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It was an excellent OP, and I think that you have it about right. It is theft when the rich pay taxes and not theft when the middle class pays taxes.
Almost, it is theft when the rich pay taxes, but only because the other classes dont..
When the middle class and others pay taxes, it ceases to be theft because its FAIR that EVERYONE pays...
I know, you cant comprehend this, and thats so sad.
When you pay for some goods or service you receive (e.g. roads, police, firefighters, schools, national defense, etc.). When you tax Peter to give to Paul that's by definition theft.
A common thing I hear from conservatives is that taxation is a form of theft, but those same conservatives make exceptions to that (like law enforcement, military etc) But if taxing is forcibly taking money from one group of people and giving it to another then how can you justify taxes at all--even for the military? To me that's inconsistent. Either taxation is theft or it isn't. Taxation is either right or it is wrong. How do you explain this?
mackinac
There are very, very few things government should be doing--and generally our government ignores those things entirely (like protecting our borders), while spending our money on ridiculous things that don't serve the people at all (like invading Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc.).
Taxation is not theft if I have the option to "opt out" of using the service and don't have to pay the tax. If the roads were all toll roads, and we paid when we used them, it would be fair and reasonable. If I could "opt out" of the Social Security system, it would be fair and reasonable. The only exceptions should be very rare cases like the national military, but (and there's a very large "but" here) we should only have to pay for that which is NECESSARY to defend ourselves against foreign aggression. With nuclear weapons, this should cost everyone about $10 a year, maybe $20.
The problem with government is that, as the Founding Fathers warned, it will start out relatively limited in scope and expense, and then start growing--because that is what ALL governments inherently do. The longer they are allowed to continue, the more power they appropriate, and the more money they take from us. No rule in nature is more powerful, or so without exception.
Government growth (and graft, corruption and waste) continued until we are at the point where we are today: where the average worker is nothing more than a slave serving a greedy and corrupt government. We have a government so large it cannot be controlled, so corrupt it does what it wants and manipulates the brainwashed masses to voice support of any idiocy, so irresponsible that it has destroyed the economy and the nation's entire future with overspending and borrowing to the point of national bankruptcy, and so voracious for money that it robs the working class into poverty.
When the federal government appropriates over $50,000 a year from families like mine, when we are driving cars over 10 years old and 100,000 miles each, and trying to save for retirement since Social Security is already doomed thanks to the thieves in Congress, something is grossly wrong. Especially since in my entire live, I doubt the federal level will return ANY of that money to me in the form of services. Foreign wars do not help me one iota. Pork spending, stimulus, and bailing out huge corporations doesn't help me either.
Consequently, pretty much our entire Federal government is a form of legalized Organized Crime, and does nothing but steal massive amounts of money from the people, most of whom are too intellectually challenged to know they are supporting the system that reduces them to a life of hard labor to feed the voracious greed of a corrupt and power-mad government.
A common thing I hear from conservatives is that taxation is a form of theft, but those same conservatives make exceptions to that (like law enforcement, military etc) But if taxing is forcibly taking money from one group of people and giving it to another then how can you justify taxes at all--even for the military? To me that's inconsistent. Either taxation is theft or it isn't. Taxation is either right or it is wrong. How do you explain this?
mackinac
Taxes should be used for the benefit of all citizens of the nation, not a particular demographic. When we tax for infrastructure and the military, ALL CITIZENS benefit from these expenditures. When we tax from one to give to another, one group of citizens benefits at the expense of another- that is theft.
The nation was not founded on "Robin Hood" principles of wealth redistribution, but upon the notion of equal opportunities for all. That premise seems to be lost on nearly every liberal, who perceives the role of government to be one of economic enslavement of one class for the pleasure of another.
I have never encountered one single liberal who will practice on a micro scale (their personal lives) what they have determined to be perfectly natural on a macro scale. Have you ever run across a liberal who has -
opened their homes to illegals and the homeless?
Given up their job for an illegal?
Voluntarily paid more taxes?
Given their car to a poor citizen?
Of course not! Liberalism, when examined on a personal level, is nearly insane. However, extrapolate the same ridiculous sentiments to a national level and you have a "rational" political position- amusing and shocking at the same time.
A common thing I hear from conservatives is that taxation is a form of theft, but those same conservatives make exceptions to that (like law enforcement, military etc) But if taxing is forcibly taking money from one group of people and giving it to another then how can you justify taxes at all--even for the military? To me that's inconsistent. Either taxation is theft or it isn't. Taxation is either right or it is wrong. How do you explain this?
mackinac
I can't understand why people don't know the answer to this... the federal government has a known set of function to abide by... to support these functions, they need revenue and the revenue comes from taxes... that is fair and equitable to the citizens of the US... when the federal government starts doing things beyond what is allowed by them and setting up useless departments and then RAISES the taxes from what you pay... well, that's stealing for nothing in return and beyond the role of the federal government which makes us worse off because of it... then higher taxation of one group over another group is theft itself...
Originally posted by Mircea
I'm not sure that I can being that you are not a US Citizen, are not from the US and have no clue about the US Constitution.
But, I'll try anyway.
Do yourself a favor, come to the US and live for a while so you can see how things really work.
Um...actually I live in the U.S. Some of my family's been here since the 1600s. Thank you for your condescending post.
Quote:
Originally posted by NHartphotog
There are very, very few things government should be doing--and generally our government ignores those things entirely (like protecting our borders), while spending our money on ridiculous things that don't serve the people at all (like invading Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc.).
Taxation is not theft if I have the option to "opt out" of using the service and don't have to pay the tax. If the roads were all toll roads, and we paid when we used them, it would be fair and reasonable. If I could "opt out" of the Social Security system, it would be fair and reasonable. The only exceptions should be very rare cases like the national military, but (and there's a very large "but" here) we should only have to pay for that which is NECESSARY to defend ourselves against foreign aggression. With nuclear weapons, this should cost everyone about $10 a year, maybe $20.
The problem with government is that, as the Founding Fathers warned, it will start out relatively limited in scope and expense, and then start growing--because that is what ALL governments inherently do. The longer they are allowed to continue, the more power they appropriate, and the more money they take from us. No rule in nature is more powerful, or so without exception.
Government growth (and graft, corruption and waste) continued until we are at the point where we are today: where the average worker is nothing more than a slave serving a greedy and corrupt government. We have a government so large it cannot be controlled, so corrupt it does what it wants and manipulates the brainwashed masses to voice support of any idiocy, so irresponsible that it has destroyed the economy and the nation's entire future with overspending and borrowing to the point of national bankruptcy, and so voracious for money that it robs the working class into poverty.
When the federal government appropriates over $50,000 a year from families like mine, when we are driving cars over 10 years old and 100,000 miles each, and trying to save for retirement since Social Security is already doomed thanks to the thieves in Congress, something is grossly wrong. Especially since in my entire live, I doubt the federal level will return ANY of that money to me in the form of services. Foreign wars do not help me one iota. Pork spending, stimulus, and bailing out huge corporations doesn't help me either.
Consequently, pretty much our entire Federal government is a form of legalized Organized Crime, and does nothing but steal massive amounts of money from the people, most of whom are too intellectually challenged to know they are supporting the system that reduces them to a life of hard labor to feed the voracious greed of a corrupt and power-mad government.
Sounds very libertarian. I'm not libertarian, but thanks for the pot-shot free response. This is the kind of explaining I was looking for.
A common thing I hear from conservatives is that taxation is a form of theft, but those same conservatives make exceptions to that (like law enforcement, military etc) But if taxing is forcibly taking money from one group of people and giving it to another then how can you justify taxes at all--even for the military? To me that's inconsistent. Either taxation is theft or it isn't. Taxation is either right or it is wrong. How do you explain this?
mackinac
I don't know a lot of conservatives who don't believe in taxes, they just want them low on themselves.
Libertarians believe from a moral ideal that taxation is theft.
I doubt many people could justify their favored method of taxation properly (since there is no real justification for the initiation of force) but I think I can justify a form of tax.
The only moral tax is one on government granted and protected privilege. This is on land, oil, minerals, water, etc.
If someone wants to have exclusive use of a non-renewable resource and have the government protect their exclusivity, they need to pay society for that right.
Um...actually I live in the U.S. Some of my family's been here since the 1600s. Thank you for your condescending post.
Sounds very libertarian. I'm not libertarian, but thanks for the pot-shot free response. This is the kind of explaining I was looking for.
Yes, I'm a Libertarian, and my post is generally the Libertarian view of government. Of course supporters are along a spectrum of how far they would go with Libertarian reforms. Since the unified Republicrat Party has pushed America so far in the opposite direction in recent decades, we would need a totally committed Libertarian President working full time for 2 terms to bring our nation to some sort of reasonable balance between the taxpayer and the Special Interests and ultra-rich that now have total power.
Ron Paul is currently the only politician in Washington who would make ANY moves to bring government back under some sort of control, and I hope (though I don't expect) that if he was elected he would push Libertarian reform at the same rapid pace as Obama has pushed our nation into Socialism and bankruptcy. More likely the powers-that-be would threaten him and his family, and have him killed if necessary, if he made more than token attempts at reform.
However, we have to start somewhere, or just accept the coming collapse of the house-of-cards and start over again after a long period of revolution, mass starvation, and violence in the streets.
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