^ Fair enough. I understand there are competing views as to how to define libertarian. I hope it can be resolved. Just curious, is self-ownership at the foundation of the libertarian definition you prescribe to?
Yea. Liberatarians aren't nessesarily anarchists. Its more about free market voluntarism and personal.ownership Question. I know.my.personal.view on taxes but what is the "libertarian view? No taxes or minimal taxes? "Only two things are sure iin this world; death and taxes" -franklin Are taxes a nessesary evil?
Taxes are only necessary if you believe you need a government to help support society. Basically the way I think about it is this, if you're full out libertarian(aka private sector will provide, don't need government, etc) then no, but if you're a minarchist(you believe limited government is necessary and one that will always exist in some form) then yes. As far as the "party" line goes it's kinda split over what kind of libertarian you define yourself as.
Yes. The way I see it is if a.good.or service is essential we would volunteer to pay for it. We don't pay taxes in exchange for food. We don't need.to for.military either. The American revolution was won by a military that was funded privately and not by.collecting taxes Roads in the origional colonies were paved by us not the British monarchy
@Yuri From what I understand the Libertarian Party advocates a "voluntarily funded" government. The Libertarianism FAQ An overview of competing definitions: Libertarianism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia To identify a couple but there's more. Are taxes a necessary evil? First you must ask, 'What is evil?'.
If you're talking about the libertarian party then the best source for that would be LP.org, their official site. To quote the site - This is pretty much my philosophy as well.
By definition taxes are theft. You are forced to pay taxes against your will and.if you don't you get arrested/fined/punished So.is theft "evil"? If government programs are nessesary we wouldn't need to tax for them right?
@Lenny I'll check out the LP official, but the quote begs the question about funding. @Yuri I recommend you try to answer those questions yourself. I personally prescribe to the non-aggression principle as a moral code. It is in line with self-ownership.
The only relevant quote I could find on the issue of funding was: FAQ | Libertarian Party I haven't read the whole LP but it struck me as 'dancing around' the issue at hand. Platform | Libertarian Party
It's not just faith... Do you understand how knowledge is accumulated? Saying something isn't true because you are unable to tell whether it is true is laughable. I doubt that you understand any proofs of Fermat's Last Theorem, but that doesn't mean that it's a mystery whether it is true. Ethics isn't "emotional space".
I know where I stand on the issue the questions were meant to be rhetorical I believe that taxes should be optional. Perhaps the government could provide benefits to tax payers. Since we are in a democracy taxes shouldn't be forced on people who disagree with the policy the taxes are being used for. Like I said, we don't need taxes for national defense. The government could easily sell war bonds stickers hats w/e. If they put out an angry birds Lego tank it would fund a few bombers. And less people would be ashamed of the.government
If it were optional you could no longer call it a tax. Tax, noun: a sum of money demanded by a government for its support or for specific facilities or services, levied upon incomes, property, sales, etc.