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> Civil forfeiture isn't "soft language", it's a precise legal term. It is both. > calling it theft is no different from a libertarian doing the same with tax

> Civil forfeiture isn't "soft language", it's a precise legal term. It is both. > calling it theft is no different from a libertarian doing the same with taxation. Taxation today is theft.

itistoday2 11y ago
In common usage, theft is the taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. We are unable to give consent (consent implies choice), so it is theft through coercion (prison). See "group fund" for a voluntary form of taxation: http://groupcurrency.org http://groupcurrency.org
- rhino369 11y ago
  Guess who defines who the rightful owner of property is? Government.
  - itistoday2 11y ago
    > Guess who defines who the rightful owner of property is? Government. A compelling argument. In that case this appears to be a non-story, and I'm not sure what the fuss is about.
- vidarh 11y ago
  I always find this line of discussion amusing, given that most forms of property only meaningfully exists in the presence of coercion or violence to restrict others access, yet in my experience the people who gives the "tax is theft" line tend to be right wing libertarians who also tend to want strong enforcement of private property laws and tends to be totally humourless about it if Proudhons "property is theft" is brought up as a counterpoint.
  - itistoday2 11y ago
    I've lived long enough to be called "right wing" for the first time in my life... that is a first (I think). As far as Proudhon (first time hearing this), it seems he was referring to land only, and that "property did not extend to exclusive possession of labor-made wealth." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft! It's unclear to me how someone can "own" a piece of land which they did not create but stumbled upon. To me it just seems like a situation where the person with the biggest gun wins, and has nothing to do with "property". So in that sense, perhaps, yes, claiming ownership over something you did not create (Earth) might very well be interpreted as theft. However, the notion of "land property" is a potentially convoluted rabbit hole that is very different from a straightforward discussion about taking money people earned with their own labor under the threat of force.
titanomachy 11y ago
If taxation today is theft, is there a time when it wasn't?
- Frondo 11y ago
  Taxation isn't theft. The anti-tax crowd is just like the anti-vax crowd. They both want a free ride on the rest of our backs; the anti-vaxers want the benefit of herd immunity, and the anti-taxers want others to pay the cost of living in the modern world. (*edited to a missing word)
  - philh 11y ago
    Anti-tax is about not forcing people to pay for services they may not want. I don't think it's realistic, but your description of them is uncharitable. In a world where everyone gets hit on the head with a baseball bat once a week, some people are saying "what's with this? Can't we figure out some way of not getting hit by baseball bats every week?" And you're turning that into "I don't want to get hit by a baseball bat, someone else should get hit instead of me".
    - bryondowd 11y ago
      I'm not sure I lean one way or the other, but that isn't a good analogy. There's no benefit to anybody from a baseball bat to the head. Now, if a certain number of baseball bats to heads is required to appease the gods and increase fertility, health, etc in a majority of the population, you've got a better comparison. Maybe not everybody needs all those benefits, but the options on the table are to let some people opt out, and decrease the benefits globally, or let some people opt out and increase the bat to head frequency for everyone else, force the holdouts to just quit whining and take their bat to the head for the greater good, or maybe see if there's some alternative way to appease the gods and reap their benefits with less head batting.
      - philh 11y ago
        I agree that those features would make the analogy more accurate wrt taxation, but if that was the only important thing about an analogy, we wouldn't use analogies at all. (And it's quite possible that I shouldn't have used an analogy in this case.) I don't think those features are particularly relevant to the mistake Frondo was making.
patcon 11y ago
> Taxation today is theft. You say "theft" like it's the typical "take" act that the word normally implies. It's more like someone stealing $200 and giving you a bicycle you didn't ask for, but you're likely still going to use it anyhow. ie. it's complicated, so it gets a new word :)
- itistoday2 11y ago
  > It's more like someone stealing $200 Sounds like we're in agreement then. :) > and giving you a bicycle you didn't ask for s/bicycle/war. No worries, I make that typo all the time. ;)
  - sitkack 11y ago
    I can't even imagine what 6 trillion dollars worth of bicycles looks like.
    - olefoo 11y ago
      6 Trillion dollars worth of bicycle infrastructure would bring the entire continental US up to Dutch standards. And bring healthcare up to French standards.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  The problem is when you agree to give them $10,000 for a new car but get a bicycle instead.
  - washadjeffmad 11y ago
    Don't forget they'll need a new tax for driving a vehicle with fewer than four wheels to subsidize the car industry, emissions testing for the bicycles, new vehicle registration fees still based on the value of the car you were supposed to receive, mandatory cycle insurance, tax to create a Department of Cyclist Services, tax for re-equipping the police to handle the change in criminal defenses (purchase of helmet-piercing rounds), tax for the creation of the position City Bicycle Inspector, tax to create the new lanes and parking areas for the bicycles, and the creation of bicycle dealerships that prevent you from buying bicycles and their parts directly from manufacturers. Several million dollars later, the initiative is scrapped and all bicycles are replaced at taxpayer expense with Enduros, in a move completely unrelated to the opening of the new Enduro factory and recent election of extremely popular Mayor Nathan Enduro, who ran on a platform of smaller government and the freedom to spend your money on as much gasoline and Enduro parts as you want.
Frondo 11y ago
Taxation isn't theft. Taxation is you paying the bill you've incurred for living in this country. You've lived here, gotten some benefit from the services the government provides, and when the bill comes you start saying "theft!! theft!!!"? The anti-tax crowd is the biggest bunch of moochers and freeloaders this side of Wall Street. They're just out for a free ride, leaving the rest of us to pay for it.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  How about 'taxation may be theft'? Depending upon how it is done and how much of a tax there is compared to the benefits. For example, a one time tax of 30% of all bank accounts would be considered theft. Paying a gas tax to care for the road you use would not. Also, some of the corrupt dealings of Congress would be theft from the government, and since that raises taxes on the individuals, I think it would be reasonable to consider it theft.
- itistoday2 11y ago
  Stereotypes and ad hominem don't help the conversation. I am not "anti-tax". I think taxation is a good idea as it helps a community re-invest in itself. I am anti-theft. Saying today's taxation is not theft won't change the reality that it is. Nor will downvoting this post change that reality. In fact, barring a change in the definition of the word, there is not a single action in this universe that can change the reality that taking something that belongs to someone else without their permission is theft.
  - Frondo 11y ago
    You agree to pay taxes by continuing to live here. Taxes aren't theft any more than the check at the end of a restaurant meal is theft. In both cases, you agree to pay something in exchange for something (a meal, a functioning government, etc).
    - itistoday2 11y ago
      > You agree to pay taxes by continuing to live here. If we were free to move to a country where we agreed with the laws you might be right. That's not reality though. We are not (currently) free to choose how we pay taxes in any country and our freedom to move from one country to another is restricted. So, sorry, I never agreed to pay these taxes, I have little say in how they're used, and I have no alternatives except to go to prison. That's not freedom. That's simply coercion and theft.

> Civil forfeiture isn't "soft language", it's a precise legal term. It is both. > calling it theft is no different from a libertarian doing the same with taxation. Taxation today is theft.

itistoday2 11y ago

In common usage, theft is the taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. We are unable to give consent (consent implies choice), so it is theft through coercion (prison). See "group fund" for a voluntary form of taxation: http://groupcurrency.org http://groupcurrency.org

rhino369 11y ago
Guess who defines who the rightful owner of property is? Government.
- itistoday2 11y ago
  > Guess who defines who the rightful owner of property is? Government. A compelling argument. In that case this appears to be a non-story, and I'm not sure what the fuss is about.
vidarh 11y ago
I always find this line of discussion amusing, given that most forms of property only meaningfully exists in the presence of coercion or violence to restrict others access, yet in my experience the people who gives the "tax is theft" line tend to be right wing libertarians who also tend to want strong enforcement of private property laws and tends to be totally humourless about it if Proudhons "property is theft" is brought up as a counterpoint.
- itistoday2 11y ago
  I've lived long enough to be called "right wing" for the first time in my life... that is a first (I think). As far as Proudhon (first time hearing this), it seems he was referring to land only, and that "property did not extend to exclusive possession of labor-made wealth." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft! It's unclear to me how someone can "own" a piece of land which they did not create but stumbled upon. To me it just seems like a situation where the person with the biggest gun wins, and has nothing to do with "property". So in that sense, perhaps, yes, claiming ownership over something you did not create (Earth) might very well be interpreted as theft. However, the notion of "land property" is a potentially convoluted rabbit hole that is very different from a straightforward discussion about taking money people earned with their own labor under the threat of force.

titanomachy 11y ago

If taxation today is theft, is there a time when it wasn't?

Frondo 11y ago
Taxation isn't theft. The anti-tax crowd is just like the anti-vax crowd. They both want a free ride on the rest of our backs; the anti-vaxers want the benefit of herd immunity, and the anti-taxers want others to pay the cost of living in the modern world. (*edited to a missing word)
- philh 11y ago
  Anti-tax is about not forcing people to pay for services they may not want. I don't think it's realistic, but your description of them is uncharitable. In a world where everyone gets hit on the head with a baseball bat once a week, some people are saying "what's with this? Can't we figure out some way of not getting hit by baseball bats every week?" And you're turning that into "I don't want to get hit by a baseball bat, someone else should get hit instead of me".
  - bryondowd 11y ago
    I'm not sure I lean one way or the other, but that isn't a good analogy. There's no benefit to anybody from a baseball bat to the head. Now, if a certain number of baseball bats to heads is required to appease the gods and increase fertility, health, etc in a majority of the population, you've got a better comparison. Maybe not everybody needs all those benefits, but the options on the table are to let some people opt out, and decrease the benefits globally, or let some people opt out and increase the bat to head frequency for everyone else, force the holdouts to just quit whining and take their bat to the head for the greater good, or maybe see if there's some alternative way to appease the gods and reap their benefits with less head batting.
    - philh 11y ago
      I agree that those features would make the analogy more accurate wrt taxation, but if that was the only important thing about an analogy, we wouldn't use analogies at all. (And it's quite possible that I shouldn't have used an analogy in this case.) I don't think those features are particularly relevant to the mistake Frondo was making.

patcon 11y ago

> Taxation today is theft. You say "theft" like it's the typical "take" act that the word normally implies. It's more like someone stealing $200 and giving you a bicycle you didn't ask for, but you're likely still going to use it anyhow. ie. it's complicated, so it gets a new word :)

itistoday2 11y ago
> It's more like someone stealing $200 Sounds like we're in agreement then. :) > and giving you a bicycle you didn't ask for s/bicycle/war. No worries, I make that typo all the time. ;)
- sitkack 11y ago
  I can't even imagine what 6 trillion dollars worth of bicycles looks like.
  - olefoo 11y ago
    6 Trillion dollars worth of bicycle infrastructure would bring the entire continental US up to Dutch standards. And bring healthcare up to French standards.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
The problem is when you agree to give them $10,000 for a new car but get a bicycle instead.
- washadjeffmad 11y ago
  Don't forget they'll need a new tax for driving a vehicle with fewer than four wheels to subsidize the car industry, emissions testing for the bicycles, new vehicle registration fees still based on the value of the car you were supposed to receive, mandatory cycle insurance, tax to create a Department of Cyclist Services, tax for re-equipping the police to handle the change in criminal defenses (purchase of helmet-piercing rounds), tax for the creation of the position City Bicycle Inspector, tax to create the new lanes and parking areas for the bicycles, and the creation of bicycle dealerships that prevent you from buying bicycles and their parts directly from manufacturers. Several million dollars later, the initiative is scrapped and all bicycles are replaced at taxpayer expense with Enduros, in a move completely unrelated to the opening of the new Enduro factory and recent election of extremely popular Mayor Nathan Enduro, who ran on a platform of smaller government and the freedom to spend your money on as much gasoline and Enduro parts as you want.

Frondo 11y ago

Taxation isn't theft. Taxation is you paying the bill you've incurred for living in this country. You've lived here, gotten some benefit from the services the government provides, and when the bill comes you start saying "theft!! theft!!!"? The anti-tax crowd is the biggest bunch of moochers and freeloaders this side of Wall Street. They're just out for a free ride, leaving the rest of us to pay for it.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago
How about 'taxation may be theft'? Depending upon how it is done and how much of a tax there is compared to the benefits. For example, a one time tax of 30% of all bank accounts would be considered theft. Paying a gas tax to care for the road you use would not. Also, some of the corrupt dealings of Congress would be theft from the government, and since that raises taxes on the individuals, I think it would be reasonable to consider it theft.
itistoday2 11y ago
Stereotypes and ad hominem don't help the conversation. I am not "anti-tax". I think taxation is a good idea as it helps a community re-invest in itself. I am anti-theft. Saying today's taxation is not theft won't change the reality that it is. Nor will downvoting this post change that reality. In fact, barring a change in the definition of the word, there is not a single action in this universe that can change the reality that taking something that belongs to someone else without their permission is theft.
- Frondo 11y ago
  You agree to pay taxes by continuing to live here. Taxes aren't theft any more than the check at the end of a restaurant meal is theft. In both cases, you agree to pay something in exchange for something (a meal, a functioning government, etc).
  - itistoday2 11y ago
    > You agree to pay taxes by continuing to live here. If we were free to move to a country where we agreed with the laws you might be right. That's not reality though. We are not (currently) free to choose how we pay taxes in any country and our freedom to move from one country to another is restricted. So, sorry, I never agreed to pay these taxes, I have little say in how they're used, and I have no alternatives except to go to prison. That's not freedom. That's simply coercion and theft.