If I am understanding correctly (which is never a safe assumption), you are agreeing with me that taxation by big governments is violent robbery, but then you are also making the claim that non-defensive violence (in this case violent robbery) is needed for fire services, the internet, and money to exist; Is that a correct understanding of what you are trying to say?LuckyR wrote: ↑April 16th, 2021, 2:07 am Ok, so you abhor violence, therefore I guess there are no taxes, thus no services. Hope your house doesn't catch fire...
Oh BTW, there's no internet, nor snail mail, so we'll be running the Forum by homing pigeon and smoke signals.
Though you get to keep your money... except that there is no longer money. But at least you don't have to pay taxes, whoo hoo.
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The term concentration camps was originally a euphemism meant to sound better than prisons.Steve3007 wrote: ↑April 16th, 2021, 5:53 amI take your point and I can see why you think I might be committing that false dichotomy fallacy. It is perfectly possible that taxation is necessary violent robbery. So I'll clarify by saying that I don't believe it is violent robbery, and I believe that it is necessary to pay for public services, but I believe those two things separately, so saying both of them together doesn't mean I'm implying mutual exclusivity.Scott wrote:It seems like you be committing the false dichotomy fallacy...
I can see your argument for claiming that it is violent robbery (because we are forced to pay using threats up to and including prison), and it's an interesting and thought-provoking point to make. But I come back to a general belief I have about language: that it should be useful. I don't think it's useful to place taxation in the classification "violent robbery"...
Likewise, I assume an advocate of rape would find a different label more useful. An advocate of rape might respond with misunderstanding, complaints, emotions, and denials when we point out that the rape is rape, in addition to whatever other euphemisms the rape-advocate would use to support the rape.
It's fine to prefer more "useful" labels or more euphemistic labels over other ones. In other words, it's agreeable for you to say that you find the label taxation more useful and/or euphemistic and/or less prone to misunderstanding and/or less prone to emotional cognitive dissonance when dealing with other people. In a similar pattern, it is often that case that using any word over 5 letters may be non-useful depending on to whom one is speaking, such as if one finds oneself around kindergartners. But there is big difference between saying X (e.g. "non-consensual sex" is a more useful label than Y (e.g. "rape") for Z (e.g. "what John did to Mary last night") versus saying that Z (e.g. "what John did to Mary last night") is not a case of Y ("rape"). In other words, being a less useful synyonm is not remotely the same as being untrue.
As far as dis-usefulness goes, it is even more dis-useful to say that "taxation is not violent robbery", namely since it clearly is violent robbery, if we ignore any utter misunderstanding and reading the between the lines.
It's one thing to prefer calling a prison a "concentration camp" because you think it's more useful or to prefer calling a certain type of rape "non-consensual sex" because you think it is at least in that situation more useful or less likely to leadto misunderstanding or reading-between-the-lines. But to take that preference for usefulness and say that a concentration camp is not a prison (e.g. because it's necessary) is simply counter-factual. It is both.
I ask to focus on the denotation not someone's connotation, but regardless I don't think it's correct to say that generally people parse "taxation is violent robbery" to mean something similar to "I am strongly against taxation". Some people might read between the lines in that way, but it doesn't change the fact that they are reading between the lines, and it doesn't change the fact that what was actually said is utterly true.Steve3007 wrote: ↑April 16th, 2021, 5:53 am ... it obviously has very negative connotations. People generally parse a statement like "taxation is violent robbery" to mean something similar to "I am strongly against taxation". Although you could argue that that's their problem for incorrectly reading between the lines.
Granted, you can argue that it's more useful language that is less likely to be misunderstood (and/or less likely to be received emotionally) such as by calling a prison a "concentration camp" or calling a rape "non-consensual sex" or referring to kids in cages as "unaccompanied migrant children in overflow facilities". But that alleged usefulness of the more euphemistic language doesn't make the less euphemistic language untrue.
Usefulness may not be binary, but truth is. Having allegedly more useful synonyms to say the same thing does remotely make the allegedly less useful way untrue.
There are kids in cages.
Non-consensual sex is rape.
And taxation is violent robbery.
The primary reason is that I don't believe we "need to do" anything ever.Steve3007 wrote: ↑April 16th, 2021, 6:06 amSo if we agree that the above is not presented as a dichotomy but as two separate propositions whereby we can consistently agree with all, any or none of them, I'm interested in why you disagree with #2.Scott wrote:1. Taxation is violent robbery.
2. Taxation is a levy that finances the things we need to do collectively.
I don't agree with #2, but even if I did, it seems irrelevant to me because the above is a false dichotomy. Logically speaking, it's possible for both #1 and #2 to be true.
When it comes to choices, I believe in the concepts of can and cannot, and, from can, the concepts of do or do not. In that way, each person is 100% in control of their own choices.
I elaborate and explain that concept a bit more in my topic Man Is Not Fit To Govern Man.
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I am saying both, but primarily I am saying the former.Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑April 16th, 2021, 8:56 amPattern-chaser wrote: ↑April 15th, 2021, 12:51 pm I disagree. Taxation is a levy that finances the things we need to do collectively.
Ah, sorry, I misunderstood. You aren't saying that taxation is violent, you're saying that the proceeds of taxation are used by your government to commit acts of violence.
A big government uses the threat of violence to coerce people to give it money (i.e. commits violent robbery). Incidentally, it also then uses that money to fund other non-defensive violence, such as but not limited to the war on drugs like marijuana.
But even if it buys cupcakes for girl-scouts with the profits of its robbery, the robbery itself was violent.
Ask a pacifist in prison for pacifistic tax protesting and they can describe the violence they endured at the hands of the government and its agents, assuming the pacifist doesn't get shot during the violent arrest.
Why do you disagree? What quality do you believe robbery must have that taxation by a state, national, or global government doesn't?Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑April 15th, 2021, 12:51 pm I still disagree that taxation is robbery, but I understand the "violent" part now.
Keep in mind, the OP does exclude highly localized pseudo-taxation such as the condo fees or rents charged by a condo community or the so-called property "taxes" charged by small town or the rents charge by a mom to their adult child living in the basement. In other words, I refer only to taxes by big government.
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Yes, that's what I meant.Steve3007 wrote: ↑April 16th, 2021, 9:05 amThat's not my interpretation of what he meant. I thought he meant simply that taxes are extracted with the threat of [violent] punishment for non-compliance, and he views that as a threat of violence.Pattern-chaser wrote:Ah, sorry, I misunderstood. You aren't saying that taxation is violent, you're saying that the proceeds of taxation are used by your government to commit acts of violence. And I must agree; that is a fact. Your country spends more on killing, and the machinery to accomplish it, than all other nations on Earth put together.
It is in the same sense that the war on drugs is violent.
Legal scholar Stephen L. Carter wrote an interesting article for Bloomberg explaining how laws that require enforcement are inherently violent: Law Puts Us All in Same Danger as Eric Garner
Needless to say, when a big government like the USA government makes a law ordering someone to pay money to them or to not grow marijuana, that is not like a request such a begger on street saying, "please give me money if you will". Rather, it is a demand that you do what they order you do (e.g. give them money) and not do what they have ordered you not to do (e.g. grow marijuana) under the threat that if you disobey they will use non-defensive violence against you.
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I absolutely agree.Ecurb wrote: ↑April 16th, 2021, 12:16 pmAll laws are violent and coersive.Scott wrote: ↑April 15th, 2021, 11:41 pm
Each person has their own opinions and way of deciding what kind of violence they personally support if any, but for me I can't at all imagine for myself even starting to think it matters whether or not the violence is state-sanctioned. The Nazi murdering of Jews among other victims was state-sanctioned, to be philosophically cliché.
To me, what matters is whether the violence is non-defensive or not.
I'm sorry if the OP was not clear about that.
I already linked to it earlier in this post, but nonetheless there is a good article by legal scholar Stephen L. Carter published in Bloomberg explaining how laws that require enforcement are inherently violent: Law Puts Us All in Same Danger as Eric Garner
Perhaps, but I do want to note that I do believe in "bad" or 'evil', and I don't advocate for pipe dream utopias.
There are no shoulds or oughts in my philosophy. So there is no is-ought problem my philosophy either.
I just talk about what is.
And there is a lot to talk about. Look at how much there is to say just about the four word sentence, "Taxation is violent robbery."
The way I would categorize the term defensive, taxation is not defensive even if used to fund defensive endeavors.
In analogy, if I kill an innocent child to sell the child's organs on the black market and then donate the money to the local police department, I do not think that my killing of the innocent child is defensive, even though my donation to the police department could be construed as funding defense, assuming those police enforce laws against non-defensive violence (e.g. rape, murder, etc.) rather than engage in non-defensive violence themselves by enforcing laws against victimless consensual behaviors (e.g. laws against marijuana). Simply put, my hypothetical killing of that hypothetical child to sell her organs to fund the police would be murder, not defense.
You are welcome to believe that. Nonetheless, incidentally, I don't personally believe in evil.
How so?