Taxation is violent robbery.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Generally speaking, taxation is violent robbery that makes the rich richer.

The government owns you, and the rich own the government.

It is not corrupted. This is by design.

Using violence to make the rich richer is a feature of big government, not a bug.

In other news, the U.S. Federal Government spends over $4 trillion per year. That's over $12,000 per person in the USA and over $27,000 per taxpayer in the USA. And it's not guys like Bezos who are paying those taxes. Violent big government will never work for the peaceful masses, only the powerful robbers using violence to get and stay rich.

In other words, non-defensive violence is not the answer, and it never will be. Non-defensive violence is and always has been the problem, never the answer.


What do you think? Would you prefer to live in a society with significantly less non-defensive violence (e.g. murder, rape, slavery, etc.)? What is your opinion regarding violent robbery and non-defensive violence in general?

[Alias]

Matthew 13:12
For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.

In fact, taxation is one of the least violent forms of robbery, along with church tithing: most people are content to pay whatever portion of their levy they can't conceal. A few holdouts go to prison, but none walk the plank.

[Nick_A]

Generally speaking, taxation is violent robbery that makes the rich richer.

The government owns you, and the rich own the government.

It is not corrupted. This is by design.

Using violence to make the rich richer is a feature of big government, not a bug.

In other news, the U.S. Federal Government spends over $4 trillion per year. That's over $12,000 per person in the USA and over $27,000 per taxpayer in the USA. And it's not guys like Bezos who are paying those taxes. Violent big government will never work for the peaceful masses, only the powerful robbers using violence to get and stay rich.

In other words, non-defensive violence is not the answer, and it never will be. Non-defensive violence is and always has been the problem, never the answer.


What do you think? Would you prefer to live in a society with significantly less non-defensive violence (e.g. murder, rape, slavery, etc.)? What is your opinion regarding violent robbery and non-defensive violence in general?

John Adams, observed, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

America is no longer a country of religious and moral people so without this higher influence it has become a nation demanding collective rights at the expense of the GOOD of voluntary obligations. So it is every man for himself in the violent struggle for the rapidly diminishing bucks within the remaining eggs of the golden goose which was killed in the struggle for power.

Freedom has been sacrificed to the demand for entitlements which will be defended by violence even when deemed necessary

Simone Weil — 'One cannot imagine St. Francis of Assisi talking about rights.'

Too old fashioned. Now the entitled collective must shoot first and ask questions later in defense of the demands of the collective which desires to improve on freedom

[Alias]

America is no longer a country of religious and moral people so without this higher influence it has become a nation demanding collective rights at the expense of the GOOD of voluntary obligations.

When was America moral, and what is this "higher influence" that once made its people moral?

So it is every man for himself in the violent struggle for the rapidly diminishing bucks within the remaining eggs of the golden goose which was killed in the struggle for power.

What was this golden goose and who killed it?

Freedom has been sacrificed to the demand for entitlements which will be defended by violence even when deemed necessary

I'm not sure which history book you're reading, but in mine, the thirteen original states were ruled by a few entitled - and some literally titled - men who imported very many people of no freedom at all to work for them, and enslaved or killed very many free people who already lived here.

Simone Weil — 'One cannot imagine St. Francis of Assisi talking about rights.'

One can, actually. He was quite a rock-star of his civilization https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sa ... -of-Assisi before he got religion. He'd seen both sides.

Now the entitled collective

What is this?

[LuckyR]

Blah, blah, blah... everyone wants stuff and no one wants to pay for it. Move along... nothing to see here.

[Robert66]

To answer a question actually posed elsewhere, I am grateful to fate's lottery to be born in a country with more or less adequate taxation of the citizenry, by which a more or less sufficient level of services is provided to ensure a good life for most. I suggest to those who are strongly anti-taxation and anti- government that they might go and live in Lagos or Kinshasa.

It seems a bit rich (pun intended) to express gratitude for a lifestyle unobtainable without taxes and government while arguing for their abolishment.

[Steve3007]

This may be a bit obvious, but I don't agree that taxation is violent robbery. Taxation is necessary to pay for public services that individual players within a free market economy don't have a strong incentive to fund but which benefit them and others. Among those public services I would count judiciary, policing, prisons, schools, healthcare and environmental protection.

[Steve3007]

What do you think? Would you prefer to live in a society with significantly less non-defensive violence (e.g. murder, rape, slavery, etc.)?

Would you expect anybody to say no?

[Pattern-chaser]

Generally speaking, taxation is violent robbery that makes the rich richer.

I disagree. Taxation is a levy that finances the things we need to do collectively. The rich only get richer because they don't pay any significant taxes. Holding more money than any human could spend or use over a THOUSAND lifetimes is robbery. Taxation is just paying your dues.

I know this is heresy to an American, but there we go. American Capitalism is destroying the world, and that underlies the theme of this topic, I think.

[Alias]

Taxation is not a simple one-word phenomenon.
There are many kinds of taxation, from potlatch to tribute, income deductions to property levies, from strata fees to garbage bag stickers. Ideally, every member of a social group or institution contributes a common fund to be used for community welfare and shared projects.
Some of these contributions are entirely voluntary; some are set by contract; some are legislated by a representative assembly; some are imposed by force of arms. The legislated ones are what we agree in elections whether to institute or eliminate. There's nothing violent about that.

When governance is co-opted by any special interest group, of course all legislation, including the collection and allocation of funds, serves that interest. When the economy is dominated by any single class or ideological bloc, of course all transactions are to the benefit of that class or bloc.

So, taxation and the use of tax revenues are often skewed even before corruption sets in. The more skewed and more complicated and larger the social organization is, the easier it is to corrupt and the harder it is to reform once it has been corrupted.
Especially if the bloc that has co-opted and corrupted the system is the Usurers' Guild; then you have to dig a long way upward.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

In fact, taxation is one of the least violent forms of robbery,

I don't necessarily agree that it is one of the least violent forms of robbery, but at least we agree that it not only is violent but that it is not the least violent form of robbery.

Perhaps the least might be a schoolyard bully taking lunch money but without actually explicitly threatening violence, just implying that no lunch money might result in a wedgie.

Needless to say, the paid enforcers collecting trillions of dollars on behalf of the military industrial complex aren't so willing to leave their threats to implication. More importantly, they routinely act on those threats.

Though, the violence of robbery, such as putting a gun to the head of a bank clerk, is presumably best measured in the level of violence threatened and the degree of behavior coerced, rather than merely the level of threats fulfilled due to glorious disobedience.

It seems a bit rich (pun intended) to express gratitude for a lifestyle unobtainable without taxes and government while arguing for their abolishment.

Would it be more rich (pun intended) to (1) violently rob a bank, thereby becoming a millionaire, and then be ungrateful and discontent out of insatiable ungrateful greed and a discontent desire for even more money, or (2) violently rob a bank, thereby becoming a millionaire, and being grateful that one has food eat to eat and a working toilet?

Bragging about how deliciously profitable and luxurious the benefits of violent robbery are for the recipients of the money rather than the victims of the violence is an odd approach. Indeed, the two things are very correlated: robbery and profits, that is. Meaning, if you are a violent bank robber and you aren't rich, then you might not be very good at it.

I don't agree that taxation is violent robbery. Taxation is necessary to pay for public services that individual players within a free market economy don't have a strong incentive to fund but which benefit them and others.

It seems like you be committing the false dichotomy fallacy. If I am understanding correcting (which is never a safe assumption), you are saying that at most only one of the following two things can be true (meaning they are mutually exclusive):

1. Taxation is violent robbery.
2. Taxation is necessary to pay for public services that individual players within a free market economy don't have a strong incentive to fund but which benefit them and others.

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.

What do you think? Would you prefer to live in a society with significantly less non-defensive violence (e.g. murder, rape, slavery, etc.)?

Would you expect anybody to say no?

Yes, of course. So many people eagerly express support for non-defensive violence, such as in my topic, Intentional non-defensive killing - Do you always oppose it?

Another relevant topic of mine on that matter is the topic, How do you feel vengeance?

Also, in my anecdotal experience, utilitarians have an affinity for pushing fat men in front of trains and trolleys. Utilitarians are usually very happy to talk about the ways they would commit murder and other acts of non-defensive non-consensual violence.

Give me (1) a utilitarian and (2) a society of non-utilitarians completely absent of any violence, and we can mix them together like a fun chemistry experiment and what will come out is violence. Of course, we won't be to actually do the experiment because the world already has too many like the former, going around initiating non-defensive non-consensual violence.

But those are just a couple of the reasons, excuses, and rationalizations people give for supporting non-defensive violence. Humans are common in certain ways such as in terms of having a tendency towards selfishness and violence, but are fun and unique in different ways such as the creative excuses, reasons, and rationalizations that they offer for why they are non-defensively violent or such.

Generally speaking, taxation is violent robbery that makes the rich richer.

I disagree. Taxation is a levy that finances the things we need to do collectively.

I could be misunderstanding what you mean, but that seems like a false dichotomy. If I am understanding correcting (which is never a safe assumption), you are saying that at most only one of the following two things can be true (meaning they are mutually exclusive):

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.

The rich only get richer because they don't pay any significant taxes.

If you remove the word "only", then I agree.

For instance, the rich not only get richer from not having to pay for trillions of dollars of violent government spending, but also they get rich from receiving it. It's not like the $4 trillion is being flushed down the toilet; it's being legally laundered into the bank accounts of the rich.

Although, in the cases of so-called foreign aid, a tiny tiny example of which is the infamous $10 million robbed from US taxpayers and sent to Pakistan for "gender programs", the legality of the way some of the ~$40 billion of "foreign aid" makes its way back to American hands is questionable, especially if being back in American hands involves an overseas non-American bank account in Panama or such. The American hands are attached to long untraceable arms, I suppose.

In regard to "the things we need to do collectively" as you put it, are Pakistan's "gender programs" one of those?

Is the war on drugs?

Is the incarceration of millions of non-violent people in cages?

The actual label doesn't really matter, in practice, in my opinion. Call it a "war on drugs" call it Pakistanian "gender programs". If we let the government try to tutor a single 2nd grader for her math test, the government would likely spend a billion dollars and still have the student fail because the real goal is to funnel money into the hands of wealthy special interests, which is best by not curing the figurative diseases used as excuses for funding. The rest is marketing and PR for the violent robbery, so that people might say, yes, I suppose technically taxation is violent robbery, but it's for the greater good, so I support it. More violence, please.

A need is just an indirect expression of a want, and there is nothing I want done in the world that requires non-consensual non-defensive violence against human adults capable of informed consent.

I choose peace. I choose to not engage in non-defensive violence.

[Robert66]

Humans share a tendency toward selfishness and violence, writes Scott, so we should remove taxation and dismantle governments.

???

[Robert66]

It seems a bit rich (pun intended) to express gratitude for a lifestyle unobtainable without taxes and government while arguing for their abolishment.

Would it be more rich (pun intended) to (1) violently rob a bank, thereby becoming a millionaire, and then be ungrateful and discontent out of insatiable ungrateful greed and a discontent desire for even more money, or (2) violently rob a bank, thereby becoming a millionaire, and being grateful that one has food eat to eat and a working toilet?

Bragging about how deliciously profitable and luxurious the benefits of violent robbery are for the recipients of the money rather than the victims of the violence is an odd approach. Indeed, the two things are very correlated: robbery and profits, that is. Meaning, if you are a violent bank robber and you aren't rich, then you might not be very good at it.

[/quote]

What does this mean? Seriously, what the hell are you talking about?

[Alias]

Not really. Only in hyperbole.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Humans share a tendency toward selfishness and violence, writes Scott, so we should remove taxation and dismantle governments.

???

That's a misquote because I would not use the word "should". There are no shoulds in my philosophy.

Nonetheless, you may find the answers to your word-less triple-punctuated question in my topic, Man Is Not Fit to Govern Man: My Philosophy of Non-Violence, Self-Government [...]

It seems a bit rich (pun intended) to express gratitude for a lifestyle unobtainable without taxes and government while arguing for their abolishment.

Would it be more rich (pun intended) to (1) violently rob a bank, thereby becoming a millionaire, and then be ungrateful and discontent out of insatiable ungrateful greed and a discontent desire for even more money, or (2) violently rob a bank, thereby becoming a millionaire, and being grateful that one has food to eat and a working toilet?

What does this mean? Seriously, what the hell are you talking about?

I am sorry the question is not clear, but I am not sure how to clarify it. Is there a particular part of the above question that is confusing or unclear to you?