we should all take a page from Germany. http://thinkprogress.org/education/2014/10/01/3574551/germany-free-college-tuition/ it IS possible to do the right thing for your people and not being greedy assholes, America.
... but to say that all government spending is theft is incorrect. taxes are needed for many services provided by the government. maybe we can disagree about the spending (and for that there is an option to vote, which plays some role)... but to call it theft is not fair. it's more like paying rent.
i think that today if one truly wants be educated they can do so through online courses (free) from MIT or Khan Academy or openstudy and others... the experience of actually going to college/university is overly expensive in US... but since most thing are moving into the virtual world.. and education is embracing it on a whole new level, the landscape of that whole "100k for tuition per student" is going to change.
You mean if I take water out of the deep end of a pool (rich) and go over and poor it into the shallow (poor) end if the same pool I still have the same amount of water? That's weird
Its involuntary. Therefore theft If the government provided services for money, it would be called buisness and be voluntary No its perfectly fair. Rent is optional. You can chose where and how to live. You can also chose to be homeless. But with government, even if you say its justified because its democracy, at the end of the day, money is taken from you by threat of force for a program that may or may not benefit you If you really want toto get technical its not "theft" its "protection money" Its.identical.to a mafioso extorting protection money to "protect" your shop -yuri
paying taxes is optional too. living in a specific state (or country for that matter) is optional as well... i would love not to pay rent... explain to me how i would live? be homeless? build my own house?... as far as i know, if i chose to live in any civilized country (and a nice city for that matter) i'd have to pay pretty hefty rent. so i don't see how that's really "optional". it is no more "optional" than paying taxes. actually i'd rather pay taxes than rent. i think landlords are the real thieves now that we are on the subject
This is a valid argument, but it doesn't disprove the concept. Basically you are saying the system.of theft for protection is superior to the alternative, (and iI honestly can't argue with that) -yuri
Wealth is producing more than you consume and SAVING the difference. The purpose of economics is not jobs. Jobs are easy there is always work to be done. Economics is about producing stuff. Production has only a few ingredients, land, labor, time and knowledge. Mixing these ingredients is always determined by supply (a limited factor) and driven sometimes by demand (a endless supply). Land mixed with labor produces limited consumer goods with little to no savings (poverty). It takes how long to catch a fish (goods) by hand? Always working no play. In order to produce more, knowledge is also mixed into the process. A net could be constructed but it takes time. Time needed to hunt fish, so something needs to happen. Either you sacrifice eating for a day or you hunt twice as much before to pay for the time needed to make the fish net. So savings is a natural ingredient for more production. The fish net (capital goods) now produces more than you can consume which is wealth, in less time creating leisure and the difference is saved and or traded. Which leads to trade and MONEY!!! The heart of the matter we are in now is a money issue. If our money wasn't controlled (counterfeit)and had competition 90% (easily) of our problems wouldn't exist. To many laws, restrictions on production on labor on property rights. To many protectionist (unions) backed by state (violence) in government sponsored enterprises (GSE aka cartels). There are ingredients for this too. Greed, envy, power to name a few. But the catalyst for maximizing the bads is the state (a group with monopoly privilege of force over a given land area). Okay I'm done. ......for now
What do you mean - tangles the argument? Complicates the premise? Invalidates it? Government will always be less efficient than the private sector, I guess you are in agreement, but also saying that there is no possible way to gauge this, which I would agree with... No its not. It is never optional. You can not pay rent by owning land or claiming land does not have a previous owner (homesteading). Although, you will still have to pay property taxes on top of owning that property. No one forces you to pay rent. Just because all of the property in an area is already owned, and you must pay another person to occupy their property, does not equate to coercion or forced participation. If you were allowed to use their property without paying for it then you would essentially be squatting - which would be comparable to theft on your part. I don't see how your statement about rent is analogous.
Not true at all. Upon birth you automatically become a "citizen" of your country and must pay taxes (parents obviously pay your share). You hypothetically could chose to move to another state which will also have involuntary taxes, but doing so requires you to pay taxes in the form of visas, passports, tolls, and that doesn't include the taxes on the travel business that translates directly into cost for the traveler. So no. Its inescapable. Its really not voluntary. Yea you could hide in the woods. But saying that makes it voluntary is like saying suicide is also an option. Its just dumb. That is correct. But this is still a.voluntary transaction. You CAN chose where to live, and you can also own your own property. All.of which obviously requires payment to someone, but its all voluntary. Taxes are not voluntary. Government is everywhere and everyone wants to take your money to use it for "society" OK look at it this way. You need food to survive. This doesn't make selling food a form of theft. However, if you steal someones money, and then give them food (or shelter or bridges and roads anand school), it is still theft. It is as explained above. There is a clear line between voluntary and involuntary. Needing a commodity (rent/housing, food, water) does not make selling said products theft. I agree, but think about this. What is true democracy? Where EVERYONE gets a say right? Its not winers votes are the only votes that count. I'd bet my tax return that if taxes were voluntary, and you could chose where taxes go, you'd see a tenfold increase in education, and social programs, along with a MASSIVE military cut. Just saying. Everyone would have a say -yuri
Or... better than them taking our money, blowing most of it, then giving us a bit back. We just dont give them as much. As i said in another thread, IRS tax code says its voluntary. And if you are "lucky" enough to live in Illinois its tax code says IF you are required to pay a federal income tax then you have to file a state income tax... i wouldnt be surprised if more states had this gem.
Good luck getting away with that though. Also he wasn't 100% correct. Only "income tax" is voluntary There are many many small hidden taxes and we don't even know how much we are extorted. For example, every time you buy a product, there are taxes and licensing required almost every step along the production. From land tax to import tax to buisness and franchise license, to all the other hurdles and tape and codes, all the way to the sales tax. Why do you think stuff is so expensive? what about social security and Medicaid? Alcohol and tobacco taxes? There are so many random ass minor taxes hidden everywhere, its no wonder tthe rich keep getting richer and the poor poorer. The government literally just takes all our money and gives it back to the rich. Think about it. Where do all our taxes go? Most of our taxes go to the military industry (private tycoons making money off weapons). The government doesn't actually produce its own things. Bailouts? Tax breaks for the rich? How much do politicians make? All these taxes we have and the rich get most of that back. Taxes mostly just result in the poor getting poorer -yuri
The biggest problem I have with the no taxes argument is that too many people seem to want it both ways. I'll use Cliven Bundy who I personally tend to refer to as the welfare rancher as an example, and I'll explain why I refer to him as such. Some time back he was a media sensation of sorts when he refused to pay grazing fees for his use of public land, we all saw the news of the armed standoff between him and his supporters against the police. For most of us that's where the story ended. But there was another chapter many of us missed and it's why I call him the welfare rancher. Some time after the above events one of his cattle got out onto the roadway and caused a traffic accident. When he was asked to assume responsibility he refused stating that it was the responsibility of the government to put up fences and protect the highway. That's a nice sentiment, but what money are they supposed to do that with? Perhaps with the grazing fees that he refused to pay, the ones his armed supporters faced off with the feds over? He's as big a welfare problem as anyone out there and as far as I can tell is just looking for a free ride, he wants the benefits of a modern nation but not the expense of supporting it. Now if people have a problem with tax policy or whatever I have no problem with that but we need to be both consistent and honest in our arguments. If we don't want to pay taxes and fees, great, but what services do we plan to do without and how are we supposed to make up any shortfall in areas such as defense or others?
In that case he would be liable for the damages. Pretty simple. Let the market handle it. People will voluntarily provide and pay for what they need. This has already been covered at length by various political theorists. Once I have the time, I will post some videos that talk about this, including: national defense, policing, charity, 'wellfare', roads, pollution, intellectual property, property disputes, etc. People consider taxes to be the price to pay for living in a civilized society, but there is nothing civilized about institutional theft. This needs to be corrected (abolished) in order for poverty to be minimized. There's no reason we should base our society around this practice, even the efficacy argument doesn't hold up.
That I'd agree with. My point though was more that I don't see how we both don't pay taxes (or in this case fees) and how we also manage to keep the roads, police, military and other aspects of modern society which I'd assume most of us would want to keep. How do we honestly go from the principle to the fact? It's kinda hard to have an honest opinion on the matter if we don't have an idea of how it works in practice. For example some time back in the thread education was offered as an expense. But with that we can do the math and figure that if educated young, employed and paying taxes a degree on average and in the past tended to offer more than enough in extra taxes paid that they weren't a welfare case as we'd first assume but it was more on loan and paid back with interest. I skipped responding to that at the time because as I've said elsewhere I get tired of arguing each and every detail but that's the premise of the argument I've seen and in places such as Germany mentioned by someone above it seems to work out fine. So that's how we can get from A to B with education, if it's planned properly and we can employ them. So how do we get from A, I don't support the federal tax, to B, this is how we manage without it? I just don't see the mechanics which allows us a life we'd really accept in the end.