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Are you participating in the community around you? Using the roads? Ever called 911? Then you gave consent. You are free to move some place more to your liking.

ada1981 8y ago
Of course I understand this is the standard justification. In the US for example, the land we have here was taken by brute force / genocide, then a government was set up a couple hundred years ago (all of the founders have died and only about 5% of the population participated in the revolutionary war). There aren’t any other real options of where to move where you won’t encounter such a violent entity claiming that if you set foot on “its land” you are giving consent. You can’t give consent if there are no other real options or if you are being coerced. What is a better argument is to say that this is where our species is from an evolutionary perspective and that the risk of violent attack by the state if you don’t comply outweigh the benefits. Also, the state provides some things you like (sort of like an alcoholic step father who abuses you but also occasionally buys GMO food and does a decent job of starting fights with the neighbors if they try to come into the house). There is no morality involved, it’s simply a cost / benefit analysis. Do you like spending half your tax dollars on military operations? Including buying bullets that go to kill innocent kids in regions that have resources deemed valueable to US capital? The laws in the United States are not written in such a way that says “if you opt out of using roads or calling 9/11, you don’t pay taxes.” It’s quite the opposite. You are threatend with violence to pay for those things and much more no matter your use pattern and quite often if you are poor your roads don’t get fixed and 9/11 doesn’t result in cops showing up let alone justice being served. And simply because other outfits have set up similar rackets worldwide doesn’t make staying in the one you were born into a consentual agreement.
- FireBeyond 8y ago
  > There aren’t any other real options of where to move There are many, many places on Earth with so non-functional as to be non-existent governments, and zero taxation. You just most likely will choose not to live in those places, because in many places you are subject to violence (as metered by law enforcement, made possible by taxation), have barely functioning infrastructure, electricity, fresh water, roads, Internet. So what you'd really like is to have a don't tread on me style homestead with all the mod cons, and none of the drawbacks. > Do you like spending half your tax dollars on military operations? Including buying bullets that go to kill innocent kids in regions that have resources deemed valueable to US capital? That's a very black and white world view. I can appreciate the value of taxation and the benefits brought by it while still disliking/despising things like our military industrial complex and unnecessary "military actions". It's absurdly simplistic to (attempt to) reduce it to these two alternatives.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ada1981 8y ago
    Sounds like Flint. My general point is that there is nothing immoral about not paying taxes, it’s simply a cost / benefit if you’d like to avoid state violence in your direction. However I think this isn’t a palatable truth and so people would rather justify their paying of taxes to make it easier.

ada1981 8y ago

Of course I understand this is the standard justification. In the US for example, the land we have here was taken by brute force / genocide, then a government was set up a couple hundred years ago (all of the founders have died and only about 5% of the population participated in the revolutionary war). There aren’t any other real options of where to move where you won’t encounter such a violent entity claiming that if you set foot on “its land” you are giving consent. You can’t give consent if there are no other real options or if you are being coerced. What is a better argument is to say that this is where our species is from an evolutionary perspective and that the risk of violent attack by the state if you don’t comply outweigh the benefits. Also, the state provides some things you like (sort of like an alcoholic step father who abuses you but also occasionally buys GMO food and does a decent job of starting fights with the neighbors if they try to come into the house). There is no morality involved, it’s simply a cost / benefit analysis. Do you like spending half your tax dollars on military operations? Including buying bullets that go to kill innocent kids in regions that have resources deemed valueable to US capital? The laws in the United States are not written in such a way that says “if you opt out of using roads or calling 9/11, you don’t pay taxes.” It’s quite the opposite. You are threatend with violence to pay for those things and much more no matter your use pattern and quite often if you are poor your roads don’t get fixed and 9/11 doesn’t result in cops showing up let alone justice being served. And simply because other outfits have set up similar rackets worldwide doesn’t make staying in the one you were born into a consentual agreement.

FireBeyond 8y ago
> There aren’t any other real options of where to move There are many, many places on Earth with so non-functional as to be non-existent governments, and zero taxation. You just most likely will choose not to live in those places, because in many places you are subject to violence (as metered by law enforcement, made possible by taxation), have barely functioning infrastructure, electricity, fresh water, roads, Internet. So what you'd really like is to have a don't tread on me style homestead with all the mod cons, and none of the drawbacks. > Do you like spending half your tax dollars on military operations? Including buying bullets that go to kill innocent kids in regions that have resources deemed valueable to US capital? That's a very black and white world view. I can appreciate the value of taxation and the benefits brought by it while still disliking/despising things like our military industrial complex and unnecessary "military actions". It's absurdly simplistic to (attempt to) reduce it to these two alternatives.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ada1981 8y ago
  Sounds like Flint. My general point is that there is nothing immoral about not paying taxes, it’s simply a cost / benefit if you’d like to avoid state violence in your direction. However I think this isn’t a palatable truth and so people would rather justify their paying of taxes to make it easier.