Taxation is violent robbery.

[Sculptor1]

If you really want to know what creates inequality. It is LOW tax and the free market- guarenteed to cause inequality.
One of the greatesst tools in the box for addressing inequality is actually TAX.

The state provides to people who cannot afford them:
Free roads bridges and other infrastructure projects, free schools, free policing, free national security; free regulations on potentially dangerous manufactured items from cars to electrical equipment; the chance to change the government; medical standards adinfinitem....
All these things level the playing field.

[Sy Borg]

That is that I am, in principle, in favour of the non-consensual violent robbery more commonly referred to as taxation, even if I don't always agree with the way it's spent. I agree enough to believe that on balance I prefer a society in which certain services whose continuity and relative consistency I consider to be essential are funded by taxation.

Ditto. Still, with so much money simply being printed during 2020, people have been asking if governments ever needed taxation? After all, the money is worth the value of the government's fiat rather than being tied to a limited resource like gold. China has shown how an ungrounded currency can be used to buy anything within its borders.

I keep waiting for hyperinflation to set in but the bubble just keeps growing. At this stage, the impending economic collapse keeps being shored up but, like an old mine shored up one too many times, the break point will surely arrive.

It's said that a democracy is a system where governments fear the people and a dictatorship is where people fear the government. I think the issue is that overpopulation and the rise of China is driving democracies to move towards the latter.

China points to our future. The Chinese people have endured huge famines in the past and fear that any rebellion against the government would lead to chaos and a return to starvation. So they have sold out their freedom for security. Just as the west has been doing since 9/11. Thankfully, we have not caught up yet. If some western countries stop using high levels immigration to mask inherent economic weaknesses, then we can to some extent avoid China's high stakes and the level of fear and desperation in its gaslit and downtrodden people.

Yes, certainly from my perspective as a fairly typical western liberal type, a lot of aspects of the Chinese Communist Party's solution to the problem of how to keep society as a whole relatively stable and violent-revolution-free are horrifying.

Imagine living with 1.3 billion people, knowing that any rebellion will probably lead to widespread starvation again (and rest assured, the CCP will make sure that that happens on the way out if they are toppled). So there is an underlying desperation, a sense of of the Sword of Damocles ever dangling overhead by a thread. So the Chinese don't find the squashing of people's perceptions and creativity horrifying, just a necessary evil. That is where I think the west is heading - unless they address their own population vs infrastructure issues.

But it's very difficult to tell how it's all going to play out in the relatively near future (as opposed to the far future when we'll all be dead and/or replaced by the intelligent and self-perpetuating descendants of our technology! ). To paraphrase Lincoln again: it's difficult to tell whether democracy and the general concept of individual liberty can long endure.

Are you poking the bear again, Steven?

Science is necessary for detail. However, there are times when giant, woolly concepts are too complex for analysis, in which case logic, thought experiments and intuition are the only available tools (sans supercomputer modelling).

Logically, there's only a few possible long term outcomes. Humans will either evolve via technology, go extinct or go feral. We can expect a percentage to go feral along the way, no matter what. Resource depletion and climate change will lead to the breakdown of societies (first to go will be those with weak infrastructure due to ineffective tax regimes).

On the plus side, if you are a feral, then you don't pay tax. Not directly. But you will no doubt still have to give something of your labour or resources to tribal leaders. The powerful always lean on the less powerful. If they don't, someone more ruthless will take their place. Thus, the two inescapable realities: death and taxes.

But don't ask me the steps leading up to the above possibilities, nor the timing of the above changes. That depends on unknown future technology, on unknown planetary dynamics, and on unknown potential societal dynamics. We are in uncharted waters. And we will continue to be forking out to someone along the way. I suppose the trick is to be one of the forkees rather than a forker.

[Robert66]

For forks sake, Sy Borg, could there be a 4th possible outcome? I don't like any of those 3.

[Empiricist-Bruno]

I think it's important to clarify this concept because if nondefensive violence or otherwise can also more simply be called justice then your contention could imply that taxation is just robbery, just in the sense that it is approved by the government. Somehow, I think that this is not truly the point you are trying to make here.

You are correct that I would not define non-defensive in terms of justice. In fact, generally speaking, I don't believe in the concept of justice; I see it as a superstition, if not a meaningless word.

Ok, so when a serial killer is corraled and brought to justice, you are not happy but rather indifferent that justice will take place because...

a) you either do not appreciate the concept of justice or ignore/reject it.
b) other reason? Please do elaborate.

That is a loaded question. The question assumes justice exists, and I already told you I don't believe it exists. I think it's a superstition at best, if not just a meaningless word.

You might as well ask me if I am indifferent when the Greek God Zeus's wishes are fulfilled. I don't believe they exist.

I actually wrote a book that while fictional expresses my feelings on the matter well enough. The book is titled, Justice: A Novella.

I think you are wrong in suggesting that my question was a loaded question. In my opinion, a loaded question presuppose facts whose veracity can be verified and agreed upon by both the person who asks the question and the person answering it

For instance, Scott, is your sponsorship from Russia still ongoing? That's a loaded question because we can both agree that you have never been sponsored by Russia and that I am just making this up. But whether justice does or does not exist isn't something which an investigation of facts could similarly reveal.

It is self-evident that various justice systems operate through courts, the police, lawyers in the world today because we have worldly people and structures, buildings, that refer to themselves with this word "justice" which you say does not mean anything.

If I were to ask you about the Greek God Zeus, we could be on agreement that it would be a loaded statement because the facts suggest that Greek God Zeus does not today to have much worldly impact, unlike justice systems. The fact that neither the Greek God Zeus nor today's justice mean anything to you does not mean that it can't or won't mean anything to others.

So if there is a mutual misunderstanding between you and others, which is revealed by assumptions made in a question to you, then that question still does not fit the bill as a loaded question because if you do consider it that way, it suggests that you believe that the statements made by the other aren't simply incomprehensible to you but that they are factually incorrect and deliberately made in an attempt to soil, tarnish you or your worldly vision.

And if you go that route, it would in my opinion suggest an overabundance of defensiveness on your part that might be characterized as paranoid. I believe you are just and cognizant enough to recognize this and perhaps back pedal on your determination that my question to you was loaded.

Be sure to know that I agree completely with the void of justice in today's justice systems and that I totally appreciate how someone
like you mightt not see justice in justice today. However, unlike you, I am willing to talk the language and words of those who try to make you believe in the goodness of today's justice systems.
I can say that I go to the Church of God without implying that I believe in God. Thank comedy for that.

[Sy Borg]

For forks sake, Sy Borg, could there be a 4th possible outcome? I don't like any of those 3.

There is another, but that would require broad global cooperation, rapid reduction in greenhouse gases, to stop deforestation and ecosystem destruction and for tax havens and rorts to disappear so billionaires and multinationals pay enough tax to support infrastructure maintenance and improvements. That, of course, is about as realistic as fairies at the bottom of your garden so we are indeed forked, ready to be skewered ...

Yet look at this forum. All the people here with particular ideas about what's happening in the world, with their own pet ideas and areas of focus. While there are debates, few here strike me as actually wrong or unethical. On the contrary, the forum is replete with the wish for improved ethics.

So I get where Scott's coming from - decrying the powerful exploiting the relatively weak. But, as I have laboured on the thread, "violent robbery" is a hyperbolic description that hijacks the term that would ideally only be used by those who have endured actual violent robbery. Besides, there is not much anyone who's not worth hundreds of millions (at least) can do about tax.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

My point is that referring to tax as "violent robbery" would be as insulting to people who have actually been violently robbed [...]

That sentence is incoherent because taxation by non-local big governments is violent robbery.

Someone who is in prison for pacifistic tax protesting, or who was shot by police during an arrest attempt, would probably be insulted by your statement, indeed.

However, philosophy is not the search for statements people won't be insulted by.

Truth is not affected by subjective emotional offense.

In fact, if anything, I suspect offensiveness may be correlated with truth, and non-offensiveness with untruth. Even a so-called white lie is still a lie.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

It is self-evident that various justice systems operate through courts, the police, lawyers in the world today because we have worldly people and structures, buildings, that refer to themselves with this word "justice" which you say does not mean anything.

[...]

I can say that I go to the Church of God without implying that I believe in God. Thank comedy for that.

That is a wise analogy. I do believe that courts and churches exist.

I do not believe in religious superstitions or the superstition of justice. I don't believe in anything paranormal or supernatural.

I support freedom of religion, so if someone judgmentally thinks of me as a sinner (unjust/immoral/etc. according to their superstitions) in their head or even says it with their words, then I tolerate that. As a rough paraphrasing of the philosophy of Voltaire, Evelyn Beatrice Hall wrote, "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

If someone wants to engage in non-consensual non-defensive violence due to their superstitions, or for any reason, then the reason is mostly to fully irrelevant to me.

When it comes to non-defensive violence like murder, some people do it for "justice", some for a "god" they believe exists such as Zeus or a different one, and some because of "utilitarianism" or some other similar moral superstition. Others aim to not do it at all, like a self-chosen food diet but for broader behavior than merely what one eats. I like to consider myself as being in this latter group, a self-disciplined spiritually free dieter, a man of peace and love. But that's me and my tastes. When the lion eats the antelope, it has different tastes.

[Empiricist-Bruno]

I have no idea, but I imagine their views about taxation would be the same as before getting stabbed.

My guess is that they would not see taxation as very much like violent robbery at all. One can cope with being taxed multiple times per year but surviving that many actual violent robberies would be pretty stressful!

Are you assuming the person was not also shot by a government agent? If so, why? Does it have to do with the skin color of the imaginary person and what country the imaginary person lives in? Because I agree all those kinds of factors could affect what I would guess the imaginary persons views about taxation are. However, since the person doesn't exist and all these qualities the person are unknown, I don't think we can reasonably say what that particular imaginary human's opinions about taxation would be. Granted, if you asked a totally random human their opinion about anything (taxation or otherwise) the odds of that human sharing my opinion about the same is extremely slim.

I'd rather get stabbed once than go to prison for a year, let alone longer, but one person's trash is another person's treasure. I'd rather be mugged on the street then be subject to a no-knock raid in my own home by police, and find the latter to be more likely to lead to PTSD, if not simple because it's easier to avoid streets than home, and easier to avoid lone muggers than police.

However, perhaps your point is that in practice typically most humans would prefer to be coerced via the threat of violence, which they then obey, as opposed to having actual bodily injury done. If so, then I agree with you about that.

In other words, for example, most humans would rather have a bank robber threaten to pull out a gun and shoot them if they don't hand over their money, versus having the bank robber actually shoot them with no threats made and then while they bleed out take their money. If that's your point, roughly speaking, then I fully agree.

My point is that referring to tax as "violent robbery" would be as insulting to people who have actually been violently robbed as the metaphorical use of rape are to victims when used to describe issues far milder than actual rape. I like to cut vulnerable people slack, just as I want people to cut me some slack when I am vulnerable.

Tax is a quarterly or annual hassle and an inconvenience. Would you prefer to be stabbed or beaten up every quarter? Would you survive it? Violent robbery is not just about the act, but fear of death. By contrast, there is more control over tax. That is, a person can pay tax like a good citizen and suffer no further consequences, or a person can be a parasite and try to avoid responsibility, at which point they risk fines or, if they are intransigent, they refuse to pay the fines and go to prison.

I had a guy bust my place's front door with a gun and a mask and who then proceeded to ask me where the money was. Then a shotgun went on with the blast going through my apartment.
It's just a different kind of stress really. It was over really quickly.

I had a relative who long ago, when I was growing up, regularly day dreamed out loud about machine gunning down all the guys who sought tax money from him. Taxation was obviously quite stressful to this role model of mine.

It's like comparing the permanent daily stress brought on by bedbugs who will never kill you if you are careful to the stress
of brought on by more potent predators. Tax people, having the advantage of an army to back them up are obviously not going to need to threaten you a lot to get what they want, so they have an advantage over other types of robbers and will get more out of you that way. Different people react to different stresses differently and I doubt that we should be deciding for everyone what stress is most significant. There are nukes being built with tax dollars...Are you sure good citizens pay tax? Are you sure it's a safe thing to do? I am not.

[Sy Borg]

My point is that referring to tax as "violent robbery" would be as insulting to people who have actually been violently robbed [...]

That sentence is incoherent because taxation by non-local big governments is violent robbery.

That seems to be a growing attitude in America, the resentment at being forced to contribute to a society that provides the social and physical structures that made your safe and comfortable life possible. It's easy to take the basics of our lives for granted, to treat them as givens, until they are gone.

[Empiricist-Bruno]

My point is that referring to tax as "violent robbery" would be as insulting to people who have actually been violently robbed [...]

That sentence is incoherent because taxation by non-local big governments is violent robbery.

That seems to be a growing attitude in America, the resentment at being forced to contribute to a society that provides the social and physical structures that made your safe and comfortable life possible. It's easy to take the basics of our lives for granted, to treat them as givens, until they are gone.

The Nazis government also forced the contributiond of lots of people too. Anyone still has regrets over putting an end to his?

You know, after being liberated and given all the food they wanted emancipated tax payers often died right away from eating too much that their stomachs couldn't handle anymore. So isn't too bad that they were liberated? The Nazis could have taken much better care of them. Change does bring some risks along with it but what counts is to be on the right path.

[Pattern-chaser]

Can you answer my questions first since I asked first:

1. Do you think people are put in prison non-violently?

2. Why do people who pay taxes non-consensually pay those taxes if they aren't being threatened with violence?

3. If I suddenly refuse to pay taxes to the United States government, do you not think men with guns will come to my house, break my door down, drag me away, and throw me in a cage?

4. What would happen if you suddenly today vowed to not pay any taxes and kept your vow no matter what?


Alternatively, if you concede the point that taxation is violent then the questions above are moot.

1. People are put in prison. Most of them don't wish to go there, and may well resist. It would be difficult to see how violence could always be avoided in such circumstances.

2. They pay because that is the contract they have with their society, even though some of them would rather not pay.

3. Probably, yes, but that has more to do with living in an uncivilised country than it does about paying tax.

4. I would be punished for breaking my contract with society.

No, taxation is not violent. The thieves and fraudsters who try to avoid tax bring violence upon themselves for their contract-breaking behaviour.

Now it's my turn:

Why do you avoid addressing the perspective of taxation being a licence to earn? That taxation is owed and due, and therefore avoidance of taxation is theft or fraud on the part of the person avoiding payment of their dues? That you seek to deprive society of its income, and its right to require tax in return for the privilege of being able to earn/obtain money within its bailiwick?

Though you may not approve of it, your country maintains a huge army of killers and killing hardware, and it all costs money. As this army is raised and maintained on your behalf, who else but you (and your fellow countrymen) should pay for it? What about the (very limited) healthcare provided to those American citizens who can't afford it, and other welfare benefits (also severely limited) too?

Can you deny that you are trying to steal from your own society, your own people, by proposing that tax need not be paid?

[Pattern-chaser]

That seems to be a growing attitude in America, the resentment at being forced to contribute to a society that provides the social and physical structures that made your safe and comfortable life possible. It's easy to take the basics of our lives for granted, to treat them as givens, until they are gone.

The Nazis government also forced the contributions of lots of people too.

Request for clarification

Are you comparing the governments of 1930-40 Nazi Germany with the present-day USA? There are some similarities, but the comparison does not lead to any useful conclusions that I can see. Are you suggesting that being taxed by your government is the same as being shipped off to a concentration camp?

[Sculptor1]

My point is that referring to tax as "violent robbery" would be as insulting to people who have actually been violently robbed [...]

That sentence is incoherent because taxation by non-local big governments is violent robbery.

That seems to be a growing attitude in America, the resentment at being forced to contribute to a society that provides the social and physical structures that made your safe and comfortable life possible. It's easy to take the basics of our lives for granted, to treat them as givens, until they are gone.

All that stuff - provided by taxation.
Look at the coinage. Whose head do you see??
Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's

hadrian.jpg (7.47 KiB) Viewed 2244 times

[Sculptor1]

WIthout taxation money - all money - "your" money would be worthless, as without the need for the people to render a proportion of money to the government no value would cycle in "your" country.
Crypto currencies are a danger to the entire economy of the world, and were there no taxation, inequality would reach maximal proportions.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

No, taxation is not violent. The thieves and fraudsters who try to avoid tax bring violence upon themselves [...]

That appears to be a blatant contradiction.

Why do you avoid addressing the perspective of taxation being a licence to earn?

I didn't notice a topic on the forums about it. Feel free to make one.

But, if you and I cannot even agree if taxation is violent, then I doubt a conversation like that would be fruitful.

That taxation is owed and due, and therefore avoidance of taxation is theft or fraud on the part of the person avoiding payment of their dues?

I absolutely totally and entirely reject the notion that a disenfranchised pacifistic tax protester's bitcoin is already owned by the United States government and thus the government cannot steal it.

That makes as much sense as a mafia protection racket saying they already own their victim's business and thus are neither violent robber or violent vandals when they go to the business use violence to extort money from the business owner.

A guy can go to the US Treasury (or a bank) and steal some gold bars or whatever. Then the USA government will probably use violence to get those things back and/or imprison the thief, but that's not called taxation. If you are talking about such stolen asset recovery or violent imprisonment of robbers, you are talking about a completely different subject than taxation.

It's very different to claim something (e.g. a specific homicide) is nonviolent versus claiming it is defensive or such.

If we can't agree whether or not taxation is violent, then we certainly won't agree on these more intricate economic questions about monetary creation such as the usage of USD versus Bitcoin or such.

Surely, taxation predates the existence of paper money.

That you seek to deprive society of its income, and its right to require tax in return for the privilege of being able to earn/obtain money within its bailiwick?

This is a false accusation. I never said that I "seek to deprive society of its income".

I don't seek to do anything beyond that which I truly believe I can do, and then there is not really room for trying to do or seeking to do. I just do. When it comes to my choices, I am 100% in control of my choices. In my philosophy, there is no should; there is no ought; and strictly speaking there is no trying and little to no seeking. There is can and cannot, and from can, there is do or do not. I choose how I want to play the cards I'm dealt, and the rest is what it is.

your country maintains a huge army of killers and killing hardware, and it all costs money.

Yes, I agree; in that way the USA government is like a mafia, a mafia that employs many paid killers with expensive weapons.

As this army is raised and maintained on your behalf,

I don't agree with this.

It's misleading if not wrong to say something is done on my behalf if it is done without my consent.

If I come give you a haircut against your will, it's irrelevant to then claim you own me money for the haircut services provided.

If I donate to a cancer charity "on your behalf" without your permission and agreement that you would pay me for it (let alone do it despite you specifically asking me not to do it), that doesn't mean you owe me reimbursement. It doesn't mean it would be anything but armed robbery for me to go your house and force you at gunpoint to repay me for the money I donated to charity "on your behalf".

who else but you (and your fellow countrymen) should pay for it?

I don't understand the question. Define "should".

What about the (very limited) healthcare provided to those American citizens who can't afford it, and other welfare benefits (also severely limited) too?

What about it?

Can you deny that you are trying to steal from your own society, your own people,

Yes, I don't steal, and I don't try.

by proposing that tax need not be paid?

I don't recall proposing that.

Though, I suppose I would agree that in one sense nothing at all ever needs to be done. For example, theoretically, I could choose right now to never eat again, which would presumably result in me slowing starving to death. In that sense, I don't need to eat, but so far I have a track-record of choosing to eat at least a couple times a day most days. I'd rather me and my whole family starve than have myself intentionally choose to murder a human, but luckily I haven't had to make that choice yet. If forced by circumstance to choose, what would you choose: to starve or to murder?

In the way I choose to eat versus choosing to not eat, some people choose to commit non-consensual non-defensive violence (e.g. murder, rape, slavery, etc.) against other humans; some choose to not do that. I make my choices, they make theirs, and that's the way it is.