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I trust you. My point is not that we shouldn't help poor people. My point is that it should be done voluntarily, not through taxation. Your example, btw, is no

• astrange 13y ago
  And if you couldn't have afforded something to eat, or didn't have a room, or had to go in the hospital? Would you be proud to not complain about being homeless?
  • snitko 13y ago
    So what you're saying is that if I have to go to a hospital and can't afford it, it's okay for me to go and rob other people?
    • consonants 13y ago
      Tell me again how taxation is theft.
      • snitko 13y ago
        Look, I respect and acknowledge your right to have an opinion that taxes are not theft. Would you respect the opinion of your fellow citizens, who, like me, believe taxes are theft? Because if you do acknowledge their right to think so, then it becomes obvious, that you are also prepared to ignore such an opinion, still willing to collect taxes from them. So essentially, you're like an abusive dad saying to his daughter "oh, sweetie, you can marry anyone you want", but later demanding from her she married a young man of his choice - for her own good, of course. I realize it's kind of a big stretch for people to see taxes as theft, but it's important to start seeing violence involved in this process. You can't just deny things by arguments such as "that's they way a civilized society works".
        • consonants 13y ago
          Tell me more about how the non-aggression principle absolves you of any social responsibility. You didn't earn your money in a vacuum outside of society, you earned it with the implicit knowledge that you will be taxed while reaping the real benefits those tax dollars and the rest of society provided you. It's an unfortunate opinion to hold, as anyone who opposes is violent and abusive thug in your worldview. It's incredibly childish mental gymnastics that people who feel that they owe nothing to society adopt to justify their greed while they take, take, take the fruits of our society.
          • snitko 13y ago
            What do I owe to society and why? Can you be more specific? And why do I owe it to society as a whole and not some particular individuals?
            • consonants 13y ago
              Imma gonna make a software analogy. Society is like a framework you build upon, without the scaffolding there to hold you up and none of what you accomplished would be possible. None. In turn, it is our responsibility to manage the upkeep of society. I grew up on open source software. I started using Debian when I was still in grade school. Without it, many of us wouldn't be doing what we are now. In advocating that volunteering charity as a solution to society's ills, you need to consider the cases that charity simply can't or won't make a meaningful impact on. You also have to factor in the marketability, trends, and prejudice that will invariably select equally worthy social causes over another. We've seen how without a proper safety net, the public at large will let the sick and poor rot, then charities and business went on just as usual and profits and donations were better than ever. Yet we still denied the mentally ill the healthcare they needed to take care of themselves. We vilified and locked up the poor and minorities. Business as usual hasn't addressed what didn't directly benefit business (why would it?). Think of the cases that open source software tackled as a community that lead a richer software environment. We were no longer at the whim of the walled-garden software giants. We saw how without proper disruption in business as usual we were screwed. Remember, we are lucky and privileged to be in a position where we can almost assuredly find (self)employment on our own terms and be guaranteed high salaries. That can change, and you can bet that employers will jump at any opportunity to bring costs down so in the long run our position will be whittled to maximize profit. The next generation of programmers will experience lower entry level pay + benefits and that trend will follow them throughout their life. They will never see the level of privilege we experience now. This is the trend almost every middle class profession has seen in the last 30 years. We can effectively be exiled from the walled-garden, and every paycheck you employer hands you is another reason to find a way to replace you. The vast majority people are experiencing this. We created an environment where there is no alternative to the pittance the wealth giants feel like granting us. It gave us a shitty software environment and locked down hardware, and it never addressed the scope of the problems government, welfare and public works solves. >And why do I owe it to society as a whole and not some particular individuals? When you pay for your meal at a restaurant, are you only paying the specific people who prepared and handled your food? Again, specific individuals didn't accomplish anything in a vacuum. You are a by product of society as a whole just as your meal was the product of the restaurant as a whole.
    • astrange 13y ago
      Do you disagree? It seems like your strategy for life has the worst case of you dying. I think that's what they call natural selection. Generally people like to consider themselves above that. Aside from that, don't you think you could compare the price of taxation to the price of losing someone from society? One is less than the other.