4 ms·

Taxation.. isn't.. theft, basically by definition, so that argument is a non-starter. It's (in the US) constitutionally allowed, which is analogous to "we agre

• pitaj 10y ago
  Being not legally theft doesn't make it not theft. If a woman forces a man to penetrate her, she has raped him, regardless of what the law defines it as. Law is inconsistent.
  • ajkjk 10y ago
    Well.. sort of.. but, like, (in my view) the word 'theft' has this implicit baggage to it that you're pretending doesn't exist. Theft as a moral/philosophical concept doesn't mean "deprival of another's property against their will", it means "extrajudicial deprival of another's property against their will". The so-called governmental 'monopoly on violence' (probably better put as 'monopoly on compulsion'..) is encoded into the concept. So it's extremely relevant what governmental framework you're thinking in terms of. I'm not saying "hey, if you look up theft in the right place, you'll find that it has this extra clause". Definitions in dictionaries aren't concerned with properly inflecting to handle philosophical debates, anyway. I'm saying "the meaning of the word 'theft' that everyone uses in real life seems to have this definition, actually, under inspection -- but you're operating on a different, more simplistic definition, and that's why you're reaching these nonsensical conclusions". So you could stick with your (imo incorrect) definition of theft and continue declaring that taxation is theft, but I think you're just weakening your position by using an inaccurate model of the world. If you used the definition I'm using everything makes sense. You can still argue against taxation, especially the level we experience, without your argument being "taxation is theft!!" and alienating almost-everyone.
    • pitaj 10y ago
      Define it or call it whatever you want. But when it comes down to it, you are forcing someone to surrender their property under the threat of violent force. That is never deemed just when it occurs between normal people.
      • ajkjk 10y ago
        Fortunately we're not talking about normal people, and the rules are different. If you keep using your simplistic, incorrect model of theft, you'll keep coming to incorrect conclusions about the world.
        • pitaj 10y ago
          So the government is not made of normal people? Is the USA run by lizards or something? Seriously, this is some of the craziest doublethink imaginable. Something is not made just just because the majority say so, or just because the state says so. There are unjust laws.
          • ajkjk 10y ago
            There's a delight in arguing with someone who understands the commonly accepted positions and can speak to the subtleties and errors in them. This is the opposite: you seem utterly incapable of understanding basic, well-known positions, and you imagine I am delusional (lizards? really?) when your comprehension fails you. The state as a concept is not the same as a normal person, obviously. It is subject to different rules. Something is made just because the governing system that the people have agreed to says it is just. That's the theory that our system of government operates under. You don't have to like that, but you're ignorant if you just say it's false without going and doing some learning. I am also wondering if you know what a 'law' is and how it differs from 'the text of the constitution'.
            • aminok 10y ago
              >It is subject to different rules. A person acting under the auspices of a state has no right to violate human rights. A state is merely a human construct. No human construct grants a person a right to violate human rights.
  • DannyBee 10y ago
    It's not theft in any way. It's by consent.
    • pitaj 10y ago
      Taxation is done with consent? I beg to differ.
      • ajkjk 10y ago
        Yes, again, it's with the consent of the people as a collective, which is a pretty good system that we have not seen fit to radically change. The phrase "taxation is done with consent" uses consent to mean "the collective's continuous consent", due to the understanding that the collective is capable of changing the system if they deem it important enough. But I think you knew that already and are playing dumb as some kind of rhetorical strategy.
        • pitaj 10y ago
          Other people can't consent for me. That's not real consent. You can call it consent, but it's really just an excuse. There's no court that would uphold that in any other context. The state doesn't get a special exemption from definitions just because. > which is a pretty good system that we have not seen fit to radically change Slavery was "a pretty good system". Any action the state takes can be justified using this line of reasoning.
          • ajkjk 10y ago
            You sound like a college kid who read some libertarian propaganda but has never learned anything about political philosophy and thinks (s)he knows everything anyway. You really need to go back and at least get to the point where you could argue (ideally, steelman[0]) for the other side, and then show where they're mistaken. Right now it just sounds like you've never learned anything about any Enlightenment-era principle of government, much less anything past that, and, well, I don't really feel like explaining any more basic concepts to you. Easy retorts: * Slavery was morally wrong (per almost all moral frameworks), but it was just per the government at the time. You should be opposed to immoral things regardless of how just they are under a government. * You're still using the wrong definition of consent. Imagine there are two words - ConsentI and ConsentP. You're arguing against the phrase "taxation is done with ConsentP" by saying "well I didn't ConsentI!!!". No shit, we're talking about ConsentP. Get with the program or you just sound ignorant. * The state does get a special exemption from definitions. That's the point of having the definition of 'just' come from the state. This is basic stuff. (Specifically, defined in the constitution of the state. The behavior of the agents of the state are not exempt from the definitions.) [0] steelmanning is the opposite of strawmanning: instead of fighting a fake, weak version of your opponent's argument, you go out of your way to fight the strongest possible version of it - which should be easy if your position is the correct one.
• mahyarm 10y ago
  The basic moral foundation of most anarchist philosophy is universal. States do nasty things such as wars, theft, murder, violence, torture, jailing, spying, destruction, etc. If you apply a universal moral standard these things are still considered wrong, even if an organization called a 'state' is doing it. Even if many people believe it's ok for this organization to do it. It doesn't matter when a moral standard is universal. A good way to think of anarchists are pacifists. Pacifists think all violence is universally wrong. Most people are not pacifists although and feel like violence is OK in some instances. Many of these non-pacifists would also agree in an ideal world that pacifism is what humanity should follow. But they recognize they don't live in an ideal world and thus are not pacifists. Anarchists are really the political equivalent of pacifists. No force or coercion is ever acceptable in any circumstance is the basic foundation of anarchism, everything must be voluntary. So according to that political philosophy taxation is still theft or extortion, just like self defense is still violence and soldiers killing in war is still murder to a pacifist.
  • ajkjk 10y ago
    Well, that's fine, and it's totally cool if we have different moral frameworks that we make our moral judgments based on. But if you walk into a room and make a statement about the just-ness of something, it's implied and assumed that you're talking about "in our state", not "according to the government system I wish we were using". It really irks me when people have the opinion "I think a better government system would be X" but conceal it with playing-dumb arguments like "y is wrong!", where y is a thing allowed in our current government Y but not in X. Like, if you want anarchism, don't say "taxation is theft", say "anarchism is good because taxation is theft in anarchism". Taxation isn't theft right here, right now. And if taxation is theft in your moral framework, fine, whatever, we can't really unify our positions unless you convince me that your moral framework is better than mine. But even still! start with "my moral framework is good", not "this thing we disagree on, I'm going to make blanket un-qualified statements about it and pretend they're obvious and universally agreed upon".
  • _98fj 10y ago
    > Anarchists are really the political equivalent of pacifists. No force or coercion is ever acceptable in any circumstance is the basic foundation of anarchism, everything must be voluntary. Most of the anarchist groups I used to know a couple of years back where full of force, coercion and exploitation. They just used psychological tricks and peer-pressure instead of physical force. These things can happen. The victims within the anarchist groups just had the problem, that whenever they were trying to defend themselves, the (inofficial) leaders were able to use political rhetorics to declare them wrong and keep them in line. It was always the power-hungry egoists shaping these groups. Some were ok, but some weren't better than sects. All-in-all I haven't seen less free people in my life.