From: Randall Randall (wolfkin@freedomspace.net)
Date: Thu Aug 29 2002 - 20:51:02 MDT
Damien Broderick wrote:
> At 07:41 PM 8/29/02 -0400, Technotranscendence wrote:
>>All government employees are paid out of taxes. This includes Marines
>>and all other servicemen and women. I.e., they are net tax receivers.
>>Since they are paid out of taxes, they are receiving stolen goods.
>
> As usual, I remain puzzled by this strange assertion. If most voters (which
> is to say, most adults in `western' democracies and republics) agree that
> tax is theft or extortion, might they not be expected to take one of two
> immediate steps?
Apparently most US citizens also agree that execution of prisoners is
not murder, since it is legal in the US. Is this to be taken as evidence
that they are right?
> First, resist it by refusing to pay.
People do this as much as they believe they can get away with it,
for the most part.
> Second, vote
> overwhelmingly for the first candidate who declares an intention of
> abolishing taxation.
For this to work, voting for such a candidate would have to be seen
as effective. It isn't. People only vote for candidates that they
believe can win. Over and over, parties in the US other than the
top two hear from their prospective members that they *would* vote
for that party's candidates, see, if only there was a chance they
could win.
It's also true that huge segments of the US population have realized
that voting quite literally isn't worth their time.
> I see so little evidence of either option that I'm
> inclined to view the grumbling compliance of most taxpayers as endorsement
> of the view that this is an acceptable way of handling certain costs. Of
It is true that many people seem to compartmentalize beliefs in
gods, 'good government', and similar things away from their logical
thinking skills. In my experience, the hardest problem with
convincing most people of the value of liberty is getting them to
actually *think* about it, as opposed to just repeating what they
were taught when young.
-- Randall Randall <randall@randallsquared.com> "[The] poetic justice of cause and effect compels respect, compassion." -- Faithless, God is a DJ.
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