Pretty objectively.



No permission or consent.



Lotta motherfuckers in front of the firing line.

This post was edited by Santara on May 26 2021 05:18am

is taxation theft, yes but not because taking someone's money is inherently theft. life has a natural order, and groups subjugate variant individuals. it is the natural order. it's theft because u cant get a receipt on the uses of the money, and because they're disgustingly inefficient with your money. too much focus on them demanding the money, too little on what it's used for. u cant stop taxes, at least spending is somewhat malleable.

The Budget Control Act of 1974 has determined that this is a lie.

if you had to choose between taxes themselves going away or spending becoming more transparent and democratic as more likely which would you choose?

If you owe it in taxes yoy arent the rightful owner anymore.

Which definition to use is opinion.

Taxes going away, any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. No matter the "transparency," democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. Making it any more "democratic" is a non-starter.



Lol, the fuckin Emperor here - "I will MAKE IT legal."

Unsure if u read correctly. i asked what's more likely, not ur preference.

you think the idea that we have no taxes in america in 2021 is more likely than getting more transparent?

On re-reading, sure. But your inclusion of "If you had to choose" is really unnecessary to the basic question of "What do you think is more likely?" Adding the phrase implies you're going a different direction.

I think neither of those things are even remotely likely, except for tax evaders.

This post was edited by Santara on May 26 2021 08:44am

I think personally in the long term tax payers will dwindle so low on the individual side due to job loss and corporate taxes will grow so high that eventually transparency will be required due to the berth of social programs required to make the country work.

but in the short term i still hold a small hope we can get more spending transparency and at least with accountability to voters we have some semblance of a democratic process for allocating taxes. its grim to be sure tho.

my overall point tho was that the narrative that "taxes are theft" is undercut by the fact that taxes are an inarguable constant, we're resigned to cheering when taxes are simply lowered.

I'm going to list a few states of affairs and the definition of "rightful ownership" that follows.

1) When there are no other people, or when there is no competition for objects, there is no ownership. There are merely objects and one human making use of them.
2) When there are other people competing for the same objects, then the use of force is what makes the "rightful owner". There is no theft because the ability to protect the items you want to keep is what defines "rightful owner".
3) When those people have formed a society with rules about ownership, then the "rightful owner" becomes dependent on the social contract, as the society will always be capable of exerting more force to reallocate property than individuals.

Any definition of theft must include, either as an explicit provision or as a consequence of its definijtion, that the rightful owner cannot steal an object. In a society, who is the rightful owner is dependent on the social contract, and the law enforcement mechanisms.

Therefore, taxation cannot be theft, as the rightful owner is the entity with the leverage within the social contract to levy the taxes and enforce their collection.

Then, we must enter into a discussion as to whether the social contract is legitimate, as the "rightful owner" will depend on the members of the society being willing and able to levy force against those who break the contract. In this case, there are a few things we can generally agree on. That representation of a group held by the social contract is necessary (taxation without representation being wrong is a founding principle of the country after all), that members bound by the social contract has a right to redress of their grievances (due process), and a few others. It could be said that if these conditions aren't met, such as under a dictatorship where the peasantry is kept in line by force, the social contract becomes void and "rightful ownership" reverts back to the second state. A group of peasants rising up to take back what they see as the wealth they produced is correct because they have a means of force greater than the ones currently holding it.

This is more or less my view on the subject. Oppressed groups are generally in state 2 since the social contract has either been actively worked against them without their involvement, or has failed to redress their grievances in a way that satisfies the requirement for due process and adequate representation.

Ultimately, we have a disagreement on what constitutes "adequate representation". In your view (I think) you would say that anything less than the ability to totally opt out at any time while being able to stay in the same location and keep all benefits up to that point (you don't have to pay back your education, use of services, have your votes subtracted, and still get to keep military protection by staying in the territory) isn't adequate representation. I think that's silly. Both are ultimately opinions.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on May 26 2021 08:53am