Electile Dysfunction (Current students plz look!)

[SlimKlim]

I'm not saying "no taxes ever for any reason" but rather "Taxes should be absolutely as small as possible, as voluntary as possible, and we should make sure that the damage done is outweighed by the good." 

Yeah but like you coulda just started there 3 pages ago, I don't think anyone disagrees with that. Why go through the whole Shock Jock routine?

[CaptainHenreh]

I'm not saying "no taxes ever for any reason" but rather "Taxes should be absolutely as small as possible, as voluntary as possible, and we should make sure that the damage done is outweighed by the good." 

Yeah but like you coulda just started there 3 pages ago, I don't think anyone disagrees with that. Why go through the whole Shock Jock routine?

Fucking funsies on the innernet?

[Gordonovski]

The vast majority is not empathetic enough to have taxes that are "as voluntary as possible."

Regardless, the government is the most generous thief I have encountered. Stealing all of those taxes from you so that you can benefit from public infrastructure, employ LEOs, enjoy public lands, etc. I wish someone would break into my house, steal my Xbox, then fix my car for me.

[rherold9]

Yeah but like you coulda just started there 3 pages ago, I don't think anyone disagrees with that. Why go through the whole Shock Jock routine?

[G.Irish]

Hyperbole, sarcasm, and outright dismissal weakens your position significantly,  Gerald.

You're better than that.

Sorry you feel that way, I'm not trying to be mean-spirited at all.  But like I said, if the premise is that 'taxation is theft', then clearly the antidote is that taxes should be 100% voluntary.  How should taxes work if they're 100% voluntary?  No one seems to answer that.

My perception is that people who are strongly against taxes often have a few main objections:

*My taxes pay for things I don't use
*Taxes are too high
*My taxes pay for things I don't agree with

So for those issues maybe you have an a la carte tax system where you choose what to spend your money.  Some municipalities in the US have actually already tried that.  Don't know how happy people are overall with such a system, but there is some precedent (and burnt down houses to go with it).  The big problem with an a la carte tax system would probably be that it causes big spikes in the cost of some public services if a lot of people opt out, but that would be the market working itself out.  Again, it'd probably be inefficient in its own way, but that's the tradeoff.

Otherwise for the problem of 'my taxes pay for things I don't agree with', that's a problem with elected officials not doing what you want them to do, which comes down to voting.

But if we come back around to 'taxation is theft', as in, 'it is wrong for a government to force me to pay taxes', the only remedy to that is to make taxes optional.  If they're optional, one who chooses not to pay should not get the benefit of taxes.  You shouldn't get the benefit of public infrastructure if you didn't pay.  You should carry the burden of ensuring the safety of every product you use if don't pay for regulatory bodies.  You don't get the police to protect life and property if you didn't pay into the criminal justice system.

So if you want some of the benefits of public goods and services that are very difficult to live without, you have to pay for them.  A society where you can get that stuff without paying is probably not going to work very well.  So maybe instead of saying 'taxation is theft' maybe 'taxation is a necessary evil'.  As a necessary evil you can try to minimize it, but you can't reasonably eliminate it.

[SlimKlim]

I'm not saying "no taxes ever for any reason" but rather "Taxes should be absolutely as small as possible, as voluntary as possible, and we should make sure that the damage done is outweighed by the good." 

Yeah but like you coulda just started there 3 pages ago, I don't think anyone disagrees with that. Why go through the whole Shock Jock routine?

Fucking funsies on the innernet?

Whatever cranks yer handle buddy

[WRXtranceformed]

Fear not, I have the solution to the problems on both sides. It's already been outlined in the great saga: Star Trek

Replicators.

You heard it here first. Invent & mass produce Replicators, it all changes.

"Tea, Earl Grey, Hot."

[CaptainHenreh]

Fear not, I have the solution to the problems on both sides.  It's already been outlined in the great saga:  Star Trek

Replicators.

You heard it here first.  Invent & mass produce Replicators, it all changes.

"Tea, Earl Grey, Hot."

I mean, you're 100% right. Bring on the Post-Scarcity Economy!

[.RJ]

But you're right, I must secretly want to play fuckin' Lord of The Wasteland, Brought To You by Coca Cola.

I will grant you that you have a reasonable position behind your arguments instead of being a fucking nihilist, so there's something I can get on board with.

[Apoc]

Hyperbole, sarcasm, and outright dismissal weakens your position significantly,  Gerald.

You're better than that.

Sorry you feel that way, I'm not trying to be mean-spirited at all.  But like I said, if the premise is that 'taxation is theft', then clearly the antidote is that taxes should be 100% voluntary.  How should taxes work if they're 100% voluntary?  No one seems to answer that.

I have advocated use tax repeatedly, including a few pages ago. I've also advocated eliminating taxation on the goods required for a certain standard of living so a use tax isn't regressive.

People keep saying no solutions are being offered, but all I'm seeing is people picking on the "taxation is theft" statement (which I don't believe) and ignoring actual solutions presented.

[G.Irish]

Hyperbole, sarcasm, and outright dismissal weakens your position significantly,  Gerald.

You're better than that.

Sorry you feel that way, I'm not trying to be mean-spirited at all.  But like I said, if the premise is that 'taxation is theft', then clearly the antidote is that taxes should be 100% voluntary.  How should taxes work if they're 100% voluntary?  No one seems to answer that.

I have advocated use tax repeatedly, including a few pages ago. I've also advocated eliminating taxation on the goods required for a certain standard of living so a use tax isn't regressive.

People keep saying no solutions are being offered, but all I'm seeing is people picking on the "taxation is theft" statement and ignoring actual solutions presented.

People are saying no solutions are being offered to the taxation is theft argument.  It's a rhetorical bomb that people are gonna respond to.  I just think it's fun to think of a country where people could literally test out that philosophy.

If we talk about how taxes should be structured differently or reduced there are plenty of solutions that people like.  Simplifying the tax code and taxing consumption more directly or something like Fairtax would be interesting to see how it plays out.

I honestly don't think people would be much happier with use/consumption taxes though.  Truth is that people just hate paying taxes and if you told them no income tax but now every product has a 30% VAT and you have to pay more directly for services you use, people would hate that too.  I think it would take a drastically restructured government and country for it to work in a way that people would really be happy with.

[Apoc]

Hyperbole, sarcasm, and outright dismissal weakens your position significantly,  Gerald.

You're better than that.

Sorry you feel that way, I'm not trying to be mean-spirited at all.  But like I said, if the premise is that 'taxation is theft', then clearly the antidote is that taxes should be 100% voluntary.  How should taxes work if they're 100% voluntary?  No one seems to answer that.

I have advocated use tax repeatedly, including a few pages ago. I've also advocated eliminating taxation on the goods required for a certain standard of living so a use tax isn't regressive.

People keep saying no solutions are being offered, but all I'm seeing is people picking on the "taxation is theft" statement and ignoring actual solutions presented.

People are saying no solutions are being offered to the taxation is theft argument.  It's a rhetorical bomb that people are gonna respond to.  I just think it's fun to think of a country where people could literally test out that philosophy.

If we talk about how taxes should be structured differently or reduced there are plenty of solutions that people like.  Simplifying the tax code and taxing consumption more directly or something like Fairtax would be interesting to see how it plays out.

I honestly don't think people would be much happier with use/consumption taxes though.  Truth is that people just hate paying taxes and if you told them no income tax but now every product has a 30% VAT and you have to pay more directly for services you use, people would hate that too.  I think it would take a drastically restructured government and country for it to work in a way that people would really be happy with.

I will admit that Rex and those like him are likely doing a disservice by continuously repeating the point, even if they do believe it. Although not nearly comparable, I'd argue people saying Abortion Is Murder in an effort to outlaw it are also doing the same. Which brings us back to the original point RJ made - stop saying taxation is theft if you want people to listen to your perspective. That said, I will always argue Rex has the right to believe it without being others misrepresenting his argument based on the absence of evidence (because something doesn't exist, doesn't mean it cannot exist), because Libertarian.

[CaptainHenreh]

If we talk about how taxes should be structured differently or reduced there are plenty of solutions that people like.  Simplifying the tax code and taxing consumption more directly or something like Fairtax would be interesting to see how it plays out.

I honestly don't think people would be much happier with use/consumption taxes though.  Truth is that people just hate paying taxes and if you told them no income tax but now every product has a 30% VAT and you have to pay more directly for services you use, people would hate that too.  I think it would take a drastically restructured government and country for it to work in a way that people would really be happy with.

Elimination of personal property taxes (by literal constitutional amendment) is my number one beef. That shit is B-A-N-A-N-A-S. If I own Real Property then I own it, period, and fuck you very much. I know there's no federal PP tax, but the legislatures that passed assessed value taxes should be literally tarred and feathered. PP *and* a state income tax? Well you're just fucking me coming AND going, aren't you?

Elimination of the income tax and adding a 36% VAT (although when you consider payroll taxes you're probably looking at closer to 50%) to non-essential goods and services would be fine with me. It'd be an adjustment, but it's something that could be easily phased in, in pieces, and if, as Chris advocates, those with sufficiently low incomes are exempt, I think this would be more equitable. 

But I know it's never going to happen, we have what we're gonna, but I can still make philosophical points.

---

(Sidenote, any one of you keyboard commandos could have come in with a "Taxation isn't theft because you have no right to your pre-tax income, which is the market's payment to the government for the value that you added to it, and not actually yours to begin with" instead of trying some weird "it's not theft because it's legal" craziness. Philosophy matters in philosophical arguments.)

[SlimKlim]

So THAT's the secret passphrase to get your head out of your ass on the first page instead of the 3rd and have a real conversation! Someone write that down for next time.

If I say it 3 times fast will you appear in my mirror?

[CaptainHenreh]

So THAT's the secret passphrase to get your head out of your ass on the first page instead of the 3rd and have a real conversation! Someone write that down for next time.

If I say it 3 times fast will you appear in my mirror?

Nah but it's at least more interesting that "NUH UH IT'S DIFFERENT CUZ AUNTIE GOVERNMENT SAID IT WAS LEGAL."

[SlimKlim]

So is water wet?

By the way, if your whole taxation is theft argument centers around the fact that you don't consent to it, what about those of us that do?

[CaptainHenreh]

So is water wet?

By the way, if your whole taxation is theft argument centers around the fact that you don't consent to it, what about those of us that do?

Good for you?

[rherold9]

So is water wet?

You tell me

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[SlimKlim]

So is water wet?

By the way, if your whole taxation is theft argument centers around the fact that you don't consent to it, what about those of us that do?

Good for you?

No I'm asking you a philosophical question, you like this stuff. Is it still theft for all of us? is it theft for you and not me? hows that play out?

[WRXtranceformed]

I said it in the WatchMMe groupme chat, but if we want to talk about theft IMO the real government theft is "eminent domain"

As a landowner of a decent amount of property in one of the hottest markets in the nation, this is a legitimate concern for me. There is very little recourse if I move into one of the houses on our farm or build our dream home there and our property is suddenly in the crosshairs for some proposed toll road or government property.

My wife's family's entire ancestral farm in West Virginia got snatched away from them because the state decided to build a new high school there. One of her uncles literally chained himself to the front porch of their farmhouse for a week. The sheriffs finally showed up, forcibly removed him and they bulldozed the house. Yeah they got "compensated" for it but aside from losing their family home they also had to give up their mineral rights on the property which, for better or for worse, can be worth millions in residual income for a surprising number of people up in that part of the state.