Is Taxation Theft?

Example: climate change has increased the flow through a given river so that it will overflow in the spring and flood a large city. The only solution planners can come up with is building a dam on your family farm. It still sucks, but it can be justifiable.

And by the way, you don't actually own land you just hold title to it. The title and laws related to it have all kinds of limitations you agreed to when you filed for the title. So, for real estate, they're not actually taking what belongs to you — they're exercising a clause in a contract you agreed to.




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If they are exercising a clause in the contract, then they are not taking the property without the owners consent. He gave consent when he agreed to the terms of the contract.

I oppose anyone (including government) claiming ownership of a person's property WITHOUT that person having voluntarily agreed to it. No person has the right to simply claim ownership of another's property.

 

Claiming ownership means you are asserting it's your property. You only claim ownership of your own property.






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I agree. Claiming ownership mean one is asserting that something is his property.

And as I said earlier, I oppose anyone (including government) claiming ownership of a person's property WITHOUT that person having voluntarily agreed to it.

I can't see how any person has the right to simply claim ownership of another's property, which is why I oppose laws that allow the government to claim ownership of people's money.

 

The government is asserting a debt is owed. In other words that they own some portion of that money, based on the terms you agreed to when you elected to become a citizen. Same way the cable company asserts a debt exists at the end of the month when they present their customer's with a bill, based on the terms agreed to when that person elected to become a subscriber.




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And what about those people who choose not to enter into this contract?

 

Who declined citizenship? It's unlikely the IRS would have much interest in them. They wouldn't have anything other than a cash job (they couldn't file a W-2, so employers couldn't deduct their salary from business costs or get workers comp for them) and wouldn't have any bank accounts or credit cards (federally insured banks are required to report certain transactions, so banks require a Tax ID to open accounts).

The INS might have an issue with them though.





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Unless the employer also chose not to enter into the contract.

Unless the banker also chose not to enter into the contract.

 

Certain activities are restricted by law within the U.S. If you do business without a business license or Tax ID, if you act as a bank and fail to adhere to federal reporting regulations you're likely to get arrested. Same as if you sold drugs or managed illegal gambling.

That banker and business man, even if they never got arrested, would also find it a lot harder to attract customers and compete. A business owner who can't get insurance, rent property, or accept credit cards is going to have a hard time. And very few people would become customers of a bank with no FDIC insurance or ability to cycle currency.

But do you see where you're going with this? You're suggesting that all these folks opt out of a cooperative system, to join your cooperative system. If by some miracle your United States of Longshot someday scaled up to the level of our current system, you'd be faced with the same trade offs. In time, you'd duplicate many if not all the same laws you're resenting today. The government isn't the bad guy, the government is us. What hurts isn't some guy trying to hurt you, it's the pinch of 300 million folks trying to find a way to work together.



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I love your myth-making. There is no social contract. But there is a US Constitution. I believe our federal government should be forced to follow it.

Radical Karl and his followers believe as you do. The US government owns vast swaths of US land. We need to force the government to begin selling it off to pay down the 17 trillion dollars of debt just sitting out there like a time bomb.

Living in a cooperative society does not mean I have to endure the perpetual thefts of my labor by an evil and rapacious government that is no longer living under the US Constitution. How do we fix that? We amend the Constitution to make such acts far more difficult and far more obvious. We take the Article V fight to the State legislatures and we win the fight there.

 

If someone steals something from me and I do nothing (perhaps I feel powerless) does that make the theft legal?
When the bully steals your lunch money and you don't complain does that make it okay for the bully to take even more from you tomorrow? And the next day? And the next?

Any money taken from me to fund any program that has no Constitutional foundation is a theft of my money, therefore it is a theft of my life. The state forces me into involuntary servitude. And whether you like it or not, that is a pretty darned good explanation of what slavery is. Goverments at all levels were taking about one-half of all that I earned. So I left the evil, failing state of California and I moved to Alabama. That leaves me to deal with only the evil Federal government. And the answer to that very great evil is the Article V fight in my state's legislature.

 

What century did you live in? And what country?

 

Tyranny agreed to by a small, elected body is still tyranny.

If the money is used to support unconstitutional programs then it is theft even if my representative supports it.

 

We disagree in a couple places. First, you are unilaterally imposing your opinion about whether a law is constitutional. That's not reasonable, I can't accept the logic that follows it. We're gonna disagree about things, especially if there's 315 million equal partners in this thing we call the United States. We need, and have, a mechanism for dispute resolution — we need to use that (or collectively change it). The courts are the right place to take any concerns you have about constitutional law.

Second, no one is forcing you into involuntary servitude. If you don't want to to work, don't. If you want to leave this arrangement, do. Slaves don't have either choice. And comparing issuing you a bill for services rendered according to a contract you signed with binding your arms and beating you until you pick cotton is not fair.

To be clear, I'm no fan of how the Federal government works or the mess that we're in as country because the majority of us have dropped out of the work force (including those who collect paychecks for useless jobs like TSA screen watchers and McD burger flippers). I sympathize with your frustration that 6% of this country is carrying all the weight of pushing us forward. I want major reform.

But it's gotta start with the simple acceptance that there is no evil overlord out there. Not the Fed, not the 1%, not even Barack Obama. It's just 315 million equal partners with some serious problems and limited resources.



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Wow. I cannot recall this ever happening before. I agree with this post.

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You are such an, well, I was going to say something unkind. You are so special I think I will put you on ignore.

 

Yes, there are many laws that punish victimless crimes, or malum prohibitum. I oppose such laws, since they are themselves simply initiations of aggression against otherwise peaceful people, and thus I cannot find any ethical support for them.

It's not a cooperative system. It is a coercive, violence-based system. That's why I am suggesting that the law be changed such that nobody (including the government) would be allowed to initiate force against anyone's person or property.

 

A tearful teenager announces he's decided to kill himself, you'd oppose using force to take the gun out of his hand?

A house is burning with three children in the second story. The owner of the only ladder for miles refuses to allow it to be used to save the children. You'd allow the children to burn rather than take the ladder anyway?

A young woman announces God has given her the ability to fly and steps towards the edge of thirty floor drop. It would be wrong to stop her?



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Personally I would not consider stopping these people, who are clearly not in their right minds, to be acts of aggression. Others might disagree. I'd probably stop them and then accept the consequences if they later decided to make a legal claim against me.

Taking the ladder would definitely be theft, an initiation of aggression. I'd likely take the ladder, and then accept the consequences if the ladder owner decided to make a legal claim against me.

Are these hypothetical scenarios supposed to be an argument in favor of laws that result in the initiation of aggression against people who have harmed no one?

 

They're illustrations of why, as you've agreed, it's sometimes the right decision to use force.

The rest of us came to the same conclusion you did about the ladder, we then put that collective decision into law in the form of eminent domain. The same thing that motivated you to use force to take that gun away is what motivates the majority of folks in this country to take heroine away, again implemented through a law.

Absolute pacifism is an excuse for choosing not to recognize that inaction is also harmful. For not participating in the difficult, sometimes brutally difficult, decisions that are involved in managing the country that we all have equal responsibility for making work.


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And then acknowledge that you violated the other person's rights and be held liable.

Not the same thing at all. I did not claim that I should be legally shielded from the consequences of my decision, but that I would choose to break the law and be held accountable. You are arguing for the law to allow for people to initiate force against people who have harmed no one, and I won't agree to doing that.

I don't advocate pacifism. I advocate respect for the person and property of my fellow man. That's why I wont support laws that initiate aggression against peaceful people.

 

We acknowledge and stand accountable. When we suspend a convicted criminals right to vote, we acknowledge he has the right and further that the government has the right to suspend that right. With eminent domain, the constitution requires fair market compensation be provided when we exercise societies greater right to a property than the person who currently holds title.

If we all agree the law should be broken, the law serves no purpose.

That's why we revoked prohibition, it's why we'll likely legalize marijuana, and it's why we have eminent domain. Laws that allow aggression should be carefully regulated and might sometimes be the wrong call. Even with 315 million people watching we sometimes make mistakes. But making allowances for the necessity of force is just. The alternative is to send the message that people should stand inactive while someone poisons themselves, children burn to death, or a girl walks off a bridge. And that is less just.



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You threw the "logical fallacy" thing at me. So much for your 3rd grade comment. What I said to get that response was very logical and you attacked it. So much for you wanting to continue reasonable conversation. So get off your high horse if you want to continue reasonable conversation.

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Theft is a legal issue, therefore there is no such thing as "legal" theft. Like I said earlier, anyone who is unwilling to pay the taxes required to maintain the revenues of our country as determined by our elected officials may leave at any time, or change their address to the nearest federal prison.

 

They are tax dodging criminals.

 

What some of these guys don't want to accept is, just living within the US as a natural born or naturalized citizen is all the consent the government needs to take the taxes for the government to operate. Money is actually the property of the government, property of which you are allowed to use for proper purposes.

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You can't be a legal citizen.

 

Those are not choices available to employers or banks who operate legitimately.