Guest Posted July 10, 2011 Report Share Posted July 10, 2011 Nope its not theft! your examples are unfit. You beefit directly and indirectly from roads. You deny this but you are be wrong. as always. no one is pointing a gun at your head. you can pretend that they are but they arent. you can move, you have admitted this, but then think that you are being robbed! Your house would not exist if it wasnt for the govt roads, your job wold not exist if it asnt for the roads. your arguement fails because you admit you could move but say I dont WANT to then say I am FORCED against my will to pay taxes. No you are not you can move but noooo like a baby you seem to think you have the right to live anywhere without any obligation. You claim the constitiion was not signed by you. Admittedly it wasnt. but it set the rules for the world you were born into. You not being a SLAVE can easily sidestep these rules but you dotn want to, you think you can take the world as it is and then avoid the obligations. I think if you actually read my posts you would see that I agree there are taxes that are odious and wrong, but you claim all taxes are theft. that is where your extremism prevents you from seeing reason. just because 1 tax can be wrong does not make all taxes wrong. As to Somalia, try looking at the actual data instead of the opinion peices, the country sucks royally. Yes govt that is actually working against its people can be worse than anarchy but a democracy at its very worst (extremely corrupt) is only as bad as an anarchy. Even Mexico which is very corrupt is better than Somalia. But being insane you will ignore that. I know you will never see reason as you are as brainwashed as the branch davidians you espoused earlier. But for the benefit of others TAXATION is not THEFT/VIOLENCE/SLAVERY You continued to ignore all of my counterarguments once again. I called it . Just saying "TAXATION is not THEFT/VIOLENCE/SLAVERY" over and over again won't make anyone more knowledgeable or change anyone's views. If you want your posts to be helpful to people you should try defending your premise and addressing the many criticisms I have of it rather than just ignoring my counterarguments and repeating the same nonsense about the state being justified in taking any amount of money they want from people because those people don't move to a house not near government roads. "I think if you actually read my posts you would see that I agree there are taxes that are odious and wrong, but you claim all taxes are theft." Also, if you're trying to defend taxation as legitimate you should make it clear if you're only arguing for taxation for roads, or if you are also defending taxation for things like wars, social security, medicare, medicaid, and many dozen other government programs. So far you haven't even attempted to defend taxation for anything other than roads. You have refused to even state you opinion on whether or not you think the government is justified in taxing people for things like wars, because you know that the moment you state your opinion I'm going to ask you to provide a reason to defend it and you won't be able to. Anyways, I've spent enough time on this with you and any people following this aren't going to benefit any more from my arguments unless you decide to try to point out what you think is wrong with them. But, as you're refusing to debate me instead just saying I'm wrong again and again, I don't really have anything else I want to say on the subject, that is, except for... "Your house would not exist if it wasnt for the govt roads, your job wold not exist if it asnt for the roads." Actually, yes, both my house and my job would exist without government roads. Also, a better private road that doesn't charge me such exorbitant fees just for owning a house near the road may very likely also exist if it weren't for the government's roads. I would gladly buy its services from it and thank it for finally getting rid of part of the government monopoly that thinks it is justified in charging me any fee it wants just for living in New England near its public roads. It would also probably charge me based on how much I use their roads and when I use them, as well as how I use them (e.g. it would very likely charge me more for driving a big truck on it than or simply walking or biking on it, as the truck can wear down the road faster resulting it in needing to be paved more often, whereas my bike and feet are relatively insignificant). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quag Posted July 11, 2011 Report Share Posted July 11, 2011 That was quag's argument for why I have to pay property taxes. He said that as the government owns my land then they have the right to force me to pay property taxes (sort of like collecting rent). So rather than pointless try to get him to see how silly of a view it is to say that the group of people with guns in the government own my house, I decided to just point out any other non-land piece of property that I own and ask him how he defends taxing me on that since obviously he isn't going to claim that the government owns what I make. Nope i never said theat the govt owns your land, just the setback and it has nothing to do with paying property taxes. But once again you decide what my arguements are then come up with a coutnerarguement that has nothing to do with what I said. You seem to think that property taxes are used to fund the war in afghanistan. Municial property taxes are used by the municipality you in live to provide services/benefits on a local scale there is no municipal armed forces fighting in afghanistan. I keep repeating taxation is not theft/violence/slavery becaue you keep saying it is. You fail to see that I am using the simplest arguement because well I just have to prove 1 tax is not theft/violence/slavery to prove your assertian that all taxation is. You have given no explanation as to why property tax is theft/violence/slavery except to try and change the issue to non municpal taxation. again total failure [Actually, yes, both my house and my job would exist without government roads. Also, a better private road that doesn't charge me such exorbitant fees just for owning a house near the road may very likely also exist if it weren't for the government's roads. I would gladly buy its services from it and thank it for finally getting rid of part of the government monopoly that thinks it is justified in charging me any fee it wants just for living in New England near its public roads. It would also probably charge me based on how much I use their roads and when I use them, as well as how I use them (e.g. it would very likely charge me more for driving a big truck on it than or simply walking or biking on it, as the truck can wear down the road faster resulting it in needing to be paved more often, whereas my bike and feet are relatively insignificant). Use the Force Nope again wrong 100% your house exists because of the roads. they brought in the workers/machinery/materials that built your house, yes your hosue could have been built elsewhere avoiding the public roads but it would have cost way more (you would have had to build the roads) but it wasnt! let me sum up: Economics: you think monopolies create competition - wrong taxation: you imply municipal taxes pay for afghan war - wrong jutice: you think private pay per use courts (dro's) and private security firms will be more just - wrong current events: you think somalia is bad example of anarchy (many pages ago) and great example of working anarchy recent posts. Somalia is almost dead last in all measurable economic factor- wrong on both counts Laws: you think actual laws could create slavery/legal rape but ignore that with no govt there is no law therefore slavery/rape is no longer legal. Politics: In fact if you knew the way govt worked you would see that trying to pass a pro rape/slavery law would be turned down by the supreme court even if it somehow got throught the legeslative process. Actually I cant think of a single post you have had that has been correct on facts or logical in its argumentation. You continued to ignore all of my counterarguments once again. I called it . ill finsih with this Your arguement shave had nothing to do with mine they are asides on different subjects. You made the (Wrong) assertioan that taxation is theft/violence/slavery. then after god knows how many pages finally admitted you could move outside of your municipality and then tried to pretend that municipal taxes fund wars in afghanistan. Give me a break, learn how the current system works before you start telling everyone it is wrong and immoral. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 11, 2011 Report Share Posted July 11, 2011 (edited) The blue writing represents my comments: Nope i never said theat the govt owns your land, just the setback and it has nothing to do with paying property taxes. But once again you decide what my arguements are then come up with a coutnerarguement that has nothing to do with what I said.My mistake: I suppose that argument is advocated only by dawh. I misremembered and thought that both of you supported that argument. I don't know about your "once again" though. When else have I done this? You've misremembered what I've said several times (as you have admitted at least once before), so I'm not sure how you can blame me, especially since I'm only one person whose arguments you have to remember whereas I have to remember what your arguments were without confusing them from gvg or dawh's arguments. You seem to think that property taxes are used to fund the war in afghanistan. Municial property taxes are used by the municipality you in live to provide services/benefits on a local scale there is no municipal armed forces fighting in afghanistan. I'm well aware of this. The reason why I asked you if you think the government (meaning the federal government) is justified in taxing people to pay for wars is because I have been talking about more than just taxes for roads this whole time, unlike you. I find it very amusing that once again, you still refused to answer the question (Is the federal (duh) government justified in taxing me to pay for the Afghanistan War?) and instead resorted back to the only thing that you can even try to justify taxation for, roads. If roads are the only thing you think the government is justified in making people pay taxes for, then you would be very much a minarchist. As you seem to be a very strong statist though, judging by what you have said on this thread, I highly doubt that roads are the only thing you think the state is justified in imposing taxes on people for, and thus I am very surprised that you're not attempting to defend taxation for anything else, from welfare, schools, etc, to wars, militaries, police, etc. My guess for why you're not trying to defend these things is because you can't think of a decent argument to defend them. The argument that you are trying to use to defend taxation only seemingly works to defend taxation for roads, as the government has a monopoly on roads in many parts of the country (such as 100% of New England, where I live) and thus it would be extremely difficult to avoid using the governments' roads (as the roads surround my house and I can't afford a helicopter to fly over them and I can't survive very long off of just what I have on my land). Thus, you wouldn't be able to use your argument to defend taxation for things like wars, as I clearly don't "use" wars (evident from the fact that you can't conceive of how I could choose not to use the wars... oh wait, would you claim that by living in the US I benefit from the Afghanistan War and thus have to pay the insane charges that the federal government imposes on me? Oh god, I hope you're not that crazy, quag). So I still consider your argument defending roads as flawed for the reasons I've given that you haven't replied to as well as other reasons, such as even if someone manages NOT to use the government roads (e.g. by buying their own private helicopter and always flying way above the roads so as not to trespass on them) then the government will still impose taxes on them for the roads just for living in a municipality. As your argument is that people in the municipality use, and thus benefit, from these government roads, then they should be obligated to pay whatever fee the government demands, then your argument fails as the government still taxes people even if they manage to avoid using the roads by instead transporting themselves by private helicopter and fly in all of the resources to build their house, etc. But, as I said before, due to the fact that you are stubbornly holding onto your argument in defense of taxation for roads while ignoring my counterarguments, if you would just move on to the subject of taxation for non-roads just for a three seconds to answer my question, then I think a lot can be accomplished with this debate. Are there any other things that you believe the government is justified in imposing taxes on people for other than roads? If so, what are these things and what is your justification? So far you have been choosing to ignore this for many pages of this thread, instead focusing on only one small thing that the government taxes people for. At this point I don't even care if I can't manage to get you to see why your argument defending taxation for roads is flawed (and apparently you don't care either as you have been ignoring my arguments that attempt to point out the flaws to you); if you just admit that the vast majority of the things the government taxes me for are unjustified then that will be enough to content me.I keep repeating taxation is not theft/violence/slavery because you keep saying it is. What about taxation for things other than roads? Even if I cede to you for the sake of argument that taxation on roads is justified, this does not suddenly translate to a generalization that all, or even most, of the government's taxation is justified. And as you are refusing to address taxation for anything but roads, then in terms of the debate, you are essentially forfeiting the debate on all points except for roads. Even if you were to manage to successfully defend taxation for roads, this would not at all make you win the debate. When I say that taxation is theft, you're not replying, "Well, UtF, by making such a generalization you're actually wrong. While the vast majority of taxation is theft, taxation for roads is legitimate." Or are you? Because if I can get you to see that most of the government's taxation is theft (even if I can't win you over on the small issue of roads) then I'll be satisfied. As I believe that you think taxation is legitimate for more than just roads (correct me if I'm wrong though), then I would say I am correct in my judgment that because you are refusing to argue in defense of taxation for anything but roads, you are forfeiting the debate on all issue except roads. You fail to see that I am using the simplest arguement because well I just have to prove 1 tax is not theft/violence/slavery to prove your assertian that all taxation is. Aha, this is just what I thought the problem was after what you said above. Is this really your interpretation of the debate? If it is, I'll be content with stopping debating you right now, allowing you to win the debate by no longer trying to get you to see that taxation for roads is not justified. Just admit for me that taxation for roads is the only taxation that you think is justified. As roads are such a small issue, I'm fine with doing this. The real big issues are taxation for things like wars (which not only do I consider immoral but also cost a hell of a lot more than roads), welfare, social security, the military itself, etc. I thought that you were challenging my assertion that taxes for these things are illegitimate also, not just taxation for roads, with this debate. Although, even if you're not after all, might I remind you that even if you win your debate (i.e. if you demonstrate that one small kind of taxation is legitimate), that doesn't suddenly make taxation for other things (like wars, etc) legitimate. And as roads are a very insignificant issue in comparison to the many other things that governments tax me for, I would think that it would be a lot more worth our time if we debated these other things instead of roads. If you don't want to debate these things until I stop arguing with you about roads, then I'll cede the debate to you if you want so we can move on to the better issues. The debate on roads has already come to a standstill a while ago as I think that my counterarguments successfully debunk your justification of taxation for roads and you think that they don't. So I guess people reading this thread will just have to decide for themselves who won the debate. Okay, so can we move on now to the more significant issues that I thought we were already debating? Specifically, do you think that taxation for wars is legitimate or, like me, do you think that the state uses coercion to steal peoples' money to pay for these wars illegitimately? You have given no explanation as to why property tax is theft/violence/slavery except to try and change the issue to non municpal taxation. again total failureActually, I started off the debate saying that taxation was coercive by providing the the argument that the government coerces me into pay for the Afghanistan War. My initial argument was that the government obviously uses coercion to steal my money from me to pay for the war, because I consider the war immoral so there is no way that I would voluntarily pay for that which I consider immoral unless I did it by accident or did it because I was a hypocrite. As I'm not a hypocrite and I'm not paying by accident, the only logical conclusion left is that the government coerces me into giving them my money, in other words they steal my money, in order to pay for the Afghanistan War. So it was YOU who changed the debate to local taxation for roads as if that countered my initial assertion that it is illegitimate (/coercion/theft) for the federal government to tax me to pay for the Afghanistan war. If you think that changing the issue from this issue (the subject of my initial assertion) to the subject of roads can counter my initial assertion that the government illegitimately (i.e. NAP violation, meaning coercion/theft) taxes me to pay for the Afghanistan War, then it is clearly YOU who is a example of a "total failure" (to use your words), as you're avoiding even debating my initial point. Do you concede that the government immorally steals my money using the threat of violence to get me to pay for the wars that I deem immoral? This is the debate, quag, and yet you are pretending that you are challenging me, when in reality you have twisted my position into the statement that "all taxation is wrong" despite the fact that we haven't even defined everything that counts as taxation, and then you continued to changing the subject to the small issue of roads, as if winning that debate would make you win the initial taxation debate regarding the immoral wars that the government forces me to pay for. The logic does not follow. "All taxation is illegitimate" was not my premise (although I do agree with that statement), but you put the words in my mouth in order to to avoid dealing with the kinds of taxation that are blatantly illegitimate (e.g. taxation for wars) so that you could go on pretending that the government rightfully taxes me for wars without justifying this taxation. So once again, even if I concede to you that taxation for roads is okay (which of course I don't concede, although I'm going to stop debating you on that subject anyways as you are refusing to address my criticisms and counterexamples of your argument), that does not in anyway mean you refute my initial assertion that taxation for all the major things like the military and wars, are illegitimate. Nope again wrong 100% your house exists because of the roads. they brought in the workers/machinery/materials that built your house, yes your hosue could have been built elsewhere avoiding the public roads but it would have cost way more (you would have had to build the roads) but it wasnt!So Bob lives in a municipality that taxes his for roads. However, Bob does not use the roads at all, as he has several private helicopters that he used to fly in all of the building materials for his house, all of the guests to his house, himself to his house, and absolutely everything to his house. He's managed to avoid using the government's monopoly of roads that surround his house and infest his neighborhood by flying. And yet, the tyranny of local government that he lives under still taxes him for roads. What is your argument now, quag? You're still failing to justify any taxation at all, even roads. Just move on (or really move back) to the initial issue that I brought up of war. Is the government justified in making me pay for war? Here you have no argument at all. My view is that the government steals my money, that it uses the threat of force (NAP violation) in order to get me to pay up the taxes that it demands for its wars. You have refused to argue against me here. Are you conceding the debate to me? Your argument that you tried using for roads doesn't apply to wars. Your road argument only seemingly works (although it still fails as the hypothetical helicopter man clearly illustrates) for roads because the government has a monopoly on roads in many areas that make it almost impossible for people to avoid using them. As for wars though, you don't have anything that even scarcely resembles a possible valid argument. let me sum up: Economics: you think monopolies create competition - wrong No I don't. Although presumably you support monopolies because you support the government's monopoly on roads in places like New England. You admit yourself that the government has a monopoly on roads in New England by implication by your constant assumptions that I use the government's roads, that the only way I can choose not to buy the government's roads is to move out of New England. If that doesn't count as a monopoly to you, then I don't know what does. So given that monopolies stifle competition, why do you support the government's monopoly on roads? Wouldn't privatizing roads so that various groups of people each own different roads in a geographic region (e.g. New England) restoring competition to the road industry in New England, be preferred? taxation: you imply municipal taxes pay for afghan war - wrongAgain, no I don't. A long while ago I used the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars in that "hypocrite or coercion" argument illustrating that the federal government's taxation is coercive and thus theft and illegitimate, and then you changed the subject to local governments taxing people for roads, rather than address the taxation for war issue that I initially asserted was theft. You just said that I could move to a different location if I wanted to avoid paying taxes for war, but as I explained, that is not a justification. And as I have also pointed out several times now, your road argument that I am obligated to pay taxes for roads because I use/benefit from them does not work to defend taxation for wars (the subject of my initial assertion) at all. And also, you still haven't pointed out how it is that I can voluntarily and knowingly financially support (i.e. pay taxes for war) that which I deem immoral and not be a hypocrite. You just said that I am paying voluntarily because I can move somewhere where I can avoid paying. That's certainly not a justification though because I am indeed still paying taxes for the war. So are you saying that I am a hypocrite for not moving someone where the U.S. government won't tax me for their immoral wars? No, because you're saying that I'm not a hypocrite. But, how am I not a hypocrite if I'm choosing to pay for that which I deem immoral? There is no rational conclusion, but you just continued to deny this without reason and instead changed the debate to roads. You ignored the hypocrite bit and just said that taxation is voluntary as I can choose not to pay it by moving somewhere else, but then continued to say that I was a hypocrite anyways. So for the umpteenth time, how am I not a hypocrite for voluntarily paying for that which I call evil? jutice: you think private pay per use courts (dro's) and private security firms will be more just - wrong No, you're wrong. For example, just as if you and I had a dispute it would be more just for us to come to some sort of agreement or compromise or agree on a third party to settle the dispute for us if we were unable to do so ourselves than to break NAP and use force against each other to physically "resolve" the dispute using brute force, it would also be more just for people on a grander scale to resolve their disputes and deal with criminals in a similar nonviolent fashion than to initiate violence against each other to "resolve" disputes by force. Also on this subject, I noticed that you also ignored all of my mentions of Somali Xeer as the main system of "government" in Somalia right now. Why? Is it because you're ignorant of Xeer and the fact that the many Somali clans rule themselves with Xeer, not "provisional governments", and didn't want to admit this to me? That's the only guess that makes much sense to me. But, anyways, under Xeer, Somalis manage to resolve disputes and deal with criminals nonviolently (i.e. "privately," rather than "publicly" which implies state violence as a means to "resolve" disputes and deal with criminals). Maybe you shouldn't have backed away from the Somali debate and you could have learned something. You could have learned that the private "court" system, security system (the Somali clans following Xeer use the clans as insurance in this court/security system) called Xeer that the Somalis use is in fact more just than the state's idea of justice that the Somalis used to have to deal with before 1991. But, no, you maintain that states' courts and security (funded using taxes, violation of NAP) are more just than private dispute resolution and security services, that individuals are free to choose to buy or not buy without moving to a new house. Such a shame... current events: you think somalia is bad example of anarchy (many pages ago) and great example of working anarchy recent posts. Somalia is almost dead last in all measurable economic factor- wrong on both counts Many pages ago I simply agreed with you that Somalia was in a terrible state of anarchy because I assumed that you had an accurate understanding of Somalia's history (at the time I was relatively ignorant of Somalia). So, taking the view that you gave me that Somalia was worse off as the result of the collapse of its state as true (even though I now know that to be false), at the time I argued that the reason for that was likely because the Somali people weren't ready to be non-violent and live in a free society (i.e. they didn't choose to dismantle their government in order to have anarchy), but instead the government simply failed. And thus, I argued, that even if Somalia was worse off without a government than before a government, that would simply be because the government failed. If the people had chosen to dismantle their government in a non-violent fashion in order to have a free society, then you pointing at Somalia might have actually represented an argument against the idea of a stateless society. But, I argued, as the state just failed rather than the Somalis intentionally dismantling it to have a free society, then you pointing at Somalia as an argument against the idea of a stateless society had no merit. Anyways, now that I know that Somalia is probably better now than before its state is gone, I don't even have to give you that argument anymore. Although, even if you think that Somalia is worse off now than it was before, the initial argument that I gave to you when I was ignorant of Somali's history (i.e. the argument that I just stated above) still holds. Laws: you think actual laws could create slavery/legal rape but ignore that with no govt there is no law therefore slavery/rape is no longer legal. What in the world are you talking about here? I don't even understand what you're trying to say I have said. Perhaps you're saying that Congress could pass a law making rape legal and that I am ignoring the fact that if there is no Congress (no government) then there is no law making rape legal? If so, first I'll clarify that I never said this, and second the problem with this is that things would be "legal" by default under a government. Rape is legal under a government until the government passes a law making it illegal, criminalizing those who commit rape. So, I don't think that the government can really pass a law to legalize rape--all it can do is pass a law to repeal existing laws that make rape illegal/a crime. Laws dealing with crimes really fall into the category of regulations you could say, in that any law is really just a statement that if someone does X then the government will use violent force in response to that X to imprison someone, collect a fine, etc. So if the government were to "legalize" rape or marijuana, for example, that would really just be un-illegalizing rape or marijuana as things that the government would initiate force against people for committing or possessing/smoking. Politics: In fact if you knew the way govt worked you would see that trying to pass a pro rape/slavery law would be turned down by the supreme court even if it somehow got throught the legeslative process.If Congress tried to un-illegalize rape the Supreme Court would almost definitely rule against it saying that it is the constitutional right of people to be safe from crimes like rape. On the subject of "slavery" assuming you're talking about the fact that governments tax people for things like wars year after year putting them in a perpetual condition of being the victim of theft, and thus perhaps a partial slave in some sense, the Supreme Court and the Constitution don't recognize the government's theft of peoples' money as illegitimate (no surprise, as the Supreme Court is part of the government and thus benefits from the theft) and thus upholds Congress' laws of taxation. Actually I cant think of a single post you have had that has been correct on facts or logical in its argumentation. You're right! .... OH, paradox! Your statement is now a logical contradiction. Muhahaha. Just kidding. The statement that "Utf has not been correct on facts" would now be a logical contradiction, but that's not really what you said. You just said that you can't think of any of my posts that have been correct factually. So I guess there's just a problem with your memory then. "You continued to ignore all of my counterarguments once again. I called it ."-UtF ill finsih with this Your arguement shave had nothing to do with mine they are asides on different subjects. You made the (Wrong) assertioan that taxation is theft/violence/slavery. then after god knows how many pages finally admitted you could move outside of your municipality and then tried to pretend that municipal taxes fund wars in afghanistan. Give me a break, learn how the current system works before you start telling everyone it is wrong and immoral.Wow, quag, wow. I'm not sure how you managed to persuade yourself that I ever thought that my local government is what taxes me for the Afghanistan War. I'm well aware that the taxes I pay that support the Afghanistan War I pay to the federal government, not local municipalities. Somehow though you managed to falsely assume that I thought that my local government taxed for me the Afghanistan War. Anyways though, didn't you just admit that your argument regarding taxation for the Afghanistan War failed? I claimed that the government (meaning federal) taxed me for the Afghanistan War immorally and then you tried to rebut that by saying that taxation is voluntary and I can avoid paying for the war by moving out of my municipality? Are you kidding me? Surely as you know that the federal government taxes me for the Afghanistan War, your argument that I can avoid taxation by moving out of my municipality was just a change-of-debate tactic to change to property taxes for roads and was really a non-sequitur "argument' against my position that the federal government taxes me for wars using coercion and is thus really stealing my money for these wars. So tell me quag, how do I avoid paying taxes for the Afghanistan War? By moving out of my municipality? The federal government taxes me for the Afghanistan War. Mustn't I either stop making enough money to not have to pay federal income taxes or else mustn't I move out of the United States altogether? Quag: "This thread is pointless, you will never admit that taxes arent theft/violence/slavery, even though this last quote, despite the fact you think you have to leave the USA is total BS, you admitted you can avoid taxes. Therefore they are not theft/violence/slavery. " When I said that I had to leave the US I was still arguing about federal taxes for the Afghanistan War. But, of course you had moved on to local taxes for roads ignoring the initial and much more significant issue of wars, not roads. So total BS quag? You're BS, not my arguments--where in the US can I move to not have to pay federal taxes for the Afghanistan War? That's right, you want to believe that taxation is voluntary and not coercive or theft due to the fact that I can choose to move out of the United States to avoid paying for the Afghanistan War. This is why I mentioned earlier (several pages ago) that 200 years ago you would be one of the white people who would say that enslaving people (e.g. black people) is justified so long as you allow the slaves to move north if they want. My point is that just because you allow me to avoid paying taxes for the Afghanistan War and just because you allow a slave to avoid working for you by allowing him to move to the northern states, that does not justify your taxation and that does not justify your "you're-free-to-move-north,-but-so-long-as-you-stay-in-the-south-I-will-use-force-against-you-to-make-sure-that-you-work-for-me-like-a-slave-without-pay," form of slavery, a form of slavery equivalent in principle to the form of slavery that you submit me to using government taxation. You rejected this analogy by saying "taxation isn't slavery--you're free to leave the municipality, etc",(paraphrase) but you missed or ignored the part of my analogy where I said that even if they allowed the African Americans to move to the northern states (i.e. they're free to leave, just like I'm free to leave my municipality to avoid paying taxes for roads), that still would not justify the white people in the south seizing the product of the black-people-who-choose-not-to-move-north's labor using coercion (which is thus theft). So my analogy holds. I won't be replying to any more posts, at least for a week, if you, quag, want to take the time to go back to the possibly more productive discussion on the subject of taxation for war instead of the subject that we currently got stuck on (taxation for roads). As I'm yet to hear a decent argument from you at all defending taxation for wars, I'm interested to hear what you could possibly have to say. Note: Your argument for taxation for roads is at least "decent" although I still believe that it is in error as it still presumes that people in a specific geographic region buy the services of the government roads (it makes this presumption because the government has a monopoly on roads in certain areas), when in fact we can easily conceive of someone named "Bob" (mentioned earlier) who lives in a municipality (another term for municipality: a region with a government monopoly on roads) and thus is taxed for roads by that municipality government and yet manages to avoid using the roads at all by flying everything in to his house by helicopter. Thus your argument fails. The government would be justified in charging people for using their roads (assuming you consider the government ownership of property/roads as legitimate similar to private peoples' ownership of private property... something that I could easily dispute), but as the "Bob" counterargument clearly shows, property taxes for roads are not equivalent to municipalities charging people for using their roads, but are instead are equivalent to charging people for living in a certain place that happens to be located near a bunch of government roads. And since that is the case, your argument for property taxes for roads fails. Although, it was a decent attempt--on the surface it looked plausible that it could be valid. On the subject of the Afghanistan War, on the other hand, I don't "use" the Afghanistan War and you're thus yet to present any decent arguments that even seem possibly valid for a moment. In fact, on the topic of not "using" the Afghanistan War, as one "uses" roads, I would claim that the Afghanistan War hurts people (and hurts my own emotions)--it does not benefit me. So "charging" me for the war with income taxes is certainly not justified as you would be claiming that I'm obligated to pay for the government's wars that hurt me, which clearly would be absurd. So what are your arguments to defend taxation for wars? Do you have any? Is the only thing resembling a justification for taxation for wars that you have the observation that it's possible that I can avoid paying federal taxes for the Afghanistan War if I move out of the country or stop making as much money? Because I've already rejected these two points, so if that is all you have then I think it's safe to say that I won the debate. Edited July 11, 2011 by Use the Force Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quag Posted July 11, 2011 Report Share Posted July 11, 2011 Like I said i am using municipal services/benefits because it is the simplest. Once you admit that it is not theft for municipal taxation I can deal with the other forms of taxation. I see no reason to muddle the water by expanding the discussion. like i said I just have to prove 1 tax is not theft/vioelence/slavery to destroy your premise, you have to prove that all of them are. So give up on the war I know it is your litttle pet peve but you claim all taxation is wrong. I have PROVED you wrong over and over in fact I had to repost 7 times before you even tried to deal with the question and even then you went off on a tangent about wars. Nope again wrong 100% your house exists because of the roads. they brought in the workers/machinery/materials that built your house, yes your hosue could have been built elsewhere avoiding the public roads but it would have cost way more (you would have had to build the roads) but it wasnt!So Bob lives in a municipality that taxes his for roads. However, Bob does not use the roads at all, as he has several private helicopters that he used to fly in all of the building materials for his house, all of the guests to his house, himself to his house, and absolutely everything to his house. He's managed to avoid using the government's monopoly of roads that surround his house and infest his neighborhood by flying. And yet, the tyranny of local government that he lives under still taxes him for roads. What is your argument now, quag? You're still failing to justify any taxation at all, even roads. Just move on (or really move back) to the initial issue that I brought up of war. Is the government justified in making me pay for war? Here you have no argument at all. My view is that the government steals my money, that it uses the threat of force (NAP violation) in order to get me to pay up the taxes that it demands for its wars. You have refused to argue against me here. Are you conceding the debate to me? Your argument that you tried using for roads doesn't apply to wars. Your road argument only seemingly works (although it still fails as the hypothetical helicopter man clearly illustrates) for roads because the government has a monopoly on roads in many areas that make it almost impossible for people to avoid using them. As for wars though, you don't have anything that even scarcely resembles a possible valid argument. Bob's name is Desmarais and he lives in Quebec and built his house outside of municipal boundries and doesnt pay municipal taxes. But beiong a moron you think Bob can ignore the rules that existed before his house was built and not pay municipal taxes? seriously. If bob is so rich to build this house he would be smart enough tto build it outside municipal boundries to not pay taxes. jus tlike desmarais her ein quebec. the rule sof the game are clear before he builds the house if he doesnt like them he can rubn fro office or just get politically involved and try to change the rules. I would hate to play a game with you as you seem to think it would be ok to change the rules at any given moment to suit your own personal wants/needs. YOU dont like paying taxes make decisions that avoid them, you dont like those decisions even more than not paying taxes then pay taxes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 11, 2011 Report Share Posted July 11, 2011 A lot of ground to cover, so I'll try to keep it brief. On Waco: From the limited information I have on it (i.e. Wikipedia ), it's clear that the government officials who enacted the siege severely mismanaged the situation. From the article, "As the siege wore on, two factions developed within the FBI, one believing negotiation to be the answer, the other, force. Increasingly aggressive techniques were used to try to force the Davidians out." It sounded like the negotiators were making progress, but the siege group kept undercutting their efforts. But the idiocy of the government's response doesn't absolve the Branch Davidians from all responsibility for their actions. When you start stockpiling weapons, people tend to take notice. The article mentioned that the debacle at Waco is required reading for federal agents who have to deal with people like the Branch Davidians, so we hope that they've learned a thing or two since then. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a repeat performance of the events at Waco, so I think that the government has improved their ability to respond to such situations. On Taxation as Theft: UtF, you have always maintained that all taxation is theft. So all quag has been trying to do is find one instance where you agree that that is not the case. If he can, then that means your argument is invalid. You say: All Taxation is Theft. quag says: Municipal taxes are not theft. If you agree, then you say: All Taxation is Theft. Municipal taxes are not theft. //\\ Logical inconsistency! So it doesn't matter that you were talking about the wars, you were using it to justify the statement that all taxes are theft. If you grant quag's point, then you can still argue that "Some taxes are theft," if you really insist on doing so. However, as long as you accept quag's statement, you cannot also logically argue that all taxes are theft. On Property Rights: As far as I've been able to ascertain, you still haven't answered my question on this topic. On what basis do you justify your right to "own" something? If I come to your house and see a vase I like, what authority do you invoke to say that I can't take that vase home with me (assuming that you also like the vase and want to keep it)? There has to be some sort of underlying agreement (especially in instances where you and I are complete strangers) such that I will understand what is "yours" and you will understand what is "mine." I would call that a "Social Contract." On Social Contracts: I had thought that I had made this fairly clear, as Social Contract(SC) theory forms the basis for most modern democracies. The underlying idea is that without the SC, there are no rules or inhibitions on human action. If Person A kills Person B, the belief in the State of Nature(SoN) is that the is no communal recourse for Person C, who cared about B. C is free to act as he sees fit to A (including killing him in response), but that leaves the door open for a feud, where D (a friend of A) decides to kill C in response to A's death (and so on). In the SoN, there are no rules to regulate this. (Killing each other is obviously the extreme, but the same holds true for stealing, intimidating, maiming, etc.) This is clearly a less than desirable state of affairs, so the people come together and form a Social Contract to regulate their interactions with each other. In the case of the U.S. Constitution, the document was written up by representatives of all 13 states created by the Articles of Confederation and then ratified by state representatives of all 13 states. The contract thus formed was declared the supreme law of the land for all inhabitants inside its jurisdiction and everyone born into it was grandfathered into that categorization. People are under its jurisdiction when they live in the geographic region controlled by the government because otherwise there would be no way to enforce the laws as agreed upon by the original signers. If quag comes down to the US from Canada and performs an action that is considered a crime in the US that isn't a crime in Canada, he can't claim that he's immune from US law just because he's a Canadian. If he's staying in the jurisdiction of the US, he has to abide by US law. He might not have personally agreed to the laws laid down by the US Constitution, but it would not fix the problem we perceive regarding the SoN if he could ignore them just because he didn't sign them inside the borders of the land ruled by them. As an example, if I come to your house and you say, "No jumping on the furniture," I can't expect to be allowed to jump on the furniture just because I do allow it in my own house. The geographic region of the US is the US's "house." Similarly, if you are born into the jurisdiction of the Constitution (oh the cruel whims of Nature to condemn you to such a fate ), you are still under its jurisdiction because (for one thing, it was written that way) otherwise each person would have to reconfirm their willingness to abide by its rules before anyone could be punished under its rulings. As there are multitudes of new people being born (and coming of age) every minute, enforcement of the rules would be impossible as there would always be a significant portion of the population not subject to the rules. If you made an agreement with your wife that there would be no jumping on the furniture, you would probably impose that rule on your children while they live in your house too, even if they didn't agree to it. So the simplest solution was to say, "If your here, you have to play by the rules we've decided. If you don't like those rules, we have mechanisms in place to change them" (run for office, petition the government, pass ballot initiatives, sue the government, etc.). The goal of our SC is for it to be rigid enough to enforce while being malleable enough to change with changing societal needs. Is it perfect? No, but it's the best that we've been able to come up with and you have to live with it until someone creates something better (maybe that someone will be you, I don't know). If you don't like it, the benefit of our system is that you don't have to stay here. You can go somewhere else and renounce your citizenship and then you won't be subjugated by the US's horrible, no good, very bad laws. But while you're here, society expects you to conform to our communal agreements. (It's very weird to find myself saying that as I don't consider myself to be much of a conformist... ) I think that that's probably short long enough... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 14, 2011 Report Share Posted July 14, 2011 I ran across an interesting study from the University of Michigan that I think relates to our debate in terms of how we approach the problem. The researchers were trying to look at what helps people make "wise" decisions. While that seems like a somewhat subjective descriptor, I do think that their findings warrant further investigation. In their studies, they compared reasoning about an issue with personal stakes from two different perspectives: immersed and distant. From an immersed perspective, you look at a situation and relate it to how it would affect you personally, whereas using a distanced perspective, you examine the circumstances from the "point of view of a distant observer or '"fly on the wall.'" They found that people who used a distant perspective and removed themselves from consideration generally provided better reasoning about their conclusions and even found themselves more open to other options. It seems to me that anytime you want to examine a tough subject, you really need to remove yourself from the equation. You have inherent emotional and other biases, so to really reason about a situation, you have to try to look at things from outside your own personal experience. I think it's related to the common idiom, "Spend a day in someone else's shoes." If you can't look at the world from any perspective other than your own personal experience, you are going to be limited in the conclusions that you can reach and your reasoning will be similarly restricted. Your goal should be to use your own personal experience to establish a starting point for your views, but you need to find a more distant perspective to really hone down those views into a "wise" essence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 16, 2011 Report Share Posted July 16, 2011 Like I said i am using municipal services/benefits because it is the simplest. Once you admit that it is not theft for municipal taxation I can deal with the other forms of taxation. I see no reason to muddle the water by expanding the discussion. like i said I just have to prove 1 tax is not theft/vioelence/slavery to destroy your premise, you have to prove that all of them are. So give up on the war I know it is your litttle pet peve but you claim all taxation is wrong. I have PROVED you wrong over and over in fact I had to repost 7 times before you even tried to deal with the question and even then you went off on a tangent about wars. On Taxation as Theft: UtF, you have always maintained that all taxation is theft. So all quag has been trying to do is find one instance where you agree that that is not the case. If he can, then that means your argument is invalid. You say: All Taxation is Theft. quag says: Municipal taxes are not theft. If you agree, then you say: All Taxation is Theft. Municipal taxes are not theft. //\\ Logical inconsistency! So it doesn't matter that you were talking about the wars, you were using it to justify the statement that all taxes are theft. If you grant quag's point, then you can still argue that "Some taxes are theft," if you really insist on doing so. However, as long as you accept quag's statement, you cannot also logically argue that all taxes are theft. While I do hold the position that all taxation is theft, the original issue that I brought up (related to the intended topic of this thread) was whether governments are legitimate/moral or not and I said that they weren't because they take people's money using force or the threat of force to pay for things (i.e. wars, ..., roads). While one could turn this into a debate to see whether there are some forms of taxation that are legitimate after all, this ignores the main issue of whether the large bulk of taxation is theft. This is the main issue because even if local governments are justified in taxing people for roads, if the rest of the government's taxation (or a large portion of the rest) is theft (such a major forms of taxation such as taxation for the $600+ billion dollar U.S. military) then we we still can't say that governments are legitimate or moral in what they do and thus I still wouldn't say that voting in support of this government institution is moral. So not only was it the original subject of this thread, but it is also the much more worth while subject for all of us to participate in: a debate on whether a large majority of government taxation is theft (so tackle the major examples, not the tiny localized example dealing with local government's monopolies on roads. So as I said earlier, even if you were to successfully argue for taxation for roads, that would still be largely insignificant when compared to the more general issue of the legitimacy of governments. And also, for clarification once again, I do not concede the debate on whether all taxation is theft or not, I'm just suggesting that we move on from this debate (i.e. stop in the middle of it as it clearly isn't going to end anytime soon) as quag refuses to even attempt to rebut my counterarguments to his claim that municipal taxation for roads is not thread. For yet another example of him refusing to say what he thinks the flaws are in my counterarguments to his position, the latest example: Bob's name is Desmarais and he lives in Quebec and built his house outside of municipal boundries and doesnt pay municipal taxes. For the sake of making my couterargument to quag's argument exceptionally clear, I defined the hypothetical Bob as someone who lives in a municipality, but doesn't use the roads that the municipality charges him for. And yet, as quag has done countless times already, he ignores my point by either blatantly not commenting on it, or as in this case, by pretending to deal with the criticism, but really just ignoring it once again. Specifically, note how Quag says Bob's name is Desmarais and he lives outside of a municipality. Was not the fact that Bob lives inside a municipality the key point of criticism that I presented in response to Quag's argument? Once againt, here is the objection that you ignored, Quag: Bob lives inside a municipality, does not use the roads, and yet is taxed by the municipality for the roads anyways: justify the municipality's actions of seizing Bob's money against his will using the threat of force despite the fact that he does not use their roads, even indirectly. Quag is yet to present an argument against this point, instead just trying to avoid it again by the non-sequitur that Bob should move out of the municipality if he doesn't want to pay it for the roads he doesn't use. But beiong a moron you think Bob can ignore the rules that existed before his house was built and not pay municipal taxes? ... YOU dont like paying taxes make decisions that avoid them, you dont like those decisions even more than not paying taxes then pay taxes. People are under its jurisdiction when they live in the geographic region controlled by the government because otherwise there would be no way to enforce the laws as agreed upon by the original signers. ... Similarly, if you are born into the jurisdiction of the Constitution (oh the cruel whims of Nature to condemn you to such a fate ), you are still under its jurisdiction because (for one thing, it was written that way) otherwise each person would have to reconfirm their willingness to abide by its rules before anyone could be punished under its rulings. By the same reasons, you would both me Loyalists opposing the American Revolution, would you not? Dawh would suggest "'If your here, you have to play by the rules we've decided. If you don't like those rules, we have mechanisms in place to change them' (run for office, petition the government, pass ballot initiatives, sue the government, etc.)" even if such mechanisms were not sufficient to change the British government's rule over you to your satisfaction, just as the mechanisms that the U.S. government offers me to supposedly allow me to prevent them from being tyrannical to me are not sufficient. And quag would similarly say that those dang patriots are wrong to just stop paying the taxes that they consider tyrannical because the British government had jurisdiction over the land that the patriots lived on before the patriots moved there or were born there (source: "But beiong a moron you think Bob can ignore the rules that existed before his house was built and not pay municipal taxes?"). While might call that being a moron, quag, I would say that it is the moral thing to do, even though the government claimed jurisdiction over the land before you bought the land and moved onto it. And dawh: I'm guessing that you are going to object that the British Monarchy of the 18th century was being tyrannical to the American colonies and that didn't have sufficient representation of the people to be legitimate, whereas our American democracy has better representation of the people and is thus not tyrannical. If my guess is right, then I'll reply now that I would much rather live under the British government's rule over the original American colonies than live under our current government due to the fact that our current government is much more tyrannical than was the British government, which only taxed the American colonies about 1% of their total income, compared to about 3% right after the beginning of the U.S. government's rule and much much more than 3% (I don't know the number... 20+%ish maybe) today. So in summary, by the current arguments you are trying to use against me, you would also be opposed to the American Revolution and would instead advocate redirecting the government's tyranny away from yourself using the system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 17, 2011 Report Share Posted July 17, 2011 On Waco: From the limited information I have on it (i.e. Wikipedia ), it's clear that the government officials who enacted the siege severely mismanaged the situation. From the article, "As the siege wore on, two factions developed within the FBI, one believing negotiation to be the answer, the other, force. Increasingly aggressive techniques were used to try to force the Davidians out." It sounded like the negotiators were making progress, but the siege group kept undercutting their efforts. But the idiocy of the government's response doesn't absolve the Branch Davidians from all responsibility for their actions. When you start stockpiling weapons, people tend to take notice. The article mentioned that the debacle at Waco is required reading for federal agents who have to deal with people like the Branch Davidians, so we hope that they've learned a thing or two since then. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a repeat performance of the events at Waco, so I think that the government has improved their ability to respond to such situations. Fair enough. I'm glad you weren't defending the government's actions here in full--you agree that the government messed up here at the very least. There are more significant points in this thread that are more worthwhile to spend our time with anyways so I'm content moving on from this. Dawh: " On Taxation as Theft: UtF, you have always maintained that all taxation is theft. So all quag has been trying to do is find one instance where you agree that that is not the case. If he can, then that means your argument is invalid. You say: All Taxation is Theft. quag says: Municipal taxes are not theft. If you agree, then you say: All Taxation is Theft. Municipal taxes are not theft. //\\ Logical inconsistency! So it doesn't matter that you were talking about the wars, you were using it to justify the statement that all taxes are theft. If you grant quag's point, then you can still argue that "Some taxes are theft," if you really insist on doing so. However, as long as you accept quag's statement, you cannot also logically argue that all taxes are theft. " I'm fully aware of this point. I'll clarify against that I do not concede the debate on taxation for roads to quag, but rather it would really be more worthwhile for us all to return our focus to the main debate on the original issue of the legitimacy of the state and its taxation in general, by focusing on major examples of the state's taxation rather than relatively insignificant examples of local government taxation for roads, which is really not even related to the question of whether I ought to vote for someone for president of the federal government in 2012 or not. The real problem with voting for the president (even for someone like Ron Paul, who is actually a statist still despite his libertarian principles) is that that vote can be called an expression of support or consent for the state, which as I asserted much earlier, taxes people against their will using force (NAP violation... you can call it theft) for many things. To rebut this position that the state is thus illegitimate, not only would you have to successfully defend taxation for wars and the militiary, but you would also have to defend taxation for a large majority of other things that the state taxes people for. Dawh: " On Property Rights: As far as I've been able to ascertain, you still haven't answered my question on this topic. On what basis do you justify your right to "own" something? If I come to your house and see a vase I like, what authority do you invoke to say that I can't take that vase home with me (assuming that you also like the vase and want to keep it)? There has to be some sort of underlying agreement (especially in instances where you and I are complete strangers) such that I will understand what is "yours" and you will understand what is "mine." I would call that a "Social Contract." " On what basis do you justify my right to own something? Well, if I create something I usually say I own it because I made it. Similarly, other people can own things if they make them. Then, I can own those things my voluntarily trading with people for things that they made. As for things like raw resources or land though that nobody made and thus it is difficult if not impossible to say who is the original owner of the property, we just say that people own it and then people trade and ownership of such land or raw resources changes. Property rights aren't intrinsic so there isn't a rational proof that I could offer you to say I own my land. It's just something that we agree on as a useful concept to have since oftentimes different individuals want to do differing things with a single piece of property. To avoid the use of force in any conflicts that arise, we often agree to say that X individual "owns" the piece of property, and thus has the right to decide what to do with it and who gets to use it, etc. There's nothing intrinsic about the concept of property ownership though as far as I'm aware. As I said earlier though, having a government doesn't make property rights any better (in fact it makes it worse). All that a government provides is an institution of force that can overpower basically any individual or small group of individuals in an organization or company, etc, so that that government institution gets the final say in who owns what--no buts. I certainly don't think that's a good thing, as I said earlier, because people working for the government are self-interested people just like everyone else and there's nothing to stop them (and nothing to stop the people working through the government coercion apparatus) from taking advantage of the government's monopoly of force to take things from people against their will (i.e. steal, but for the sake of this discussion maybe just "claim ownership of" instead of "steal"). I think if you eliminate this central institution of force, then instead of breaking into civil war and violence over who owns what (like you seem to think would happen without a state) people would compromise more, finding ways to decide who owns what more fairly than the government does. Using violence against someone--fighting someone--really is never in your interest (if you want personal gain, as most people do), unless you are much more powerful than the person you want to use violence against. If you're a powerful dictator, for example, you can use violence against your people all the time for your own gain and never have a problem, but if all of your people are armed with guns as powerful as yours, then you can't just go around claiming ownership of all their things because you risk getting hurt yourself. Thus, if you eliminate this monopoly institution of violence then rather than fall into chaos and violence as you seem to think, I think that people will avoid civil war at all costs (because everyone will be losers if they fight due to the fact that nobody is powerful enough to suppress everyone else (i.e. no state monopoly of force)) and this aversion of violence will mean that people will find ways to compromise and agree on who owns what (such as seeking third party dispute resolution services if you have a conflict with your neighbor over whether you own your vase or your neighbor owns the vase). You're not going to point a gun at your neighbor to say that it is your vase (what the state does) unless you know you have a much larger amount of force than your neighbor does behind you. You'd want to avoid any fights and would thus seek peaceful means since you know you can't overpower your neighbor with the state. So I think as a result of the lack of such a powerful violent state would actually result in a more fair practice of property ownership. "There has to be some sort of underlying agreement (especially in instances where you and I are complete strangers) such that I will understand what is "yours" and you will understand what is "mine." I would call that a "Social Contract."" When you say that, I reply that you and I can come to an agreement if I own the vase or if you own it or if someone else owns it. If we can't agree ourselves we can agree on a third party which will decide who owns it for us. If all means of compromise and dispute resolution fail (very unlikely), then we just go on with our lives without agreeing who owns it. In practice that might mean that there is a vase in my house that I believe I own and you believe you own. In order for you to own it in practice you would have to come get it from me at my house. If you were to try that that might require using force against me to obtain it and it might make me end up using force against you to defend the vase from you. Such violent conflicts would rarely happen I'm sure as they're in nobody's interest. To add to the example, chances are other people other than you and I have an opinion on who owns the vase. Perhaps the vast majority of people think that I own the vase as I am in possession of it and I purchased it from someone who fabricated it. If this were the case, these people's view that I own the vase would, in a practical sense, mean that I actually did own the vase. They would shun you (ostracism) if you tried to take it from me with force and I think this threat of ostracism would be enough for you to seek a peaceful solution to your dispute with me even if it ended up giving up the vase to me that you for some reason considered yours. So basically, what I'm trying to say with all this is that either people come to agreements on who owns what or else they continue to disagree for long periods of time. You can't just say "that's why we need a social contract so that we have a way of telling who owns what" because this "social contract" is not an agreement. If you and I don't agree on who owns the vase, there can't just be some magical social contract that says that you own it and I don't so there and then enforce that view with violence. If this "social contract" is just a reflection of the general view of the populous then I don't think you need violence to enforce it. If the vast majority of people think that I own the vase in my house and you don't then we don't need any violence to enforce that idea. All we need is people threatening to consider you a thief (even if in your lone opinion you thought the vase was yours) and ostracize you for stealing the vase and it will already not be in your interests to steal the vase from me. While pointing state monopoly guns at you saying that I own the vase could definitely increase your incentive not to steal my vase, the problem with having such a central organization of force is that it is bound to become corrupted (even corrupted by a democratic majority) and use those guns to force people to give up their property (theft) to other people. Oh, that last sentence just made me think of another explanation for you all on why taxes are coercive. A thought experiment: If nobody working for the state had any guns to enforce any taxation, would most taxes still get paid? I highly doubt it, as individuals are selfish, and what would the consequences to the individual taxpayer thus be for not paying taxes? Certainly not much if the state didn't have any guns to enforce the taxation. Now, for part (b) of the thought experiment, would people still pay money to private businesses and individuals (or barter if you think currency is an issue)? Certainly, because those individuals value the products that they trade their money for more than they value the amount of money they trade for. It's in their self interest to do so. It's not in their self interest to pay thousands of dollars a year to support some foreign war though, and thus they would stop paying for such "services" if the state lost its power to enforce its taxation with violence. Dawh: " On Social Contracts: I had thought that I had made this fairly clear, as Social Contract(SC) theory forms the basis for most modern democracies. The underlying idea is that without the SC, there are no rules or inhibitions on human action. If Person A kills Person B, the belief in the State of Nature(SoN) is that the is no communal recourse for Person C, who cared about B. C is free to act as he sees fit to A (including killing him in response), but that leaves the door open for a feud, where D (a friend of A) decides to kill C in response to A's death (and so on). In the SoN, there are no rules to regulate this. (Killing each other is obviously the extreme, but the same holds true for stealing, intimidating, maiming, etc.) " People "regulate" each other with their actions following the "rules" that they believe to be most just or most in their interests or in line with their morals, etc. You could say that a pack of chimpanzees do this too in that if one kills another and the other chimps don't like it then they'll retaliate against the murderer-chimp. Is it meaningful to say that there is a "social contract" among the chimps that it's wrong to kill other chimps? Anyways, again, I do not recognize the existence of such a "social contract" and I don't see the usefulness in saying such a thing exists. I certainly see the usefulness is the concept of ownership, but what good does saying "Oh, but there's a social contract meaning that X is good to do or person Y owns object Z." It's like your citing some non-existent authority. You could say that most people living in a particular place believe that murder is wrong and thus in a practical sense it is indeed wrong, but I don't see why you would want to call that a "social contract." I don't see the presence of a contract between the person doing justice on the murderer and the murderer himself. All I see is a general consensus among the people living in a place that murder is wrong. So once again, individuals "regulate" others with their actions by following whatever set of rules (or sometimes just emotions or no rules at all) that they feel is best to follow. Citing a "social contract" that makes certain actions right or wrong is thus meaningless as far as I can see. This is clearly a less than desirable state of affairs, so the people come together and form a Social Contract to regulate their interactions with each other. In the case of the U.S. Constitution, the document was written up by representatives of all 13 states created by the Articles of Confederation and then ratified by state representatives of all 13 states. The contract thus formed was declared the supreme law of the land for all inhabitants inside its jurisdiction and everyone born into it was grandfathered into that categorization. This really shows how the term "social contract" is a misnomer. The Constitution was nothing more than a document written up and signed by a group of people living across the geographic United States. It had no authority over anybody else living in the geographic regions of those 13 original colonies and it certainly has no authority over other people later, even those who moved into the U.S. or born into it. Not even the children of the people signing the document. You can't give other peoples' consent, only your own. Did I already link to this article?: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/spooner1.html I wouldn't think there would be a need, but as you seem to think that the constitution has authority over me or anyone else who doesn't consent to it, then I think you should realize that it doesn't. The only "authority" that it has over me is the authority of powerful violent force that the government people acting in the name of it employ against me. But, in terms of a civilized debate that is not "authority" at all. It's only authority in a forceful sense. People are under its jurisdiction when they live in the geographic region controlled by the government because otherwise there would be no way to enforce the laws as agreed upon by the original signers. This looks like a blatant fallacy. You're saying that a government has authority over people in the area that it deems it has jurisdiction over because... if that weren't so there would be no way to enforce that government's laws?? How is that an argument at all. Also, on the same note as my previous post, doesn't this mean that the British government had authority over the 13 original American colonies? Also, your phrase "as agreed upon by the original signers" also makes me believe that you're still having a sort of delusion with regard to the concept of consent. Just as a patriot in 1775 living in an American colony never gave consent for the British government to rule over him or tax him, I don't give the U.S. government to rule over me or tax me. You can't argue that the patriot was correct and I am wrong because the British government's home base was across an ocean or wasn't democratic enough (how subjective is that?) whereas I can vote for some senators and representatives and thus have adequate representation meaning that the British government was tyrannical and our current government is not. That just doesn't work. I would agree that in general governments have becomes less tyrannical (more representation to more people) in that they went from mostly dictatorships to modern democracies, but they are still just as tyrannical (it's a matter of principle) to those who they use force against who do not consent to that force. And also, as I mentioned in my previous post, the U.S. government of today or even 1777 are both more tyrannical than the British government's rule over the American colonies. I didn't do any research for that (only one source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north1002.html ) so if you reject that claim that the colonies were more free under British rule than under the new U.S. government tyranny you can (with a source of course), but it's irrelevant really to the point of the debate on the legitimacy of governments. Whether the US government is less tyrannical to the Americans than the former British government that ruled over the American colonies is irrelevant to whether or not either government is legitimate (i.e. has any authority (other than the "authority" of force, of course)). I just mentioned the practical reality that the U.S. government is actually more tyrannical than the British monarchy that Americans used to live under as an added fun fact against the legitimacy of the governments. So again, are you a loyalist? Your arguments defending the legitimacy of the US government make me think so. I would be a loyalist too only because the U.S. government is more tyrannical than the former British rule, but as a matter of principles neither government (or any other government) has any authority (i.e. right to initiate violence) over anyone so long as those people never consented to that government. And remember (or realize finally), that the concept of consent deals with individuals, not representatives living near others providing the consent for others in a democracy--that's impossible. Rape is wrong because the victim says no, not because the majority of people say it's wrong and then erect an institution of violence to enforce that view. Again, this view (part of NAP view) is not something intrinsic (no "social contract", as you would call these concepts, are intrinsic). But, unless you make your concept of morality such that it is the same for all individuals (meaning no individual has the special right to murder, rape, steal, etc, no matter how many people say such things are okay), then you really have a serious problem. Murder, rape, theft, etc, are all examples of violations of NAP, by the way, and I think the only reason why you don't follow NAP 100% of the time on all issues is because you are convinced that there's something about the state that makes it seem legitimate to you. Whether that reason be one of the delusions that we've talked about in our past arguments on taxation being theft or whether it just be a belief that "the state is necessary for the greater good of society", I'm not too sure, but I am sure that none of those reasons work. Even if someone steals your car, pointing a gun at them to make them give it back or to make them give the state some money as punishment or to make them give you some money as retribution or to get them locked up in a jail cage, etc, is not the solution. You might think that works, but not only does that make you a tyrant much of the time, but I think it also produces a worse society overall in the long run from a utilitarian perspective. If most people think you own your car then you don't need to go hunt down the car's thief with a gun after they steal it and in fact you shouldn't. You can use your violence in self defense, but violence should be kept to as minimum a level as you can. Violence really isn't the answer. If quag comes down to the US from Canada and performs an action that is considered a crime in the US that isn't a crime in Canada, he can't claim that he's immune from US law just because he's a Canadian. If he's staying in the jurisdiction of the US, he has to abide by US law. He might not have personally agreed to the laws laid down by the US Constitution, but it would not fix the problem we perceive regarding the SoN if he could ignore them just because he didn't sign them inside the borders of the land ruled by them. As an example, if I come to your house and you say, "No jumping on the furniture," I can't expect to be allowed to jump on the furniture just because I do allow it in my own house. The geographic region of the US is the US's "house." Here you're claiming again that the geographic region of the US is owned by the institution of violence that we call the US government, which is a position that I certainly reject. I own my property, not the people in Hawaii voting to raise taxes on me or the people in NY wanting to build a railroad through my house (eminent domain). Another reason why your analogy doesn't work is because in a stateless society, the idea of ownership of property isn't enforced with violence in the way that the state enforces property ownership currently. Rather, property ownership is usually enforced in a non-violent way such as if I think I own my vase and you think you own it, then rather than calling on the state to point a gun at you, I would call on my DRO to hear our dispute and hopefully come to a ruling that will make it easier for a lot of people to ostracize you should you seize my vase as your own. Similarly, if you are born into the jurisdiction of the Constitution (oh the cruel whims of Nature to condemn you to such a fate ), you are still under its jurisdiction because (for one thing, it was written that way) otherwise each person would have to reconfirm their willingness to abide by its rules before anyone could be punished under its rulings. As there are multitudes of new people being born (and coming of age) every minute, enforcement of the rules would be impossible as there would always be a significant portion of the population not subject to the rules. "...before anyone could be punished under its rulings." Ouchy. Again, I advocate dealing with criminals and resolving disputes using as little violence as possible. You can use violence in self defense, but even if someone steals your car, you still shouldn't just raise a gun to them (even if you think it is consistent with NAP). Escalating violence and initiating violence (as you would be against the person who successfully ran off with your car for a day or two and then you finally found) is still bad. Surely non-violent solutions to dealing with the thief and dealing with other issues should be sought instead of resorting to violence. Even if the thief steals your car, there would still be no need for you to defend yourself or your property with violence. Deal with him non-violently by appealing to the 99+% of people who agree with you that you own the car, not the thief, and get them to ostracize the thief like the thief he is unless he agrees to return the car / pay back whatever amount the peoples' DRO settles on. You don't have to resort to pointing guns around like the state does to make your concept of property ownership a working practical reality or to have a prosperous society. Have your guns for self defense, but don't initiate force against others with them. Seek voluntary resolutions to your disputes and voluntary solutions to dealing with criminals and voluntary ways of funding security and fire insurance and roads, etc. Use your guns for self defense if necessary, but not to make others pay for things they don't want to pay for, including cars that they drive out of your driveway or an item they steal from Walmart or a meal they walk out of your restaurant without paying for. The initiation of force is wrong, you know it to be true, you just don't see that what the state does violates this principle. I don't know why not--you're making up all of these excuses about social contracts, etc, but they don't work. There is no contract if you don't have the person's explicit consent. Just as you could conceivably have a social contract that says that rape is okay if a democratic governments says so due to the fact that the individual victim of the rape does not give his/her consent, you cannot pretend that governments represent social contracts that make acts otherwise called violence/theft/tyranny/etc legitimate by pretending that you have the individual's consent. You don't have peoples' consent just because those people live in the US. Realize that; I think it's one of the main points of the issues we've been discussing. If you made an agreement with your wife that there would be no jumping on the furniture, you would probably impose that rule on your children while they live in your house too, even if they didn't agree to it. Oh god no!--certainly not. Not in the sense that states impose rules on people. States impose rules on people with physical force, or the threat of physical force. I would never in a million years of using violence against my children. I wouldn't even threaten to in the hopes that my children would obey and there would be no need to actually use the force (the threat is just as bad). No, if I didn't want my kids jumping on my couch I would kindly ask them not to and seek non-violent deterrents for them not to jump on it and would provide non-violent incentives for them not to. Also, related to your analogy, I wouldn't even say that I own the couch and thus they have to obey my rules for it. While I could possibly be justified to use force against my kids (or anyone else) under NAP to prevent people from using my couch or to punish them or collect retribution from them if they do manage to use it due to my ownership of my couch, I still would not use force. Even if violence is okay under NAP, it should still be avoided at all costs unless it's really being used for self defense. If I don't want people jumping on my couch (whether it be you or quag or my kids) I wouldn't use force to enforce that rule. I wouldn't even raise my voice at my kids to get them to stop jumping. Are you saying you would? Do you really feel that such violence is justified or necessary? God I hope this isn't what you meant. If my wife and I agreed that nobody should be allowed to jump on my couch and then my kids go and jump on the couch and I ask them not to and yet they continue, I'd let them jump all day no matter how much I didn't want them to jump on the couch--I wouldn't even imagine using violence to stop them. Now, of course, if they were really young and just didn't realize what they were doing then I wouldn't have a problem with gently removing them from the couch. It's not like touching them in the slightest is an initiation of force. The key point would be that I would know that when they were older they would understand why I didn't want them jumping on the couch and would be okay with it (consent!) even if at the time they were an upset four year old or something too angry to listen to my request to not jump on the couch immediately. So the simplest solution was to say, "If your here, you have to play by the rules we've decided. If you don't like those rules, we have mechanisms in place to change them" (run for office, petition the government, pass ballot initiatives, sue the government, etc.). The goal of our SC is for it to be rigid enough to enforce while being malleable enough to change with changing societal needs. Is it perfect? No, but it's the best that we've been able to come up with and you have to live with it until someone creates something better (maybe that someone will be you, I don't know). If you don't like it, the benefit of our system is that you don't have to stay here. You can go somewhere else and renounce your citizenship and then you won't be subjugated by the US's horrible, no good, very bad laws. But while you're here, society expects you to conform to our communal agreements. (It's very weird to find myself saying that as I don't consider myself to be much of a conformist... ) It's far from perfect. It's only slightly less tyrannical than having an institution of violence run by a single dictator. Violence operated by the will of a democratic majority is still just as tyrannical as matter of principle though. It doesn't matter if more people are made happier than under the dictatorship--what matters is that the violence is still wrong and thus the state is still not justified in its use of violence, despite its increased representation from a single dictator to a democracy. Back to the loyalist issue again, "if you don't like it, the benefit of our system is that you don't have to stay here."-Loyalist Dawh, 1775. "You can go somewhere else and renouce your citizenship and then you won't be subjugated by the British King's horrible, no good, very bad [1% of national income taxes, and far fewer regulations than what we have today under the U.S. government]. But while you're here, society expects you to conform to our communal agreements [sic][what agreements? "social contract" = misnomer, rape is not okay even if a lot of people forming a government and "social contract" say it is because the individual still does not agree]." A lot of ground to cover, so I'll try to keep it brief. ... I think that that's probably short long enough... We've expanded this thread to many different issues and really haven't resolved any of the discussions, so while in some sense I would certainly say that was long enough, in another sense it is not long enough at all. ... Perhaps that is yet another reason to move on from the relatively insignificant point of municipality taxation for roads (that quag is choosing to ignore my counterarguments to anyways) and return to the original much more significant focus of the majority of the state's taxation, namely taxation for things like the first kind I brought up: taxation for military/wars ( ). At least mention what your arguments are in defense of the legitimacy of such examples of taxation. The arguments that you all used to attempt to defend taxation for roads do not even apply to taxation for war or any other federal tax. From my first post that I just linked to: "Currently I don't have the right to not pay taxes for the Afghanistan War, but that's a right I think I should have. In 2012, whether Barack Obama gets reelected or the Republican nominee gains control of the big guns, neither will do any nothing to stop the government from violently forcing me and many other people from paying for these things that we do not wish to support. Should I still vote for the candidate that I think is less immoral? Or should I vote for some no-name (like myself) [or another anarchist who I know will only use his state power to absolve the state of its powers, rather than even use the state's power to be tyrannical by collecting taxes, imposing regulations, etc] who stands no chance of getting elected? Or should I not vote at all?" The above is mainly for quaq who claimed that my initial premise was that all taxation is theft and that he was challenging me on that point. While I do believe that all taxation is theft, that is not the position that I started this thread with. Rather, the position that I started this thread with was that the government taxes people for something things immorally using force (thus theft): "Currently the government taxes us to pay for many things many of us don't support. If I don't support various wars in the Middle East, for example, should I be forced to pay for them anyways? In the U.S. we have this thing called free speech, in which we can express our disagreement with these wars without being kidnapped and held captive by the government. But, if we wish to follow through with our disagreement by not financially supporting these wars that we don't support, all of a sudden we will get kidnapped and locked in a cage by the government. Why? Why don't we have the right to disagree?" Thus it would seem that to refute my position, not only would quag have to successfully defend taxation for roads, but he would also have to successfully defend all other kinds of taxation (or at least the majority of taxes such that defending the rest of them would just be tedious and unnecessary). For, even if some of the government's taxes are legitimate (e.g. taxes for roads), or even if half of the government's taxes are legitimate, or even if 3/4 are legitimate and not theft, if the remaining portion are in fact acts of theft (i.e. if the remaining portion of the taxes are acts of the government using force or the threat of force (NAP violation) to seize peoples' property (theft)), then the government is still an immoral, illegitimate institution, and I (and others who believe in libertarian philosophy (NAP: non-violence except in self defense) should thus not vote for a president in 2012 as a matter of moral principle. Originally I was thinking I shouldn't vote at all because I do not wish to accidentally support the state, but since starting this thread I have heard arguments that it is okay to use state power (affect that power by voting) so long as you only vote to dissolve the state rather than use the state power to tax people, or be tyrannical in some other way. But, the thing is, even Ron Paul doesn't fit that non-violent bill 100% (he's still a statist despite being libertarian (NAP) on so many issues), so I'd be voting for a complete no-name like myself. Also, there are still people who argue against this position arguing that any vote, even a vote for an anarchist who wants to get rid of the state, is still an expression of consent to the state or support of the state. While I don't know if I buy this counter position, I think not voting might still be the best decision that will likely be my decision. In a practical sense, not voting vs. voting for an anarchist is really quite insignificant as I'm certainly not going to affect the elections and will have a negligible affect on the voting statistics that a few people might look in to, but in principle I'm still not sure if I think I should vote for an anarchist or not vote at all. I'm leaning towards not voting at all, but I'm all ears for any arguments saying I should vote for an anarchist. Another counter vote-for-the-anarchist argument though is that unless I am the anarchist I'm voting for, I can't be sure that the candidate is actually going to act entirely according to libertarian philosophy (NAP). For all I know that anarchist could suddenly wield the state's power like other tyrants have, in which case, would I be at fault for voting for that candidate? I would think so, yes. Thus, I think the question is really should I vote for myself or not vote at all? As a practical matter it's very much irrelevant (actually the time wasting voting would make me think I shouldn't vote), but as a matter of moral principle, is it okay to vote for myself or is it best I not vote at all? So quag, yes, all you have to do is defend taxation for roads successfully and you will reject the position that "all taxation is theft." But, as I have said many times now, that was not my original position that I asserted when I began this thread or when we moved back to the central point of taxation being theft a dozen-ish pages ago and so defending taxation for roads would do nothing to argue against my original point regarding the illegitimacy of states due to the fact that at least some of their taxation is theft, such as taxation for the Afghanistan War. And to say it once again, no, I am not conceding the issue of roads to quag. Rather, I still strongly stand by my position and insist that if quag is to win the debate he must counter my criticisms that he has so far refused to even try to argue against. Bob lives in a municipality--don't ignore that crucial point and pretend that you dealt with my criticism. However, having clarified that once again, I also wish to say that I wish to return to the original debate in which I argued that at least some of the state's taxation is illegitimate (the first example I mentioned was taxation for the Afghanistan War, although that can be expanded to many other kinds of taxation). Staying on the issue of roads doesn't seem to be productive (the debate has halted) and clearly isn't related to my original point at the beginning of this thread, as not only must taxation for roads be justified to legitimize the state's use of the threat of physical force to collect money from people to pay for those roads, but also taxation for wars and everything else must be justified before we can say that the state legitimately uses force against people to collect taxes (or at least a large majority (perhaps not all) of taxes must be justified before the burden of proof changes to the anarchists to point out a significant amount of taxes that are theft that make the state illegitimate). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 17, 2011 Report Share Posted July 17, 2011 (edited) I ran across an interesting study from the University of Michigan that I think relates to our debate in terms of how we approach the problem. The researchers were trying to look at what helps people make "wise" decisions. While that seems like a somewhat subjective descriptor, I do think that their findings warrant further investigation. In their studies, they compared reasoning about an issue with personal stakes from two different perspectives: immersed and distant. From an immersed perspective, you look at a situation and relate it to how it would affect you personally, whereas using a distanced perspective, you examine the circumstances from the "point of view of a distant observer or '"fly on the wall.'" They found that people who used a distant perspective and removed themselves from consideration generally provided better reasoning about their conclusions and even found themselves more open to other options. It seems to me that anytime you want to examine a tough subject, you really need to remove yourself from the equation. You have inherent emotional and other biases, so to really reason about a situation, you have to try to look at things from outside your own personal experience. I think it's related to the common idiom, "Spend a day in someone else's shoes." If you can't look at the world from any perspective other than your own personal experience, you are going to be limited in the conclusions that you can reach and your reasoning will be similarly restricted. Your goal should be to use your own personal experience to establish a starting point for your views, but you need to find a more distant perspective to really hone down those views into a "wise" essence. I agree. Note that while I have been saying stuff like "doesn't justify the use of violence against me," by "me" you could really say "anyone who doesn't consent to the government." Also, I think that if you get into other peoples' shoes then you can get past your own views that you are okay with the government taxing you or regulating you and realize that there are other people who aren't and that these other people perceive what you are doing as tyranny. Also, with regard to the "immersed" vs "distant" point, one (dawh?) might say that I have been arguing from an immersed perspective, but really that seemingly immersed perspective is just because my understanding of morality and economics is based on individuals. For example, it's wrong to rape an individual because that individual does not provide their consent. This certainly isn't an immersed perspective, but to an observer only skimming the surface of these issues it might seem like it is. "From an immersed perspective, you look at a situation and relate it to how it would affect you personally." I think it can also be helpful though to look at a situation and relate to how it would affect you personally so you can make sure that your logic and reasoning wasn't in error or didn't bring you from a strange premise to a crazy conclusion. For example, again, if your logic and reasoning brings you to the conclusion that governments/social contracts can make things like murder/rape/theft/NAP-violation okay in certain instances, perhaps by examining personal instances of such NAP-violations happening to you you can actually realize that your position is absurd. For example, if your reasoning brings you to believe that rape can be okay if people have a democratic system of voting and electing representatives and that system decides rape is okay, then perhaps either your reasoning is flawed or else your started off on a poor premise. In either case, looking at a situation and relating to how it would affect you personally can actually be helpful, I would argue, despite how the study that you mentioned said that this "immersed perspective" resulted in poorer reasoning. And also, my reasoning is not that I don't personally like the government. My reasoning is based 100% on the Non-Aggression Principle. The initiation of violence is wrong except in self defense in reaction to a prior initiation of force. All of my positions stem from this and the many examples I provide, often involving you imagining that you're an individual in a certain circumstance, are not arguments in and of themselves, but rather are just ways for you to see the absurdity of your positions on an instinctual personal level, which, as you and I are both currently moral nihilists (morality is a subjective thing) as far as I'm aware, seems like a very reasonable thing to do. "It seems to me that anytime you want to examine a tough subject, you really need to remove yourself from the equation. You have inherent emotional and other biases, so to really reason about a situation, you have to try to look at things from outside your own personal experience." So really, you might be saying this to apply it to me, but I think if you did this yourself and let go of you emotional ties to supporting the government (that presumably you have), then perhaps you can see that the state is not an institution "greater than the some of its parts" as you once said as if somehow saying this emotional phrase made it okay for the state to forcefully collect money from people for services that they benefit from unlike private individuals doing the same exact things. Another reason why I agree with your post is that one summer before I was an anarchist I had a written debate with my friend over email. At the time I would say I was somewhat personally wishing that the state was justified in using force. I argued and argued for a long time against my friend trying to hold on desperately to the position that at least some of the state's violence was necessary for the good of society, necessary to provide certain services, or necessary to prevent society from collapsing. Looking back on the conversation only 6 months to a year later it became amazingly clear to me how poorly I had argued and it became obvious to me that the only reason why I held on to the position for so long was because I was emotionally attached to it. Looking at my arguments there was nothing there of any substance that actually managed to defend any of the state's violence, although at the time I was making the arguments I thought that they worked. It was only afterwards when I looked at my arguments months later that I realized that they were completely fallacious all the way through. My arguments reminded me of the few crazy religious people out there who actually try having intellectual debates defending their gods, heavens, etc. They think they're doing a good job arguing--they think they're rebutting you--and yet looking at their arguments as an atheist you can clearly see why they are flawed without any emotional roadblocks preventing your logic and reasoning from being sound. I hate to compare you to the religious people, calling you brainwashed for example (who likes to be called brainwashed in a debate? And what good to the debate is it to call someone brainwashed? No good at all), but really it seems as clear now arguing with you all that your attempts to justify the state's violence are in vain, just as it is exceptionally clear when arguing with a theist that they argue to defend their gods and heavens and dinosaurs on Noah's Ark in some vain attempt to hold on to their beliefs so desperately. I did the same thing, as I observed looking back at my debates on politics with my friend. On the subject of religion I was never on the God side of the fence so I didn't know what it was like--I've always been astounded at how strongly people hold on to their beliefs in God, etc, at all costs. With the state, however, I very much wanted to be right in my position that the state was justified in using at least some violence. I thought that some of the state's violence must be necessary. I argued in desperation (although it seemed at the time like I was winning the arguments despite my friend constantly criticizing me) because of my immersed perspective. I didn't realize it until later when I revisited our discussion and realized how ignorant I had been only half a year earlier. It was at that point after revisiting the discussion that I had dropped my emotional ties with the position and then managed to drop the position altogether and move on to the position that the initiation of violence is not justified, at all, ever. Violence can only be justified in self defense. Aggressive violence is always wrong. It took me a while to get here (a while relative to every other topic I had covered... but only about a year and a half), but now that I'm here looking back at my previous discussions trying to defend the concept of the state and looking at other peoples' arguments trying to defend the same thing, it is amazing how blatant it is how ignorant I once was. It's probably similar to the people who had been brainwashed into believing in some religion for a while and then somehow managed to escape and find reason and reject their religious beliefs. While I was never brainwashed like that, I have heard plenty of former-religious people describe how amazing they thought it was that they were once so blatantly ignorant and the experience seems similar to what I experienced with regard to politics. Now, having just written this last paragraph, don't take it as an argument (it certainly isn't one). It's just me sharing an experience I've had related to what I believe is the case with our current discussion regarding immersed perspectives in which your reasoning becomes fallacious due to an emotional stake or investment in a position. So it's really just a commentary, not a part of the debate. So you can ignore it if you so wish, I won't mind. Edited July 17, 2011 by Use the Force Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quag Posted July 17, 2011 Report Share Posted July 17, 2011 this thread is pontless. UTF has not made 1 valid point. he believes he has made tons of them but he is so extremely involved in his ideological point of view that he cant even begin to look at his or anyone elses arguements critically. I Assume he will post another 3 pages of rambling nonsense and claim to have irrefutably negated everything everyone else has said but there is no point in continuing. Enjoy the kool aid UTF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 17, 2011 Report Share Posted July 17, 2011 this thread is pontless. UTF has not made 1 valid point. he believes he has made tons of them but he is so extremely involved in his ideological point of view that he cant even begin to look at his or anyone elses arguements critically. I Assume he will post another 3 pages of rambling nonsense and claim to have irrefutably negated everything everyone else has said but there is no point in continuing. Enjoy the kool aid UTF I repeated myself again and again for three pages because you fail to respond to criticisms if I only say them once. So to repeat myself again, demonstrating to everyone once again that you are avoiding my criticisms and counter-arguments, choosing not to defend your premise that municipal government's use of coercion to get people to pay taxes for roads is legitimate rather than theft: I defined Bob as someone who lives in a municipality but does not use the public roads at all and yet is still taxed for them. This completely ends your attempted justification of taxation in which you say that people are obligated to pay taxes because they use(/benefit from) the government's services. Nobody can deny that you blatantly ignored this crucial counter example of mine so as to avoid having to actually justify municipal taxation for roads: UtF: So Bob lives in a municipality that taxes him for roads. However, Bob does not use the roads at all, as he has several private helicopters that he used to fly in all of the building materials for his house, all of the guests to his house, himself to his house, and absolutely everything to his house. He's managed to avoid using the government's monopoly of roads that surround his house and infest his neighborhood by flying. And yet, the tyranny of local government that he lives under still taxes him for roads. What is your argument now, quag? Bob's name is Desmarais and he lives in Quebec and built his house outside of municipal boundries and doesnt pay municipal taxes. Color added to highlight how quag blatantly avoids having to answer my counter example that invalidates his use/benefit justification of taxation for roads. Rather than provide a justification for taxing someone who lives in a municipality but doesn't use the municipality's roads (something he has never attempted to justify and I have been asking him to provide an argument for incessantly (e.g. "What is your argument now, quag?" quoted above)) he offers the complete non-sequitur that some guy who lives outside of municipal boundaries doesn't have to pay taxes for roads. When you tell me to enjoy the kool aid you sound an awful lot like the brainwashed religious people who tell me to enjoy rotting in hell rather than actually attempt to argue for their positions. I agree with quag that there is no point in continuing this "debate" so long as quag continues with posts like his last one in which he fails to even attempt to argue in defense of his premise. As it doesn't seem that he is going to begin offering any arguments or explanations of what he think is wrong with my criticisms any time soon, I suppose the thread can finally come to an end. That is, unless dawh or someone else wants to fill in his place? I would really have liked to face some genuine arguments but as of yet quag only offered that one argument that has failed as I have pointed out countless times and he's yet to even attempt to follow up on it by saying what's wrong with my criticisms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gvg Posted July 17, 2011 Report Share Posted July 17, 2011 UtF: I have time to only reply to a couple of things: 1. If Bob can go and get a private helicopter or whatever else (flight or digging is the only way to not use roads), it means he has enough money to pay his taxes so that the roads can be kept for the benefit of those who cannot afford to do what he can. Simple act of helping people. Not everything should be for profit. 2. For your question as to why religious people hang on to it so much: As someone who has 'found the light' after being very religious (I at one point sought to be a theologian or priest), I can tell you: The horror of what a godless world means The social consequences Being brainwashed from birth So, yeah. When i get the chance, I'd like to answer your questions and ask my own. If you don't mind, could you lay out your objections in one post: At this point, i've lost track of them all. i will do the same. Let's start over if we have to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quag Posted July 17, 2011 Report Share Posted July 17, 2011 No gvg, Bob knows the rules if he builds inside the municipality he has to pay property taxes. doesnt metter if he gets 0 benefit. The rules are clear before he buys. Aside from this Bob will not build inside municipality for other reasons than taxes. if he wants no roads then he will choose an island. also it will ALWAYS cost more to buy the land within the municipality than outside. if everythign is comign in by helicopter he can also avoid ATC restrictions by being in outside municipalities (rules are different if you fly over built up or non built up land) and outside of controlled airspace. Fact is just plain, Bob will never do as UTF claims in his hypothetical situation he will do as Desmarais did, outside of municipality for more than just tax reasons. Sorry the aside on roads got you you are not FORCED to live in the municipality UTF you are not a slave you can leave. The rules of living inside the municipality are posted and known. You live inside the municpality you pay municipal taxes you live outside you dont. Plain simple. You are once again busted. You cannot be foced to do something if you place yourself in the situation. YOU CHOOSE TO STAY YOU PAY. Now UTF try and explain why you are forced to live within city limits if you cannot do so then your entire premise is wrong! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 19, 2011 Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 (edited) UtF: I have time to only reply to a couple of things: 1. If Bob can go and get a private helicopter or whatever else (flight or digging is the only way to not use roads), it means he has enough money to pay his taxes so that the roads can be kept for the benefit of those who cannot afford to do what he can. Simple act of helping people. Not everything should be for profit. 2. For your question as to why religious people hang on to it so much: As someone who has 'found the light' after being very religious (I at one point sought to be a theologian or priest), I can tell you: The horror of what a godless world means The social consequences Being brainwashed from birth So, yeah. When i get the chance, I'd like to answer your questions and ask my own. If you don't mind, could you lay out your objections in one post: At this point, i've lost track of them all. i will do the same. Let's start over if we have to. 1. Just because you think someone has plenty of wealth to live by and be happy, etc, does not make it okay to steal from them. 2. Yes, I understand those reasons. I just wanted to express how difficult it is to sympathize with the brainwashed religious people who fear the thought that their gods/afterlife/etc might not exist after all. I can understand the extreme emotional attachment that they can have to their beliefs as a result of being raised to believe that the beliefs were true for their whole lives, but even understanding this I can't imagine myself ever being afraid of such an idea in the slightest, so the phenomenon of the religious people being so attached to their beliefs really still seems quite amazing to me. Also, the social consequences are definitely a major part. While many people may be able to give up their emotional attachment to the idea of the big loving god watching over them, they still refrain from doing so due to not wanting to give up the social aspect of their religion which often makes up a large part of their lives. And for what you're proposing (starting over by restating/summarizing everything... a good idea perhaps), do you want me to lay out my objections just to quag's argument defending roads again or do you want me to lay out why taxation in general (not just for roads and not just municipal taxation) is really just a theft that most people in society happen to be okay with? Edited July 19, 2011 by Use the Force Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quag Posted July 19, 2011 Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 And for what you're proposing (starting over by restating/summarizing everything... a good idea perhaps), do you want me to lay out my objections just to quag's argument defending roads again or do you want me to lay out why taxation in general (not just for roads and not just municipal taxation) is really just a theft that most people in society happen to be okay with? No UTF just explain why this hypothetical BOB can decide he can ignore rules that are in place when he builds his house? If he doesnt want to pay taxes he can do as the real bob did here in quebec, he builds outside the municipality. you claim your are forced against your will to pay taxes. i have pointed out municpal taxes are only paid if you live in the municipality, I have also pointed out you can move outside the municipality if you CHOOSE to. Now you explain how you can be forced to remain within the municipality because if you are not forced to remain within the municipality you are not FORCED to pay taxes and your whole arguement falls down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 19, 2011 Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 (edited) No gvg, Bob knows the rules if he builds inside the municipality he has to pay property taxes. doesnt metter if he gets 0 benefit. The rules are clear before he buys. Aside from this Bob will not build inside municipality for other reasons than taxes. if he wants no roads then he will choose an island. also it will ALWAYS cost more to buy the land within the municipality than outside. if everythign is comign in by helicopter he can also avoid ATC restrictions by being in outside municipalities (rules are different if you fly over built up or non built up land) and outside of controlled airspace. Fact is just plain, Bob will never do as UTF claims in his hypothetical situation he will do as Desmarais did, outside of municipality for more than just tax reasons. Sorry the aside on roads got you you are not FORCED to live in the municipality UTF you are not a slave you can leave. The rules of living inside the municipality are posted and known. You live inside the municpality you pay municipal taxes you live outside you dont. Plain simple. You are once again busted. You cannot be foced to do something if you place yourself in the situation. YOU CHOOSE TO STAY YOU PAY. Now UTF try and explain why you are forced to live within city limits if you cannot do so then your entire premise is wrong! For clarification once again, I've said many times that I can move somewhere else to avoid paying taxes. That fact is irrelevant to the issue of taxation being theft though. If I rob my neighbor's house regularly and my neighbor gets mad at me and tells me to stop because it's theft, then me replying as follows would not justify my theft: "Well I won't rob you if you move somewhere else. I only rob the house across the street from where I live, no where else. That's how it is and if you don't like it you're free to move." The fact that my neighbor can move so as to avoid my theft is completely irrelevant to the reality that my actions are still theft regardless of whether or not I allow my neighbor to avoid my theft by moving to a new home. "Bob knows the rules if he builds inside the municipality he has to pay property taxes. doesnt metter if he gets 0 benefit. The rules are clear before he buys." Once again, the rules were also clear for the American colonists who were taxed by their British government. Does this mean that the patriots were wrong to protest their tea taxes and overthrow their government? By your reasoning they would be--the rules are clear. Even if the rules say that the municipality government claiming the right to take my money for living on my land decides to tax me 100% to take all the money I have and only gives me a few dirt roads in return, what do you say? "The rules are clear. [if you don't like it you can leave. And every time that you point out that these rules are are not backed by any authority to obligate you to pay the tyrannical municipalities claiming the false right to take your money for living in a certain place except for the 'authority' of violent force, I'll just ignore your valid reason for maintaining that taxation is theft and will instead repeat the irrelevant point that that you can leave to avoid having to pay." It's wrong to steal from your neighbor, even if you give him the option to move to a new home to avoid your theft and even if you were stealing from the house before he bought it and moved in. You're still failing to realize this though and thus continue to hold on to your belief that the government's theft is justified just because people can avoid its theft by moving elsewhere. Even if the mafia gave the option to the people in its city to move out freely, that still would not justify their theft of the property of those who choose to stay. Although again, you might say, "the rules are clear," as if you thought that made it the peoples' fault for not moving out of the mafia's city. By your reasoning, if the people don't want to have their money forcefully taken from them by the mafia they should move out. The people are obligated to pay the mafia whatever the mafia demands so long as the people freely choose to live in the mafia's territory. If the mafia forcefully prevents people from leaving the city then the analogy doesn't match up with how governments tax people, but so long as the mafia allows people to leave the city freely in order to avoid having to pay up, then the mafia, just like the governments, is justified in forcefully collecting people's money for living in its territory. Is anyone else picturing Al Pacino explain this to the person he is demanding protection money from as he holds his machine gun strapped around his neck? "The rules are clear," he repeats. How do you argue with that? Oh yeah, by pointing out once again that the fact that Al Pacino is giving this person the option to leave town in order to not have to pay does not justify Al Pacino and his mafia's taxation of the people who choose to stay. Then you just have to hope that Al Pacino is rational as you know there is no way you can argue with his gun. If it turns out that he's not rational then you'll either have to put up with his tyranny by staying in town or else submit to his tyranny by leaving town. You could try to live freely as well by ignoring his tyrannical threats of violence by staying in town and refusing to pay the mafia their protection taxes, but chances are the mafia's threats of violence will quickly become actual violence and you'll regret not bowing down to your dictators. "Now UTF try and explain why you are forced to live within city limits if you cannot do so then your entire premise is wrong!" Again, I have agreed with you many times that people are free to move out of their city limits. And again though you're failing to see reason: Just because your neighbor is free to move, or the person is free to leave the mafia's city, or the African American is free to move out of the southern states, or the person is free to leave a municipality or state does not mean it is okay to steal from your neighbor or the person living in the mafia's city or the African American choosing to stay in the south or the person choosing to stay in a municipality or state. Edited July 19, 2011 by Use the Force Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 19, 2011 Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 (edited) No UTF just explain why this hypothetical BOB can decide he can ignore rules that are in place when he builds his house? If he doesnt want to pay taxes he can do as the real bob did here in quebec, he builds outside the municipality. you claim your are forced against your will to pay taxes. i have pointed out municpal taxes are only paid if you live in the municipality, I have also pointed out you can move outside the municipality if you CHOOSE to. Now you explain how you can be forced to remain within the municipality because if you are not forced to remain within the municipality you are not FORCED to pay taxes and your whole arguement falls down. The rules that are in place have no authority other than the "authority" of force, just as a mafia's rule that those people living in its city must pay protection money has no authority other than the "authority" of force. And mafias and governments alike are thus still not justified in taxing people for living in their cities even if they say those people are free to move out of the city in order to avoid having to pay the taxes. Edited July 19, 2011 by Use the Force Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gvg Posted July 19, 2011 Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 (edited) 1. Just because you think someone has plenty of wealth to live by and be happy, etc, does not make it okay to steal from them. I'll get to this in my list below. 2. Yes, I understand those reasons. I just wanted to express how difficult it is to sympathize with the brainwashed religious people who fear the thought that their gods/afterlife/etc might not exist after all. I can understand the extreme emotional attachment that they can have to their beliefs as a result of being raised to believe that the beliefs were true for their whole lives, but even understanding this I can't imagine myself ever being afraid of such an idea in the slightest, so the phenomenon of the religious people being so attached to their beliefs really still seems quite amazing to me. Also, the social consequences are definitely a major part. While many people may be able to give up their emotional attachment to the idea of the big loving god watching over them, they still refrain from doing so due to not wanting to give up the social aspect of their religion which often makes up a large part of their lives. I have to admit that my religious experience wasn't one of fear. I was taught about a god of love, one who cared and watched over you. If you were good, he rewarded you (which is really what they emphasized). Looking back, I realize it wasn't so loving, but at the time I thought it was wonderful. And the social implication is HUGE. When I became an atheist (which came about through careful reasonable thinking and arguments, many from this site =)), everything changed really. I hide it from most of my family, and its really only my immediate family and friends that know. I cannot discuss religious stuff with my siblings (I do anyway with my 12 year old brother though, and thankfully he isn't one of the crazy religious people (he's very scientific, and i'm sure he'll accept evolution when he learns about it)), and at one point a friend of mine that I've known since I was 6 (I consider him to be my best friend) basically damned me through an XBox conversation, explaining that he now thought differently of me since he knew i was going to hell. Thankfully that's where it ended and it hasn't been brought up since (it was a couple of months ago), but many people aren't so lucky. I'm sure you know the horror stories of being trown out of the house for being an atheist. I'm quite lucky. These are just a couple of things really. I feel my dad is more accepting than my mom, but she is still OK with it (took her a bit to get used to it though). But the social part is surely the biggest, especially for those who reached adulthood in a religious household. But what I don't think people realize is that atheists aren't as few as they think. I've met many (gotta love high school), and I'm qutie friendly with all of them. It's great really. But that's why i am not an 'anti-theist' unless they try to push social conservative BS. Because it really is tougher than most people think. My switch took a few months. many take years, and I'm sure if I hadn't found this website i would still be a theist (maybe not a Catholic, since I was completely disgusted with that church after my confirmation, but at least a deist, maybe more). But anyway... And for what you're proposing (starting over by restating/summarizing everything... a good idea perhaps), do you want me to lay out my objections just to quag's argument defending roads again or do you want me to lay out why taxation in general (not just for roads and not just municipal taxation) is really just a theft that most people in society happen to be okay with? Do the general argument. i agree with you that the road thing is a little nit-picky (although of course i agree with Quag but not for the same reason; I think it is irrelevant, Quag, what the rules are, they have to be justified. If the government suddenly said 'We're shutting down the border and burning unapproved books,' I'd be one of the first to get the hell out of here (probably moving to Canada in the process =)). So do it in general. i think a restart would be beneficial to this debate. You set up your main arguments, and I'll do mine below (I may miss some, so if so, I'll bring them up as we go). So, first off: Unregualted Free Market Now you are (correct me if I'm wrong) an Anarch-Capitalist, correct? Because of this, I will begin with an argument against on unregulated free markets. I will once again bring up historical references. First off, it is well known (you agree, yes?) that unregulated free markets have led to monopolies and cartels, and though some (like the chocolate cartel and possible gas cartel) still exist, the trust-busting efforts of the like of Theodore Roosevelt and Taft led to an opening up of the market for competitors. THink about: What is more 'free', a market of Mom and Pop stores or a few monopolies in each product area, like gas, coal, etc.? Again I will say it: The freer (more lazie-faire) the market, the less free its buyers. In order to keep the market free, you need to regulate it so that small businesses aren't tirelessly squeezed out of the market. Now, I believe you said somewhere that you don't think competitors would fall to monopolies. Well first off, it's already happened, but secondly, they would have no choice. Imagine I opened up a burger joint next to a McDonald's. I set my price at 2$ a burger (let's say there's is $2.50) which will allow me to make a profit of 10 cents a burger. Now, the McDonald's sees this. Obviously, they don't like it. They know that in order to reduce the price to $1.95 (or whatever lower amount than mine you want), they would have to lose 40 cents per burger. The thing is, they can lower the price dramatically, losing money in the process, and still force me out of business, because they are big enough to have enough money on hand to be able to lose some and still run, unlike me, who has a few bucks in the bank and my brother working the cash register. Now, i don't know if that came out the way i wanted it to, but Dawh made a clearer argument about this earlier, so I shall push on: Without regulation to make sure smaller companies can compete, Bigger ones (like Monopolies) would eat up everything. Just like Standard Oil did, just like US Steel did, just like Microsoft was doing before the anti-trust suit. Regulations like anti-trust laws are needed to MAKE a market free. Without it, there would be few options for the consumer. Also, think about working conditions: Regulations have made it mandatory to have safe working conditions with reasonable hours. Yes, unions fought for it, but they would have simply been another nuisance had the government not stepped in. (In fact, in other countries, union workers and union heads are killed by businesses. literally killed. For instance, in Colombia, some Banana company killed the union head and told the workers, basically, "unionize and you're next.") Government regulations are there to make sure the market is free for everyone, not just big bussiness and monopolies. Fairness This goes along with #1 at the beginning of the post. My aim in life, as I'm sure yours is, is to make sure as many people as possible are happy and not miserable. Let's look at what happens when government gets out of the way: The EP disaster, which ruined the Louisiana fishing industryPoor working conditions like those that existed before laws were put into place against them. (Like making sure someone was compensated for losing a limb on the job)Irresponsible speculation on the part of Wall Street and Oil companies (to name a few), which in the case of Wall Street helped along an economic collapse, and in the case of oil companies raised prices unnecesarily (remember that oil cartel article I linked earlier in the thread?) I could continue. Look at Fuedal society. That's an extreme, yes, but it does show: little government, little benefits for anyone who isn't rich. I am not suggesting that your idea is as bad as fuedalism, but i see it quickly degrading into fuedalism without government intervetion (which is obviously not anarchy). The rich will be rich no matter what occurs. Be realistic. Bill gates won't be scrounging in the gutter thanks to a tax increase. Since the rich benefited most from society, and continue to benefit, they should give more back to help their fellow man. Why? Because they can. To not do so is selfish. Why public and not private schools? Ask the poor inner-city kids who can't afford to go to Catholic or private school and instead can settle for at least some level of education, however little it is. Ask those who benefit from the free lunch and breakfast program, which for many allow them to eat three meals a day, and for some they are the only meals they get. Ask the poor kid who, thanks to being able to afford school because of public school, got a free ride through colege with a scholarship for being athletic, or being smart, and because of it, getting to be someone. it's simple compassion, simple fairness. I know you don't think so, but there wouldn't be enough charitability to cover what current government programs do, let alone surpass them. If such a thing could happen, why is Africa still, generally, a wasteland? Why is Somalia (which may be better off or not, I don't know, it is irrelevant) still a hell hole? Why does 'third world America' exist? Why do over 40 million people not have healthcare? You get what I mean. Unemployment insurance for those down on their luck (i'm all for weeding out the 'welfare queens'), etc. etc. The middle class didn't exist until recently becuase such charitability doesn't exist; it is shrinking because charitability doesn't exist. Some things shouldn't be for profit. No one should make money off of denying people healthcare, no one should make money off of denying people from school because they are too poor. It would undo all the adancements humanity has made. We would see a rise in illiteracy, religious fundamentalism, etc. And some things weren't made by private things. The internet you're using? Developed in large part through government grants. Taxation is a way of fairness. Government (properly sized) is a way of fairness. It makes sure all can have a decent quality of life, not just those with money. it makes sure people can in fact rise and fall through their own merits and not because of how much money they have. Etc. The greater good is what should be looked for. The benefit of as many people as possible, even if some have to give up some of their millions while they have 100's of millions more. If taxation is theft, then not all theft is wrong, because I do not see taxation as wrong. And besides, I will once again point out that the government is taxing its own creation, the green paper in circulation. If you really hate it, try to convince people to deal in something else. Tell me how much luck you have. Consumer Protection/Related Stuff This kinda goes along with the faults of unregualted free markets. Consumers don't, as you say, vote with their wallet on issues like whether or not a company uses slave labor, or is anti-union, or whatever. They 'vote' for the one that's cheapest, or looks prettiest, regardless of how or why it was there. People don't care about the slave labor being used by big companies like GAP and Nike, otherwise they wouldn't stay open. I can't tell you how many people decided to stop buying Nike's only because they started to promote Michael Vick. not becuase of the poor 8 year old chinese boy being paid 1$ an hour. I pledged to stop buying Nike and GAP for those reasons; I am among a minority. Perfect song to illustrate: (I LOVE Rise Against =)) People don't care enough to research. Thus, government has to step in. The discovery of an oil price fixing scheme? THat happened thanks to a government agency. Otherwise the public, who is often very ignorant, would continue to buy it, blaming the high prices on Obama or 'Those damn A-rabs.' The ideal free market relies on an educated populace. The plutocratic oligarchy we're moving towards, the same that your system would usher in, relies on the current uneducated republic. I'm sure i've forgotten some things, but I'm just as sure you'll inevitably bring them up. Now for something more specific: My defense of the very military i wish to cut but not kill. Military As any sane person would, i agree that any wars fought after WW2 have generally been oil or politically motivated (like the anti-communist feelings of the cold war that led to the Korean and Vietnam wars). But this does not mean that the military should be abolished. First off, I must ask: What would you have done when the japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor? If I understand correctly, NAP allows for self-defense, so I assume fighting back wouldn't have been an issue. But, how could you fight back without a military? If things were your way, there would have been no military to fight back with. What then? Let them go? THAT is ridiculously stupid. Now, you may say private companies could do that work. I would reply: BS. Maybe it would have been profitable for the Hawaiian and West Coast Defense Companies to use their resources to fight back, but would they stand a chance without the constant funding needed to fight a war? How would it be able to fight back against the Japanese navy or army, the same one that had easily conquered much of the far east, even China? It may ask for help, but why would my NY defense company help them? It wouldn't be profitable. Why waste money on something that may remain a West Coast phenomenon? It's like the poem, 'First they came for the jews...' (minus the races, replaced with the sections of the continent). Defense is something that shouldn't be for profit. Our army is bloated, obese, wasteful, and about as useful in its current uses as a hairstylist in a balding clinic. (What i mean by that silly simile is that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been total failures at this point, and haven't helped us at all). I think we could cut it in half and still be lovely. But without our military, we are defenseless. China will look at us and say, 'Hmmmm, well, now that they don't have a government to give us our money back, and they have no military, we might as well take, let's see, half of it for compensation.' (Oh, and btw, do you know about the disastrous consequences that would oddur if the US went into default? Could you imagine if it went into default because it no longer existed? That would cause economic chaos). You may think I'm too paranoid. Well, i think you would be naive to think something other than this scenario would happen. Maybe it would be the chinese, but for sure, the US would be split up amongst foreign nations. SW to Mexico. Hawaii to Japan. Alaska to the Canadians (Dman you Quag =)). The NE to the British (maybe no this one). hell, the whole South could become Mexican territory. Anyway, point is, the military may be too big, but it certaintly isn't unnecessary. War sucks. i'm wuite anti-war. But sometimes war is necessary, like in cases of self-defense. And we all benefit from having protection. Minimum Wage I think dawh did this already, but I'll do it too: Let's bring in two men (or women, whatever suits you). One is a teenager, say, me, 15, able to work for whatever they offer because my expenses are obviously taken care of by my parents (you can insert a single guy with no family to support as well). The other is a father of four, mid 40's, a family to take care of, maybe some college and credit card debts to pay, etc. He needs at lest $7.50 an hour so his family doesn't starve. In a non-minimum wage scenario, I get the job. I'm young, and whatever experience the other guy had (let's assume it's not something like a company executive position we're both after) is disregarded due to the fact that i'll accept a pay of, say, 5$ (what I get paid, actually, to 'unofficially' work for my neighbor). Thus, now the family man must either take equal or less pay, and in the process probably lose 2 meals a day and most of his non-necessary possesions (no HD TV for him), or keep looking in this current job market where many companies have a policy that if you're unemployed for more than 6 months they won't hire you. Either way, the guy's screwed. Now a minimum wage scenario: Noting the man's obvious superiority in experience and, probably, responsibility, they decide it is more worth it for them to hire the older gentleman than me. THe guy gets the pay he needs, and I go home to play XBox and type this up =) Everyone's happy. Is this such a bad scenario? I wanted to say something else, but i forgot. i'll type it up if i remember. So now you reply to me (or don't. Whatever =)), and also add your list of stuff (Probably all counter to mine of course =)) Edit: THis is the longest thing i've ever posted on Brainden. It's a milestone =) Edited July 19, 2011 by gvg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quag Posted July 19, 2011 Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 The rules that are in place have no authority other than the "authority" of force, just as a mafia's rule that those people living in its city must pay protection money has no authority other than the "authority" of force. And mafias and governments alike are thus still not justified in taxing people for living in their cities even if they say those people are free to move out of the city in order to avoid having to pay the taxes. No there is a contractual obligation, same as condo fees, mortgage payments etc. When you buy land within a municipality you are subject to the rules and regulations that go along with that. If you do not like them you can try to renegotiate with the town. this happens often with buisness who get 5-20 years no tax on the land when they buy. Also there are right of way clauses etc. For example at my house the electrical company has a right of passage through the back 15 feet. this means that if they need to get there they can and my shed can be moved by them without my consent and they do not need to reimburse me. I knew these conditions before I bought the house I cannot now say nope mr electrical company man you have no right to go on my land. The fact is it is very very doubtful they would ever have a need ot go there but that is beside the point. These rules/regulations are all listed before you buy, if you dont agree with them you can try to negociate them out but if you cannot you have 2 choices, either accept them or dont buy. the mafia does not tell you before you buy you will have to pay them they show up afterwards and let you know that accidents WILL happen if you do not pay them for their protection. There is no documentation to explain this to you in any way it is not a contractual obligation it is theft. In fact in your version of how the world should work that is exactly what you will get with your private security firms, they WILL do that. So tell me again if you CHOOSE to live inside a municipality why you think that equals you being forced to live there? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 19, 2011 Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 (edited) Gvg, I'll definitely reply to your post soon, but as it is almost as long as my super-long posts I'm not going to reply to it line by line like I usually do as I read through them. So instead I just read your post without writing anything and will now take some time to think up the most efficient response and will write up a post hopefully in the next few days. In the mean time, I'll reply to quag's post simply because I have time to at the moment. So I had said, For clarification once again, I've said many times that I can move somewhere else to avoid paying taxes. That fact is irrelevant to the issue of taxation being theft though. ... "Now UTF try and explain why you are forced to live within city limits if you cannot do so then your entire premise is wrong!" Again, I have agreed with you many times that people are free to move out of their city limits. And yet quag still replied in his next post with: So tell me again if you CHOOSE to live inside a municipality why you think that equals you being forced to live there? Seriously.... If you can't even get my position right after I have corrected you on it time after time again, how can you expect to be able to debate me? Now, on to one of the first new things you have said in quite a while in order to actually try defending your position (*applause*): (note: blue color added to the word "buy." Will be explained later...) No there is a contractual obligation, same as condo fees, mortgage payments etc. When you buy land within a municipality you are subject to the rules and regulations that go along with that. If you do not like them you can try to renegotiate with the town. ... I knew these conditions before I bought the house I cannot now say nope mr electrical company man you have no right to go on my land.... These rules/regulations are all listed before you buy, if you dont agree with them you can try to negociate them out but if you cannot you have 2 choices, either accept them or dont buy. Bravo. Okay, so now you're saying that people living in municipalities must pay property taxes not because they benefit from the municipality's services (quag earlier: "Bob knows the rules if he builds inside the municipality he has to pay property taxes. doesnt metter if he gets 0 benefit. The rules are clear before he buys." ... thus abandoning your benefit argument, which is good news because it is in error), but because when people buy a home (land) in a municipality they enter into a contractual agreement to pay whatever taxes the local government taxes them for each year in the same way that when a person rents an apartment/condo/house from a private entity they enter into a contractual agreement to pay the apartment/house owner the rent fee. In this sense it seems you are saying that someone "owns" their house in a municipality as long as they pay their taxes to the municipality that they agreed to pay when they purchased the house in the same way that we could say a tenant "owns" the apartment they live in as long as they pay the rent fee to the person they are renting their apartment from. So really what you're saying then is that a person who "owns" a home in a municipality is really just renting the land from the municipality just as we say that a tenant is really renting an apartment from somebody else who is the actual owner of the apartment. The only real difference that I would guess you might point out between renting land from a municipality and renting land from a private landowner then is that private land owners typically define a finite period of time for the rent period (e.g. you can rent this apartment for X months/years or until X date). In this sense after X period of time the original landowner will regain full ownership of the land. With the government however, you can rent your land indefinitely so long as you continue to pay your taxes, and thus in that sense you might say that someone actually "owns" their land in the municipality, rather than saying that they are just renting it from the municipal government. However, due to the fact that in order to "own" the land in that sense one must still continue to pay the municipality government property taxes, I think it makes a lot more sense to say that the person is renting their home from the municipality, rather than actually owning the home himself. Comparing it to the private rent again, even if someone says, "You can rent this apartment for X dollars/month for as long as you like," we still call it rent because the tenant would only "own" the apartment if he didn't have to pay someone else to continue using it. So now, the reason for that last paragraph is because I wanted to get it straight that when you said you "bought" ("buy" in blue above) your house in your municipality that was really a misnomer by your description of the reality of the situation (the reality of the situation being the contractual obligation that you say you enter into with the municipality to pay property taxes for your house). So you didn't really buy your house, but rather you are renting it from the municipality. In other words, by your description of the situation (a contractual agreement (voluntary by definition) between you and the municipality agreeing to pay the property taxes), you don't own your house, but rather you are renting it from the municipality, just like a tenant doesn't own the apartment he lives in, but rather is renting it from the apartment owner. So who owns the apartment? The apartment owner. And thus, who really owns the house that you live in (by your view of the situation)? The municipality. But, now the problem I have with what you're saying is that you previously denied what you just said with your last post: That was quag's argument for why I have to pay property taxes. He said that as the government owns my land then they have the right to force me to pay property taxes (sort of like collecting rent). Nope i never said theat the govt owns your land, just the setback and it has nothing to do with paying property taxes. But once again you decide what my arguements are then come up with a coutnerarguement that has nothing to do with what I said. So it appears that your views are inconsistent. Do you own your land or do you not? In other words, do you own your land or are you renting it from the municipality (which is the real owner of the land)? Based on what you said in your last post, saying that there is a contractual obligation "same as condo fees" in which "you are subject to the rules and regulations that go along with that" it sounds an awful lot like you're saying you're just renting your home from the municipality, the property taxes being the equivalent of the rent fee ("condo fee"). Because you didn't explicitly use the term "rent" (and because you earlier claimed that I decide what your arguments are and then come up with a counterargument that has nothing to do what you said, meaning I've apparently misinterpreted you in the past) there's a chance I'm misinterpreting you, but I just don't see how I could be. How is the contractual agreement with the municipality that you enter into when you purchased your house in which you agreed to pay your property taxes any different than the contractual agreements that a tenant enters into to agree to pay condo fees / rent fees to the condo/apartment owner? To me it seems like they're essentially the exact same thing except you're calling one "property taxes" and the other "condo (rent) fee". Am I missing something or is your current view inconsistent with your July 10th view quoted above? Now it sounds like you're saying you're just renting your land from the municipality, but on July 10th you said that you own your land, not the government, and that property taxes have nothing to do with it. These two views appear to contradict each other, so if you don't mind explaining what I'm presumably missing that would be appreciated. Okay, so hopefully you can clear that up for me so I can make sure that I argue against the correct position. In the mean time, I'm going to quote Wikipedia's "Social contract" article below because I think it's very much related to our current discussion. And to understand how my position relates to the quotes, note that my view on this issue is that municipalities and other forms of government do not own peoples' private property. So unlike you, I do not believe that I entered into a contractual agreement with my municipality when I bought my house (in order to "rent" the land from the municipality), but rather believe that I bought the land/house in its entirety from another private individual meaning that I am thus the owner of the land and I am under no obligation to pay anyone to continue using it, living in it, or to continue owning it. And thus I see the municipal government's property taxation of my property as illegitimate as I do not believe that the municipal government has any authority or legitimate jurisdiction over my land and thus to me its taxation of me is analogous to the mafia's taxation of the people living on their own private property in the "Mafia's jurisdiction." Neither the mafia or the government owns the peoples' land and therefore have no right to "tax" them or "collect rent" from them. So now, on with the quotes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract#Logic_of_contracting : "According to the will theory of contract, which was dominant in the 19th century and still exerts a strong influence, a contract is not presumed valid unless all parties agree to it voluntarily, either tacitly or explicitly, without coercion. Lysander Spooner, a 19th century lawyer and staunch supporter of a right of contract between individuals, in his essay No Treason, argues that a supposed social contract cannot be used to justify governmental actions such as taxation, because government will initiate force against anyone who does not wish to enter into such a contract. As a result, he maintains that such an agreement is not voluntary and therefore cannot be considered a legitimate contract at all." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract#Tacit_consent : "The theory of an implicit social contract holds that by remaining in the territory controlled by some society, which usually has a government, people give consent to join that society and be governed by its government, if any. This consent is what gives legitimacy to such government. Philosopher Roderick Long argues that this is a case of question begging, because the argument has to presuppose its conclusion: "'I think that the person who makes this argument is already assuming that the government has some legitimate jurisdiction over this territory. And then they say, well, now, anyone who is in the territory is therefore agreeing to the prevailing rules. But they’re assuming the very thing they're trying to prove – namely that this jurisdiction over the territory is legitimate. If it's not, then the government is just one more group of people living in this broad general geographical territory. But I've got my property, and exactly what their arrangements are I don't know, but here I am in my property and they don't own it – at least they haven't given me any argument that they do – and so, the fact that I am living in "this country" means I am living in a certain geographical region that they have certain pretensions over – but the question is whether those pretensions are legitimate. You can’t assume it as a means to proving it.'" So a note on the above quote: I believe that this is what you're doing as well. For example, you said, "When you buy land within a municipality you are subject to the rules and regulations that go along with that." But, why is that so? What authority other than the "authority" of violent force obligates me to pay property taxes to a municipality for living where I live? The municipality doesn't own my land just like the mafia doesn't own the city-person's land despite how that person lives in a city controlled (with force) by the mafia. They might "own" it in a practical forceful sense, but they don't really own it in the sense that we talk about ownership. So as far as I know you haven't provided an actual reason for saying that their taxation is legitimate in the first place. You haven't provided an actual reason why the government has legitimate jurisdiction over the land that I live on. You're just begging the question. Yes, I'm choosing to stay on my current land, but this isn't a reason to say that I'm consenting to the government's taxation. I think you're missing this though because you're assuming from the beginning that the government's claim of jurisdiction over my land is legitimate. the mafia does not tell you before you buy you will have to pay them they show up afterwards and let you know that accidents WILL happen if you do not pay them for their protection. There is no documentation to explain this to you in any way it is not a contractual obligation it is theft. In fact in your version of how the world should work that is exactly what you will get with your private security firms, they WILL do that. It's true that the mafia doesn't pretend to be moral and thus doesn't give anyone any warning that they're going to force them to pay them money. However, I hope that you'll agree that if the mafia told people that they were going to collect money from them before those people bought their houses in the mafia's city and if the mafia even gave them documentation to explain this to make it exceptionally clear ahead of time, then the mafia would still not be justified in "taxing" the people, as the mafia has no authority or legitimate jurisdiction over "its" city. In other words, the mafia doesn't really own the city at all (it only "owns" it in a practical, forceful sense) and thus can't legitimately impose taxes on people simply for choosing to buy and live on private property in the city. The private property in the city is owned by the private individuals and they are free to buy and sell that property with each other voluntarily. If you owned a house in the mafia's city and sold it to me, I could move in without any obligation to pay the mafia anything despite the mafia's claims that by buying the house in their city I had agreed to a contractual obligation to pay them their mafia-taxes that they demanded from me. This is true even if the mafia told me ahead of time that I would have to pay them the protection fee taxes if I bought the house. The fact is that their claim that I have to pay those taxes has no authority behind it and thus I am under no obligation to pay the mafia or the government anything. It's not the same as agreeing to a rent fee when you a rent a condo because the condo owner actually owns the condo whereas the mafia and the government don't actually own individual's private property. The people own their property. I own my house, not the government and not the mafia. In fact in your version of how the world should work that is exactly what you will get with your private security firms, they WILL do that. Definitely not. This just shows a complete lack of understanding of how security services would be provided in a free society. Edited July 19, 2011 by Use the Force Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 19, 2011 Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 (edited) While I was reading Wikipedia I came across: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax ... which featured the following sentence: "A tax "is not a voluntary payment or donation, but an enforced contribution, exacted pursuant to legislative authority" and is "any contribution imposed by government [...] whether under the name of toll, tribute, tallage, gabel, impost, duty, custom, excise, subsidy, aid, supply, or other name."[1]" (bold added). So as I read this I thought that surely one person's definition of taxation won't count for anything seeing as the debate we're having is about the definition of taxation--whether it is voluntary or coercive--and thus wouldn't be worth mentioning to you all on this thread. However, if you click on the little source link (the number 1) following the quote, as I did, you will find that the source of that quote is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black%27s_Law_Dictionary ... which is apparently a very credible source (or so dawh would say): "Black's Law Dictionary is the most widely used law dictionary in the United States. It was founded by Henry Campbell Black. It is the reference of choice for definitions in legal briefs and court opinions and has been cited as a secondary legal authority in many U.S. Supreme Court cases." So by definition of the most widely used law dictionary in the United States that has been cited as a secondary legal authority in many U.S. Supreme Court cases, taxation is... drum roll please... NOT voluntary, but rather enforced. So I guess this means the U.S. government agrees with my position and disagrees with you all, does it not? It's not like this matters though in terms of the debate--it's not an argument for my position. I just find it amusing that you all are trying to defend taxation as something that is voluntary rather than coercive and yet the government that taxes me itself admits that taxation is not voluntary, but rather coercive ("enforced"). So I guess the government is fine with being tyrannical, but you all aren't, and that is why you're trying to defend it's self-admittedly non-voluntary impositions of taxation as voluntary. Hmmm. Anyways... I just thought it was interesting. We can continue with the debate. Edited July 19, 2011 by Use the Force Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gvg Posted July 20, 2011 Report Share Posted July 20, 2011 I really haven't tried to argue for or against the idea that taxation is voluntary. I find it irrelevant. However, let's look at this municipality thing logically UtF: First off, (this piece doesn't apply to you, as you live in the NE), but the ENTIRE western half of the country was at one time completely owned by the government (Louisiana Purchase, etc.). It was given to its citizens (Homestead Act) and was taxed, like what Quag was saying, as a kind of rent. After all, it was the government's. It was a government contract that set up the terms, conditions, etc. So that is unarguable. (In fact, most of it is still titled 'Federal Land') But like I said, you are in the NE. So that doesn't apply to you. But think about this: Originally the East coast was owned by England, who gave the colonists the rights to settle, again with a rent-like tax. After the Revolutionary war, all of this English land was given to the new US government in the Treaty of Versailles that ended the war. Thus, it was the US government's land. So now let's look at the outcome: The West was directly purchased (or conquered in the Mexican American War, or annexed) by the US government. The East was transferred by the Treaty of Versailles. The governemnt is renting out the land you live on. Thus, the taxes (rent) are legitimate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quag Posted July 20, 2011 Report Share Posted July 20, 2011 UTF i keep saying the same thing because you keep saying you are forced to pay taxes. You are not forced you choose. You admit you can move then say but you are forced to pay taxes. there is a logicial inconsitency in this . either you are forced to pay taxes or you are not. if you can leave the municipality you are not forced to pay taxes. if you are not forced to pay taxes, taxes are not theft. you admit you can leave a municipality therefore you admit taxes are not theft. game over! your entire premise is gone kaput blown away! I have held the point consitently that the CHOICE to buy within a municpality is the reason you are obliged to pay taxes. and no I am not saying they are renting. But as you obviously have never bought any actual real estate you seem to be unclear on how it works. You own a condo but pay condo fees, you rent an apartment you pay rent. The 2 are not the same thing. I purposly used condos instead of appartments because, once again I underestimated your lack of comprehension of basic concepts and thought you would see the difference without it having to be pointed out to you. I know it is a subtle difference and you dont do subtle but thats ok you just have to agree that you can choose not to buy inside the municpality and thus avoid property tax. when you admit this you admit tax is not theft. But, now the problem I have with what you're saying is that you previously denied what you just said with your last post: Use the Force, on 10 July 2011 - 05:05 PM, said: That was quag's argument for why I have to pay property taxes. He said that as the government owns my land then they have the right to force me to pay property taxes (sort of like collecting rent). Quag, on 10 July 2011 - 08:26 PM, said: Nope i never said theat the govt owns your land, just the setback and it has nothing to do with paying property taxes. But once again you decide what my arguements are then come up with a coutnerarguement that has nothing to do with what I said. So it appears that your views are inconsistent. Do you own your land or do you not? In other words, do you own your land or are you renting it from the municipality (which is the real owner of the land)? You do realize that the first quote there came from you and has nothing to do with anything I have said only your insane ramblings? Now think about this 1 quote from you 1 quote from me how does this prove a logical inconsitency? I mean aside from your obvious problems in telling the difference from reality and what you think/want reality to be? Seriously are you that far gone you cant even tell the difference between my arguements and the ones you want me to make so they fit in with your skewed world view? GVG i do not call taxes rent, That comes from UTF, I state merely that the rules are set out before you buy the land, there are many clauses, responsabilities, obligations you agree to when you buy land. To then state that nope I dont like this or that clause anymore because i think it is immoral and wrong AFTER you have bought the land is ridiculous. I believe waaaayyyy back when several of us asked by what right UTF claims his land is his, this is a good explanation you give in your post, though it involved govts, so I dont think UTF would accept it as he doesnt accept govts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 21, 2011 Report Share Posted July 21, 2011 However, let's look at this municipality thing logically UtF: First off, (this piece doesn't apply to you, as you live in the NE), but the ENTIRE western half of the country was at one time completely owned by the government (Louisiana Purchase, etc.). It was given to its citizens (Homestead Act) and was taxed, like what Quag was saying, as a kind of rent. After all, it was the government's. It was a government contract that set up the terms, conditions, etc. So that is unarguable. (In fact, most of it is still titled 'Federal Land') It's not unarguable at all. How did the US government gain ownership of the territory of Louisiana? Buy buying it from another government that claimed ownership of that land (the French government) without legitimacy meaning that the US government didn't legitimately own the land after they paid the French for it. The French's claim of ownership over the Louisiana territory was no more legitimate than a claim by some Joe Shmoe living on the east cost of the US or a Joe Shmoe living in Europe that they owned the land. The US government then went in to the territory and committed genocide against the native Americans living there and used force against people who didn't accept their claim of ownership to violently gain physical "authority" over the land. In reality though they didn't have actual authority over the land, only the "authority" of superior force. And also don't forget that the US government financed the land purchase with taxpayer's money. If Mafia A sells "their" territory to Mafia B, not only does Mafia B still not own the territory, but also Mafia B bought the territory with stolen money adding another reason why it's not legitimate. Originally the East coast was owned by England, who gave the colonists the rights to settle, again with a rent-like tax. After the Revolutionary war, all of this English land was given to the new US government in the Treaty of Versailles that ended the war. Thus, it was the US government's land. Again, the English government's claim to the land consisting of the thirteen original American colonies was again just as empty a claim. At this point I'm guessing that Dawh is going to want to reply to my post saying that by my standards of legitimacy nobody can then have a legitimate claim to own land, but this isn't true. The American colonists living in the American colonies agreeing on trades of land with each other voluntarily free of any violence most certainly had much stronger claims to owning the land then the government that tyrannical ruled over them. So while the concept of ownership may not be black and white it is still certainly clear that some claims of ownership are much more (or less) legitimate than others. And when it comes to the English government's claim of owning the American colonies or the French's government claim of the territory of Louisiana, or even the US government's claim of owning all of the geographic United States, it is clear that while we may not be able to say with black and white certainty that they had no claim to the land, we can still say with confidence that their claims to the land lacked a lot of legitimacy, at least in comparison to the individual's claims of owning the land that they lived on and acquired and began using peaceably and voluntarily without using coercion. So now let's look at the outcome: The West was directly purchased (or conquered in the Mexican American War, or annexed) by the US government. Whoa, whoa, whoa! ??? You said "Or conquered in the Mexican American War" and yet you're acting as if that is a legitimate means of gaining ownership of the land? Seriously, a war?? What about the Mexicans who were living on the land before the US decided to attack with force? Why do you think there claims to the land are illegitimate? Because they were too weak to defend themselves against the mighty US government? Ha, wow. I know the concept of ownership isn't a black and white issue, but in cases as blatant as this it's hard to believe that you'd look at the war and then say the US government justly acquired the land. The East was transferred by the Treaty of Versailles. Again, the British government's claim to the land wasn't legitimate in the first place. Although, for the sake of argument, even if we say it was legitimate, can you really say that the trade of the land from the British government to the US government was just? You could say that the British "voluntarily" agreed to give up the land in the Treaty of Versailles, but that would be dishonest as you'd be ignoring the war that proceeded the treaty. For example, if I went to your house with a few of my friends and some guns and we had a nice battle between us and then eventually you said, "Wait! Cease fire! Okay, I'll give in! You can have my land!" then certainly it would be inaccurate to say that you "voluntarily" gave up your land to me. And thus, even if you legitimately owned your land in the first place I wouldn't be able to honestly say after the battle that I owned the land, as my means of getting you to sign the treaty to get you to give up the land involved using force against you and thus wasn't legitimate. So despite the superiority of my force to yours my claim to your land still wouldn't be justified, just as the US government didn't justly "acquire" the land from the British government (presuming the British justly owned the land in the first place remember, although of course I reject this claim). The governemnt is renting out the land you live on. Thus, the taxes (rent) are legitimate. So again, no, essentially for the two reasons that: 1) The former "owners" of the land didn't justly own the land in the first place and so any act of selling this land to another entity does not make that entity a legitimate owner of the land, and 2) In the case of the Treaty of Versailles and the Louisiana Purchase (among many other cases that you didn't specifically mention), the US government used force against the British government and Native Americans(/other people with claims to the land) respectively to forcefully either make them "voluntarily" (not really voluntarily) give up the land (Versailles's Treaty and Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek and other treaties following the Indian Removal Act of 1830) or just plain violently forced them out of the land (or killed them on it) (referring to Native American genocide). So no, the government is not renting out the land I live on. Rather, the mafia (a slightly nicer mafia than the mafias people usually call "mafias", although still a violent, coercive, tyrannical mafia) is using its far superior amount of violent force to get people like me to pay taxes against our will simply for living on land that we believe we have a far greater claim of ownership for than the government (<-- acknowledging that the issue of property ownership is not completely black and white, but still saying that it is quite clear that private individuals own their land despite the governments that tax them under your justification that the governments own the private peoples' land). By the way, have you ever heard of a tenant claiming that they shouldn't have to pay their apartment owner rent because they own the apartment, not the apartment owner? Actually, I wouldn't be too surprised if it happened before, but my point is that despite the issue of ownership not being completely black and white, I think you would agree that it's much clearer that the apartment owner owns and not the tenant, than it is "clear" (to you) that the government owns peoples' land, not the people. And a last point for now, in a stateless society if a property ownership dispute were to arise (as I'm sure they would since the issue isn't black and white), nobody would tolerate the people involved in the dispute battling it out with force. Instead, if some tenant claimed that he owned his owner's apartment, rather than using force against that tenant (to get him to pay his rent) like governments do in our current society, non-violent alternatives to dealing with the problem such as economic ostracism would be used instead. For example, people could put economic pressure on his employer to get him to fire the tenant employee unless he paid his rent. Also though chances are the apartment owner would have put in the contract with the tenant something about what would happen if the tenant didn't pay his rent so as to deal with the possible dispute before it happened. For example, the contract could say that as a condition of renting the apartment that if the tenant refused to pay at some point (e.g. for the reason that the tenant now thinks he owns the apartment) then force could be used against him to make him leave the house (the force would likely be defined) given X days/weeks of warning after the failure to pay. And so, as the tenant would have agreed to this use of force before moving in then it wouldn't be an initiation of force and would be entirely consistent with NAP. Anyways, I'm just mentioning this because in the past on this thread you all have doubted that such simple disputes as these are solvable without initiating violence against people and so I just wanted to remind you again that there certainly are ways of dealing with these problems without violence and so again there's no reason for you all to support such violence. Initiations of force are not necessary, but rather are immoral, and you all don't have to go on continuing believing that they're not always immoral due to the false reason that sometimes initiating violence is necessary to get society to function properly (i.e. avoid collapsing and spiraling into chaos, which is still, at this point in the thread, what you all seem to think will happen in a free society). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 21, 2011 Report Share Posted July 21, 2011 UTF i keep saying the same thing because you keep saying you are forced to pay taxes. You are not forced you choose. You admit you can move then say but you are forced to pay taxes. there is a logicial inconsitency in this . either you are forced to pay taxes or you are not. if you can leave the municipality you are not forced to pay taxes. if you are not forced to pay taxes, taxes are not theft. you admit you can leave a municipality therefore you admit taxes are not theft. game over! your entire premise is gone kaput blown away! No, there is not a logical inconsistency in that as I have shown for the past few pages countless times. I have concluded many times that the fact that you're free to move from a place does not justify someone charging you to live in that place and yet you are still (unbelievable, isn't it?) repeating the same fallicious argument again and again without even attempting to explain/argue why you think the fact that someone is free to move from a place makes it okay to forcefully take that person's money for choosing to stay in that place. So for the umpteenth time, if the mafia (or any other example I provided) says that you're free to move from your home out of the city, does that justify the mafia's actions of collecting money from you at gun point? Of course not, but by your argument above (the one you've been repeating again and again pointlessly) the mafia is justified for doing that. To illustrate it (in blue) to make it more than exceptionally clear, I'll substitute in the mafia for the government once again in your above argument to show why it is blatantly fallacious: i keep saying the same thing because you keep saying you are forced to pay the mafia its protection fees (taxes). You are not forced you choose. You admit you can move (note: the mafia allows you to... you're free to move) then say but you are forced to pay the mafia its protection fee (taxes). there is a logicial inconsitency in this (or so I, quag, think). either you are forced to pay (the mafia its protection fees (taxes) or you are not. if you can leave (freely) the boundaries of the city that the mafia taxes in order to avoid having to pay the mafia its protection fee you are not forced to pay the mafia its protection fees (taxes). if you are not forced to pay taxes (the protection fees), taxes (the protection fees that the mafia makes you pay at gun point against your will for living in "their" city) are not theft. you admit you can leave the city (a municipality) therefore you admit taxes (the protection fees that the mafia collects from you) are not theft. Can someone other than quag apply to this also, please, as quag is obviously so brainwashed that he can't see the very simple and clear logic here. Even when I "debate" against my religious friends they at least admit that there is something about their position that they are having trouble defending, even if they don't cede my position to me (becoming atheist/agnostic). Only the extremely brainwashed religious people (few of my friends if any) flat out say that my logic is so plainly false (despite it being so clearly valid from my perspective) and that their argument in defense of their god is sound because of X, Y, Z, blatantly fallacious argument. Quag is spookily reminding me of these extreme fundamentalists at the moment due to the fact that for pages on end he has been refusing to not only acknowledge the apparent validity of my analogy (my analogy between governments and mafias demonstrating that the fact that people are allowed to freely move from where they live to avoid paying the taxes/protection fees does not legitimize the act of taxing the people or collecting the protection fees from them in the first place), but has also has been saying that the analogy clearly doesn't fit without offering a shred of evidence or reason why it doesn't fit. If he had tried offering reasons but I thought they were invalid then I would just say that I thought that his position is wrong, but the fact that he is continuing to say that my criticism (that I have expressed countless times in various forms) is invalid without saying why makes him very reminiscent of the brainwashed religious people who I have "debated" with before. So please, somebody else please comment on this as well so that quag can hopefully finally see some reason by finally understanding that the fact that someone is free to move from a place does not make it okay to make that person pay you money for choosing to live in that place and does not obligate that person to give you anything for choosing to continuing to live in that place. Thank you. I have held the point consitently that the CHOICE to buy within a municpality is the reason you are obliged to pay taxes. I know you have--I'm well aware of that. That's why the majority of my posts over the past few pages have been about refuting that argument. So tell me, are you aware that I don't think that is a valid reason for someone being obligated to pay (if not, you seriously are quite blind...)? If so, why haven't you been providing any reasons why my many examples in which entities like mafias tax people don't fit? You have said things like the mafia doesn't tell you ahead of time that it is going to tax you, but that can easily be conceived of happening (even if it isn't what usually happened in the history of mafias) and we (the vast majority of people and I and presumably you too) would still say that the mafia taxing people is illegitimate. And besides, the fact that mafias typically don't tell people that they are going to tax them ahead of time is unrelated to whether they allow the people they tax to move out of town to avoid paying taxes or not; and as your argument is that they are justified in taxing the people in the city as the people CHOOSE (to use your unnecessary caps) to buy the house in the mafia's city and thus not FORCED (to use your unnecessary caps again) to stay in the city and thus not FORCED to pay the mafia taxes. So what, are you one of the very few people who think that mafias (and any other random people) are justified in taxing people so long as the mafia and those other random people give the people they are taxing the option to move somewhere else to avoid having to pay the taxes? Or if not (presumably not), then what is your argument/reasoning for why the mafia isn't justified in its taxation but the government is? Everything about the analogy matches up perfectly (or if it doesn't match up perfectly with real life historical mafias then we can easily conceive of hypothetical mafias that do send out documents to people before they buy houses saying that if they buy the house in the area they will be obligated to pay the mafia, etc, so as to make the analogy perfect) and yet you think that governments are justified in their taxation but mafias and others aren't. Why? By your argument that the people are free to leave and choose to move into the government's jurisdiction, the mafia is justified in taxing its people because the people are free to leave and choose to move into the mafia's jurisdiction in the exact same way. The analogy is perfect and yet you're not providing any reasons why you think the mafia (or anyone else) isn't justified in taxing people, but the government (for some odd (religious? (in the indoctrinated or "immersed perspective" sense)) reason that you haven't specified) is. and no I am not saying they are renting. But as you obviously have never bought any actual real estate you seem to be unclear on how it works. You own a condo but pay condo fees, you rent an apartment you pay rent. The 2 are not the same thing. I purposly used condos instead of appartments because, once again I underestimated your lack of comprehension of basic concepts and thought you would see the difference without it having to be pointed out to you. I know it is a subtle difference and you dont do subtle but thats ok you just have to agree that you can choose not to buy inside the municpality and thus avoid property tax. when you admit this you admit tax is not theft. I don't do subtle but that's okay? Wow. Well you're right that I've never bought any real estate and I'm ignorant of the difference between the "condo fees" that you were referring to and what I thought you were referring to ("rent fees"), but again I'm taken aback by the fact that you didn't explain this difference in order to better explain what you meant when you said that when people buy houses inside municipalities they enter into contractual agreements to pay the municipality property taxes. To me this sounded an awful lot like entering into an agreement to pay rent when you move into an apartment, but if that's not the kind of contractual agreement that you were referring to it sure would help this discussion if you explained to the ignorant-never-bought-real-estate me what you were referring to. Just saying that I "don't do subtle but that's okay" doesn't benefit the discussion at all or further strengthen your arguments. It just doesn't give me an opportunity to try to rebut your arguments because it's not clear to me what your argument is. So if you may, would you please explain what the contractual agreement with the municipality is and how it differs from contractual agreements with private entities that you are buying or renting property from. Specifically, as I believe you're saying that you can't buy the private land in the municipality without the contractual agreement with the municipality, doesn't this mean that the municipality has some ownership of the land? To clarify, if I buy or rent an apartment from a private apartment owner, only that apartment owner's contractual demands are in my way before I purchase/rent the apartment. So some Joe Shmoe guy (analogy: Joe Shmoe represents the municipality) who would want to say that me buying the apartment from the private apartment owner would require entering into a contractual agreement with him requiring that I pay him some fee regularly (taxes) would only be correct in his claim if he also owned the apartment in some way (perhaps he only "owned" it through some agreement with the apartment owner in which the apartment owner agreed that if he ever sold the apartment he would make sure that future owners paid Joe Shmoe the regular fee, but this is still a form of ownership). So if Joe Shmoe (i.e. the municipality government) didn't own the apartment, then I would be able to buy the apartment from the apartment owner without any contractual obligation to pay Joe Shmoe anything, as the apartment owner owned the apartment, not Joe Shmoe, and thus the apartment owner could sell it to me without Joe Shmoe's permission and without me having to pay Joe Shmoe to continue owning the apartment. You do realize that the first quote there came from you and has nothing to do with anything I have said only your insane ramblings? Duh, I'm aware that the first quote was mine (I looked it up myself and copied the quote line with "Use the force" and pasted it in front of the quote). I provided it to provide the context to what your quote was in reply to. As to your claim that it has nothing to do with anything you have said, that's clearly a false as is evident by your last post that I quoted in which you compared government taxation of municipal property owners' property to contractual agreements in which people living in condos have to pay condo fees. I thought that by this you were talking about tenants having to pay apartment owners rent fees, but if this is inaccurate as you had said, you can't call this "subtle" (to use your own term) difference that I missed "nothing to do with anything that I have said only your insane ramblings". You said that the difference between condo fees and rent fees that I missed was "subtle", but then you said that the same difference (the "subtle" difference that made me conclude that you thought municipalities owned your land, just as apartment owners own the apartment that tenants paying rent fees live in) "has nothing to do with anything I have said." How is it nothing to do with anything you have said it if it is a subtle difference? And besides, could you please explain the subtle difference? Explain the contractual agreements with municipalities and how this is compared to contractual agreements with condos to pay condo fees, but how it is different from paying rent fees as a tenant? Okay, I just looked up what condo fees were and it turns out I know what they are I just didn't think of those fees when you said "condo fees". Before looking it up I was going to say: Presumably one pays condo fees to someone (who? I don't know) who does not own the condo, seeing as this is the reason why the rent fee comparison doesn't work, but what obligates people living in condos to pay condo fees to whoever and what obligates people buying houses in municipalities to pay property taxes to the municipality if the municipality doesn't own the land/house in the municipality and the person receiving the condo fees doesn't own the condo? But now that I looked up "condominium fee" I realize that I knew what they were the whole time and I just didn't connect what they were with the name. So looking them up I now realize that you do pay condo fees to the condo owner, not to some other entity that doesn't own the condo. Some private company owns the condominium complex and they say that when someone "buys" a condo from them, they still have to pay some fee to maintain everything. Because of this, there is still reason to say that someone who "buys" a condominium is really still "renting" it in a sense, due to the fact that if the person stops paying the condominium fee then the company that owns the condominium regains full ownership of the condominium and the person refusing to pay the fee has to move out. As another example, I could sell my house to you and put into the contract that you have to pay me some regular fee and in return I will maintain the house, the yard, etc. In this sense you're really still renting it. While it would differ from renting an apartment in that instead of paying something like $500/month for the apartment, you would instead pay a much larger fee up front for the house, and then would only have to pay me a smaller fee of maybe $50/month for the "maintenance" "condo fee." So in this sense you do "own" the house or condo more than you "own" an apartment, but you still don't "own" it completely as you are still "renting" it in some sense in that you are still obligated to pay me the maintenance fee. Now, another difference would be the consequences of not paying the rent/condo fee. This would be defined in the contract when you buy/rent the condo/apartment. So assuming typical contracts: If you don't pay the rent ($500/month), you're likely to be kicked out of the apartment, but if you don't pay the condo fee ($50/month), you're not going to be kicked out of the condo that you paid $100,000 for or whatever large fee. Nobody would buy the condo if this was what the condominium complex company said was the case in their contracts. So in this sense, I now understand why you said the condo fee comparison is different from the rent fee comparison. This is also the reason why we might say that someone "owns" the condo, but just "rents" the apartment. While it's not a black and white issue of whether you are owning it or renting it, the fact that the person paid $100,000 up front for the condo and then only a $50/month "rent" "condo" "maintenance" fee afterwards means that the person "owns" the condo in much more of a sense than the person renting the apartment "owns" the apartment. Okay, so now that I have sorted out that issue, I'm still not sure why one would think that such a contractual agreement exists with municipalities. My reason is because the condominium complex company owns the condominiums whereas the municipality doesn't own the houses in the municipality. Because you buy the condo from the condo company, the condo company can say that you have to pay a condo fee or you don't have to pay a condo fee, before deciding to sell you the house. With the municipalities, however, if you wanted to sell me your house, you wouldn't have the choice to sell it to me without having me have to pay the condominium fees (taxes). This is because it's not you who says I have to pay the condominium fees, but rather it is the municipality that says I have to pay the fees. So the only way that this would make sense would be if the municipality owned your house. But as the municipality does not own your house, then the analogy doesn't fit. So in summary, you can go up to the condo company and say, "Can I buy one of your condos?" The condo company can reply saying, "Sure, but you'll have to pay these condo fees regularly," or it can reply by saying, "Sure, and we won't make you pay any condo fees." If the company didn't make you pay condo fees then we probably wouldn't refer to it as a condo, but the point is that if someone owns property with a building on it (whether we call the building a condo or a house) they can choose to sell it to you just for X price or for X price plus a condo fee of Y regular fee. When it comes to your house on a municipality though, if you truly owned your house in the sense that a condominium complex owns their condos (or some other private entity owns property with a building on it (whether we call that building a condo or a house), then you would be able to sell that house to me either with or without the obligation to pay the regular fee. Due to the fact that you are unable to choose to sell the house to me without making me pay the regular fee, it seems the only logical conclusion is that either you don't really own your house, but rather the municipality (that makes me have to pay taxes if I buy your house whether you want to sell me your house with that burden or not, owns your house, or else the municipality's imposition of property taxes is not justified because I am not obligated to pay it property taxes if you sell it to me saying that I don't have to pay the property taxes. If you really own the house then you can sell it to me without me having to pay any regular fee, just as the condominium complex private owner can sell me the condo without having to pay a condo fee if he wants, but if you are unable to legitimately sell me the house without having to pay the regular fee, then you do not really own the house, just as the condominium complex owner wouldn't really own the condominium if he was not able to legitimately sell it to you free of any obligation to pay him or anyone else any regular condo fee, maintenance fee, or tax. So despite my initial confusion of the terms "condo fee" and "rent fee" I still maintain that your comparison of municipality taxation to condo fees implies that you believe that the municipality really owns your house, just as the condominium complex company really owns the condo. Because the condominium complex owner owns the condo they can obligate the buyer to pay a condo fee in the contractual agreement when the buyer buys the house. Because the municipality does not own your house they cannot obligate someone buying your house to pay such a regular fee (tax). Thus, the condo fees are legitimate while the tax is not. In the same way, I could offer to sell my house to you for X price plus Y price per month indefinitely and you could choose to buy my house for that price or not. However, if I wanted to just sell you my house for just X without any regular fee Y attached on, I could do so. Any entity that does not own my house (i.e. anyone but me. e.g. governments, mafias, etc) could thus not obligate you to pay any regular fee Y to them when you buy my house. I can sell you my house for X because without any obligation for you to pay any regular fee Y because I own the house and thus can sell it to you for those conditions. Thus, again, municipal governments (or any other government or group of people) would be justified in making you or I or anyone else pay property taxes to them if they owned the property. But, as you and I agree, we own our own property, not the municipal government. And thus, I conclude that the municipal government's taxation is thus not justified, at least not by this reason of supposed contractual obligation of yours. In reality there is no contractual obligation and you are free to sell me your house without any property tax/condo fee obligations if you wish, just as a condominium complex owner is free to sell a condo to someone without obligating them to pay a condo fee, if the condominium complex owner so wishes. Now think about this 1 quote from you 1 quote from me how does this prove a logical inconsitency? I mean aside from your obvious problems in telling the difference from reality and what you think/want reality to be? Seriously are you that far gone you cant even tell the difference between my arguements and the ones you want me to make so they fit in with your skewed world view? The logical inconsistency is that you earlier claimed that you thought that you owned your land, not the municipal government, but in your second to last post in which you compared obligations to pay property taxes to obligations to pay condominium fees, that implies that you think that the municipal government owns your land just as the condominium company that you pay your condo fees really owns your condo. While someone living in a condo may "own" the condo in more of a sense than a tenant "owns" an apartment, the reality is that both the condo fees and the rent fees are justified because the condominium complex owner and the apartment owner both owned the buildings before selling/renting them to you and thus are perfectly justified in saying that you have to have to pay a condo/rent fee before buying the condo/apartment. Also note that both the condo owner and the apartment owner are both free to sell you the condo/apartment without any obligation to pay the regular fee if they wish. Again, this is because the condo/apartment owner owns the apartment. For these reasons, my "subtle" misunderstanding of what you said regarding "condo" fees really isn't relevant after all and I thus maintain that by comparing the property taxes to the condo fees as I did, you implied that you think the municipality owns your house just as the condominium complex owner really owns the condo someone lives in (and just as the apartment owner owns the apartment that the tenant lives in). And thus your logical contradiction remains. On one hand you maintain that you own your house, not the municipality, and on the other hand you maintain that the municipality is justified in taxing such house-in-municipality home owners for the same reason that condominium complex owners are justified in obligating you to pay condo fees when you buy the condo from them despite the fact that this reason is that the condominium complex owners own the condo and thus can say that you have to pay condo fees as a condition of "buying" (really part renting due to the requirement of paying the regular condo fee) the condo (part of the contractual agreement when you buy the condo) implying that you think that the municipality really owns your house and thus can obligate people to pay "condo fees" (i.e. taxes) in the same way. So on one hand you say you own your house, not the government, but on the other hand your justification of the government's taxation relies on the government owning your house and thus being able to obligate that you pay the taxes as a condition of buying the house. So do you own your house or not? Right now you say one but your reasoning says the other. That's the logical contradiction. So one last time for this post: If the municipal government doesn't own your house then your justification of its taxation fails for the same reason that I can't obligate you to pay me condo fees for your house as a condition of buying the house due to the fact that I don't own your house and thus can impose no obligation. You were free to buy your house from the person who owned it before you without any obligation to pay either the municipality or me any fees, that is, unless the person you bought your house from said that you had to pay one of us some fees in order to buy the house--for only the person who owned the house before you could impose such obligations on you when you bought the house. As the municipality doesn't own your house (and you didn't buy it from them, but rather bought it from some other individual who owned the house), they cannot obligate you to pay any property taxes for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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