Are Taxes Justified?

So if I don't pay taxes, I have the right to put someone else in my own jail?

Say I was Bill Gates, I would presumably have the resources to fight against smaller states and prevent them from locking me up for not paying them. Why don't I have the inherent right to be left alone? Respect and the process of birth have nothing to do with it whatsoever. Moving on, why shouldn't I be given a choice to buy into the system or not without repercussions?

Well obviously it wouldn't work if I were the only one exempting myself from the dominion of the state. But presumably that path is on public property (owned by the state,) so if I want to get somewhere with the state absent I'll pay a company compensation for the exact amount of the path on the land that is now their private property. This way, unlike when I pay taxes, I can be sure I am not overpaying.

 

Not paying taxes doesn't exempt you from being part of the state, but if you were to somehow move to mars or to some unclaimed land, then yes, you could put someone else in your own jail. That being said, there's nothing stopping the United States or another country from creating repercussions from doing that.

If you were Bill Gates, then yes. You can buy your own island if you want to. In fact, people already do that in other countries by bribing government officials (because if you do it overtly then it is considered terrorism and the UN/USA will move to stop you).

I can't tell you why you don't have a right... the burden of proof is on you. You can give me arguments as to why you SHOULD have a right, and I'll rebuff them.

As for choosing to not buy into a system with repercussions, you're basically asking people to leave you alone, which just goes back to my above point. But this one is a bit more concrete, so I'll answer - Because other people don't gain anything by leaving you alone, but they do gain by interacting with you, be it through violence or peace. You can't tell people to do something which is worse for them just because it is better for you.

Oh, but you are overpaying. If a company owns a stretch of land they can charge you ridiculous prices and you'll be left with no option but to pay. Instead of being asked to pay a flat rate, you'll be left paying a premium on however much road you use.

Not only that, I'd love to see how much you are overpaying on your medical bills. Or your education at school. Or your social security. (Hint: negative amounts because these programs are subsidized by the government).

 

It has been proven that, in the US at least, this is a fallacious notion. Studies have shown that the wealthy are more likely to partake in beneficial pieces of the state (government).

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-...g-aid-to-rich-people-than-poor-people-2013-12

Interesting article, take a look.

No goverment != Anarchy
Anarchy = Numerous smaller governments in practice

Aristotle wrote about the Republic and the morals of government. He commented on the fact that human beings are political in nature and that is built into our brains, hardwired in fact. Replace the word political with the word tribal and you get the same thing, replace the word tribal with communal and yet the same. Human beings yearn for groups or bodies with hierarchies, and it is, going back to Imagine's points, more beneficial for humans to live in groups so that they can protect themselves easier. Who is going to get more food, the person living alone or the person living in the group with more hunters? Yes, you may have to share what you catch but if there are more hunters you exponentially increase the amount of land you can cover in your hunting grounds.

 

I don't have to let you cross my land. Try it and I'll shoot you. Have fun dying. Once you're dead and I own all the land around you, there is no way for your rightful heirs to gain access to that land. I then will take it over and it will be mine. If you try to cross my land, I'll just shoot you.

 

Well shit, I'm going to just dive in. I have no self control for abstaining.

I disagree. Obviously major cities are going to need a way to provide access to them. Either the businesses decides to pay for it to bring in revenue, or a private contractor builds it and sells people a pass to drive on it like a toll road. Naturally smaller roads will spawn from the highway to bring people into town.

As far as 'unemployment benefits' go, if you're receiving more from unemployment than from what you could save on your own you're just benefiting from the system of theft. Someone's property was forcefully seized for your benefit. Just because you 'pay taxes' doesn't give you any moral right to anyone elses money, regardless of what the state says about it. A severance or injury plan would be set up with your employer, or you would need something else to fall back on (family, another job, a church, saved money, etc).

I'm not implying you did anything wrong because you paid into the system, you should receive the benefits, but imo its quite a broken system.

Not really how it works.

More like you put in $10, and someone else puts in $1000 against their will. There are plenty of "greater good" arguments. Personally I don't believe that I am morally obligated/should be forced to always consider the greater good. If the something is truly has utility, instead of just being for the ;greater good', it will exist of its own merit. Either people, or businesses will organize to have it built because of how necessary it is, or some entrepreneur will try and front all the money and then just sell access to it for $20 for people that actually want it, no theft involved. If you can't convince people to do it, the answer isn't to force them.

There are plenty of things "for the greater good" that I don't subscribe to. Why not just take every cent of my money and give it to homeless shelters? Would it be nice, yes. Would it be for the greater good, yes. That doesn't mean that some politician 100's of miles away in a suit should have any damn say in the matter.

I find the state of nature argument disagreeable. Hobbes' basically thought that anything that the state said was just/moral, obviously that isn't true.

There are alternatives built on 'social contracts' that aren't reliant on an overwhelming central force to accomplish.

Anarchy isn't such a bad thing, being without rulers is preferable in my opinion. Google minarchism, seems you might fall into that camp?

MUH ROADS, HOW WOULD WE LIVE WITHOUT THE GOBERMINT ROADS?!

Obviously trespassing on someone's land is illegal. Do you really think without the government we'd be like, "well shucks, guess I can't drive anymore!" No, probably not.

 

Of course it is you need roads right, you need law enforcement you need the judicial system right then we need taxes.

 

......

 

What if there is no roads? What if I own the road and you drive down it? I shoot you for trespassing.

 

Taxes are justifiable but its the way that the taxes are implemented that need some work. Alot of people have been arguing over the progressive tax system and the tax exemption for the top 1%. Back in Clinton's Era he had raised the taxes on the 1% which completely removed the deficit.

 

Yeah, they're increasing overtime and its really bad in Canada I heard, although more peeps in US complain than average person in Canada

 

It is a cultural thing in the US really. Taxes everywhere in the civilized world are substantially higher, but they're social securities and safety nets are much more encompassing. Most of the world has socialized healthcare, free college for those who are good enough to attend, and numerous other things. No, there are broken systems all over but for the US to stay competitive with the rest of the world they're going to have to adapt.

 

I don't think you think "free" means what it really means. The money is stolen. If I steal your computer it isn't, "wow, free computer!"

Entrepreneurs and businesses would have every incentive to operate and maintain roads for the reasons I've already gone over.

Why the fuck would you buy a section of road and shoot everyone who comes onto it? Even so, obviously that's assault/murder so you'd be tried for it.

Anyway, look at Richard's sticky in this section if you're interested in non-government dispute resolution organizations.

 

"It will exist of its own merit". This is just not true. Do you agree that a GPS has utility? How about a passenger jet? Or a helicopter? If it were not for the government, none of these would exist.

"But wait, private enterprise would form them!".
No. Gaining the capability to send satellites into space costs billions of dollars. When you're creating new stuff, you don't even know if it'll have any value, so there is NO way that you're going to convince a firm to put that much money into such a risky investment. Same thing with developing a new airplane - the only reason they're able to do so is because the government says "if you develop this plane, we'll buy 10 of them", and that helps them recoup their losses.

I don't agree that giving every cent helps the greater good. If you did that, then people would have no incentive to work. If you give a percentage, and the amount of money you keep is strictly increasing in terms of the money you make, then people still have an incentive to make more money and become innovators. I think that the amount of money you can tax and still make working be worth it is rather high, and you think it is low, and I think this is where we disagree.

 

Also speaking of roads:

Roads are not a natural mechanic of a market or the business cycle. Roads aren't going to be created by business unless the business specific designation is to build roads, and even then we go back to the problem of the expense of road building. Road building on a small scale is decently cheap and can make for quick work, say around a town. Small paths will spring up due to just natural traffic, but once you get into these extended networks such as the interstate system and the rail systems (highly subsidized by the government at the time of construction) then you're looking at much the same problem as designing a new aircraft that imagine mentions. Private businesses don't necessarily have the need to innovate extensively. They're privately taking the burden of loss if nothing comes of the invention. It isn't as easy as just putting a lot of competition into a sector and then the market fighting its way to a midpoint and leveling out. I mean theoretically it works, but it has never been proven on scale.

 

Without billions and billions and billions of dollars of extortion money they wouldn't exist you mean. That argument is equivalent to me mentioning the progress that the nazi party made, it is irrelevant because the bad outweighs any benefits.

Right, so stealing it for your R&D is a better solution right?

Something is so high risk that no investor would ever consider it? Just do it with other people's money! Problem solved!

Where we disagree is that I believe I own my own property. That includes my body and the profits of my labors. If someone needs my kidney I am under no moral obligation to give it to them. If someone needs half or more or my years work I am under no moral obligation to give it to them. Even in terms of pure utility I think it is absolutely wasted.

If giving someone a "chance" requires me to be a victim to them, fuck that. Although I'm more concerned with corporate bailouts, government contracts, military spending, etc. welfare as a concept is just as wrong in my opinion.

If you want customers to get to your place of business you will make a way, your city will make a way, non-profits will make a way, etc. If there aren't quite as many roads due to free market streamlining my answer is so what? They judged the utility of a road being built and decided against it. Roads up to driveways and out of neighborhoods would probably just be split between the cost of the houses, paid for directly instead of to the government first.

Also that doesn't take into account people building long highways and building a toll booth on it. That kind of thing. There is an incentive for those types of roads, why do you think cities build bridges and place a toll booth there? It pays off over and over again.

 

I believe so, we are in return provided with community protection etc

 

The money isn't extortion money. And it isn't even similar. You're not killing anybody by taking a small percentage of their income. The benefits of the government taxes far outweigh the actual taxes themselves. (I'll explain after the next quote)

Yes. It is a better solution. You've obviously never done anything related to investments. If you have more money then you can make riskier investments because you can hedge the risk. If I have 10 billion dollars, I would have no problem making investments that cost 1 million dollars each but have a 10% chance of giving me 15 million, and a 90% chance of nothing because the expected value of those investments is 15 billion. If I had 1 million dollars, though, I wouldn't make that investment.

The total utility gained by making the investment is positive. The only problem is that private enterprise does not have enough money nor does it operate on a long enough timescale to make these ventures worth it.

Hm, that's interesting. You might as well just stop using USD/AUD/whatever you use and go back to bartering with trees and rocks. What makes you think you have a right to be left alone, especially when you use the government's money supply? If you want to be left alone, then I want to be left alone when I go sell some drugs. Or weapons. Or when I go assassinate someone.

As for the kidney, that's a horrible example. You simply don't understand that you are NOT GIVING AWAY your money. You are paying, and in return, you get benefits which far outweigh the cost. I don't expect you to give away a kidney for free. A comparable example would be if someone offered you 15 million for a kidney.

 

"Its not extortion money because you're taking a percentage of their income"
>tells imagine I'll throw him in a cage if he doesn't pay the fuck up
>not extortion

It is wrong to make investments with other people's money, period. If I steal your car and invest it into feeding homeless people that still isn't right.

LOL? If I don't want to use the governments paper fiat I should barter with trees and rocks? Gold is real money, the Government stole it from everyone and based the dollar off of it. I'll happily trade with any means of exchange where some idiot can print an unlimited amount of.

I already mentioned to look up dispute resolution organizations.

No, a comparable example would be if someone cut your kidney out of your body and offered you $400 for it later as long as you signed the right papers.

I'm not "paying" for shit. I don't want mediocre government services, so I am being extorted for money for it. I can't stop paying them because even if I leave the country you still pay taxes as a US citizen. If I want to opt out completely I can't, you can't become stateless according to the government. If you say "oh well, you've used their services" its because I had no other option. A slave eating his masters food isn't consenting to the system because of benefiting from services.

The government has positioned it as a forceful monopoly on certain services, which comes with monopoly prices and quality of service. I'd much rather choose to pay for something myself than have to make a forceful investment. If it is good enough, people will invest or pay for something. People might not pay $10 each to build a bridge, but they might voluntarily pay $10 to drive over it.

 

I see it as you are playing and using their toys. They charge you some. If you don't pay obviously you should be punished.

Also you can pledge to another country. You are not forced. Are some options not as favorable? sure, but it's still up to you

Taxes are not evil they may just need a little work?

 

You'd be perfectly within your rights to do that. But theres no guarantee that I'll pay. And if you actually do throw me in a cage, then the government, who I do pay, will make sure to punish you.

But that's not important - extortion happens in a stateless society anyways, so I'm not really sure what the other alternative is...

Its not someone else's money if the government has it. That is the problem. You're acting like it is still yours. It isn't. If I buy a book from the store, the money I use to pay for it isn't mine anymore. If I get pulled over for speeding, the ticket I pay isn't my money anymore.

Why exactly is gold real money? It has no inherent utility to me so I won't accept it. And I don't want to use dispute resolution organizations. They cost money and I can just do the same thing myself.

No. A kidney is worth much much much more than $400. And nobody is forcing you to pay taxes. If it bothers you so much, go live in Somalia or somewhere that you don't pay taxes.

Renounce your citizenship and move to Somalia. "Oh no I can't because its a third world country bla bla bla". You can't enjoy the privileges of living in a first world country without paying for them.

Clearly you don't understand the point I made in my previous post, so I'll capitalize it. YOU CAN'T PAY $10 TO CROSS IT IF IT DOESN'T EXIST. Nobody is going to build it because the risk for a private business or investing group is too large, and the government is the only organization with enough capital to make building it worthwhile, even if you profit from it.