Tax Discrimination - It's that time again
- Thread starter Danoff
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Danoff
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When it is done at gunpoint - and yes, taxes are collected at gunpoint.
This comparison misunderstands money, value, wealth, and basic economics - so it's not terribly easy to respond to, but I'll try.
Wealth is not a finite resource, it springs into existence from nowhere when an individual works to produce it. Economies grow and shrink depending on how their citizens produce and how much burden the government levies. Wealth is not water, wealth is created and it is destroyed every single day. Our government taxes wealth - something you can create or destroy on your own. Our government does not tax a finite resource that some citizens do not have access to.
The government you propose, one that taxes a finite resource that some individuals have access to and others do not, is one that is facing a fundamental dilemma (a fundamental dilemma that ours does not face). The water-based government's dilemma is this: Do I tax everyone equally and end up putting most of my desert citizens in jail? Or do I tax everyone unequally and violate the fundamental human right known as "equal protection". The only way to get around equal protection is to provide unequal services - this gets back to my initial response of "only if they use the same amount of government".
The only way your water-based government could exist without violating rights would be to provide services in proportion to the water that was taxed. This government would likely have to operate on a fee-for-use system. If you wanted to use a road, you'd have to kick in some water. If you want police protection, you'd have to kick in some water every year. This kind of fee-based structure works exceptionally well for government roles that not everyone will take advantage of, but which do fit within the government's charter. An excellent example of this is the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The USPTO operates entirely on customer fees for patent and trademark registration. In fact, it operates so well that other parts of the US government siphon money out of the USPTO fees.
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Slavery is the determination that other people's efforts belong to you. Mugging is the taking of property by force. Taxation is the determination that other people's efforts belong to you and taking their property by force.
Tax "paying" is slavery and mugging. QED.
It was plain enough. Why would a government need to collect water?
Your answer - "Why not?" - indicates that you seem to think government is some body that should have executive force over anything it sees fit, but I guess that's Scandinavian socialist indoctrination for you.
Thus tax is taken at gunpoint. QED.
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- eran0004
Money is a finite resource. In the end, the value of money is determined by the amount of work that is being done. If you add more money without adding more work, you get inflation and the money will be worth less. Everyone can be a millionaire if the central bank prints the money for everyone, but a million will then be worth very little and can not be considered wealth.
There is water in the desert, only not as much as by the lake.
What makes an equal sum more equal than an equal percentage? What has equal protection got to do with equal taxation? How you obtain the money is disconnected from how you're using it.
No it wouldn't. It would collect water based on how much is available, then spend it where it's most needed. No rights are being violated, everyone is protected.
Those definitions are all bogus. Slavery is when you're using forced labour to work without getting payed. Slavery involves owning and trading human beings. The definition you're using implies that all enterprises are using slavery, because no work that you do when you're at work belongs to you - it belongs to the company. Is that slavery?
Mugging is theft, not taking proprty by force. If you've got a debt that you can't pay, your property may be taken. That's not theft and it's not mugging.
Taxation is when the government collects resources from businesses or persons so that they can fund their spendings. That's not slavery, that's not mugging. QED.
Because it has expenses. No government can be run without expenses. Unless of course you propose that governments are to be dissolved and that people can live freely in anarchy. Which I suppose they can, but it wouldn't solve the issue for those who wants to keep their wealth, because their wealth would be worthless if the system collapsed.
The same Scandinavian indoctrination that makes sure that Scandinavia is constantly in the top when it comes to ranking the best countries in the world to live in? And it's odd, for a country that's so plagued by socialist indoctrination, that the socialist party has never been in government. In fact, it hasn't even got 10% in the parliament.What exactly are you proposing? A system where there are no government? How would that work?
Tax is not taken at gun point. Unless you want to propose that driving is under gunpoint as well, because if you're caught speeding you get the same result. Oh, wait, that means that anything we do is under gunpoint! Eating at a restaurant - gun point. Travelling by airplane - gun point. Raising children - gun point. It just gets absurd to claim the gun point argument.
Danoff
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Contradiction.
That would be "wealth", re-read my post without assuming wealth=money.
Wealth is what is being taxed. An equal sum at an instant in time is equal wealth. An equal percentage is not equal wealth.
The rule that government must treat its citizens equally under law applies to tax law as well.
If the government taxes one person twice as much as another for the same services rendered, it has violated equal protection. This is an unequal application of law across citizens.
The work you do for a corporation is not slavery because it is not the corporation determining that your efforts belong to them, but rather, that you determine that your efforts should be given to the corporation in exchange for pay.
If you have a debt that you do not pay you have violated the rights of another and lose some of your property rights. When the money is taken from you, you have no claim to it. That's why it's not theft.
Why is it that when you replace "government" with anyone else that sentence becomes theft?
Let's see if this follows:
1. You choose not to eat at a restaurant
2. The government arrests you for not... oh wait no. So then you're wrong.
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Yes, you have. All of them. I know you choose to ignore that I even posted the argument, as made by a Nobel winning economist, in a video, but that doesn't change the fact.
Don't pay taxes > get fined >refuse to pay fine > get arrested > cops have guns and that is the only real power they have.
But if you want real-world incident, look up the Nevada cattle farmer thread. That involved militarized federal agents that even included snipers. The situation became so bad that local and state officials showed up to protest the federal agency's actions alongside the farmer.
Every regulation is backed by force. Government's force comes from having more guns.
I'm still curious what is fair to you. How much is the fair share? Why don't people who earn their wealth deserve to keep it?
How is taking more from the rich and giving it to the poor different than the feudal system where rich lords took the earned money from the poor? In the end government is still taking it from others.
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No, you choose to sell your labour to that company - and you are free to sell your labour to any company you wish. Or none. That's not an implication that all employment is slavery - quite the opposite in fact.
You sell your labour to who you see fit and a third party, backed by weapons, takes some of the proceeds from you. You are indentured to that third party.
Whither differentiation?
Are you aware you just compared tax collection to the seizure of assets for breach of contract?
Where's the contract? How did you breach it? Why do you need your assets seized by armed forces for breaching this contract?
In order to add "QED" you need to demonstrate something. You've just posted two completely contradictory sentences, which demonstrates nothing except perhaps a mote of ignorance of process.
Your property is taken from you. It is done in a manner that is backed by force. This is theft, akin to mugging.
This is done to pay government debts/spending. This is an indenture - you work to pay off someone else's debt, akin to slavery.
That doesn't answer the question. Why, in your example, would government need to collect water? Why is the water even the property of the government's to collect?
Great. This justifies slavery because?
Irrelevant.
It's amazing that socialists rank socialist countries highly. I can't even begin to imagine why.
Don't go confusing "the socialist party" with socialism, as if they're the only people who can enact socialist policies. The "Moderate Party" are doing a terrific job of retaining all of Sweden's 1930s socialist welfare systems and abandoning its own, more conservative policies like flat rate taxation.
I don't recall proposing anything, so I don't understand why you're asking these questions - particularly when there's a whole host of earlier ones waiting.
It's already been demonstrated and conceded by you that it is, so I don't know why you want to now pretend otherwise.
Aside from the fact your examples are a bit weird, you're comparing the act of being punished for working to behaving irresponsibly. Do you think it's irresponsible to work?
Actually it gets absurd to draw absurd examples. This is called "reductio ad absurdum" - a logical fallacy. It's all the more impressive in this case that they actually counter your own argument by suggesting you think it's irresponsible to work.
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- eran0004
No it's not, because there's not infinite work. Thus no infinite wealth.
Income is what's being taxed. Less income = less tax, more income = more tax. Equal.
And it does. The law is applied equally to all citizens. It doesn't matter who it is that earns money, the law is the same for everyone.
No it hasn't. It doesn't tax you so that you can use its services, it taxes you so that it can fund the running of the country. And even if it would tax you for using its services (which would be more like paying for using a service instead of a tax) the "protection" is equal. A child and an adult going by bus from point A to point B has to pay a different price, but they get the same service.
No. The work you do for a coproration is not slavery because the company doesn't own you, they don't trade you and they pay you for the work you do.
When you live in a country, you have to pay tax there. When the money is taken from you, you have no claim to it. That's why it's not theft.
Because governments are the only ones who have the right to tax someone. That's law.
1. You chose not to work.
2. No taxes.
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- eran0004
Exactly, employment isn't slavery. And neither is taxation.
Are you aware you've been comparing taxes with slavery? That's rather an ignorant view. Ask a real slave what they think about taxation.
Slavery is using forced labour, it involves ownership of people, it involves stripping them of power, it involves trading people, it involves not paying people. Taxation does not match with that. Thus, taxation is not slavery. QED.
The same happens when you drive too fast and your car is being impounded. "Theft", then, is all over society. What does it matter if taxation is also "theft"?
Also, you're a human. That's just like slavery, because slaves are also human
You're using a fragment of a definition to try and prove something. A definition requires the entire definition to work, you can't stop halfway through and think that you're done.
Because the government has expenses. Water = money. It's an allegory.
You need to do some reading about slavery.
Tell me again how OECD is a socialist organization. This is as hilarious as when the Swedish Democrats accuse all their opposers of being "left-wing extremists".
Lol, you're confusing social security with socialism. Not the same.
Read it again and you'll find that I'm not comparing working with irresponsible behaviour. What I compare is what happens when you break the law. In the end, if you let it go far enough, the cops will always pay you a visit.
You think it's a punishment to pay tax. That's a rather irrational view. Punishment for what? What did you do wrong? What are they trying to make you not do in the future?
If you think taxation is wrong, surely you must have some idea on an alternative way of solving the problem of government funding.
And if you're looking for weird arguments, check that bit about comparing taxation with slavery.
What's the option of taxation? What other system could be used?
Not paying taxes is not an option, because the government still needs funding.
What happens in a country where the government have no funding?
And what about law enforcement? What happens if there's no law enforcement? Can there be laws without enforcement? What would happen? What alternative systems to taxation can there be that NOT uses law enforcement?
What's a fair share? A percentage is fair, but fairness is only one criteria. You also need to look at what's reasonable. Is it reasonable for a poor family to give 10% of their income to the government, or do they have a hard time as it is getting food on the table and cover all other costs? Thus, it's reasonable that those with lowest income has a lower percentage than those with a higher income.
The taxation is not that different from the taxation during the feual system, I suppose. The problem with the feudal system isn't taxes per se though. It's not a case of "feudal system had taxes, thus taxes must be bad".
In the end, taxes is required for government to get funding. Unless there are other suggestions of course?
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You're not putting any argument forwards, just stating that it is because you say it is.
"So, wait, you do work and someone else gets the money? Sounds like slavery to me."
What's "a real slave" if not someone who, uncontracted, works to pay off a third party's debt without any means of opting out?
You mean except the bits where it does? I mean, I literally showed you what indenture is - the exact same thing as income taxation.
Repeatedly saying things without any actual argument or evidence is not demonstration.
All you're doing is saying income taxation is neither theft nor slavery because you say it is and rejecting any argument or evidence that contradicts you without any scrutiny because you don't like it.
Again you're comparing punishment for indiscretion to working. Why are people who work so hateful to you that you have to compare them to criminals?
Why does an injustice matter if something else is also an injustice? What, seriously?
Not really. I've expanded my points significantly in the vain hope you'll actually read it, not just quote me and say I'm wrong because you say I'm wrong.Also, you're a human. That's just like slavery, because slaves are also human
You're using a fragment of a definition to try and prove something. A definition requires the entire definition to work, you can't stop halfway through and think that you're done.
Great, the government has expenses. Why does this give it possession of other people's water?
I know, right? How can anyone compare a situation where people are forced to work to pay off a third party's debts without any hope of opting out on pain of loss of liberty, torture and death to slavery?
Famine
Social security is a socialist policy.
Every single one of your examples that ends with armed government representatives pointing their weaponry at you requires irresponsible behaviour. The point that income taxation is enforced by guns does not require that - it simply requires someone to recognise that they are indentured and refuse to sell their labour to the government for its unilaterally determined fee. You are thus comparing, directly, people who behave irresponsibly with people who work.
Why do you hate working people so much?
It doesn't appear to be a reward for the productivity and wealth you create.
Apparently "earning too much".
Yes - but there's very little point visiting it until you've got to the point where you recognise that government taking money off you, unearned, to pay debts it has accrued is theft and slavery.
And you won't be able to get there until you can adequately explain why, in your analogy, the government has any right to steal water from the lakesiders.
BobK
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Actually there are lots of ways to fund a government other than taxation. @eran0004, you seem to be basing much of your argument on the premise that taxation is the only way to finance a government. It isn't. Selling goods and services (see mention of USPTO above), lotteries and such, voluntary contributions, etc, etc. Nor is a government necessary to provide police protection. Communities could contract with private police forces, for one example; there are others.
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Thanks for the clarification. And sorry for the late reply - for some reason, the forum didn't alert me when you posted that.
Ours only really gets complicated when you start factoring in company benefits, which all affect your tax code at different rates. They're still all handled by either the employer or HMRC (our IRS) though, so the individual has to do very little other than pay whatever is owed.
Unless you're self employed, like I am, in which case you receive a reminder through for the following tax year in the previous April, ignore it for nine months and then rush to finish it before the deadline in January.
Well, that's what I've been doing anyway.
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- eran0004
"Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work.[1] Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation."
Does not sound like taxation to me. The argument, for your information, is that it's not slavery because it doesn't fit the definition. That's the argument.
Exactly: The bits. Definition doesn't work in bits. It needs to fit the entire definition. "A Giraffe is an animal" does not mean that a Zebra is a Giraffe, because it's an animal. Yes, there are bits where taxation is similar to slavery, just as there are bits where a Zebra is similar to a Giraffe. But that doesn't make the Zebra a Griaffe and it doesn't make taxation slavery.
And there is a social contract.
Read it again and you'll see that what I say is that taxation is neither slavery nor theft because it doesn't match the definitions of slavery or theft. But if you don't want to keep an honest intellectual debate I can also start to make up false claims about your argumentation, let's see how that works out.
That's all intellectual dishonesty. Show me where I compared people who work with criminals.
That's why I've always made sure to present reasons to why you're wrong. But you simply ignore them and pretend like they're not there.
Because that is the only way that the government can get funding. Unless you have another suggestion to how the government should get its fundings.
Or maybe you suggest that there should be no government at all, because all governments are by definition oppressors?
You're basically saying that a system of law is evil because it shares some proprties with slavery, in the sense that no man is truly free to do whatever he pleases.
That law, though, is also protecting your right to property in the first place. That law lays the foundation onto which you can do business, solve conflicts, make justice. Without laws, there's no civilization, there's no liberty, there's no property. At that point it would just be a struggle for survival. A war against everyone.
Holy crap, seems like we live in a socialist world then, because the right to social security is protected in the UDHR. So is it British socialist propaganda that has shaped your beliefs?
What exactly makes it irresponsible? You say that it is because you say so.
What I'm comparing, directly, is what happens when you break the law, to what happens when you break the law. Nowhere am I directly comparing irresponsible or criminal people with workers.
Why do you falsely accuse me of having views I don't have? It's not likely to convince me that you're right, is it?
Taxes is an obligation, it's not supposed to be a reward. It's a necessity to run the country that protects your rights as a citizen. Without a government you wouldn't even have a job or a home or any proprty in the first place.
Because it's law that everyone must pay tax. That is why they have the right to take it. The right to property is also protected in law. Without the law, the lakesiders wouldn't have any right to own the water. So the law says that the lakesiders own the water and it also says that the lakesiders must give some of the water to the government.
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- eran0004
Taxation is the only way to finance a government to any greater scale. The other methods would only be able to fill in gaps here and there and it would be a short-term source of income. To have stability in a country you need stability in the government and for that you need sustainable resources. Selling lottery tickets or relying on voluntary contributions is not sustainable. "Oops, can't afford to pay the army this year. I hope they'll not be angry."
Private police forces would be the worst idea ever conceived by man and a nightmare for the legal system. And how would that be financed? If the community is going to hire a police force, where would they get the money to pay for it? What happens to poor communities that can't afford police protection?
Wrong. Utterly wrong. Clearly I did.
Somewhere you've got to weigh the pros versus the cons.
Pros: Wouldn't need to pay taxes anymore.
Cons: Would be the end of civilization as we know if.
Which one is more important if you've got to a position where you've got a nice job and a high income?
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The underlined fits taxation perfectly.
Uhhh...
Ah, I did wonder how long it would take to get to that.
Where is this contract?
I've repeatedly posted that it does. You just posted that it does.
Well it's not going well for you so far, since you've already committed three logical fallacies in addition to the straw man you kicked off with.
So it'd be swell if you'd... you know... stop. Actually, it'd be swell if you could address the original question I brought to you after your analogy that you pretended I hadn't asked.
eran0004
You've presented no reasons except that it's because you say so.
You've presented a few analogies that don't support you, a few definitions that support me and you're also trying to advance the discussion to an end-point that it doesn't make any sense to do so without addressing the elephant in the room. Like you do so here:
Nope.
Yes, but not really relevant.
Sort of, but not really relevant.
Yes, for the most part that's correct.
Though the UNUDHR is one of the most amazing pieces of contradictory hogwash I've ever read. And I've read the Bible...
I see no beliefs.
What makes what irresponsible?
You don't actually seem to get that you're proving the point that taxation is enforced at gunpoint...
I don't need to convince you - and if they aren't views you have you may wish to express your views better, because everything you've said so far suggests that you view working as worthy of punishment.
To whom? Why?
No, really?
Why?
If you say so. It's not relevant though.
Great. Why?
Laws don't create rights, they protect them.
Yyyyesss... ish.
Yes they would. Laws don't create rights, they protect them.
If the lakesiders own the water they do so irrespective of the law. The law can only recognise that they do.
Great. Why?
You're trapped in an infinite loop here. You have this idea that because rights need laws, laws need governments and since governments need paying for governments can ignore rights. Governments that ignore rights, by your own argument, break laws to do so. Of course the fact I've chosen to tell you that it's theft and slavery (accurately) for governments to ignore the property rights you claim they exist to protect and take money off people's labour by force and without informed consent hasn't really helped you much.
So let's start again.
What is a government for?
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We wouldn't need a different word for rights if they were merely laws - and nations wouldn't be able to commit human rights violations if their acts were legal.
Rights are inalienable (cannot be affected by law). Law merely recognises or abuses them. You'll be wanting to read the Human Rights thread.
To ask again, what is a government for?
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- eran0004
Laws can be rights or obligations. An obligation is not a right.
Of course you can claim the right of anything, but if that claim isn't supported by the law then you'll have a poor case in court. For instance, you can't go to court and claim human rights, if those human rights aren't law. The rights that are protected in law are the rights that the society has agreed on and they are the only rights that have any value. If society decides that taxes are optional, then you have the right not to pay any taxes.
There are no rights that are granted by nature. Nature is a state of war, everyone on everyone. No rules, no rights. Try to convince a wolf that the sheep he's after belongs to you. It doesn't work, you'll have to either shoot him or scare him off.
A government is the system by which a country is governed. So it's for governing the country. What exactly the government should do is up to the government to decide.
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Yes, you've just drawn a Venn diagram of words that shows rights and laws are not the same thing, like I said. Go read the Human Rights thread.
And again you've shown that rights and laws are not the same thing, like I said. And also denied that any state can ever commit human rights violations, like I said you did. Go read the Human Rights thread.
Rights aren't granted. Go read the Human Rights thread.
And you've just demonstrated that a lack of comprehension of rights does not deny them. Incidentally, put a lawyer between the wolf and the sheep and see how that works out for you. Also, go read the Human Rights thread.
I see. So you think that a government's job is to rule the population in whatever manner it sees fit?
Danoff
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Correct, there is not infinite value (I substituted it for work as being more accurate), but the amount of value is also not fixed. So yes, it was a contradiction.
Actually income is not what's being taxed. You'll find that as inflation marches along and your income is worth less, the government increases their tax rates to compensate so that they can continue to tax value. Value is what is taxed. Equal taxation of value would be equal.
This is a really common response, and it has been well debunked. The easiest way to do so is to use an extreme example, so you'll forgive me if I invoke Godwin's Law.
The law in Nazi Germany was that Jews were to be rounded up and exterminated. It didn't matter who the jews were, the law is the same for everyone. If you were jewish, you were killed (after you worked as a slave for a while).
A law that treats citizens unequally arbitrarily violates equal protection despite the fact that that law applies to everyone. If our federal government passed a law today saying that anyone who owned a red car was to be put in jail, the supreme court would strike it down under equal protection. That is the case despite the fact that it doesn't matter who has red cars, the law is the same for everyone - nobody is allowed to have red cars. It's still unequal application of law.
That'd be the "service".
Try subbing that with adult citizens who have a full compliment of rights and responsibilities but who are different colors. A white adult going from point A to point B has to pay a different price than the black adult, but they get the same service. That would be violation of equal protection.
Slavery does not require declaration of ownership. If someone points a gun at you and tells you to paint their house - you are their slave. They may not claim they own you, they may not buy or trade you with other people with guns, and they might even turn you loose after you're done painting. But while you're painting their house at gunpoint you are a slave. To be a slave is to be forced to do or give something - force meaning that bodily harm or death was threatened. You are not a slave to the company you work for not because they don't claim ownership or trade you with other companies, but because you work for them voluntarily, of your own free will.
Living in a country does not constitute a rights violation, so it does not remove your property rights.
Rights are not created by law.
Well technically that's not true - because I'd still owe property tax even if I didn't work. But let's set that aside for now. This is not responsive to my original point. You're trying to make taxation parallel to eating at a restaurant. Where are the guns at the restaurant? You said:
eran0004
At some point, to make this parallel, something you do or don't do at the restaurant has to be at gun point. I really don't see it.
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No I will not. I have made my points clear, he has chose to misunderstand and distort them.
If you add more money to an economy without adding more work you get inflation. Where is the contradiction?
We might have different tax systems. Here is how it works in Sweden: If you earn 200 000 SEK during a year and the tax rate is 30%, you'll pay 60 000 SEK in tax. That is a tax on income. The tax % doesn't change with inflation, but as the wages usually do, the tax rate can remain the same.
If you had a fixed value tax, that would need to be raised as inflation rises.
Bring it on
The problem with that argument is that it's not established that a fixed sum is more equal than a %. The exact same argument that you're using can be used to argue for the opposite: That it's unfair to have a wealthy man pay 0,5% of their income in tax while a poor man would have to pay 50% of his income in tax, and a law that's using a fixed sum tax is discriminating against poor people because they'd have to pay a bigger part of their wealth in tax than the rich has to do.
Why would the white adult pay a different price than the black adult? That sounds like racism.
Well, you're their hostage.
It would be better to argue that the government claim ownership of you, because in a sense they are. Especially when it comes to things like military service and such.
But it's still a long way to slavery from there.
It doesn't remove your property rights, because property rights does not mean that your property cannot be taxed.
It's true when it comes to income tax. No income = no income tax.
Don't pay the bill, the restaurant owner call the cops, there are the guns.
Let's see how it goes with that
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Since you've just invoked Danoff, I think you're likely to see the same questions put to you. It'll be fun watching you not answer them.Let's see how it goes with that
I note you've conceded that my question wasn't a misunderstanding, so I'll take that as "Yes, a government's job is to rule the population in whatever manner it sees fit.".
That being the case, you would accept a government arbitrarily deciding a certain class of people should be rounded up and placed in camps to be executed and to suspend the voting process? Your water example also indicates you'd support a government deciding that it needs to collect oil from another sovereign state and taking it by military force - after all, a government has expenses.
You can't actually answer "no" to either of these things and retain your position that rights are granted by law and law is what the government chooses to be. Though you will - if you answer. I suspect you know this and the position you've corralled yourself into and this wholly explains your reticence to answer.
Danoff
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Here
you
Not finite if you can print more.
We have a similar, but worse, tax system. But value is fundamentally what is being taxed. My government doesn't tax income, they don't need dollars - they can print dollars. They need the value that the dollars represent. They tax value.
So you're at least conceding that taxation needs to be equal. Good. You said "the problem" meaning, this is your only problem with it. That means that you're on board with the rest - I'm glad.
That's why it's not a good idea to try to base things on a %. Again, what the government is taxing is value. To base things on a % would be like telling everyone at a restaurant that they should pay the tab based on how much money they make. All that matters is economics and reality is value. When you're eating at a restaurant, you consume a certain amount of value that the chef created. You compensate the chef for the value you consume (and thus he is not your slave). There is nothing magical about the government that breaks this interaction. The government provides a service (protection of rights), and you pay for that service based on your usage of it. You don't use the rule of law any more or less than any of your fellow citizens. So why should someone who creates more value than you have to fork over more of it to the government for the same service?
Doesn't matter why. Regardless of the reason, it is a violation of equal protection (provided that the bus was operated by the government).
Yes and... you're their slave.
A hostage is a person who is not free because of the threat of force. In my example you are not free because of the threat of force, therefore you are a hostage. A slave is a person who is forced to work or provide value under the threat of force. You are being forced to work under the threat of force, therefore you are also a slave.
Not by your definition of slavery it isn't.
You're confusing law with rights. Property rights mean that the property belongs to you - you control it, you own it, it represents your labor. If someone then takes it (even if they are the government) they are stealing your property, they are stealing your labor. If someone takes your labor under the threat of force, you are their slave.
Don't see why you responded to this. I set it aside, and it's not what you said.
Thanks for that.
At the restaurant, you asked for a service in exchange for pay (contract), you got the service, refused the pay, you are now in violation of the contract. This is fundamentally different from the government scenario. Try explaining to them that you didn't want or use their services, and didn't agree to pay them - see whether the guns show up. If you do that with a restaurant, you simply don't get services and you leave - no guns.
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Alright, I see what you mean, I used a bad choise of word. It should be that wealth is not infinite. But the conclusion is no contradiction: Add more money without adding more work and you get inflation. That's also why the government can't print money to fund their serivces, which is also something we seem to agree on:
Thanks for the clarification.
Yeah, it is my only problem with it. You don't establish that a fixed sum is more equal than a proportional or progressive tax rate. Thus the argument doesn't prove anything, it just says that a fair legal system should treat everyone the same, not what "the same" actually is.
When you eat at a restaurant you purchase a product and a service.
When you pay tax you don't - you fund the running of the government. The government in turn provides certain services, but the tax is not payed so that you can use the services, it's being payed so that the government can provide them.
The reason why someone with a higher income should pay more taxes is because they can afford it. You can't ask for the poor to pay as much as the rich, because the poor doesn't have the money. How should the government solve that issue? Throw all the poor people in jail? That would just end up with the rich having to pay all the taxes anyway so for them it's a status quo situation.
It is. But how is it relevant to taxes?
What is missing from that allegory, though, is that the person holding you hostage would also have to be your guarantee for liberty. Because that is what the state does. It limits your freedom some, by taxing you, but it also guarantees your rights. Without the state, you would only have the rights you're capable of enforcing by yourself.
Exactly, it isn't slavery. It can be viewed as ownership to some degree, but mere ownership is not enough to make it slavery.
Who would guarantee your rights if there was no law? A right without enforcement is an empty right. You need enforcement to guarantee it and that's what the state does, by making law and enforcing it.
The idea that there should be right to property can exist without law, it's a rational idea. But it doesn't become a right until society decides that it's something it will enforce.
The obligation to pay taxes is also a rational idea that society can decide to enforce. It doesn't mean that it violates the right of property, because the idea of right of property itself can be constructed so that governments are allowed to tax your property without it constituting a violation of the right. And that is something that is realised in law.
It's a clarification of what I meant. I meant income tax, not any tax.
There is a contract when you're part of a society that says that you're bound to follow its laws. Break the law and it's a violation of the contract. If you want to not pay taxes, you will have to do it within the frames of the contract: you'll have to change the law.
What would otherwise be the consequences? That laws shall not be enforced? That leads to a state of anarchy, where none of your rights will be enforced and thus you'll effectively lose them all.
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Here's one: With the knowledge you undoubtedly have that most of the major contributors of the opinions forum largely share the same political orientation; what do you hope to prove by responding to everything with pithy tautologies, bad analogies and strawmen rather than actually answering the questions raised in response that are going to be repeatedly asked no matter how much you try to evade them?
And while I'm sure I'll get another "it's clear you don't even have a point" non-answer as seems to be par for the course when you say something hypocritical, it should still be noted that such an answer would also be more evasion.
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Danoff
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The conclusion was that you could compare a government that taxes a finite resource (like water) to a government that taxes a non-finite resource (like wealth). And you cannot.
Yay.
Well... not right there, but I did establish that later in my post.
You're acting like the government simply exists and has its own wants and desires. The government exists to provide services - namely to protect rights. You pay tax for that service.
Why does "because they can afford it" constitute a reason? To my eyes, it's like you said "The reason why someone with a higher income should pay more taxes is because they wear a yellow shirt."
...not tax so much that poor people can't pay? Shift as much as possible to fees?
I'm just establishing how a law that applies to everyone can still violate equal protection - you attempted to use this to justify unequal taxation.
This is totally beside the point. The fact that the state performs services that you may or may not want does not change the fact that they tax everyone regardless of services rendered and they tax everyone differently (especially in the US).
You earlier claimed that ownership of human beings constitutes slavery - though, granted, you included "forced labor" in that, but the government fits that part of the description as well.
You keep jumping to this notion that without income taxes you don't have law, or without unequal taxation you have everyone in jail. Neither of these is true. You might want to ask myself or Famine how this is possible because we know.
If it didn't become a right until it was enforced, the concept of a "right" would have no meaning. For "rights" to have meaning they have to be capable of being infringed or unenforced. How well society protects the rights that exist independent of them is a measure of that society's legitimacy.
Yes, the obligation to pay taxes is a concept that people can decide to enforce - just like any other concept regardless of how ethical it is.
No, the fact that people enforce a concept doesn't mean that that concept violates rights or that the enforcement does - it would depend on what is being enforced.
Property rights are not subject to interpretation (see signature). They exist independent of law. Law can either enforce rights or violate them (or neither I suppose).
Where? I did not sign such a contract.
Law should only be enforced when it is consistent with human rights. When law violates human rights (and there are many such examples in human history and the present), those laws should not be enforced.
Try this one again:
me
Or this one:
me
