4 ms·

I don't throw out the 'love it or leave it' for 99% of posts on almost all issues, but when a person equates taxation with theft, it's just a lost cause. We ca

I don't throw out the 'love it or leave it' for 99% of posts on almost all issues, but when a person equates taxation with theft, it's just a lost cause. We can and should debate what to do with our tax money, but fundamentally the system always ends up in a state where some people are unhappy with some of the spending. There is no way to reconcile what those on the far right and far left want. We end up somewhere inbetween and that means at the end of the day some people are unsatisfied. Those people still need to pay taxes or the system falls apart. For those people there are two solutions. Convince people to agree with you and change the policy, or leave the country. (Of course another option is to just whine about it.)

temphn 15y ago
Taxation is only feasible because the authorities have guns and use them to jail tax resisters. And 100% taxation is quite literally slavery. Do you seriously disagree with either of those two points? No one signed up for continual boiling of the frog. Many, many millions of people in this country oppose this kind of divisive policy. A poor statesman rams it down people's throats by brute force. The consequence is that when the other party gets hold of the apparatus of state, turnabout is fair play. Is that really what you want?
burgerbrain 15y ago
Your "love it or leave it" attitude towards taxation assumes that all individuals should for some reason resign themselves to the sovereignty of the Unites States Federal Government. My chosen geographic location is not an admission of consent to be 'taxed' by men with guns. Edit: Oh cool, looks like I stepped on somebodies toes, they went back and downvoted all my currently votable comments at once. So tell me Mr Revenge Voter. What here do you actually disagree with?
- mquander 15y ago
  I downvoted you because, although I am sort of interested in potential government support for entrepreneurs, I have zero interest in reading an argument about whether countries have a right to tax their citizens. This is HN, not prisonplanet.com.
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    Well I hope you took the time to downvote this entire thread then. What is a citizen anyway though? Edit: I just looked up prisonplanet.com. Interesting how extreme left-wing positions (I am an anarchist) can be easily mistaken for extreme right-wing positions, such as those of Alex Jones.
    - mquander 15y ago
      You can bet that I downvoted the majority of it. (Although I upvoted your comment below about American exceptionalism regarding taxing the assets of expatriates, since afaik it's accurate and it's informative.)
    - krschultz 15y ago
      That's because although the political spectrum is often described as a line, it's really a circle and the ends of the right and left meet.
      - burgerbrain 15y ago
        The political spectrum is far more multidimensional than that.
- krschultz 15y ago
  Thankfully that statement makes sense to such a small group of people even if all of you dropped out of society completely it wouldn't make one lick of difference politically or financially. I'm not the downvoter of your comments, but I basically disagree with your entire sentiment. Obviously, no one enjoys paying taxes. But guess what, everyone benefits from government services and you have a responsibility not only to the other people currently paying taxes that benefit you, but also to those generations that paid the taxes before us to make our country what it is today. You will probably be thinking right now 'but I don't use many (any?) government services, I don't need the government to do this stuff'. Sure you can be home schooled, grow your own food, live off the electric grid, protect yourself with a gun etc etc etc etc. I don't care. That argument will never convince me. As a single guy with no kids making way more than the national salary and renting an apartment, guess what, I pay an enormous amount of taxes and get basically no deductions while using almost no government services. Too fucking bad for me. At the end of the day, this country is what it is because of the massive amount of taxes paid by people over the last 235 years that has gone into settling the country, building the economy, and running our defense dept. It's my turn to pay the bill and while I'm not happy about it, I know I'd rather be paying the taxes I pay and living in this country than paying no taxes in an anarchist state.
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    I am not questioning that some percentage of money collected at gunpoint by the group of men who call themselves 'government' is put back into society. I am questioning the so called sovereignty of those with the guns. The distinction is fine, however important.
- Aloisius 15y ago
  No, your choice to participate in society by earning or spending money does however constitute consent to be taxed. If you do not want to be taxed, don't participate in society.
dualogy 15y ago
"and that means at the end of the day some people are unsatisfied" -- exactly! And somehow you think this is awesome? It is, for the bureaucrats. They see the pendulum swing from left to right and back every other decade, collecting their ever-growing cuts along the way, primarily for wearing a special hat.

temphn 15y ago

Taxation is only feasible because the authorities have guns and use them to jail tax resisters. And 100% taxation is quite literally slavery. Do you seriously disagree with either of those two points? No one signed up for continual boiling of the frog. Many, many millions of people in this country oppose this kind of divisive policy. A poor statesman rams it down people's throats by brute force. The consequence is that when the other party gets hold of the apparatus of state, turnabout is fair play. Is that really what you want?

burgerbrain 15y ago

Your "love it or leave it" attitude towards taxation assumes that all individuals should for some reason resign themselves to the sovereignty of the Unites States Federal Government. My chosen geographic location is not an admission of consent to be 'taxed' by men with guns. Edit: Oh cool, looks like I stepped on somebodies toes, they went back and downvoted all my currently votable comments at once. So tell me Mr Revenge Voter. What here do you actually disagree with?

mquander 15y ago
I downvoted you because, although I am sort of interested in potential government support for entrepreneurs, I have zero interest in reading an argument about whether countries have a right to tax their citizens. This is HN, not prisonplanet.com.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  Well I hope you took the time to downvote this entire thread then. What is a citizen anyway though? Edit: I just looked up prisonplanet.com. Interesting how extreme left-wing positions (I am an anarchist) can be easily mistaken for extreme right-wing positions, such as those of Alex Jones.
  - mquander 15y ago
    You can bet that I downvoted the majority of it. (Although I upvoted your comment below about American exceptionalism regarding taxing the assets of expatriates, since afaik it's accurate and it's informative.)
  - krschultz 15y ago
    That's because although the political spectrum is often described as a line, it's really a circle and the ends of the right and left meet.
    - burgerbrain 15y ago
      The political spectrum is far more multidimensional than that.
krschultz 15y ago
Thankfully that statement makes sense to such a small group of people even if all of you dropped out of society completely it wouldn't make one lick of difference politically or financially. I'm not the downvoter of your comments, but I basically disagree with your entire sentiment. Obviously, no one enjoys paying taxes. But guess what, everyone benefits from government services and you have a responsibility not only to the other people currently paying taxes that benefit you, but also to those generations that paid the taxes before us to make our country what it is today. You will probably be thinking right now 'but I don't use many (any?) government services, I don't need the government to do this stuff'. Sure you can be home schooled, grow your own food, live off the electric grid, protect yourself with a gun etc etc etc etc. I don't care. That argument will never convince me. As a single guy with no kids making way more than the national salary and renting an apartment, guess what, I pay an enormous amount of taxes and get basically no deductions while using almost no government services. Too fucking bad for me. At the end of the day, this country is what it is because of the massive amount of taxes paid by people over the last 235 years that has gone into settling the country, building the economy, and running our defense dept. It's my turn to pay the bill and while I'm not happy about it, I know I'd rather be paying the taxes I pay and living in this country than paying no taxes in an anarchist state.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  I am not questioning that some percentage of money collected at gunpoint by the group of men who call themselves 'government' is put back into society. I am questioning the so called sovereignty of those with the guns. The distinction is fine, however important.
Aloisius 15y ago
No, your choice to participate in society by earning or spending money does however constitute consent to be taxed. If you do not want to be taxed, don't participate in society.

dualogy 15y ago

"and that means at the end of the day some people are unsatisfied" -- exactly! And somehow you think this is awesome? It is, for the bureaucrats. They see the pendulum swing from left to right and back every other decade, collecting their ever-growing cuts along the way, primarily for wearing a special hat.