. Sometimes it’s not humane but for the greater good.

I believe in the use of the death penalty in some cases. I believe euthanasia can be less cruel than prolonging life in some cases. I think abortion is the humane thing in some cases. I am strongly & proudly situationist & sneer at Kantian absolutism.

I don’t think killing non-combatants with aerial bombing or long-range missiles is generally honorable. I don’t believe that a foreigner’s life is worth less than my countryman’s. I don’t think killing is morally neutral. But sometimes it’s necessary.

What bugs me is that I have to live with myself hating what war does & yet knowing sometimes it’s necessary to accomplish the greater good.

And then some self-important twerp will act horrified that in order to accomplish the greater good he will have fewer dollars to his credit than he might otherwise.

Listen up: In the last month, we may have just burned to death some poor family in Afghanistan. Get over yourself.

Because there is no way your bottom line is worth more than someone’s right to live in reasonable security. If the latter can be compromised, don’t be surprised if the former comes with qualifications & limitations.

4

Most anti-taxers will respond to complaints like this by deflecting the discussion to the question of whether the proposed tax increase really will “accomplish the greater good”.

And I think that’s a perfectly legitimate issue. We definitely should not be spending taxpayer money wastefully or foolishly if we can help it, and it’s our duty to speak up against proposals for wasteful or foolish spending. Individuals are going to have different ideas about what constitutes waste or foolishness, and we as a society have to hammer out some kind of constantly-renegotiated compromise on tax levels.

However, you’re dead right that none of this has anything to do with “stealing”. Anybody who genuinely believes that taxation per se is equivalent to theft is (as I noted in a concurrent Pit thread) either delusional or merely selfish to the point of outright cognitive dissonance.

Yes, the money that you earn is yours to do as you like with—after taxes. Before taxes, we are all entitled to a say in how much of your money (and mine, and his and hers and theirs) should be transferred to the collective kitty for government spending. The “but you’re stealing MY money” argument does not constitute any kind of valid moral objection to taxation; it merely marks its advocate as a fool and/or hypocrite.

5

I think the mentality involved is even worse than you say. I’ve noticed that the taxes-are-theft people are also typically the sort who think that if an individual or a company screws over someone it’s their own fault. That if some company or rich man screws over the whole country for money that’s just fine.

And the same people who say it’s ridiculous to call it murder when soldiers kill someone in a war of conquest usually have no problem calling it murder when one of those soldiers’ victims dares fight back against the conquest of his homeland.

6

No maybe about it.

7

Both would seem to be a violation of the same rule:

As such it would seem to be the same.

8

I’m not surprised by this attitude at all. Most people are selfish to some degree, and very, very few of us are true altruists all the time. What amuses me is the mental contortions these people perform trying to justify their selfishness. I’m okay with being selfish, just have the balls to admit it. They want to know how this decision will benefit THEM, and usually cannot make the leaps of logic necessary to see how certain programs benefit everyone as a whole.

9

Like other forms of enlightenment, enlightened self interest is rarer than it should be.

10

How come you’re willing to say “Killing is ok…sometimes” and “Taxes are necessary…sometimes” but not “Taxes are stealing…sometimes”? In certain circumstances, like when they go to benefit the few, taxes are stealing.

“So any loss of wealth or even income” - why do you use the word “any”? I don’t think anyone’s claiming that. It’s the raising of taxes that people object to. I don’t see how this line of logic is dificult to follow.

11

Except that lots of people think that there should be no taxes at all.

12

Like the ones that treat the tax code like a video game, thinking misplaced commas and misinterpretations of tax law work like cheat codes?

13

I’m having a hard time extracting the debate topic.

Taxation is legal?
War is bad?
Conservatives are selfish?
Christians are hypocrites?
“Intellectual property” is an invalid concept?

Could you narrow it down some?

14

It isn’t difficult to follow. That’s exactly the problem with it. It is overly simplistic.

Taxes and programs do not exist in a vacuum, providing the same level of services and products regardless of external influences. If more people need a service then it requires more money to fund it. Likewise if an need previously serviced by the private sector cannot be fulfilled adequately, then if we choose to create a new program to address it we have to fund it. You don’t simply rearrange the same level of money to pay for new draws.

15

I think you’re trying to narrow it down too much. I’m drawing a comparison.

In short:

Of course taxation is legal, what a silly thing to question. It is, however, a form of extortion. And that seems bad on its face–but it’s preferable to the alternative.

War is, pace Benito Mussolini, bad but sometimes necessary. (And hoo boy, that’s many pages of argument in itself.)

Conservativism isn’t the issue here, so much as thoughtless selfishness whatever name it wears. Plenty of “liberals” & “moderates” are the same way.

I’m not interesting in sectarian name-calling, which is all, “Christians are hypocrites,” would be in the end.

“Intellectual property” is really off to the side of this. It just hits the same trigger in my head. Some musician complaining about how people are listening to his music without paying & he’s making less money is a lot like some business owner complaining that he’s got more overhead if we stop him dumping TCE. And that guy is a lot like the average “tea-bagger” complaining that the populace has to pay taxes for things–things important enough even our venal & public-opinion-sensitive legislators have deemed it necessary to pass a law mandating we do–things we’d have to do anyway & have a harder time doing in a purely market sense–like hire the inspectors to make sure that the company isn’t still dumping TCE.

16

Making people pay what they owe isn’t extortion. One thing that makes government different than the typical corporation is that you benefit from it without deliberately engaging it’s services. Just by living in America, or France, or wherever you benefit from the efforts of the government, and owe it the money it needs to sustain those services. The anti-tax people want the benefits without paying for them, or are stupid enough to think that living without the services would be anything other than a failed state, Max Max scenario, or are even stupider and think that such a scenario is desirable.

17

Usually a debate has a topic.

To what end?

So there’s no debate about that then?

So that’s not the debate?

So “tea-bag wasters” doesn’t relate to any particular political persuasion? And your use of “pro-lifer” in conjunction with biblical commandments isn’t related to any religious belief?

One wants government intervention to ensure a reward for creating something people want; one wants less intervention to allow him to inflict damage on others. That must be an awfully big button for two things so far apart to hit it.

18

I’m having a bit of a problem following what you’re trying to explore, as well. But I think you make a mistake in thinking that there is any significant (beyond tiny) number of Americans who do not want to pay income taxes. I think it comes down to they want to pay what they think is fair. And there’s the rub. I advocate a flat tax or fair/sales—you pick the rate, and draw an exclusion line . That way, we’re all contributing equally. But when if one person is paying 40% and one person is paying 0%, then yes, in a way you are taking money out of my pocket and using it to benefit someone else.

Is that the discussion you’re looking for?

19

Jesus said pay your taxes, so, as far as Christians are concerned, that should be the end of it right there.

As far as what’s “fair,” that’s for the majority to decide. That’s whywe have elections.

The flat tax is a scam, by the way.

20

I’ll be in support of the flat tax when the basic costs of living adjust proportionately to how much money a person makes. I’ve never seen a 1 bedroom apartment, even a crappy one, that rents for less than $300.
How would it be fair that a poor schmoe pony up a month’s rent to the IRS, while all a billionare has to give up is the automatic parallel parking option on his latetest Mercedes and maybe not buy so many Ferberga eggs for the Easter egg hunt? The percentages of income might be the same, but the sacrifice isn’t. The poor have always sacrified more for this country than the rich, and the flat tax will do nothing but put even more of the burden on their backs.

Sorry for the hijack.