Theft & Taxes

The idea for this was an example given in an address titled "The Proper Role of Government" by former secretary of agriculture Ezra Taft Bensen. you can watch his full speech here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-27680185747711503

Also, I don't actually advocate that there never be taxes for any reason, as you may infer from watching this video. I merely oppose taxation for the purpose of redistribution of wealth. I know we need a police to protect against crime and an army to protect against invasion and roads to get around. That money has to come from somewhere.

Made with an old version of flash that wouldn't get the timings exactly right. But I think you still get the point.

For more about me, check out: http://www.storyhack.com

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• The
• Second
• American
• Revolution
• Tax
• Day
• Tea
• Party
• Taxes
• Proper
• Role
• of
• Government
• Theft

[tommo1313]

If you get by well on the society you are raised in you do owe a service to that society. And for ethical reasons the poor can't afford the same taxes as the rich.

[storyhack]

@tommo1313 I agree that those who are successful do have a moral responsibility to help those who are less fortunate. I simply believe that no one has the right to take away another's possessions without the owner's consent.

[storyhack]

Torbellicus- You say that there are no natural rights. You only have what rights a government gives you.

So in other words, no government has ever trampled on anybody's rights, because whatever a government does (democratically elected or not) to a people defines their rights.

[storyhack]

By that logic nobody ever trampled the rights of black slaves. Nobody ever removed the rights of Native Americans by slaughtering them. Stalin never touched the rights of his people when he used government control to starve them.

[storyhack]

And don't throw "democracy" into the mix - your argument is that there is no inherent right or wrong (morality) and that people have no inherent rights.

You've used "democracy" to sidestep the issue - do people have rights whether a government recognizes them or not?

[nanciqwerty]

Slight correction to video.

The government (the business entity created by some townspeople) did NOT pass a law.  The created a STATUTE, which is a contract, given the force of law by the consent of the parties. ANY private contract is enforceable by courts as if it were law, otherwise contracts could not work.

The catch here is that statutes can ONLY apply to members of the business that created them.

If a 2nd group formed a 2nd government, on the same day, are you subject to them too?

[nanciqwerty]

The comments here are amazing. So many people cannot grasp that if they don't have the right to steal, they cannot give that right to a bunch of people running a business calling itself 'government'.

It cannot be a moral idea if you can only introduce the theft once you have build up a force of enough paid thugs to prevent all the face-punching you would otherwise receive.

Try imposing the idea on a desert island community of 100 people. Better be ready to duck those punches.

[Anekantavad]

@storyhack "From a practical standpoint, basing the government with the assumption of natural law worked out very well for the US, and allowed it to be the strongest, most prosperous nation on the planet."

Do you have any evidence that there is a link between the two? Between national wealth and power and natural law? The Chinese may believe otherwise, and they may be in the process of proving it.

I'm not saying I agree with them. Rather I am warning against being to ideological.

[Anekantavad]

@storyhack "You say that there are no natural rights. You only have what rights a government gives you."

Who says we even have the rights that the government gives us? Who says that the government has the authority to bestow any rights? For the matter of that, who says that the government even exists?

The entire idea of "government" assumes legitimacy, and legitimacy only exists in the collective sense. If people don't believe the government is legitimate, it isn't the government anymore.

[Anekantavad]

@storyhack "I simply believe that no one has the right to take away another's possessions without the owner's consent."

But how do someone's possessions become their possessions? I don't mean "how does someone create wealth". I mean, how is something identified as someone's possession at all? Is there something inherent in the thing itself that gives it a "mine-ness" or a "yours-ness"?

Nope.

Possessions only exist as possessions because we all agree they are.

[Anekantavad]

@storyhack Who says anyone has any rights at all?

The usual response to this is to cry "heretic", but I'd like to hear someone tell me how rights exist independent of collective human consciousness.

They don't.

Rights are concepts, and like all concepts, they only exist in the human mind. IOW, rights only exist because we say they do, and in they only exist in the form that is generally agreed upon.

Good or bad, that's just how concepts work.

[Anekantavad]

Objections:

- Fred's horses are only "his" in the sense that everyone else agrees they are. That's what property is. Legitimacy only exists in the collective sense, and without legitimacy we're in a state of Hobbesian anarchy.

- Fred's legitimacy is guaranteed by the community. If there are 100 people without horses, and Fred has 2, and everyone is okay with that, they are keeping their end of the social contract. Fred has to keep his end. What end is that? Whatever he and society agree it is.

[xtremejohnny69]

Well we do need some taxes in any nation to pay for defense, police protection, roads things like that. But taxing the shit outta the rich isn't the way to do it. Now the fairtax...thats the way to do it!