Please Enslave Me!
Larken Rose at Freedom's Phoenix - reductio ad absurdum on the arguments of people who claim that taxation is something other than theft. Bravo!
Guy A: "Hey buddy, isn't that your car over there?"
Guy B: "Yeah. So?"
Guy A: "So someone's breaking into it! Look!"
Guy B: "Well, that's the price I pay to live in a civilized country."
Guy A: "Huh? Now he's hot-wiring it. You just gonna stand there?"
Guy B: "I'm willing to contribute to this great society we live in."
Guy A: "What are you talking about? You're being robbed!"
Guy B: "Don't be silly. It's not robbery. It's the will of the people."
Guy A: "What people? Aren't you the one who paid for the car?"
Guy B: "Yeah, but the guy who's taking it is serving the common good."
Guy A: "How does that guy stealing your car help the common good?"
Guy B: "Well, I trust he'll do useful things with my car."
Guy A: "Weren't you going to do useful things with it?"
Guy B: "Yes, but if we each just used our own stuff, there would be chaos!"
Guy A: "Well, you can trade stuff, but that guy just stole your car!!"
Guy B: "No he didn't. By living on this block I agreed to lose my car."
Guy A: "So anyone can swipe your car, and you don't mind?"
Guy B: "Don't be silly! Only the local carjacker can do it."
Guy A: "So whoever decides to be a carjacker is allowed to rob you?"
Guy B: "Well, if I don't like it, I can try to appoint a new local carjacker."
Then you, sir, are part of the problem
Then you, sir, are part of the problem. Taxation is exactly theft. More precisely, it's extortion, backed by the threat of violence. Read my quote at the bottom of the right-hand column.
Freedom is Slavery
"I cannot fathom the level of false syllogism that the author of this "satire" applied."
This example is of course not a syllogism, it is metaphor. We see here an argument being carried out between two people about the "local carjacker". The argument implies that there is a monopoly on carjacking held by an elected official. The argument here is analogous to modern state apologists insisting that state-sponsored theft (taxation) is legitimate.
"Taxation is not theft, and theft, in this case, is certainly not taxation. How can one man stealing another man's car anything like paying taxes?"
Tax can be defined as: "a sum of money demanded by a government for its support or for specific facilities or services, levied upon incomes, property, sales, etc. "
Theft can be defined as: "the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny."
In the definition of "tax" is the word "demand,†which implies non-voluntary. Axiomatically, a tax is defined as non-voluntary. Taxes thus mirror theft in that they are forcible appropriations of property which occur regardless of the will of the owner. The primary difference between them is only what the “whoâ€. Taxation is simply theft perpetrated by a body of individuals that has claimed monopoly rights to the use of violence, which we call states. Historically states have sought to legitimize themselves and their theft, usually by portraying themselves as the legitimate incarnation of some sort of will that supersedes the will of the individual (i.e. divine will or democratic will).
The anecdote is intended to show that when the mythic propaganda is stripped away (accomplished by replacing the romanticized state with the much-maligned carjacker), theft is theft, regardless of intent or "democratic" approval.
I cannot fathom the level of
I cannot fathom the level of false syllogism that the author of this "satire" applied. Taxation is not theft, and theft, in this case, is certainly not taxation. How can one man stealing another man's car anything like paying taxes?
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