Justified Taxation v. Unjustified Taxation?

Johnny,

As a point of clarification. Perhaps we are talking apples and oranges. Or at least tangerines and oranges. My first appeal is to natural law, not to statutory law. Statutory law is often subject to the manipulations of words and remanufacture of word meanings by men intent upon controlling others. For those reasons much of my argument lies with natural law as it's foundation. I do not believe any person can speak for another or represent them unless they have that persons DIRECT consent. To deny that is to deny choice. To deny another persons choice is taking away their freedom and is an initiation of force upon them.

You seem to focus on the what you perceive as the "bad" result , anarchy, as the reason to justify your argument.
While it may be true if all do not participate in government, the possibility of anarchy is greater. However I maintain that is beside the point.

How can a Voluntaryist or an Anarchist truly be represented by somebody that they do not consent
to as being their representative? They can't. Therefore taxes upon THEM, logically must be extortion. Whether it is made "legal" nothwithstanding.

Your belief that ALL must participate in government both the willing and the unwilling for it to work actually bolsters my contention that taxation, at least upon ME is extortion.

I never agreed to representation. Therefore anyone deigning to represent me does so without my consent. Therein lies the beginning of the extortion.

Therefore when my "representative" makes agreements that bind me, that binding is not and never can be a voluntary binding upon me. If it isn't voluntary, it must be involuntary. If it is involuntary taking, it must be extortion, even if it is "legal".

Anyhow...It's time for me to go kill some brain cells. Peace.

Rob Roy said:

Johnny,

As a point of clarification. Perhaps we are talking apples and oranges. Or at least tangerines and oranges. My first appeal is to natural law, not to statutory law. Statutory law is often subject to the manipulations of words and remanufacture of word meanings by men intent upon controlling others. For those reasons much of my argument lies with natural law as it's foundation. I do not believe any person can speak for another or represent them unless they have that persons DIRECT consent. To deny that is to deny choice. To deny another persons choice is taking away their freedom and is an initiation of force upon them.

You seem to focus on the what you perceive as the "bad" result , anarchy, as the reason to justify your argument.
While it may be true if all do not participate in government, the possibility of anarchy is greater. However I maintain that is beside the point.

How can a Voluntaryist or an Anarchist truly be represented by somebody that they do not consent
to as being their representative? They can't. Therefore taxes upon THEM, logically must be extortion. Whether it is made "legal" nothwithstanding.

Your belief that ALL must participate in government both the willing and the unwilling for it to work actually bolsters my contention that taxation, at least upon ME is extortion.

I never agreed to representation. Therefore anyone deigning to represent me does so without my consent. Therein lies the beginning of the extortion.

Therefore when my "representative" makes agreements that bind me, that binding is not and never can be a voluntary binding upon me. If it isn't voluntary, it must be involuntary. If it is involuntary taking, it must be extortion, even if it is "legal".

Anyhow...It's time for me to go kill some brain cells. Peace.

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From Meditation XVII:

[FONT=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][SIZE=-1]All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. - John Donne[/SIZE][/FONT]

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All territory on this planet is governed by man. Just by existing on it you are consenting to abide by the rules therein. One cannot simply live outside it. There is no exemption. No secession. We are all part of a larger thing than ourselves, whether we like it or not.

Anarchy is inefficient and fleeting. It only invites in a more brutal authority to enforce the 'peace.'

Our military is not protecting anyone, our military is Killing other people in the hopes that if we kill all of them they won't try to take over more planes.

Okay Johnny. I'll take another stab at it...

I freely consent not to initiate force against another. Government cannot make that same claim can they?
I do not freely consent to taxation.

Your continued focus on what you believe the outcome of mass noncompliance will be, "anarchy" still does not refute that
government actually does extort. Your argument has focused on justifying the extortion, because if we don't, oh no, we'll have anarchy.

You say by existing on the planet I consent to the rules etc. No, as I mentioned before I only consent to what I consent to. Not what others would have me consent to. That is a big difference. The very nature and meaning of consent is it must be FREELY given or it is not consent The mere existence of somebody does not imply what they do or do not consent to.

Your BELIEF everybody SHOULD consent does not mean everbody DOES consent. Even if you are correct that it is my best interest to consent, it cannot change the meaning of the word. Consent = voluntary agreement. Theft = Unauthorized taking. Extortion = Taking from another without THEIR consent, while threatening or implying violence against them.

I'd say its a fair comparison, free health care would probably protect more people than all that money put towards the military, because they're not just protecting themselves anymore they're basically trying to police the world, who does this protect? The US military just needs to mind their own business a little more and then they wouldn't need to spend as much as the rest of the world on military expenses. Kinda sad when it gets to that extent, especially when your just bullying places like Iraq for fuel...
But ya I'd still say neither are really justified cause even if the majority wants it theres still probably a good percentage of people against it and at that point your taking from them to provide something that is essentially useless. For things as expensive as these types of matters, there should have to be a large majority agreeing to it.

NoDrama said:

Our military is not protecting anyone, our military is Killing other people in the hopes that if we kill all of them they won't try to take over more planes.

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Nailed it. We need to bring our military personnel home to protect our borders. We stick our nose in places it doesn't belong and do more harm than good. Our policies have led to more violence, not less.

A great man said - "We need to borrow 10 billion dollars from China, and then we give it to Musharraf, who's a military dictator, who over threw an elected government, and then we go to war and we loose all these lives promoting democracy in Iraq. What's going on here?"

About the healthcare... What we need to do is regulate the costs of healthcare not healthcare insurance. Hospitals charge a rediculously high amount for things that should cost a fraction of what they charge. They can charge whatever they want and they do. For an overnight stay at the hospital they'll charge you like half a years worth of rent. They charge too much for everything that is just one example. If we could stop them from overcharging us for everything nobody would need insurance because we could afford to pay it if they werent raping our bank accounts and started charging a fair price. And if that happened we wouldn't have to force people to buy insurance. Its such a scam anyway they try their hardest to not pay for anything when you need it.

Parker said:

Nailed it. We need to bring our military personnel home to protect our borders. We stick our nose in places it doesn't belong and do more harm than good. Our policies have led to more violence, not less.

A great man said - "We need to borrow 10 billion dollars from China, and then we give it to Musharraf, who's a military dictator, who over threw an elected government, and then we go to war and we loose all these lives promoting democracy in Iraq. What's going on here?"

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Well if we let our Military go do what they are trained to do, are men and women would already be home. But that is another topic.

These large handout programs that suck our tax dollars need to be shutdown. FEMA - What a joke, the goverment has no better fucking idea how to fix shit at the Federal level verse the state level. All the retards at the federal came from the state level at one time so WTF....... Why should I pay if someone wants to live in a area prone to hurricanes if I live in Colorado? Fuck I'm nice just not that nice. Why should my money go to help put out fires in California ? If they can not vote people in to handle control burns and stop the wild fires that's not my prob. Same can be said for unemployment, welfare, any type of government social program.

All government social programs are tax dollar black holes.

Stewie

What pisses me off about taxes is the fact that half of every dollar we send the goverment goes to feed the beuracracy, not to back to the people. The healthcare issue will end up like everything else the goverment gets involved in (turns to crap).
The goverment can rob us every day, not spend the money the way they are supposed to, then have the audacity to ask for more.... One example is road maintenance, 40 cents of every gallon of fuel sold goes to the goverment to take care of the roads. Do you think your vehicle does .40 cents worth of damage to a road per gallon of fuel used? They can't even spend something as directly calculable as that correctly! We still have crappy roads. I think for the taxes we already pay, we could have the "free healthcare" people want. We just have to get the ratio right to where you send a dollar to the goverment and at least .75 cents comes back to the folks.

If people want something, THEY should participate in it AND pay for it. If other people do not want the same things, then they should be left alone and not be made at the point of a gun to particpate. THAT is freedom. Anything else is a rationalization.

PadawanBater said:

Some of the current threads influenced this one, and I was just wondering what the opinion of the community was.

I hear a lot of people say it's wrong for the government to force people to pay for a medical plan provided by the US gov. for various reason. In the free society.. thread I started a while back, people equated it to extortion and pointed out that if we have a system in which a government forces it's citizens to pay a mandatory tax, even if they disagree with it (which most do in most cases, who want's to pay more taxes right?), the society cannot be completely "free".

I was looking at the budget and where our taxes go and almost a quarter goes directly to the US military (mostly for expanding current operations, not military families or housing, which actually dropped -21%).

Some people believe it's wrong to fund the health care via mandatory taxes, and some people believe it's wrong to fund the military's imperial conquests via mandatory taxes...

So what's the difference? Aren't both a form of extortion? How could one be, but not the other? Does it simply fall on how many people say something about it? Clearly more people disagree with gov. run health care than they do with the military's expansion, so is that the deciding factor? Should it be? Both are just as unjustified, aren't they?

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national defence is one of the only things tax dollars should be used on....but most of what were doing is imperilistic conquest not defence and it only creates enemys from wich we have to defend ourselves. no you shouldnt have to pay for or be entitled to recieve healthcare

laughingduck said:

What pisses me off about taxes is the fact that half of every dollar we send the goverment goes to feed the beuracracy, not to back to the people. The healthcare issue will end up like everything else the goverment gets involved in (turns to crap).
The goverment can rob us every day, not spend the money the way they are supposed to, then have the audacity to ask for more.... One example is road maintenance, 40 cents of every gallon of fuel sold goes to the goverment to take care of the roads. Do you think your vehicle does .40 cents worth of damage to a road per gallon of fuel used? They can't even spend something as directly calculable as that correctly! We still have crappy roads. I think for the taxes we already pay, we could have the "free healthcare" people want. We just have to get the ratio right to where you send a dollar to the goverment and at least .75 cents comes back to the folks.

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This.
+rep for you.
You have demonstrated the ellusive common sense gene.

The tax levels should not be based on income.
They should be based upon the level of services you wish to recieve from the goverment.

If you want the "Im a dumbass that needs the government to take care of every need I have" plan , you should pay more than the " I want to live in the middle of nowhere be left alone " bracket.

True freedom is the ability to say I want nothing from the government, I'm not gonna pay.

What about defense?
That can be paid with import/export taxes.

What about roads?
Easy. If I want to use the roads I pay may car registration.

What about police and fire?
Should be strictly local.

What about education?
Another local matter.

Think about it.
What do we really need the federal government for other than defending our border?

Gorac said:

The tax levels should not be based on income.
They should be based upon the level of services you wish to recieve from the goverment.

If you want the "Im a dumbass that needs the government to take care of every need I have" plan , you should pay more than the " I want to live in the middle of nowhere be left alone " bracket.

True freedom is the ability to say I want nothing from the government, I'm not gonna pay.

What about defense?
That can be paid with import/export taxes.

What about roads?
Easy. If I want to use the roads I pay may car registration.

What about police and fire?
Should be strictly local.

What about education?
Another local matter.

Think about it.
What do we really need the federal government for other than defending our border?

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i hear the amish don't have to pay into SS or the individual mandate. why don't you go join them? you know, put your money where your mouth is....stop writing checks with your mouth your body can't cash.

Ok, let's put to rest some of the misinformation being tossed around in this thread about being able to control our spending by reducing amounts in "relatively" insignificant sectors (example: NASA).

Mandatory spending is roughly two-thirds of our national budget. This includes programs such as medicare, medicaid, social security, and payments on our national debt level.

Discretionary spending is everything else, with over half of the discretionary budget being military spending.

So, if we for a moment pretended that entitlement spending (medicare, medicaid, social security and new health care law) were going to stay fixed - we all know that is a rediculous assumption - then two-thirds of our national budget are off-limits unless we want to tell granny that her monthly social security check just isn't going to come anymore and for her to not bother going to the hospital for her angina.

Staying in lala land where entitlement spending is never going to increase, we then turn to our discretionary part of our budget. At this point, the hawks say we need all twelve of our aircraft carrier groups, and we should continue to have thousands of troops in South Korea, Japan, Germany, and the other 150 nations around the world we currently have troops deployed in. If that is the case, then we can not touch half of our discretionary budget.

That leaves just one-sixth of our federal budget for us to tinker around with. Well crap. We really do need to have money set aside for our courts as we don't want anarchy. We should go ahead and spend that money set aside for veteran's benefits as those men and women have put their lives on the line for us and we owe them the benefits we contracted with them. We should probably spend the money we have set aside on transportation spending, just to put a dent in our swiftly eroding roads and bridges (an estimated 70,000 bridges alone in the US are beyond their expiration date). We might as well continue to spend on protecting our national parks ... its only a small percentage of our national budget and we do like our protected wildlife and forest areas.

Do you see where I am going with this?

Sure, you can find examples of rediculous governmental spending ... $300 hammers and $1,000,000 grants on how to boil the perfect egg. And when those are found they should be cut and we should determine how those happened, with prison time for the people who signed off on such if criminality is proven. But the silly claims that we can balance our budget without making hard decisions is .... well silly.

We know our mandatory budget is going to continue to grow. That is a given. We can even estimate as to when that mandatory spending will bankrupt us completely. We see the train coming down the tracks and know we have to get off of it before it runs us over.

We also know we can not continue to be the world's police force. Having soldiers in 150 nations around the world, and naval vessels in every body of water larger than a swimming pond is an unsustainable expenditure.

Hard decisions with no easy answers. I have my answer to what should be done, but it is probably not your answer. But stop with the silly spending cuts that would do nothing but nibble around the edges of the problem itself.