4 ms·

Payment of one's taxes is not the same as, or equivalent to, indentured servitude. Or slavery.

• binarymax 13y ago
  No, but it is extortion
  • bobwaycott 13y ago
    No, it is not.
    • ekianjo 13y ago
      It is. No matter how you'd like to see it. The State has no legitimacy over your life and your earnings. It did not do anything to deserve it. This misconception comes from "Monarchy by Divine Right" from Old Europe, where it was your duty before God to support your King with your earnings. It has become more and more of an extortion as the amount seized by your rulers far exceeds (in percentage) what was paid during the Middle Ages.
      • bobwaycott 13y ago
        Your grasp of history and political theory is lamentable. No matter how you'd like to see it. The state has legitimacy granted to it by those who organize it and continue to live under its rule until such time as they decide to no longer recognize it, delegitimize its power, and establish a replacement state. But even when this occurs, another state is erected in its place. Taxes have been around so much longer than Old Europe--by about 4000 years. Read some history.
• alexmat 13y ago
  Not equivalent to, but certainly shares similar characteristics through coerced surrender of the fruits of one's labor.
  • foobarbazqux 13y ago
    Living inside the state, you wouldn't have those fruits if it weren't for the state. Living outside of the state, tribute of fruits is the fee for belonging to the state. If someone were truly being forced to pay US taxes, they wouldn't be able to renounce their citizenship while living outside of the state. And inside the state, it's like complaining that your parents insist you buy your brother a present with your allowance, or better yet, the money you earned mowing the front lawn. The reason the US economy is so deep and liquid is because the US state is so powerful, and to stay powerful it needs to collect taxes.
    • ekianjo 13y ago
      > Living inside the state, you wouldn't have those fruits if it weren't for the state Nice theory but it's not even like you have a remote possibility to live outside of the State. Every country require you to BELONG to a State. You'd rather look back in History how people were actually able to survive and thrive before advanced State powers even existed. The Human Race was not born with a State and Government to direct themselves. This is all a very recent creation in History. Let's not invert the logic and pretend that without State we would have nothing. This is what Socialism wants you to believe.
      • bobwaycott 13y ago
        Oh please. Spare us the shitty history lesson. The state has existed in human history for more than 10,000 years. The survival and thriving of the human race prior to the establishment of states is incomparable to the last 10,000 years--except to say that they evolved, survived, and propagated the species. They did not thrive. The human race was hardly shit before it began establishing states in order to organize, centralize, protect, expand, and make its way in the world. Before that? Humans were nothing. Ten thousand years of history does not qualify as a "recent creation in history" unless you're being really particular about establishing recent on a universal and geological time scale. Without the creation of states, humanity had and left little to nothing behind. It merely existed. You would not be here if it weren't for the creation of the state. This is not in any way, shape, or form what socialism would have anyone believe.
• ekianjo 13y ago
  Yeah, but failure to pay your taxes leads to servitude and slavery in prisons. It's just one step before.