Current Events > Is taxation theft in your opinion?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Topic
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In itself no.

But to the degree that the government can shit away $400 billion on internet infrastructure that doesn't get built, $60 billion on Medicare fraud, countless billions in wasteful military spending, etc....

Then yes.
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corporate profit is theft
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Yeah! Fuck schools! Fuck roads!

Sarcasm
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@lww99 posted...

Yeah! Fuck schools! Fuck roads!

Sarcasm

what if I robbed your house

then I cleaned up the freeway and painted your neighbor's house

you walk up to me and say that I am a robber and you know I broke into your house and took money

I reply "no sir, I took what I needed to repay my service to your neighborhood"
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lww99 posted...

Yeah! Fuck schools! Fuck roads!

Sarcasm

Yeah because schools are doing such a great job that there's more flat earthers than ever now.
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I have nothing against paying taxes. Tax filing is the real problem.
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darkphoenix181 posted...

@lww99 posted...

Yeah! Fuck schools! Fuck roads!

Sarcasm

what if I robbed your house

then I cleaned up the freeway and painted your neighbor's house

you walk up to me and say that I am a robber and you know I broke into your house and took money

I reply "no sir, I took what I needed to repay my service to your neighborhood"

lmfao
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@lww99 posted...

darkphoenix181 posted...

@lww99 posted...

Yeah! Fuck schools! Fuck roads!

Sarcasm

what if I robbed your house

then I cleaned up the freeway and painted your neighbor's house

you walk up to me and say that I am a robber and you know I broke into your house and took money

I reply "no sir, I took what I needed to repay my service to your neighborhood"

lmfao

all you can do is laugh

so I guess you have to admit

I have a point
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Yes. If the government wants money it can go and get a job like the rest of us!
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No. It's part of the social contract of this nation (and indeed most nations). You get a pass from some of this as a minor, but as soon as you reach the age of majority you're a grown ass adult. If you benefit from our infrastructure, you have a civic responsibility to help support it.
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hollow_shrine posted...

No. It's part of the social contract of this nation (and indeed most nations). You get a pass from some of this as a minor, but as soon as you reach the age of majority you're a grown ass adult. If you benefit from our infrastructure, you have a civic responsibility to help support it.

Why does earning more money mean I need to support more of that infrastructure even if I use less?

Flat tax all the way tbqh
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hollow_shrine posted...

No. It's part of the social contract of this nation (and indeed most nations). You get a pass from some of this as a minor, but as soon as you reach the age of majority you're a grown ass adult. If you benefit from our infrastructure, you have a civic responsibility to help support it.

so at what point do you sign this contract?
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darkphoenix181 posted...

@lww99 posted...

Yeah! Fuck schools! Fuck roads!

Sarcasm

what if I robbed your house

then I cleaned up the freeway and painted your neighbor's house

you walk up to me and say that I am a robber and you know I broke into your house and took money

I reply "no sir, I took what I needed to repay my service to your neighborhood"

flawed premise because comparing robbing someone's house to taxation is a false equivalency.

hollow_shine summarized the point well, if you don't agree with that i don't really know what else to say.
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darkphoenix181 posted...

hollow_shrine posted...

No. It's part of the social contract of this nation (and indeed most nations). You get a pass from some of this as a minor, but as soon as you reach the age of majority you're a grown ass adult. If you benefit from our infrastructure, you have a civic responsibility to help support it.

so at what point do you sign this contract?

the moment you become an adult in this country.

you sound like a sovereign citizen. you know, one of those people nobody takes seriously who claims they aren't a citizen of this country because they never explicitly agreed to it.
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Godnorgosh posted...

averagejoel posted...

corporate profit is theft

Taxation is miniscule in comparison to this, but the two are discussed disproportionately.

hmmmmmmmm
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@Giant_Aspirin posted...

flawed premise because comparing robbing someone's house to taxation is a false equivalency.

hollow_shine summarized the point well, if you don't agree with that i don't really know what else to say.

if you want to argue it is a false equivalency

you need to point out were they differ

hiding behind "that is a logical fallacy" but being unable to articulate why it is a logical fallacy, is in itself a logical fallacy which shows you are actually unable to make a point and just want to disagree
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darkphoenix181 posted...

if you want to argue it is a false equivalency

you need to point out were they differ

why do you put

random line breaks in

your posts?

but, anyway, the flawed premise is because there is no social contract about allowing a robber to enter your home to steal things to clean up the highway, but taxation in exchange for services is part of a social contract.

the social contract is the key and why your premise was flawed.
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Taxation is 100% theft.

If you do not comply with forking over money for a service you didn't necessarily ask for (read: definitely didn't ask for) armed men come and take you and throw you in a cage.

I cannot believe how communist CE has become.
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Giant_Aspirin posted...

darkphoenix181 posted...

if you want to argue it is a false equivalency

you need to point out were they differ

why do you put

random line breaks in

your posts?

but, anyway, the flawed premise is because there is no social contract about allowing a robber to enter your home to steal things to clean up the highway, but taxation in exchange for services is part of a social contract.

the social contract is the key and why your premise was flawed.

He's like 13 years old, don't even bother.
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I'm low key irked by this. I know most of us took Civics class in middle/high school.
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It is theft, but can you imagine if the government gave us the option to opt out? Nobody would pay taxes and everything funded by them would go to shit (well shittier than it already is).
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hollow_shrine posted...

I'm low key irked by this. I know most of us took Civics class in middle/high school.

low key irked by the fact that you think a middle school civics teacher is the authority on the subject.
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GATTJT posted...

It is theft, but can you imagine if the government gave us the option to opt out? Nobody would pay taxes and everything funded by them would go to shit (well shittier than it already is).

And then private companies would fill the void. Guaranteed. If it's something you need or even want so slightly; then someone (if not you) is willing to pay for it voluntarily. That includes roads, bridges, firefighters... Anything at all....
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Maybe. It's closer to extortion.

Consider the infamous "How Man Men?" thought experiment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_as_theft#How_many_men.3F

How many men? is a thought experiment used to demonstrate the concept of taxation as theft. The experiment uses a series of questions to posit a difference between criminal acts and majority rule. For example, one version asks, "Is it theft if one man steals a car?" "What if a gang of five men steal the car?" "What if a gang of ten men take a vote (allowing the victim to vote as well) on whether to steal the car before stealing it?" "What if one hundred men take the car and give the victim back a bicycle?" or "What if two hundred men not only give the victim back a bicycle but buy a poor person a bicycle, as well?" The experiment challenges an individual to determine how large a group is required before the taking of an individual's property becomes the "democratic right" of the majority.

Yes, if it goes to anything not available to all taxpayers.
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"But schools! SCHOOLS!"

Schools are the worst damn example of public sector spending. The legacy costs are crippling towns with insane property taxes because we're still cutting people checks who retired 25 years ago. It's ironic when somebody can't afford to fund their IRA because their property taxes are eight grand, when that money is then taken and put into... somebody else's retirement.

Yes, that's theft.
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Mal_Fet posted...

Yes, if it goes to anything not available to all taxpayers.

That's a very good way of putting it.
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Giant_Aspirin posted...

but, anyway, the flawed premise is because there is no social contract about allowing a robber to enter your home to steal things to clean up the highway, but taxation in exchange for services is part of a social contract.

the social contract is the key and why your premise was flawed.

If social contract is the key to your argument, then is a failed argument.

You do not sign a contract MAGICALLY by becoming an adult. That is an adolescent understanding of the contract.

Here is how it works:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights. The question of the relation between natural and legal rights, therefore, is often an aspect of social contract theory. The term takes its name from The Social Contract (Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique), a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that discussed this concept.

By turning an age, you do not explicitly or tacitly agree to anything. These are done through actions.

Now, here is the big problem with this model:

According to the will theory of contract, a contract is not presumed valid unless all parties voluntarily agree to it, either tacitly or explicitly, without coercion. Lysander Spooner, a 19th-century lawyer and staunch supporter of a right of contract between individuals, argued in his essay No Treason 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.

A forced contract is not a real contract. If I make you sign a contract giving up your house to me and tell you if you don't I will kill or imprison you, lawfully that contract is not worth anything.

This is the social contract you claim is the key. The one that if not tacitly agreed to means you are going to die or be imprisoned.

As such I could easily modify the scenario to say I pull a gun on you and tell you to go home. Because you go home and decide it isn't worth continuing to protest the robber YOU TACITLY AGREED.

Cookie Bag posted...

He's like 13 years old, don't even bother.

The battle cry of people who cannot articulate logical counter-points.

FYI Cookie Bag hates me because I could prove SMN in FFXIV isn't trash at aoe after the rework.

Dude got so rekt he will try to flame me whenever he rarely logs on and sees me post. Smh
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Very_Unreliable posted...

And then private companies would fill the void. Guaranteed. If it's something you need or even want so slightly; then someone (if not you) is willing to pay for it voluntarily. That includes roads, bridges, firefighters... Anything at all....

Pay $10 every time you want to drive down a specific road. That would be amazing!

TheMarthKoopa posted...

Very_Unreliable posted...

And then private companies would fill the void. Guaranteed. If it's something you need or even want so slightly; then someone (if not you) is willing to pay for it voluntarily. That includes roads, bridges, firefighters... Anything at all....

Pay $10 every time you want to drive down a specific road. That would be amazing!

https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/170927-toll-booths-feature-image.jpg

lmao at the three communist musketeers (AKA Antifar, averagejoel, and Godnorgosh) making an appearance in this topic. i do wonder if they're the same person on three accounts lmao.

yall realize that between corporate profit and taxation...the government seizes far more of someone's livelihood, right? most companies make very little money per employee and have tight profit margins to begin with.
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Hey, if you don't paying taxes, you shouldn't have to pay them. Sounds fair to me, provided that you agree to never use any taxpayer-provided or -subsidized (either currently or previously) service, mode of transportation, utility, or anything else and also agree to pay the nation/state/county/municipality back for what you've used previously as well prior to taxpaying age.

So, good luck with that.
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K181 posted...

and also agree to pay the nation/state/county/municipality back for what you've used previously as well prior to taxpaying age.

See this line right here proves why social contract argument is BS. Why would you have to pay what you used as a MINOR who cannot enter into CONTRACTS back?

hmmm


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darkphoenix181 posted...

K181 posted...

and also agree to pay the nation/state/county/municipality back for what you've used previously as well prior to taxpaying age.

See this line right here proves why social contract argument is BS. Why would you have to pay what you used as a MINOR who cannot enter into CONTRACTS back?

hmmm

the social contract argument is BS because what constitutes the social contract differs depending on who you ask and when you ask them
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darkphoenix181 posted...

K181 posted...

and also agree to pay the nation/state/county/municipality back for what you've used previously as well prior to taxpaying age.

See this line right here proves why social contract argument is BS. Why would you have to pay what you used as a MINOR who cannot enter into CONTRACTS back?

hmmm

Minors still need to pay for goods and services last I checked. They don't get things for free, so the same's the case here. There are goods and services that would have to be paid in arrears for the interest-free loan that other taxpayers provided you for your upbringing. Perfectly fair.
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It's the cost of living in a first world country
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Now, I will say I understand why taxes and government exists. It is just that I have no illusion of it that makes me think it is anything more than the mafia getting together and offering protection money.

They tell people they will protect them if they pay a fee or tax. And if they don't? Well....that is not a very good idea...

This is essentially the idea of government. Back in the day when people lived on farms and etc, it was easy for a more powerful neighbor or stranger to come and take their stuff.

So some guys got together and made essentially a protection service and a code of law of how to use it and punish people who broke it.

Then government was born.
But of course, no one wants to offer said protection for free....not the mafia...and not government.

As such, I do pay my taxes and I am not a sovereign citizen.
But you obviously haven't thought about why government exists and when you actually agreed to the social contract if your answer is what you gave.
Notwithstanding, beyond the idea of tacit agreement also comes that the government puts you in their schools and pours into your mind their propaganda about how great they are and why what they do is right. It works as we see you bought into it heavily.
All I offer is for you to actually consider the idea a bit more. It is theft. Does that mean it shouldn't exist? Not necessarily.
But just because it needs to exist doesn't make it not theft.

Maybe sometimes the mafia does actually protect businesses from other gangs and bad people other than themselves as well.
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absolute theft
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if were required to pay to live on this earth then we should have a right to medical insurance and a proper burial
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Of course it is.
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No, I got your meaning loud and clear
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I don't disagree! I use hmmmm there to say "boy, it's almost as if our cultural narratives are set by the profiteers." But clearly that didn't come across.
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FLUFFYGERM posted...

most companies make very little money per employee and have tight profit margins to begin with.

Citation needed
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darkphoenix181 posted...

A forced contract is not a real contract.

by willingly living here you're tacitly agreeing to the rules set forth by the country. you're also free to leave the country if you don't like the rules it sets. nobody forces you to stay anywhere.

just like when you travel to a new country, or even a new state, you're tacitly agreeing to the laws of the land by placing yourself in said lands. it's not like when you travel to a new country they make you sign a piece of paper explicitly agreeing to their laws --- it's tacitly implied by your entrance and continued existence there.
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