Taxation is violent robbery.
- Sculptor1
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.
Imagine a world in which roads and sidewalks were privatised.
Where each family had to pay directly for their children to go to school.
Where the armed forces were not paid by the government but had to gather their salaries by protection rackets, conquest and invasion.
Where there was no CDC, no free vaccinations programs.
- NickGaspar
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.
[/quote]
No I am not. I am describing money as it is; fiat.
If you are naive enough to think that way, then stop taking their filthy money and break your chains - no one is stopping you.Of course you are presenting an idealistic perspective. The fact is that all governments are in debt to private banks. Money in circulations are not the product of the surplus of a society but of its dept to them....yrw.
Heirarchies were built, protection was offered.-I thought you were a serious interlocutor...but obviously you are not. Here is where the "violence' is introduced by the state. We are social creatures and institutions take advantage of that biological "need". Also you will find useful to do a research and see historically how all the attempts to establish a different monetary medium within an established state went......
Things have moved on since then.
No, Taxation started thousands of years before ancient and archaic Greece.-Yes the key word is "protection"...like let's say, whores and their pimps...an other violent relationship. This is what Scott is implying I guess. Thanks for that word.
Before him was the (w)anax. And taxation and the idea of the centralised redistributive economy started in the Levant millenia before Greece
You have a very poor understanding of ancient history. And clearly you do not understand how that mght be relevant today.lol...I never said when taxation started! I am only identifying the registered terms in western civilization and their origins. The next time you go to a museum and read about a "Basilica" you will know that the initial purpose of that design was to store the surplus grain of a society.
Originally "tax" was in the form of food and goods, until transfered to little bits of precious metal. Copper rings, small ingots were more conveniet forms of exchange. By the time the Basileus was actually a king, and not more like a "big man" on the antroplogical scale what emerged from the first dark age was coin in silver.
The silver stater became pretty much ubiquious througout the Med, until Rome minted smaller denominations in bronze, and higher in gold.
Before Rome money was cashed out in actual intrinsice value of the metals. But as time went on, money gained a faith in which the value stopped relating to intrinsic value bu extrinsic values of the demonination. Black billion replaced silver, but these debased issued lost vlues outside the empire. From that time to about 120 years ago values of money were a mix of extrinsice and extrinsic, paper money was one example - promisary notes.
Eventually the silver and gold standards were completely abandoned, and money was purely notional.
But tax is a fact of life for ALL civilised societies.
The alternative is chaos.
[/quote]
- Again you are focusing on the ideal not the real and you are attacking a strawman. We are criticizing how taxation is implemented and your answer is a vague deepity (But tax is a fact of life for ALL civilised societies.The alternative is chaos.)
"Tax" is essential for a society but not in the way taxation is applied and not necessary in a monetary form.
They are many ways to contribute to a society and many ways to monitor the surplus and how it is distributed.
We have the technology to do it, but we still rely on pseudo philosophical ideologies (economics) to do it.
You need to take an academic course or two on Human behavior before attempting to sell an imaginary product.
take care...
- NickGaspar
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.
I see you are unable to think clearly.Sculptor1 wrote: ↑May 14th, 2021, 8:43 am If you don't like tax, then boo hoo.
Imagine a world in which roads and sidewalks were privatised.
Where each family had to pay directly for their children to go to school.
Where the armed forces were not paid by the government but had to gather their salaries by protection rackets, conquest and invasion.
Where there was no CDC, no free vaccinations programs.
you are attacking your own strawmen....
- Sculptor1
- Posts: 7091
- Joined: May 16th, 2019, 5:35 am
Re: Taxation is violent robbery.
Is this all you have to offer?NickGaspar wrote: ↑May 14th, 2021, 9:09 amI see you are unable to think clearly.Sculptor1 wrote: ↑May 14th, 2021, 8:43 am If you don't like tax, then boo hoo.
Imagine a world in which roads and sidewalks were privatised.
Where each family had to pay directly for their children to go to school.
Where the armed forces were not paid by the government but had to gather their salaries by protection rackets, conquest and invasion.
Where there was no CDC, no free vaccinations programs.
you are attacking your own strawmen....
- Sculptor1
- Posts: 7091
- Joined: May 16th, 2019, 5:35 am
Re: Taxation is violent robbery.
Please marshal your thoughts and get back to me. But spare me the flim-flam about Basileis. I srudied Ancient History so am not going to be bamboozled by fancy words.NickGaspar wrote: ↑May 14th, 2021, 9:06 am "Tax" is essential for a society but not in the way taxation is applied and not necessary in a monetary form.
They are many ways to contribute to a society and many ways to monitor the surplus and how it is distributed.
We have the technology to do it, but we still rely on pseudo philosophical ideologies (economics) to do it.
You need to take an academic course or two on Human behavior before attempting to sell an imaginary product.
take care...
- NickGaspar
- Posts: 656
- Joined: October 8th, 2019, 5:45 am
- Favorite Philosopher: Many
Re: Taxation is violent robbery.
Correct. We are evaluating the method of application and the produced outcome, not how necessary or desirable this concept is.Scott wrote: ↑May 5th, 2021, 5:16 pm To be clear, the topic is not "are taxes necessary". Also, the topic is not "do you support taxes".
It's possible for a person to simultaneously believe all three of the following:
1. Taxation is violent robbery.
2. Taxation is necessary.
3. Taxation is good and desirable.
This particular forum topic is about whether #1 is true. It is not about #2 or #3.
There are many other topics on the forums about utilitarian violence, or other reasons people have for engaging in or supporting the commission of non-defensive non-consensual violence. One such topic is the following:
Intentional non-defensive killing - Do you always oppose it?
And here is another topic that I just made now:
Would you murder an innocent child with your bare hands to cure cancer?
Of course, anyone is free to make a new topic about something else, such as whether taxation is necessary, or whether organized violent robbery is ever desirable.
Some just can't distinguish those three aspects so they treat them as one monolithic position committing a strawman fallacy in the process.
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- Joined: June 15th, 2011, 5:53 pm
Re: Taxation is violent robbery.
OK. In the UK we pay taxes on income and profits. If I own an asset, like bitcoin or shares, I only pay tax if/when I sell those assets and realize a profit. For example, I currently have a portfolio of shares/stocks that are currently showing a modest "paper profit". I only pay tax on that profit (if it exceeds the annual capital gains tax allowance) if/when I sell those stocks. Similarly for a friend of mine who has made quite a large profit buying bitcoin.Scott wrote:In the USA, you have to pay taxes on income to the federal government no matter what currency you earn it in. If you gamble at a casino with bitcoin, you would still be legally required to report your winnings and pay taxes them. This applies to all USA citizens even if they do not live in the USA and even those earning are earned outside the USA in a currency other than USD...
- Sy Borg
- Site Admin
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Re: Taxation is violent robbery.
Same here. Some protection from capital gains taxes can be achieved via superannuation, trusts and whatever financial tricks that billionaires' accountants use to keep their taxes lower than everyone elses.Steve3007 wrote: ↑May 17th, 2021, 11:21 amOK. In the UK we pay taxes on income and profits. If I own an asset, like bitcoin or shares, I only pay tax if/when I sell those assets and realize a profit. For example, I currently have a portfolio of shares/stocks that are currently showing a modest "paper profit". I only pay tax on that profit (if it exceeds the annual capital gains tax allowance) if/when I sell those stocks. Similarly for a friend of mine who has made quite a large profit buying bitcoin.Scott wrote:In the USA, you have to pay taxes on income to the federal government no matter what currency you earn it in. If you gamble at a casino with bitcoin, you would still be legally required to report your winnings and pay taxes them. This applies to all USA citizens even if they do not live in the USA and even those earning are earned outside the USA in a currency other than USD...
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