Taxation is violent robbery.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

I still disagree that taxation is robbery, but I understand the "violent" part now.

Why do you disagree? What quality do you believe robbery must have that taxation by a state, national, or global government doesn't?

This topic is difficult to respond to, because the issue in the OP title is not the issue under discussion. Artistically, this topic is a wail of Libertarian angst. It contains the bizarre assumption that only individualism is ever right, and no form, sort, or amount of collectivism can be anything other than the work of the Devil. Americans please take note: your government, put there by you to be your representative, is not your enemy. They do not steal your taxes from you. Rather, you contribute, as everyone does, to the things that are best handled collectively. Armies are the obvious, but (thankfully) not the only, example.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but it seems like you didn't answer the simple question: What quality do you believe robbery must have that taxation by a state, national, or global government doesn't?

...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.

Hi, Pattern-chaser, I may have missed it but I still think you haven't answered my question: What quality do you believe robbery must have that taxation by a state, national, or global government doesn't?



***

Hi, Steve3007,

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.

I agree.

What I do think might be common in practice is people who philosophically consider themselves utilitarians and use vague pseudo-utilitarian reasoning to rationalize their own selfish uses of non-defensive violence. Even those humans who have never heard of utilitarians may be inclined to rationalize selfish violence and such as being for the so-called "greater good" or such.

In my possibly misleading anecdotal experience, the most dangerous and most hateful people are the ones who think that not only that "evil" exists (whatever that means) but that they themselves are the "good guys" and some other person or people are not the "good guys".

As I see it, the dictator who claims to be a benevolent dictator would tend to be even more damaging to those under his violent rule than the dictator who admits he is using non-defensive violence selfishly because he is a selfish human.

... 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.

I agree on all counts.

I don't think the definition of taxes and by extension the definition of consent are gray areas.

Rather, in practice, there are many gray areas in deciding whether a specific interaction between specific people was or would be consensual or such.

Metaphorically speaking, concepts are black-and-white, but reality is only ever various shades of gray. Some so utterly dark that we can effectively treat them as black for most intents and purposes and apply our concepts accordingly, and some so utterly non-dark that we can effectively treat them as white and apply our concepts accordingly. Others are not so subject to our inherently wrong conceptualization.

In analogy, I don't think the definition of a sphere or sphere-ness is a gray area. But whether or not a given object is a sphere (e.g. a basketball, a soccer ball, an American football, the moon, a human head, an apple, a banana, an orange, etc.) can sometimes be more or less of a gray area depending on the object in question. Needless to say, there are no actual perfect spheres. Nothing and nobody is actually perfect.

Conceptually, taxes are violent robbery, and circles are round. In reality, I believe there are no actual perfect circles, conceptualization is always fictionalization, and thinghood is an illusion.

[LuckyR]

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?

Well, I thought it was garnishment and apparently Google agrees.

[Pattern-chaser]

Hi, Pattern-chaser, I may have missed it but I still think you haven't answered my question: What quality do you believe robbery must have that taxation by a state, national, or global government doesn't?

Coercion. I think I answered this before, with that same short and simple answer. Admittedly, things get slightly more complicated when we consider that joining (or not) your own society is not an option, and avoidance is not possible or permitted. Just as you are prevented by your society - coercively ("violently"), some might say - from murdering your fellow citizens.

Robbery would be taking something that is yours. It can be argued that your taxes are owed from the time you earn the money. To take from you what you owe is not robbery, in the normally understood sense of the word.

[NickGaspar]

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.

Yes that is another important aspect of this practice. In my country that happened relative late and it is obvious. Money flows out of small towns and end up at the disposal of rich people in big cities, who can use those money to fund their businesses and investments.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Pattern-chaser, I may have missed it but I still think you haven't answered my question: What quality do you believe robbery must have that taxation by a state, national, or global government doesn't?

Coercion.

If I am understanding correctly (which is never a safe assumption), you are saying that you think taxes are paid to big governments such the USA Federal Government consensually? Is that right?

In other words, you are saying that people--including some disenfranchised pacifists--are not coerced (i.e. made to comply via threat of non-defensive violence) to pay money to the United States Federal Government?

If so, how do you explain disenfranchised pacifists sitting in a prison, thrown in their against their will by armed men with guns, for the refusing to pay taxes? How can that be occurring if taxes are consensual and do not involve coercion, in this case happening to entail not only (1) the threat of non-defensive violence but (2) the fulfilling of those threats when the coercive command is not obeyed?

[Sy Borg]

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.

Then that makes your statement that taxation is violent robbery akin to saying that deserts are violent murderers.

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.

Yup, ethical governance is a pipe dream. Remember all the talk a couple of decades ago about the triple bottom line? Then even the quadruple bottom line? That seems like a distant memory now, but the idea of ethical business appeared to be catching on, and there were consultants working full-time to teach executive teams how to become responsible corporate citizens. Back then I thought it was really going to happen, that societies would become ever more tolerant and ethical. But, thanks to gerrymanders, Rupert Murdoch and a growing undereducated, anti-science rump of corrupted faux-spirituality, the US dropped the ball and took the western world down with it.

Asian and African countries, of course, (and some South and Central American countries) have a long history of thieving, violent plutocracies that continue to this day. I thought violent autocracy was the past but it is the future. There are simply so many people that societies baulk at the cost of educating them properly. Logically, what happens when a society has ever more people, with ever more uneducated "leftovers" with almost nothing to lose?

Such a situation risks societal breakdown and gross disorder, which always results in ever more draconian governance. Extreme inequality always requires the threat of violence, otherwise people would simply claim the excess from the wealthy.

[Steve3007]

Well, I thought it was garnishment and apparently Google agrees.

Yes, on closer inspection you appear to be right. My mistake. I guess it's just another funny aspect of the English language that the same word can refer to legally seizing money and putting a dollop of ketchup on it. All good material for comedians.

[Steve3007]

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.

If the EU was taking that much per taxpayer then they'd have taken over as the funder of public services like healthcare and education. That function, and that kind of scale of taxation, is currently provided by national governments so I think, at least for the purposes of discussing taxation, it's more accurate to consider national governments than supra-national clubs.

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.

I disagree. My claim was that a centralized, taxation funded healthcare system is more efficient, in many ways, than a system consisting of many competing private companies. The opposite of that would be that it's less efficient. Claiming that per capita spending is less in the UK than in the US doesn't, in itself, demonstrate either. That's just the buck. We also need to consider the bang, and the ratio between the two.

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.

All you're really doing there is begging the question by saying the equivalent of: "the reason I think healthcare provided by the free market is more efficient than that provided by the government is that things provided by the free market are more efficient than things provided by the government."

I think it's fairly well established that the US healthcare system provides less bang for the buck than most others in the developed world. The reasons for that are more debated than the truth of it. One of the arguments in that debate (but certainly not the only one) is that although free market competition is a fantastic mechanism for driving innovation and efficiency in a lot of circumstances, it's not a panacea. There are some circumstances in which the duplication of effort, lack of standardization and lack of economies of scale inherent in delivering services using the free market make it less efficient, not more. And there are some services which no individual player in the market has an incentive to deliver, even though they and other players will benefit from their delivery, so they must be delivered centrally if we want them at all.

Some others argue the opposite, and say that the reason the US healthcare system is apparently so inefficient is that it's not sufficiently left to the free market. Then there are usually technical discussions on details of the history of things like Medicare and Medicaid, going back to FDR or earlier. Perhaps too detailed for a philosophical discussion!

No, it's essentially rent, ... Regardless, bottom line, the condo fee is consensual.

OK. In that case, I'm not in favour of funding healthcare and education like condo community fees. I'm not in favour of the payments towards their costs being optional/consensual. I'm in favour of the use of violent robbery to fund them. Whether that's violent robbery at a national or local scale isn't the central issue to me. As long as it's violent robbery.

[Pattern-chaser]

Hi, Pattern-chaser, I may have missed it but I still think you haven't answered my question: What quality do you believe robbery must have that taxation by a state, national, or global government doesn't?

Coercion.

If I am understanding correctly (which is never a safe assumption), you are saying that you think taxes are paid to big governments such the USA Federal Government consensually? Is that right?

In other words, you are saying that people--including some disenfranchised pacifists--are not coerced (i.e. made to comply via threat of non-defensive violence) to pay money to the United States Federal Government?

OK, look at it this way: Among other benefits, your society enables/allows you to earn money (by some means). You pay a proportion of your earnings to society, in return for the opportunity to earn it in the first place. It's a sort-of contract condition. The tax belongs to society, so it cannot be robbery to collect it. It is already the property of society. Those who withhold this contribution are guilty of theft, which is why they are pursued and punished. Those who avoid taxes are robbers, guilty of robbery. And, to the extent that robbery is 'violent', these people are violent too.

[Steve3007]

It's a sort-of contract condition. The tax belongs to society, so it cannot be robbery to collect it. It is already the property of society.

I think this fits roughly with Sculptor1's earlier point, which is expressed in the terminology of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) which has been discussed previously here in a couple of topics.

https://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums ... 38#p382238

According to MMT, it is a convenient but simplistic fiction to see taxes as payment from us to the government which they then use to pay public sector workers. Rather, since governments create and destroy the currency in which they levy taxes, taxation is an integral part of the process of giving that money value. People who don't want to pay taxes can refrain from using the government's money and use a different means of exchange. If, for example, I did a favour for you in return for you doing a favour for me, even if we decided that the exchange rate between our favours wasn't 1:1, it's difficult to see how the taxman could get involved.

Of course, we could then consider creating our own currency. We could call it, say, bitcoin. If that currency starts to look like it's going to be a seriously viable everyday means of exchange, independent from currencies created and controlled by a government and its central bank, the government might start considering how it can get a piece of the action.

[Pattern-chaser]

According to MMT, it is a convenient but simplistic fiction to see taxes as payment from us to the government...

OK, I don't have the stamina for a protracted financial discussion, especially as I know so little about its technicalities. I offer this one comment, though:

Taxes are payments from us to ... us. There is no "government", there is only us. To see "the government" as separate or different from "us" is a convenient but simplistic fiction, IMO.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Pattern-chaser, I may have missed it but I still think you haven't answered my question: What quality do you believe robbery must have that taxation by a state, national, or global government doesn't?

Coercion.

If I am understanding correctly (which is never a safe assumption), you are saying that you think taxes are paid to big governments such the USA Federal Government consensually? Is that right?

In other words, you are saying that people--including some disenfranchised pacifists--are not coerced (i.e. made to comply via threat of non-defensive violence) to pay money to the United States Federal Government?

OK, look at it this way: Among other benefits, your society enables/allows you to earn money (by some means). You pay a proportion of your earnings to society, in return for the opportunity to earn it in the first place. It's a sort-of contract condition. The tax belongs to society, so it cannot be robbery to collect it. It is already the property of society.

Sorry, I don't understand what you are trying to say, in part because I don't understand what it means for something to "belong to society". It seems like it may be a case of the Pathetic Fallacy, but I can't be sure. Is it much different than claiming my money belongs to the solar system or the Sun? I understand what it means for humans to do non-defensive violence to other humans, but not for "society" to murder/rape/rob humans or vice versa.

In any case, are you able to provide yes/no answers to my earlier questions (or if not at least explain more directly why you cannot answer yes or no):

[1] If I am understanding correctly (which is never a safe assumption), you are saying that you think taxes are paid to big governments such the USA Federal Government consensually? Is that right?

[2] In other words, you are saying that people--including some disenfranchised pacifists--are not coerced (i.e. made to comply via threat of non-defensive violence) to pay money to the United States Federal Government?

Taxes are payments from us to ... us. There is no "government", there is only us. To see "the government" as separate or different from "us" is a convenient but simplistic fiction, IMO.

If by "us" you mean 'humans' then I agree.

Taxes are payments made non-consensually by some humans to other humans under the threat of violence; correct?

Governments are like corporations in that they are abstract entities describing the behavior of groups of humans, typically large groups of humans (e.g. the SS) acting under the leadership of much fewer humans (e.g. Hitler). I agree it would, for instance, be more accurate to say a specific human holding a gun and Hitler who may never pulled a literal trigger together committed murder (or rape or robbery) than to say the Nazi government did it, but I wouldn't say the latter is necessarily incorrect. Similarly, it wouldn't necessarily be incorrect to say that the Sicilian Mafia killed Barbara Asta. Similarly, it wouldn't necessarily be incorrect to say that the corporation Pfizer killed 11 Nigerian children in 1996. But, more strictly speaking, ultimately those are merely abstract ways of saying that some humans killed other humans.

In that way, one could be an equal shareholder in a bank and still be violently "robbed by the bank" or "killed by the bank" because the individual is not the bank, and the bank is just an abstract placeholder for what some humans are doing. The same goes if it is not a bank but some other corporation, or a government, or a mafia, or a mob. Humans cannot be absolved for their non-defensive violence by hiding behind abstract concepts representing pseudo-collective behavior because there will still be dead bodies on the ground with bullet holes in them, and there will still be pacifists in prison violently thrown in there, and humans did that, some humans to other humans.

Saying Pfizer killed children wouldn't mean the humans involved didn't do it. It would mean the exact opposite: It's an abstract imprecise way to say that the humans involved killed children; And in that way it is not technically incorrect to say.

[marigold_23]

As I see it, you are correct to say taxation is "violent robbery"... but if it is truly non-defensive, I believe it is a good kind of non-defensive violence to the extent that is is necessary for civilized society... to that extent, taxation does "defend" some status I think it is necessary that taxation be revolutionized to prevent unjust gaps between classes, but I don't believe class can or should be eliminated... rather I believe it is the responsibility of government to establish an economic system which rewards humanitarianism and punishes narcissism... currently and throughout all of history, natural selection has, to a large extent, favored greed and narcissism... government should implement a new social natural selection by which sustainable social behavior such as selflessness, intellectualism, consideration, empathy, etc... are rewarded with greater influence... a higher status in society specific to one's positive influence in that area of society... and necessarily, a selection against anti-intellectual, unsustainable, lazy, selfish narcissistic behavior. As it stands, capitalism (which is the determining factor of the current class structure) favors the selfish and unsustainable, anti-intellectual, primitive, brutish behavior... This is also the system which taxation emerges from and currently serves, and that is unjust... but taxation is meant to be an appropriate contribution from a citizen to the society in which he or she exists... if a just society exists, so does a just taxation (allowing the provision for a citizen to leave that society, a provision which I believe must exist in order for any social contract to be legitimate)

I am of the opinion that all violence is technically defensive as it is seen according to the perpetrator. There is no true difference in my opinion between the motivation for violence in the expression of conquest (serving a psychological function for security [such as greater food security], dominance, or even the most terrible motivation of sadistic playfulness) and the motivation for defensive violence which would be motivated by the same instincts, except reacting in order to escape a negative stimulation (defensive)... if a person is compared to a magnet, and it reacts with attraction in one direction or repulsion in the other, we must conclude that it is the same motivation in either direction... the same instinctual action. To whatever extent action serves some underlying motivation or instinct (which seems to be an absolute extent with regard to this context where we are attributing the act to the perpetrator), the act may be said to defend that motivation or instinct, even as the act seems offensive as opposed to defensive.

[Steve3007]

What I do think might be common in practice is people who philosophically consider themselves utilitarians and use vague pseudo-utilitarian reasoning to rationalize their own selfish uses of non-defensive violence. Even those humans who have never heard of utilitarians may be inclined to rationalize selfish violence and such as being for the so-called "greater good" or such.

In my possibly misleading anecdotal experience, the most dangerous and most hateful people are the ones who think that not only that "evil" exists (whatever that means) but that they themselves are the "good guys" and some other person or people are not the "good guys".

As I see it, the dictator who claims to be a benevolent dictator would tend to be even more damaging to those under his violent rule than the dictator who admits he is using non-defensive violence selfishly because he is a selfish human.

So would you regard taxation as (as you put it) selfish violence which people rationalize for the so-called "greater good"? Would you literally extend that to all taxation by national governments? Even the most staunch libertarians usually tend to think that taxation is desirable for funding the judiciary and police, if nothing else. In my experience, almost nobody would advocate what you appear to advocate - no taxes whatsoever.

To what extent do you think your views on this are influenced by your more specific views on the US government's so-called "war on drugs" and the legal status of marijuana? Those are issues that you mention a lot and on which you appear to have strong views, partly based on personal experiences.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

As I see it, you are correct to say taxation is "violent robbery"... but if it is truly non-defensive, I believe it is a good kind of non-defensive violence to the extent that is is necessary for civilized society...

Thank you for your comments and agreement.

I don't agree think I agree that non-defensive violence is necessary for civilized society. However, I might use the terms different than you and define the word civilized such that it effectively just means nonviolent by definition.

I am of the opinion that all violence is technically defensive as it is seen according to the perpetrator. There is no true difference in my opinion between the motivation for violence in the expression of conquest (serving a psychological function for security [such as greater food security], dominance, or even the most terrible motivation of sadistic playfulness) and the motivation for defensive violence which would be motivated by the same instincts, except reacting in order to escape a negative stimulation (defensive)...

If I am understanding correctly, you are using the word 'defensive' to mean anything that protects oneself from harm or suffering at all in any way. If so, that would mean that we could say a lion is 'defending' itself (from starvation) by killing and eating an innocent antelope against the antelope's will. As you wisely point out, such a definition of defensive would essentially render all violence as defensive.

I don't think that's necessarily a wrong way to use words as words are very equivocal.

It's not the way I use the word.

They way I use the concept of defensive violence versus non-defensive violence is such that defensive violence cannot exist without non-defensive violence. In other words, in theory, if you had a society in which nobody was willing (or able) to use non-defensive violence, then in theory it would logically have to be the case that no violence occurs at all.

Thus, my usage of the word defensive is based on the concept of the initiation of violence (including coercion via the threat of violence). In other words, it is analogous to of Kant's categorical imperative, at least for someone who like me overall prefers to be nonviolence and non-aggression.


***

What I do think might be common in practice is people who philosophically consider themselves utilitarians and use vague pseudo-utilitarian reasoning to rationalize their own selfish uses of non-defensive violence. Even those humans who have never heard of utilitarians may be inclined to rationalize selfish violence and such as being for the so-called "greater good" or such.

In my possibly misleading anecdotal experience, the most dangerous and most hateful people are the ones who think that not only that "evil" exists (whatever that means) but that they themselves are the "good guys" and some other person or people are not the "good guys".

As I see it, the dictator who claims to be a benevolent dictator would tend to be even more damaging to those under his violent rule than the dictator who admits he is using non-defensive violence selfishly because he is a selfish human.

So would you regard taxation as (as you put it) selfish violence which people rationalize for the so-called "greater good"?

Often yes. Always no.

I am sure some people murder out of unselfishness, for instance, but I would bet that is the exception, not the rule. The same goes for taxes by big governments on the national scale, and other non-defensive violence committed by big governments on huge national scales.

Regarding people who commit non-defensive violence (e.g. murder, rape, robbery, slavery, etc.), when they do it under the claim that they believe it is in the utilitarian "greater good" or some other moralistic/superstitious "greater good", I think that most of the time that it is a some kind rationalization or self-deceiving excuse for selfishness. I don't doubt that there are a few true believers paving that road to hell (meaning the chaos of violence) with allegedly good intentions; I just think they are the minority, the exception.

The same goes for people who murder in the name of some god, gods, or other theistic religion, rather than just utilitarianism or moral superstition. Most of the time, I think it's an excuse. But I am sure there are a few unselfish true believers who actually believe in something I don't, such as utilitarianism, moral superstition, or the idea of a almighty god who for some reason loves violence and maybe rewards his most violent murderous followers with virgins in a heavenly afterlife.

In my experience, almost nobody would advocate what you appear to advocate - no taxes whatsoever.

While I would typically jump at the chance to be an exceptional human and utterly not fit in with humans and there awful moral superstitions and actual codified written political laws, both equally made-up, unfortunately I don't think that's an accurate description of my political advocacy insofar as I engage in any political advocacy.

To what extent do you think your views on this are influenced by your more specific views on the US government's so-called "war on drugs" and the legal status of marijuana?

Thanks for asking. My answer is, not much.

I have much more radical views in terms of my philosophy of nonviolence than simply legalizing marijuana across the United States at the national scale. That particular example just happens to be less of gray area on which I can more easily start to process other people's general attitudes regarding non-defensive violence at this particular point in human history. Had I lived a hundred years ago I may have focused more on martial rape, or two hundred years ago on slavery of black people, or a couple thousand years ago on the execution of Jesus and Socrates. In one way, my goal is to use an example that is so close to the cusp of being history that it may crack people's bias towards the moral superstitions or political laws of their time, as if their era of humans, their one religion, or their own government was the special one of countless that finally figured it out and put violence and classism to good use and isn't utterly silly and baseless like rest.

My concern about mass incarceration is based primarily on the millions of human beings sitting in jails and prisons right now, not some single relatively minor run-in with police that this one human that is me had. Each of those millions of peaceful human beings sitting in a cell has a skull, and inside each skull is an entire universe. And many among us would gleefully have them rot in a cell for the rest of their lives; to those humans I have little to say. I can tell you stories of my many other crimes and multiple other run-ins with police, as well many much more traumatizing personal experiences that don't usually involve a government, but they have little rhetorical value on the Philosophy Forums, and certainly they won't earn me any brownie points with those who worship the dictates of the violent human rulers or the superstitious moral laws of their time and place.

My most traumatizing experiences that keep me up at night are probably secondhand, though. What pops to mind first is the ones I've read about in non-fiction books written by concentration camp survivors and Soviet gulag survivors. I've been online penpals so to speak with people who have gone over a week without eating because they literally couldn't afford it.

Relative to most humans alive today, I have it so easy, and always have. Relative to most humans alive throughout history, I have it so easy, and always have.

This life of mine is so relatively easy for me, so peaceful, so wealth-ridden that it's hard to not notice all the incredible amounts of violence occurring, all the people starving to death, all the peaceful people rotting in jails and prisons and just ignore them and act like any of this is remotely civilized in the slightest or that the concept of it being civilized even makes sense or has meaning. If I have passion or obsessive areas of interest (e.g. the insanely violent war on drugs) that is where it comes from.