Taxation is violent robbery.

[Steve3007]

(I meant " it ought to be regarded as illegal in your view.")

[Steve3007]

Out of interest, the above is a breakdown of current forecast annual public sector spending (violent robbery spending) in the UK. Source.
As you can see, defence is a relatively small part. Pre-covid, the biggest single bloc of spending was on health (NHS).

[Steve3007]

Here's something broadly similar (but from a couple of years ago, so no Covid related stuff) for the US. Source.

Here too, it seems, Healthcare education and pensions account for over half and defense is a substantial chunk but certainly not most of it.

[Steve3007]

I missed your answer to this one, so I'll deal with it here.

I take your point and therefore I conclude that I am in favour of at least one form of violent robbery - the one that constitutes levying taxes to pay for things like schools and hospitals.

Fair enough. If you don't mind the over-the-top ridiculous unrealistic hypothetical question, if you knew for certain you could cure cancer by murdering an entire school full of innocent children, would you?

No.

2. [The violent robbery that is taxation] is a levy that finances the things that are most effective when done collectively. (Note: this doesn't mean these things need to be done. We don't need to do anything ever. We could just lie on the ground until we die.)

If that's true, then logically that must mean--for example--that the War on Drugs, as done by the United States government with literally tens of billions of taxpayer dollars every year, is something that is "most effective when done collectively"; is that correct?

I disagree that it logically means that. My statement was that taxation finances things that are most effective when done collectively. It doesn't follow that the War on Drugs is such a thing. i.e. it doesn't follow that everything every government in the world does using tax revenues is something I believe to be best done collectively, or even something I believe they should be doing at all. It simply follows that, in my view, there exist some things that are most effectively done collectively, and they are funded by taxation.

Are you personally in favour of any of the things I mentioned earlier (judiciary, policing, education, healthcare, etc) being funded using the violent robbery known as taxation, even though we don't need to do so? As I've said, I am.

Generally speaking, if able to vote directly on the matter, I would not vote in favor of a big government (e.g. the United States government or some future global government) using violence to violently rob pacifists to fund any of those four things (judiciary, policing, education, healthcare) at the national/federal level.

Understood. As I've indicated, I would. And I have done so at every general election since I was 18.

However, my hypothetical vote may depend on the specifics of the option(s) given to me and my limited power to make a decision in that hypothetical situation. For instance, if the robbery already took place, and I wasn't able to return the robbed money already violently stolen, and I had to choose between using the violently stolen money to fund the War on Drugs or giving the violently stolen money to a collection of elementary schools, I would generally choose the latter.

Understood.

Nonetheless, as explained in the OP of my topic Man Is Not Fit to Govern Man, I would rather die than become a murderer (or an engager in similar non-defensive violence, such as violent robbery).

It's difficult to tell if I too would rather die than become a murderer, because if I became a murderer it might well require my personality to entirely change. So let's just say, with my personality as it is now, I very much don't want to murder anyone and I very much don't want non-defensive violence perpetrated on anyone, with the exception of taxation to fund public services. I'm very much in favour of that particular kind of non-defensive violence.

I would not murder an innocent fat man by pushing the innocent fat man in front of a trolley to save 5 other people.

Neither would I.

But I know many others are willing to commit such (allegedly) utilitarian murder and violence, and that is their choice just as my choices are mine.

I know that is a commonly stated utilitarian position. I know of nobody who would actually adhere to it in practice. I suspect that kind of strict adherence to utilitarianism, though frequently discussed in places like philosophy forums, is very rare in practice.

[Pattern-chaser]

Your reply here totally ignores my point (how can we have a collective agreement when I have never participated or been invited to participate in creating one?)...

This is the child's lament: "I never asked to be born!" And it is so, of course: a child is not consulted before its own conception. Similarly, you must be a member of the society you live in. It is unavoidable and non-negotiable. This kind of 'injustice' is part of living in the real world. The lunacy of Individualism makes matters like these much worse, as its adherents tell themselves that no-one and nothing has the right to make them do something they don't want to do. This denies the nature of humanity as social creatures, and the very existence of human society. Society offers us many benefits (without asking, as you observe) and it requires many things from us in return (also without asking).

Americans are 'violently' coerced by their society not to murder or rape one another. Individuals are not given a choice in this; they are required to comply. This kind of 'violence' is normally seen by citizens as something much more positive, but lunatics and Libertarians are different, it seems.

Sorry, but no, it isn't the child lament; it is the pig farm's lament.
The pig farm is no part of any society. To suggest otherwise sounds like such a big joke to me.
To say that the pig in the pig farm is violently prevented from being attacked during his/her life time by other pigs is something the farmed pig ought to be grateful for is also quite humorous in my opinion.
I think calling the complaint of the pig farm "lunacy" is a form of hate speech. It should be expected from the pig farmer in reply to the pig farm's lament.

I'm sorry, but I cannot recognise in your words a reply to what I wrote.

What is this pig farm, and what is "the pig farm's lament"?

And what on Earth is your suggestion of hate speech all about?

Do you have a comprehensible response to my words, I wonder? If so, what is it, please?

[NickGaspar]

I doubt that too many would feel the same about tax if the wealthy paid their fair share, and if governments weren't beholden to lobbyists from those from the fossil fuel, arms, pharma, security and alcohol industries, religions and pubs and clubs. All have benefited from government largesse and/or favours at the expense of the wellbeing of regular citizens

Great points sir.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

So what's the alternative? Voluntary tax payments? Seriously? Folks already drive uninsured (when it is mandated). Have you been in an accident with an uninsured motorist? Not fun. Folks already dodge taxes (to pay for services you seem to agree are a desirable thing). Can't wait to hear your ideas.

Having an accident with an uninsured motorist is not fun at all!!!!! You are right about that!
The problem with taxation is that, those in charge collect people's money with the intent to fund services and products of their community. In most modern countries the services are nonexistent the infrastructure collapses, the surplus produced is channeled to lobbyists and secret loans and economic scandals are always making the headlines in news.
People realize that and they react accordingly. They feel no guilt cheating because it is the norm. Experiments in social sciences on corruption have proved again and again that the behavior of people is affected by the behavior of those in charge.

I happen to live in a country (Greece) where tax evasion is a necessity practicel because if people paid all their taxes (small businesses have to pay up ~64-70% of their revenue!) they would mathematically be out of business in a year and a half. Accountants try to hide the earnings of their clients so that they don't end up with zero clients in a year or two!

Corrupted politicians, bankers and international corporations split the surplus of the production of this country among them selves. Big Private companies are bailed out every ~five to ten years while the tax payer has to pay for the CEOs bonuses.
This is a common practice in all modern countries but in different intensities.

I totally agree.

It's worth noting that we aren't even talking about so-called "taxes" happening at the community level to fund local things in the community like a shared a pool, a neighborhood watch program, a local sheriff department, or a local school--which I would not consider to necessarily be taxes. Neither the public pools in my town nor the public schools in my town are primarily funded by the state (Connecticut) nor the federal United States Federal Government. In regard to the federal taxes especially, money flows out of our town and into the much richer hands of much richer people. The funding of local services are handled locally here.

We are left to pay for our local services with what's left after the federal government violently steals what they want under the direction of the self-serving millionaires serving in Congress a thousand miles away in DC.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

I doubt that too many would feel the same about tax if the wealthy paid their fair share, and if governments weren't beholden to lobbyists...

Perhaps but that to me is like saying people might not feel the same about the desert if it wasn't hot, dry, and sunny.

To say that governments serving the wealthy is the rule not the exception is an understatement.

It was true of the Roman Empire. It was true of the Persian Empire. It was true of the various European monarchs and their various acts of imperialism.

The idea of the benevolent dictator, or even worse a mob of powerful humans (i.e. a ruling class) acting together as a benevolent dictator, is a pipe dream, in my opinion.

History has shown time and time again what it is like when man governs man, and the results are fundamentally always the same: violent plutocracy or oligarchy of one kind or another.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Okay, I guess we should start at the beginning (I was jumping ahead in the conversation without nailing down the basics). If I have a paving company and you want your driveway repaired and after the work is completed, I send you a bill. You decide payment is optional and "opt" not to pay me. I sic a collection agency on you, take you to court and have your wages garnished to pay what you owe me. Did I commit "violent robbery" against you? Am I a violent robber?

I don't know. It seems like a gray area to me (similar to the way so-called "taxes" at the very local level are a gray area). That wise interesting question of yours is essentially explored in my other topic, Time and Consent.

[Steve3007]

... It seems like a gray area to me (similar to the way so-called "taxes" at the very local level are a gray area)...

I don't think the definition of tax needs to to be a grey area. I'd say a tax is a non-voluntary payment that doesn't individually buy some product or service but which goes into a collective pot which is then used to pay for things. By "non-voluntary" I mean any payment whereby refusing to pay results in punishment. Any such punishment is what you've referred to as non-defensive violence.

Whether it's local or national, if it fits that description, it's a tax. Where I live (UK) I pay taxes like income tax and VAT (sales tax) which go the central government treasury. I also pay a local tax called council tax which pays for various local services (e.g. garbage collection). They're both equally involuntary so they're both forms of tax, or, in your terminology, violent robbery.

[Pattern-chaser]

...the federal government violently steals what they want under the direction of the self-serving millionaires serving in Congress a thousand miles away in DC.

OK, isn't this a matter of you (the citizens of the USA) electing the wrong people to represent you? I don't think the problem you describe is with taxes, but with those you have appointed to levy (or not) those taxes. I totally agree that the rich manipulate, lie and steal to obtain even more money than they already have. But the subject of taxation is a different one, I suggest.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

So I've learnt that some violent robberies are not as bad as the phrase "violent robbery" might previously have led me to believe. It turns out I get violently robbed every month when I get paid and every day when I buy something. It feels pretty good! One of the parts of it that feels good is that I get to live in a society with near universal education and healthcare where it's relatively safe to walk the streets. Three cheers for violent robbery!

May I ask which country you live in?

Sure. UK.

From totally guessing to absolutely 100% certain, how certain are you that, without violent robbery at the national scale, there would have to absolutely be a reduction in both (1) total spending on education and healthcare, and (2) the actual value of services received. (It's important to note the difference between those two since big national governments arguably have a way of--for instance--spending $100,000 to provide $100 of service.)

This, it seems, is the argument about the relative efficiencies of products and services provided by free markets and similar products and services provided via violent robbery (taxation) by the government. Conventional free market wisdom is of course that the former is always more efficient than the latter because people are generally less efficient when spending other people's (violently stolen) money than when spending their own.

These are large complex issues so I can't be anything like 100% certain, but in the case of healthcare at least the evidence seems to be that in many respects the central free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare system funded by violent robbery is more efficient than that provided by the market. The main reasons for this seem to be economies of scale and less duplication of effort. The NHS in the UK, for example, [spends] far less per citizen than the average amount spent per citizen on healthcare in the US, for example. On education, I don't know.

Since you live in the UK, I think a more apt comparison for our situation with the federal system in the United States would be imaging that the EU was taxing you $27,000 USD per year (~20,000 GBP) in addition to the taxes you would pay to the UK for state-wide services and any local taxes you pay for more local services.

Very technically, your argument provides the opposite evidence of your claim, in that you've claimed that per capita spending is less in the UK on healthcare than in the USA. Though, granted, it is hard to say if in the USA people get the same, less, or equal bang for their buck at the hospitals, but considering the tendency for bloat and pork in large-scale government spending and the alleged efficiencies of a more free market system, I'd bet that outcomes per dollar (or pound) spent are actually better in the USA's healthcare system than the UK's on average with exceptions. It would be hard to control for other factors (e.g. body weight and pre-existing conditions in the patient) but in theory it could be compared by taking some standardized procedure (e.g. brain surgery to remove cancerous tumors) and then comparing the average statistical results. Or by measuring how many people travel to the other place for healthcare services under belief they will get better overall care and/or bang for their buck.

Does the UK buy its Covid vaccines from private American companies? That's not a rhetorical question; I genuinely do not know and am curious.

Had they not been expensively put in prison using money robbed from taxpayers, would the pacifists and other victims in prison right now not be able or willing to help educate their own children, not able to give money to local schools, not able to pay their condo community fees (or local town pseudo-taxes)?

I don't know exactly what a condo community fee is, but presumably it's a local violent robbery.

No, it's essentially rent, like what an adult child living in their parent's basement might agree to pay their parents to be allowed to live in the house.

A rent and/or condo fee is literally covered by a contractual agreement on actual paper, hand signed by human beings in advance before agreeing to move in and pay the condo fee. Well, I suppose in the digital age it can now be digitally signed, but you get the point.

If someone fails to pay their debts from such a contract, it's typically a civil matter handled non-violently by civil not criminal courts, and one can escape the debt entirely by declaring bankruptcy. However, as explained in the book Debt Cleanse, even bankruptcy is not usually needed for one to implement the arguably clever strategy of simply not paying their debts, even if those debts are in the millions as was the case for the author of that book. In American, such non-payment of contractual debt typically merely leads to one's credit score being temporarily damaged; typically, no men with guns will come after someone for not repaying a payday lender, for instance.

In the USA, in most local jurisdictions, there are typically processes to forcefully evict long-time squatters and those who fail to pay their rent/mortgages for months, but it's actually a very slow process, and generally at worst for the squatter it ends with the local sheriff coming down and watching as the property owner removes moves the squatters' stuff to the curb and re-keys the property. In other words, failure to pay rent as contractually agreed does not result in a trespassing arrest or such.

Regardless, bottom line, the condo fee is consensual.

[Steve3007]

I'll just do this one for now because it's relatively quick and factual:

Does the UK buy its Covid vaccines from private American companies? That's not a rhetorical question; I genuinely do not know and am curious.

The two main Covid vaccines in the UK, at least up to now, have been the Oxford/AstraZeneca one and the Pfizer one. The first was developed by a collaboration between Oxford University and AstraZeneca (a UK/Swedish multinational pharmaceutical company) and the second was developed by Pfizer (a US multinational pharmaceutical company).

[LuckyR]

Okay, I guess we should start at the beginning (I was jumping ahead in the conversation without nailing down the basics). If I have a paving company and you want your driveway repaired and after the work is completed, I send you a bill. You decide payment is optional and "opt" not to pay me. I sic a collection agency on you, take you to court and have your wages garnished to pay what you owe me. Did I commit "violent robbery" against you? Am I a violent robber?

I don't know. It seems like a gray area to me (similar to the way so-called "taxes" at the very local level are a gray area). That wise interesting question of yours is essentially explored in my other topic, Time and Consent.

You are free, of course to answer any way you want, but until you answer "yes", this thread is moot.

[Steve3007]

I sic a collection agency on you, take you to court and have your wages garnished to pay what you owe me.

This is a real nit-picking point (sorry), but shouldn't that be "garnered"? Wouldn't garnishing somebody's wages involve putting some kind of salad dressing on them?