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He isn’t “conflating”, he clearly said this is the total paid to the government — i.e. all sorts of taxes. That you like the sound of it is, frankly, horrible.

by vsl 11y ago

oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
It's horrible that I like the sound of a high-ish top rate of income tax? We haven't even stated the terms of what income level that tax rate is applied at, so your finding it horrible is either a total misunderstanding, or you object to the progressive nature of variable income tax outright. I hope it's the former, because I find the latter truly objectionable.
- etherael 11y ago
  I find the idea of people dressing up simple theft as something other than it is, and in the ill-fitting trappings of a global social good, despite the fact that the institutions being financed by this form of theft were the largest non natural cause of death in the preceding century truly objectionable, too. Letalone moving onto a particularly egregious sort of theft involved in modern taxation rackets where the burden approaches three quarters of the total earnings of any given individual. If you're cool with this how about I extort you for 75% of your income and then use it to finance a private mercenary company that runs around the globe destroying lives and property for ill-defined "geopolitical objectives"? But I guess "I find x truly objectionable" is somewhat of a content free statement, unless we're just trying to farm moral outrage from our respective in-groups.
  - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
    Taxation is obviously not theft, any more than charging for goods is. "75% of your income" is a very different thing than "75% of your income beyond a certain figure"; I have no problem with basic levels of income being absolutely tax-free. I don't agree with many actions undertaken by my government, including launching illegal wars which I have protested on the street against. That doesn't mean I don't think everyone is entitled to a certain level of wellbeing, paid for by the general economy. After taxation, what is your actual income? Is it not enough?
    - etherael 11y ago
      > Taxation is obviously not theft, any more than charging for goods is. The difference between charging for goods and services vs taxation is that you are unable to choose not to patronise the state. A mugger charging you 75% of your income for the privilege of leaving his dark alley with your throat unslit is providing the same choice to you as the state is with regards to taxation. You are not free to refuse to be a customer of the state, any more than you are free to refuse to be a customer of said mugger. The only factual mathematically definable difference between theft and taxation is that taxation is legal, and hey presto, it's the agency that writes the laws which defines this difference. Nice trick if you can find idiots naive enough to fall for it, and they are fortunately not in short supply. If taxation is not theft, then the holocaust, or any killing by any state in all of history, is by definition not murder, because the difference between the murder and state sanctioned killing is the same as the difference between theft and taxation, one is technically illegal, and that is all. > 75% of your income" is a very different thing than "75% of your income beyond a certain figure" It is indeed, and you appear to not have grasped what OP actually says, so let's put it here so you can reconsider your position; >> I am paying 65% (that is right) of my income to the sate (sic) right now Not "I touch the 65% tax bracket at the top of the progressive income tax schedule which the state I am resident in has declared", but "I am paying 65% (that is right) of my income" period. So yes, it is nearly three quarters of this person's income, being taken against their will, to support an institution which is not just incompetent, but actually hugely, enormously viciously destructive and damaging to the world at large, to the extent that it is the largest non natural cause of death in the preceding century. > I don't agree with many actions undertaken by my government, including launching illegal wars which I have protested on the street against. And worse yet, you actually know just how terrible the actions of the state are, to the extent that you have taken to the street protesting it, and yet you still feel the need to speak up in a public forum about how the idea that these parasites forcibly rob people of nearly three quarters of their earnings makes you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside? Think long and hard about this. > That doesn't mean I don't think everyone is entitled to a certain level of wellbeing, paid for by the general economy. Even if you granted that "everyone is entitled to a certain level of wellbeing" (and frankly, that's an enormous can of worms right there that I'm not even going to dip a toe into at this point in time) that is an end, not a means. Conflating the end of social welfare with the means of theft does not necessarily follow at all. > After taxation, what is your actual income? Is it not enough? After theft, without theft avoidance, my income is about 25% of the original also. Could I do more and live a better life with the other 75% that is instead being stolen from me to finance demonstrably ineffective local social programs coupled with heinously disgusting foreign policy objectives? Is that what you mean by "Is it not enough?" Because if so, no, it's not enough. Frankly, I'd give up almost all of the rest of it to avoid having given any of it to those parasites to begin with, and this is a constant drain on my motivation for economic activity in general, knowing how much of my earnings will go to finance activities that make me violently ill if I think too hard about them.
  - fucking_tragedy 11y ago
    Not paying taxes is leaching. Tax dollars pay for the infrastructure that holds society together. If it wasn't for tax dollars, the society in which you derive your income wouldn't exist. You are provided access under the condition that you put your fair share in when you profit from what is provided. We have a democratic process to determine who can and at what rate they should contribute back. What right do you have to steal but not give back? If you feel so strongly in regard to your opinions about tax, why haven't you left society to rely on your bootstraps alone?
    - etherael 11y ago
      > Not paying taxes is leaching. Tax dollars pay for the infrastructure that holds society together. If it wasn't for tax dollars, the society in which you derive your income wouldn't exist. This chain of reason justifies North Korean concentration camps. You are simply throwing out a bunch of justifications for terrible things because you state that the things which those terrible things encase are the infrastructure that holds society together, and grant no possible conceivable alternative for how that infrastructure may be provided, when in fact you simply neglect to acknowledge there is no infrastructure that exists at all that has not been provided with organisational structures outside the modern nation state, period. > What right do you have to take from us but not give back? What right do you have to take from us, the people who do not wish to be subject to your theft, and not give back? I want nothing from the state except its utter annihilation. By choice, I take nothing from the state, and never will.
      - darpa_escapee 11y ago
        That line of hyperbole also justifies ignoring any value or good the state can and has provided. If that infrastructure can be provided without the state, why hasn't it? You are positing a hypothetical system that exists without taxes against a real, concrete system that exists and you take part in everyday. That system right now is dependant on taxes and you're throwing it out for a nebulous ideal world that is stateless and exists only in your head. > I want nothing from the state except its utter annihilation. By choice, I take nothing from the state, and never will. Do you drive on public roads? Enjoy protection from crime by the police? Enter buildings and eat at establishments that are inspected for your safety? Ever have to use the state to uphold a private contract? Have you used a telephone, cellular or landline? Do you use the internet? How can you realistically say you take nothing from the state and never will? If you are as serious as your rhetoric, there are virtually stateless places in the world where you can actually live out your dream of taking nothing from the state. Areas of Somalia are among them.

He isn’t “conflating”, he clearly said this is the total paid to the government — i.e. all sorts of taxes. That you like the sound of it is, frankly, horrible.

by vsl 11y ago

He isn’t “conflating”, he clearly said this is the total paid to the government — i.e. all sorts of taxes. That you like the sound of it is, frankly, horrible.

oneeyedpigeon 11y ago

It's horrible that I like the sound of a high-ish top rate of income tax? We haven't even stated the terms of what income level that tax rate is applied at, so your finding it horrible is either a total misunderstanding, or you object to the progressive nature of variable income tax outright. I hope it's the former, because I find the latter truly objectionable.

etherael 11y ago
I find the idea of people dressing up simple theft as something other than it is, and in the ill-fitting trappings of a global social good, despite the fact that the institutions being financed by this form of theft were the largest non natural cause of death in the preceding century truly objectionable, too. Letalone moving onto a particularly egregious sort of theft involved in modern taxation rackets where the burden approaches three quarters of the total earnings of any given individual. If you're cool with this how about I extort you for 75% of your income and then use it to finance a private mercenary company that runs around the globe destroying lives and property for ill-defined "geopolitical objectives"? But I guess "I find x truly objectionable" is somewhat of a content free statement, unless we're just trying to farm moral outrage from our respective in-groups.
- oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
  Taxation is obviously not theft, any more than charging for goods is. "75% of your income" is a very different thing than "75% of your income beyond a certain figure"; I have no problem with basic levels of income being absolutely tax-free. I don't agree with many actions undertaken by my government, including launching illegal wars which I have protested on the street against. That doesn't mean I don't think everyone is entitled to a certain level of wellbeing, paid for by the general economy. After taxation, what is your actual income? Is it not enough?
  - etherael 11y ago
    > Taxation is obviously not theft, any more than charging for goods is. The difference between charging for goods and services vs taxation is that you are unable to choose not to patronise the state. A mugger charging you 75% of your income for the privilege of leaving his dark alley with your throat unslit is providing the same choice to you as the state is with regards to taxation. You are not free to refuse to be a customer of the state, any more than you are free to refuse to be a customer of said mugger. The only factual mathematically definable difference between theft and taxation is that taxation is legal, and hey presto, it's the agency that writes the laws which defines this difference. Nice trick if you can find idiots naive enough to fall for it, and they are fortunately not in short supply. If taxation is not theft, then the holocaust, or any killing by any state in all of history, is by definition not murder, because the difference between the murder and state sanctioned killing is the same as the difference between theft and taxation, one is technically illegal, and that is all. > 75% of your income" is a very different thing than "75% of your income beyond a certain figure" It is indeed, and you appear to not have grasped what OP actually says, so let's put it here so you can reconsider your position; >> I am paying 65% (that is right) of my income to the sate (sic) right now Not "I touch the 65% tax bracket at the top of the progressive income tax schedule which the state I am resident in has declared", but "I am paying 65% (that is right) of my income" period. So yes, it is nearly three quarters of this person's income, being taken against their will, to support an institution which is not just incompetent, but actually hugely, enormously viciously destructive and damaging to the world at large, to the extent that it is the largest non natural cause of death in the preceding century. > I don't agree with many actions undertaken by my government, including launching illegal wars which I have protested on the street against. And worse yet, you actually know just how terrible the actions of the state are, to the extent that you have taken to the street protesting it, and yet you still feel the need to speak up in a public forum about how the idea that these parasites forcibly rob people of nearly three quarters of their earnings makes you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside? Think long and hard about this. > That doesn't mean I don't think everyone is entitled to a certain level of wellbeing, paid for by the general economy. Even if you granted that "everyone is entitled to a certain level of wellbeing" (and frankly, that's an enormous can of worms right there that I'm not even going to dip a toe into at this point in time) that is an end, not a means. Conflating the end of social welfare with the means of theft does not necessarily follow at all. > After taxation, what is your actual income? Is it not enough? After theft, without theft avoidance, my income is about 25% of the original also. Could I do more and live a better life with the other 75% that is instead being stolen from me to finance demonstrably ineffective local social programs coupled with heinously disgusting foreign policy objectives? Is that what you mean by "Is it not enough?" Because if so, no, it's not enough. Frankly, I'd give up almost all of the rest of it to avoid having given any of it to those parasites to begin with, and this is a constant drain on my motivation for economic activity in general, knowing how much of my earnings will go to finance activities that make me violently ill if I think too hard about them.
- fucking_tragedy 11y ago
  Not paying taxes is leaching. Tax dollars pay for the infrastructure that holds society together. If it wasn't for tax dollars, the society in which you derive your income wouldn't exist. You are provided access under the condition that you put your fair share in when you profit from what is provided. We have a democratic process to determine who can and at what rate they should contribute back. What right do you have to steal but not give back? If you feel so strongly in regard to your opinions about tax, why haven't you left society to rely on your bootstraps alone?
  - etherael 11y ago
    > Not paying taxes is leaching. Tax dollars pay for the infrastructure that holds society together. If it wasn't for tax dollars, the society in which you derive your income wouldn't exist. This chain of reason justifies North Korean concentration camps. You are simply throwing out a bunch of justifications for terrible things because you state that the things which those terrible things encase are the infrastructure that holds society together, and grant no possible conceivable alternative for how that infrastructure may be provided, when in fact you simply neglect to acknowledge there is no infrastructure that exists at all that has not been provided with organisational structures outside the modern nation state, period. > What right do you have to take from us but not give back? What right do you have to take from us, the people who do not wish to be subject to your theft, and not give back? I want nothing from the state except its utter annihilation. By choice, I take nothing from the state, and never will.
    - darpa_escapee 11y ago
      That line of hyperbole also justifies ignoring any value or good the state can and has provided. If that infrastructure can be provided without the state, why hasn't it? You are positing a hypothetical system that exists without taxes against a real, concrete system that exists and you take part in everyday. That system right now is dependant on taxes and you're throwing it out for a nebulous ideal world that is stateless and exists only in your head. > I want nothing from the state except its utter annihilation. By choice, I take nothing from the state, and never will. Do you drive on public roads? Enjoy protection from crime by the police? Enter buildings and eat at establishments that are inspected for your safety? Ever have to use the state to uphold a private contract? Have you used a telephone, cellular or landline? Do you use the internet? How can you realistically say you take nothing from the state and never will? If you are as serious as your rhetoric, there are virtually stateless places in the world where you can actually live out your dream of taking nothing from the state. Areas of Somalia are among them.