4 ms·
Conscription is a form of taxation. Many say taxation is slavery, but the argument doesn't hold very well.
by ptaipale 10y ago
Conscription is a form of taxation. Many say taxation is slavery, but the argument doesn't hold very well.
- mrob 10y agoFalse, because taxes can be paid with money from any source. Conscription can only be paid with labor from your own body.
- michaelmrose 10y agoConscription is literally slavery. Taxation isn't slavery its an obligation to pay a fraction of what you earn ergo if you earn nothing you owe nothing and have no obligation.
- maus42 10y agoLiterally or literally? And that depends on your definition of slavery. It did not always mean every and all things involuntary, it used to mean trading people as property who did not have the same rights as a free citizen. Afterthought. I just remembered that some of the more radical leftists call working for a salary a wage slavery, which is similarly silly.
- michaelmrose 10y agoNot every society that practiced slavery regarded your slave status as an immutable part of your being nor does slavery require trade if you are born a slave in a family and live in bondage you are a slave without having changed hands. To be a slave is to have your personal freedoms subordinated to another while people always enjoy a finite degree of autonomy which varies substantially from society to society and even between different socioeconomic groups if your owner can tell you where to go and whom to kill, and in fact to surrender ones life if asked then I cannot discern the difference between that state and slavery.
- hythloday 10y agoI don't think that you literally mean literally, but an obvious difference between slavery in the United States and conscription in the United States that you can avoid the latter by permanently renouncing your citizenship.
- michaelmrose 10y agoCan you renounce your citizenship AFTER they conscript you and leave?