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I know for a fact that my forefathers have tried to avoid governments and their meddling fingers as much as possible and have fought really hard in various ways

I know for a fact that my forefathers have tried to avoid governments and their meddling fingers as much as possible and have fought really hard in various ways to keep the government of their lives as much as possible. Thus I owe it to them to keep fighting the government creep towards authoritarian totalitarianism. What have your forefathers been doing that you are now arguing that 100% of what I have earned and paid taxes on already, should get taxed again at some later date - as a punishment for me not spending it all?

ThomPete 10y ago
You are confusing two very different things. I too don't want government to be too big or too all encompassing but that has nothing to do with whether some sort of taxation could be considered ok. One things is certain though. If you had to pay for everything yourself you wouldn't be able to afford it. The price of many of the things we consider obvious today are based on many years of accumulated hard work by others than your forefathers which you benefit from today. So we can discuss whether we pay too much tax, I am fine with that discussion. But positioning it as all taxation being thievery is both incorrect and simplistic.
- JanezStupar 10y ago
  Taxation at gunpoint is thievery, no amount of rhetoric can change that. And don't get me wrong. I have no problems with participating in a community. I have a problem with government setting up barriers and maintaining a monopoly on community. I have no apriori issue with government offering services, I have an issue with being forced to pay and consume those services, regardless of how (in)efficient they may be. I am also very much aware that I am only at the end of a long line of people striving for a better future. And nearly all my personal efforts are directed towards fulfilling my obligation towards my forefathers as towards my descendants. And resisting crazy talk about totalitarian governments as a savior for all our problems is a part of that. Don't get me wrong - the manifesto above has hardly anything to do with your position, I am merely explaining my own position.
  - Kinnard 10y ago
    Amen!
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    There is no such thing as taxation at gunpoint. That kind of rhetoric is both juvenile, false and largely ignoring reality. You can choose to pay your taxes or you can choose to move somewhere else where you aren't taxed. You don't have the right to anything anymore than anyone else do. If you don't like the society you live in move somewhere you like or start your own.
- Kinnard 10y ago
  Taxation inherently involves coercion which entrenches a power dynamic; power tends to aggregate, so the dynamic gets worse and worse until it becomes unsustainable. Taxes are not voluntary contributions.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    Taxes are what you pay to live in a civilized society. You are more than welcome to find another society or start your own somewhere else.
    - Kinnard 10y ago
      That's backward. People's right to be and to be a part of their communities do not come from their presumed submission to a coercive power. The issue is not collaboration and contribution. The issue is coercion. I'm of native descent. I was on this continent before this government and there's no way it could exist with my consent.
      - ThomPete 10y ago
        Peoples rights are either taken, defended or given. There is no such thing as a natural right to anything for any of us. The US government don't have the right to control the US continent anymore than the British do England or Swedish Sweden and so on. They took it and is defending it through the sheer use of power. There is no justice in how land is distributed, no right or wrong only the power to claim and hold it. And so it goes with taxation; there is no right or wrong taxation, it's the price to live in a society for any of us unless we can find a way to change it through the system, build our own or find some isolated place where no one will bother us. Neither homesteading nor claims of natural laws changes that.
        Kinnard 10y ago
        Well, that's rather cynical. Might makes right?

ThomPete 10y ago

You are confusing two very different things. I too don't want government to be too big or too all encompassing but that has nothing to do with whether some sort of taxation could be considered ok. One things is certain though. If you had to pay for everything yourself you wouldn't be able to afford it. The price of many of the things we consider obvious today are based on many years of accumulated hard work by others than your forefathers which you benefit from today. So we can discuss whether we pay too much tax, I am fine with that discussion. But positioning it as all taxation being thievery is both incorrect and simplistic.

JanezStupar 10y ago
Taxation at gunpoint is thievery, no amount of rhetoric can change that. And don't get me wrong. I have no problems with participating in a community. I have a problem with government setting up barriers and maintaining a monopoly on community. I have no apriori issue with government offering services, I have an issue with being forced to pay and consume those services, regardless of how (in)efficient they may be. I am also very much aware that I am only at the end of a long line of people striving for a better future. And nearly all my personal efforts are directed towards fulfilling my obligation towards my forefathers as towards my descendants. And resisting crazy talk about totalitarian governments as a savior for all our problems is a part of that. Don't get me wrong - the manifesto above has hardly anything to do with your position, I am merely explaining my own position.
- Kinnard 10y ago
  Amen!
- ThomPete 10y ago
  There is no such thing as taxation at gunpoint. That kind of rhetoric is both juvenile, false and largely ignoring reality. You can choose to pay your taxes or you can choose to move somewhere else where you aren't taxed. You don't have the right to anything anymore than anyone else do. If you don't like the society you live in move somewhere you like or start your own.
Kinnard 10y ago
Taxation inherently involves coercion which entrenches a power dynamic; power tends to aggregate, so the dynamic gets worse and worse until it becomes unsustainable. Taxes are not voluntary contributions.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  Taxes are what you pay to live in a civilized society. You are more than welcome to find another society or start your own somewhere else.
  - Kinnard 10y ago
    That's backward. People's right to be and to be a part of their communities do not come from their presumed submission to a coercive power. The issue is not collaboration and contribution. The issue is coercion. I'm of native descent. I was on this continent before this government and there's no way it could exist with my consent.
    - ThomPete 10y ago
      Peoples rights are either taken, defended or given. There is no such thing as a natural right to anything for any of us. The US government don't have the right to control the US continent anymore than the British do England or Swedish Sweden and so on. They took it and is defending it through the sheer use of power. There is no justice in how land is distributed, no right or wrong only the power to claim and hold it. And so it goes with taxation; there is no right or wrong taxation, it's the price to live in a society for any of us unless we can find a way to change it through the system, build our own or find some isolated place where no one will bother us. Neither homesteading nor claims of natural laws changes that.
      - Kinnard 10y ago
        Well, that's rather cynical. Might makes right?