6 ms·

Your experiment speaks to how we interpret transgressions, and for that, it is true- taxes are seen as robbery. Does your nephew now own the sand he used to bu

by ntSean 5y ago

Your experiment speaks to how we interpret transgressions, and for that, it is true- taxes are seen as robbery. Does your nephew now own the sand he used to build that castle? I would hope not, as I think we’d agree, many kids would suffer! And likewise, many people believe so strongly in their ownership of money, that they don’t mind if others suffer.

germandiago 5y ago
> taxes are seen as robbery Taxes are robbery. If you did the same to your neighbor under threat, you would end up in jail. If a mafia does that, they go to jail. If the government does it, they do not. And they did not ask you to adhere to a contract. It works with reversed logic from what we do in real life with others. There is no single logical justification to say it is not robbery. That is independent of whether what they do with that money is good or bad. A different discussion. > And likewise, many people believe so strongly in their ownership of money. Which represents just that you offered something worth that money to others, in the absense of threat or violence. So yes, now it belongs to them because of an exchange. > that they don’t mind if others suffer. Or even worse, some people subtract that money from us by providing no value, unlike the average of humans who at least sells something or provides a service and pretends that the people providing services or products are worse than the person subtracting in exchange of nothing under the threat of prison. Also, it seems that to you the person being subtracted the money they earned and spent time to get it(could be money or anything else, I am talking about effort) do not suffer. I guess they do not have a soul or feelings or do not deserve the same respect as the others.
- ntSean 5y ago
  > There is no single logical justification to say it is not robbery It is the cost to you living in society; a society which provides infrastructure such as roads, education, sanitation, and food. A society which provides customers and a marketplace to trade in. The roller coaster of watching you add and edit this comment was truly an experience. Have a great day.
  - germandiago 5y ago
    This would be true if they came and tell me which services I am willing to pay and use. That is not what they do. What they do is to pack all things together, to extract money from there for them also, to make systems with way too many people to manage stuff that can be managed more efficiently and to pass you the bill without asking. Of course that is robbery. Imagine they force you to eat in a certain restarant and you must eat there, because they decided so without asking. Now let us say the food should be 15 dollars and they charge you 45, without asking. This is what they do. It is totally, totally unfair. Later they will come and tell you: hey, you can eat thanks to me! You owe me respect. When in fact, I could have gone find my own way and eat for 15. It is absurd. And robbery, of course. Noone asked me. That is illegal if you do it to someone. It is as if a telco came and charge you a bill of 50 usd and you get mad and go and say: hey, I did not hire your services. And they reply: the contract is implicit. They would be in trouble.
- thrashh 5y ago
  Somewhere can’t be robbery if you continue to permit it everyday… if you actually believed your words, you’d move to the middle of nowhere with no Internet and electricity or roads. And it’s not robbery if you’re getting something from it everyday, which you clearly are because you’re posting on the Internet and drinking clean water.
  - b3nji 5y ago
    I'm not sure what country you are from, but my taxes to the government certainly don't pay my internet provider or water supply company...
  - germandiago 5y ago
    You shifted the topic. I do not mean to not drink clean water or to not use roads. My point is to have control on what to pay or not. When not paying, of course, I have to pay it by myself. But noone is entitled to tell me how much and in which conditions unilaterally. Governments and stated should NOT be an exception.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  > Taxes are robbery. I'm fine with you not paying taxes, as long as you leave my country and renounce your citizenship. After that, make whatever you want on a boat in the ocean or in Somalia. But no one who thinks taxes are theft ever does that, because they want all the benefits of society my taxes pay for.
  - vimax 5y ago
    You seem to be saying that anything short of living your philosophical ideals is hypocrisy. There are a lot of government policies I think should be criminal, but nobody suggests that my only options are accept the policy or completely denounce society. I think that the large telecoms are built on theft from society and that copyright laws are too extensive. Should I leave society to go live on Sealand?
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      You're pretty unfair with your criticism. I wasn't claiming you must reject all of society if you disagree with any aspect. My point was that you can avoid taxes - they happen to be 100% optional. And yet no person who claims taxes are theft is willing to do so. To use an analogy, you're saying "look, not every restaurant serves your favorite food, why do you call people hypocrites who go out to eat at those places" and I'm saying "the people I call hypocrites are the ones who claim it's a moral imperative to refuse to tip or even pay the check who insist on going out to eat"
      - vimax 5y ago
        In what way are taxes 100% optional? In the sense that using AT&T is optional because I can move of I don't like it? I don't follow your restaurant analogy. Someone can recognize that tipping is harmful to the wait staff, but continue to tip knowing that to do otherwise would only hurt the wait staff and not the restaurant.
        germandiago 5y ago
        With a private service you always have alternatives. With a government imposition you must pay, noone asks you, and, on top of that, you do not use those services most of the time. But if you use them, why they do not ask you if you want? That is exactly how real life works... except for government impositions.
- gitgrump 5y ago
  This Randian view of taxes is exhausting. If taxation is theft, then you're complicit every time you drive on a road. For the sake of your conscience, the only moral thing to do is to move into the woods and depend on nothing and nobody. Good luck.
  - germandiago 5y ago
    Why? I can imagine a toll on roads and being paid per use. Why they do not do that? Ah, yes, because that would mean there is not justification for these people to exist, like with many other things. The duty of the governments is to kidnap and monopolize services on the basis that you owe them something because they provided you that, when, in fact, there are alternatives. But even if they were useful on their own right, you could optionally pay or not in the taxes (that would not be taxes actually) and acquire or lose the right to use certain services. Why they do not do that, and later accuse you of bad citizen wanting people to die, to not have education or that you cannot use roads? Because they are desperate to justify their own existence and by kidnapping these services they have their justification to exist.
    - vikaveri 5y ago
      If you're not satisfied with the service of your current provider, you are free to take your business to the premises of another service provider who had chosen to implement plans that are more suited to your needs. I don't mean to be snarky, but putting it in more business terms. For some services the service provider offers several alternative plans, some have only a single one-size-fits-all plan
      - germandiago 5y ago
        Not a provider but a forced provider.
- lloydgrossman 5y ago
  >Taxes are robbery. You're anti fire department?
  - germandiago 5y ago
    No, I just try to be objective here. From Cambridge dictionary. Steal: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/steal https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/steal "to take something without the permission or knowledge of the owner and keep it" As far as I know, they do not have my permission to get my wealth. From RAE, in Spanish, robar: "Quitar o tomar para sí con violencia o con fuerza lo ajeno." -> To extract or remove for oneself with violence or force other people's property (ajeno in this context refers to property in spanish) So yes, it is an objective definition of what stealing is, because you pay under the threat of jail, not by mutual agreement, as you do when you purchase something. https://dle.rae.es/robar https://dle.rae.es/robar "

by ntSean 5y ago

germandiago 5y ago

> taxes are seen as robbery Taxes are robbery. If you did the same to your neighbor under threat, you would end up in jail. If a mafia does that, they go to jail. If the government does it, they do not. And they did not ask you to adhere to a contract. It works with reversed logic from what we do in real life with others. There is no single logical justification to say it is not robbery. That is independent of whether what they do with that money is good or bad. A different discussion. > And likewise, many people believe so strongly in their ownership of money. Which represents just that you offered something worth that money to others, in the absense of threat or violence. So yes, now it belongs to them because of an exchange. > that they don’t mind if others suffer. Or even worse, some people subtract that money from us by providing no value, unlike the average of humans who at least sells something or provides a service and pretends that the people providing services or products are worse than the person subtracting in exchange of nothing under the threat of prison. Also, it seems that to you the person being subtracted the money they earned and spent time to get it(could be money or anything else, I am talking about effort) do not suffer. I guess they do not have a soul or feelings or do not deserve the same respect as the others.

ntSean 5y ago
> There is no single logical justification to say it is not robbery It is the cost to you living in society; a society which provides infrastructure such as roads, education, sanitation, and food. A society which provides customers and a marketplace to trade in. The roller coaster of watching you add and edit this comment was truly an experience. Have a great day.
- germandiago 5y ago
  This would be true if they came and tell me which services I am willing to pay and use. That is not what they do. What they do is to pack all things together, to extract money from there for them also, to make systems with way too many people to manage stuff that can be managed more efficiently and to pass you the bill without asking. Of course that is robbery. Imagine they force you to eat in a certain restarant and you must eat there, because they decided so without asking. Now let us say the food should be 15 dollars and they charge you 45, without asking. This is what they do. It is totally, totally unfair. Later they will come and tell you: hey, you can eat thanks to me! You owe me respect. When in fact, I could have gone find my own way and eat for 15. It is absurd. And robbery, of course. Noone asked me. That is illegal if you do it to someone. It is as if a telco came and charge you a bill of 50 usd and you get mad and go and say: hey, I did not hire your services. And they reply: the contract is implicit. They would be in trouble.
thrashh 5y ago
Somewhere can’t be robbery if you continue to permit it everyday… if you actually believed your words, you’d move to the middle of nowhere with no Internet and electricity or roads. And it’s not robbery if you’re getting something from it everyday, which you clearly are because you’re posting on the Internet and drinking clean water.
- b3nji 5y ago
  I'm not sure what country you are from, but my taxes to the government certainly don't pay my internet provider or water supply company...
- germandiago 5y ago
  You shifted the topic. I do not mean to not drink clean water or to not use roads. My point is to have control on what to pay or not. When not paying, of course, I have to pay it by myself. But noone is entitled to tell me how much and in which conditions unilaterally. Governments and stated should NOT be an exception.
HWR_14 5y ago
> Taxes are robbery. I'm fine with you not paying taxes, as long as you leave my country and renounce your citizenship. After that, make whatever you want on a boat in the ocean or in Somalia. But no one who thinks taxes are theft ever does that, because they want all the benefits of society my taxes pay for.
- vimax 5y ago
  You seem to be saying that anything short of living your philosophical ideals is hypocrisy. There are a lot of government policies I think should be criminal, but nobody suggests that my only options are accept the policy or completely denounce society. I think that the large telecoms are built on theft from society and that copyright laws are too extensive. Should I leave society to go live on Sealand?
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    You're pretty unfair with your criticism. I wasn't claiming you must reject all of society if you disagree with any aspect. My point was that you can avoid taxes - they happen to be 100% optional. And yet no person who claims taxes are theft is willing to do so. To use an analogy, you're saying "look, not every restaurant serves your favorite food, why do you call people hypocrites who go out to eat at those places" and I'm saying "the people I call hypocrites are the ones who claim it's a moral imperative to refuse to tip or even pay the check who insist on going out to eat"
    - vimax 5y ago
      In what way are taxes 100% optional? In the sense that using AT&T is optional because I can move of I don't like it? I don't follow your restaurant analogy. Someone can recognize that tipping is harmful to the wait staff, but continue to tip knowing that to do otherwise would only hurt the wait staff and not the restaurant.
      - germandiago 5y ago
        With a private service you always have alternatives. With a government imposition you must pay, noone asks you, and, on top of that, you do not use those services most of the time. But if you use them, why they do not ask you if you want? That is exactly how real life works... except for government impositions.
gitgrump 5y ago
This Randian view of taxes is exhausting. If taxation is theft, then you're complicit every time you drive on a road. For the sake of your conscience, the only moral thing to do is to move into the woods and depend on nothing and nobody. Good luck.
- germandiago 5y ago
  Why? I can imagine a toll on roads and being paid per use. Why they do not do that? Ah, yes, because that would mean there is not justification for these people to exist, like with many other things. The duty of the governments is to kidnap and monopolize services on the basis that you owe them something because they provided you that, when, in fact, there are alternatives. But even if they were useful on their own right, you could optionally pay or not in the taxes (that would not be taxes actually) and acquire or lose the right to use certain services. Why they do not do that, and later accuse you of bad citizen wanting people to die, to not have education or that you cannot use roads? Because they are desperate to justify their own existence and by kidnapping these services they have their justification to exist.
  - vikaveri 5y ago
    If you're not satisfied with the service of your current provider, you are free to take your business to the premises of another service provider who had chosen to implement plans that are more suited to your needs. I don't mean to be snarky, but putting it in more business terms. For some services the service provider offers several alternative plans, some have only a single one-size-fits-all plan
    - germandiago 5y ago
      Not a provider but a forced provider.
lloydgrossman 5y ago
>Taxes are robbery. You're anti fire department?
- germandiago 5y ago
  No, I just try to be objective here. From Cambridge dictionary. Steal: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/steal https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/steal "to take something without the permission or knowledge of the owner and keep it" As far as I know, they do not have my permission to get my wealth. From RAE, in Spanish, robar: "Quitar o tomar para sí con violencia o con fuerza lo ajeno." -> To extract or remove for oneself with violence or force other people's property (ajeno in this context refers to property in spanish) So yes, it is an objective definition of what stealing is, because you pay under the threat of jail, not by mutual agreement, as you do when you purchase something. https://dle.rae.es/robar https://dle.rae.es/robar "