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I believe "taxation is theft" out of moral and ethical reasons. It's not something I just pulled out of nowhere because I don't like paying taxes. The problem

by zo1 5y ago

I believe "taxation is theft" out of moral and ethical reasons. It's not something I just pulled out of nowhere because I don't like paying taxes. The problem here is as always the government, which is not doing as much as we'd like and has supposedly gotten captured by bad individuals. We can't have our cake and eat it. And despite being against taxation I'm all for flat or proportional taxation, while we have it. This whole mess arguably came about because we wanted the ability to make the rich pay more than the rest of us, and then while we were at it decided to use taxation to manipulate the behavior of the public. And look how it turned out, the market spoke and found optimal solutions around taxation, and unfortunately it only works for the wealthy. It's like shaking our fists at the sky because the rain caused a lake and mosquitos bred there. /rant

andrepd 5y ago
Taxes are not the evil gobernmint coming to "steal" the money you made alone. It's a price for living in a society that enabled you to make the money in the first place. By all means, I'm in favour that anyone can voluntarily opt-out of the social contract and go live in a cabin in the woods unmolested. But if you don't, then you need to pay taxes and obey laws.
SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
Would you still think taxation is theft if the government was acting as a responsible steward of tax money, and spending it in ways that improve the lives of the citizenry without running up a huge debt?
- maccolgan 5y ago
  Ideally it would be spending an amount of money that individuals can also afford to spend themselves, that'd be the fairest, but that hardly ever happens...
  - JetSpiegel 5y ago
    How do you build a railroad as an individual? How do you pay for NASA as an individual?
- zo1 5y ago
  Like with a lot of things it's more of a spectrum than a binary. Yes it still would be "theft". But if they were responsible with it then I'd definitely be more okay with it(like a lot of libertarians) . It'd be more okay if we all paid proportionally to our earnings. It'd also be more okay if we had more and more granular controls over what it gets spent on (like the humble bundle where I'd pick which ratio of my share of gov spending goes to which department or social good). The thing that irritates me about it is that none of these intermediate steps seem to get any traction. My pet theory about that is they don't get implemented because they would inevitably lead to full public control over social spending. And when we get there we're essentially doing libertarianism anyways and realise we are responsible for our neighbours and society and have no need for a government that does stuff without our consent.

by zo1 5y ago

andrepd 5y ago

Taxes are not the evil gobernmint coming to "steal" the money you made alone. It's a price for living in a society that enabled you to make the money in the first place. By all means, I'm in favour that anyone can voluntarily opt-out of the social contract and go live in a cabin in the woods unmolested. But if you don't, then you need to pay taxes and obey laws.

SturgeonsLaw 5y ago

Would you still think taxation is theft if the government was acting as a responsible steward of tax money, and spending it in ways that improve the lives of the citizenry without running up a huge debt?

maccolgan 5y ago
Ideally it would be spending an amount of money that individuals can also afford to spend themselves, that'd be the fairest, but that hardly ever happens...
- JetSpiegel 5y ago
  How do you build a railroad as an individual? How do you pay for NASA as an individual?
zo1 5y ago
Like with a lot of things it's more of a spectrum than a binary. Yes it still would be "theft". But if they were responsible with it then I'd definitely be more okay with it(like a lot of libertarians) . It'd be more okay if we all paid proportionally to our earnings. It'd also be more okay if we had more and more granular controls over what it gets spent on (like the humble bundle where I'd pick which ratio of my share of gov spending goes to which department or social good). The thing that irritates me about it is that none of these intermediate steps seem to get any traction. My pet theory about that is they don't get implemented because they would inevitably lead to full public control over social spending. And when we get there we're essentially doing libertarianism anyways and realise we are responsible for our neighbours and society and have no need for a government that does stuff without our consent.