Survivalism 101: Taxation is Theft

[Tiribulus]

[quote]Alpha F wrote:
Thors Spammer wrote:
Human nature does not work well with no rules.

Oh, but it flows effortlessly when it lives by principles.

When we live by principles we don’t need to follow rules.

You lead by example. ( The principled man/woman )
You don’t follow through submission - of your own authority, i.e one’s conscience guided by principles to another ( The lost subject/citizen of a Kingdom/Government )

Sloth caused a need for government. It is easier to pass the buck than to sharpen one’s own conscience and stand up and fight for what is right every day and in every way.

As it has been said by dhickey; “We are too lazy for Anarchy”

It takes strength and honor also to admit when we are wrong or have wronged someone. By voting and electing we can blame the puppets we surrender our power and wisdom to.
[/quote]

I have no idea how far our agreement would extend, but this is an outstanding post on it’s face. Voluntary consensus is the only possible foundation for long term stability. This is why “multiculturalism” is an oxymoronic impossibility. There can only be one set of standards for publicly relevant issues within a society or perpetual disorder and eventual collapse will result. When the preponderance of the citizens concur on that set of standards very little legal coercion is necessary. When they don’t, none will ever be enough as one man’s law is another man’s oppression.

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]Gregus wrote:

Your argument is defeated and pointless. You conveniently ignore what i pointed out to you. [/quote]

You didn’t point anything out to me, so there was nothing to respond to.

1. You said “government can’t substantiate a right…” - which, first, is a straw man (I never asserted that it could), and second, you still never substantiated a natural right to property in an atheistic-anarchist world…which was my point.

2. You made some stupid recommendation about tax advice, first with an anti-Semitic epithet, and secondly, you recommended filing zeroes on all lines. If you file zeroes on all lines in the deduction section, you’ll pay the maximum amount under the law into the government. If you file zeroes on income, you are either (a) wealthy enough for tax havens, or (2) too poor to file. It’s clear you have no clue about the tax system.

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]Dustin wrote:

You are making this difficult. Anarchism does not equate to rule-less. State power is not there pointing a gun at you, but laws and rights still exist. Laws are determined from the bottom up, by the community. People don’t need state power to tell them it’s bad to murder, rape, and steal.[/quote]

Yes, they do - or at least, communities will create an entity to enforce those rights against those who would otherwise murder, rape, and steal.

The moment you institute an institution to enforce “laws and rights”, you aren’t in an anarchic state anymore.

You can come and try to take my property or my neighbors, but I would have the right to defend it.

No one said you couldn’t - but that doesn’t equate your ownership to a right, it merely reduces your ownership down to your ability to defend it yourself.

Anarchism has nothing to do with unkept hippies throwing molotov-cocktails into post office windows. It also has nothing to do with lawlessness.

It has little to do with anything even remotely related to reality.

The source of rights stems from the same social contract that has existed for thousands of years. Do you need to be told by the state not to rape or murder?

And you have made my point exactly for me - in this scenario, your rights aren’t natural, they are contingent upon the Contract, so if the Contract changes, your rights change along with them.

As such, your “right” to property is only a right if the parties to the Contract continue to think so. When they don’t, you have no claim on a property right as a natural right.

Your cheap shot aside, you can challenge me on it if you want. In discussions about this subject, I’m usually asked these silly “what-if” scenarios.

What “cheap shot” are you talking about?

[Therizza]

[quote]dhickey wrote:
Therizza wrote:
what did you think about that piece by Marx?

I had started to dig into Marx, just out of curiosity. I have to say that I am very dissapointed so far. I wanted to read a bit about him before picking up Das Kapital. I just got done with a book that I thought would be a fluff piece on him, Marx’s Das Kapital by some dude that is supposed to be one of his beter biographers.

The guy was essentially a bum that didn’t work very often. He owed money all over town, took 20 years to write a book that he didn’t even finish, and lied continually about its progress.

The fact that most of Das Kapital was put together from his archaic notes by a friend of his after he died, does not have me anxious to read it any longer.

His economics and philosophy are extremly shallow. I really was expecting more, but now I am left wondering what all the fuss was about.[/quote]

The Communist Manifesto was a good read. Kinda silly in hindsight that it took off in Russia, which had no industrial base. I truly believe a real Marxian state could have emerged, and been successful in Germany had they not lost WWI.

[dhickey]

[quote]Therizza wrote:
dhickey wrote:
Therizza wrote:
what did you think about that piece by Marx?

I had started to dig into Marx, just out of curiosity. I have to say that I am very dissapointed so far. I wanted to read a bit about him before picking up Das Kapital. I just got done with a book that I thought would be a fluff piece on him, Marx’s Das Kapital by some dude that is supposed to be one of his beter biographers.

The guy was essentially a bum that didn’t work very often. He owed money all over town, took 20 years to write a book that he didn’t even finish, and lied continually about its progress.

The fact that most of Das Kapital was put together from his archaic notes by a friend of his after he died, does not have me anxious to read it any longer.

His economics and philosophy are extremly shallow. I really was expecting more, but now I am left wondering what all the fuss was about.

The Communist Manifesto was a good read. Kinda silly in hindsight that it took off in Russia, which had no industrial base. I truly believe a real Marxian state could have emerged, and been successful in Germany had they not lost WWI.[/quote]

Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll take a peek at that one. I thought Marx’s whole premis was that industrialization was the key to successful communism. Rise of the working class and all. China did the same as Russia, with the same results.

[Gregus]

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Gregus wrote:

Your argument is defeated and pointless. You conveniently ignore what i pointed out to you.

You didn’t point anything out to me, so there was nothing to respond to.

1. You said “government can’t substantiate a right…” - which, first, is a straw man (I never asserted that it could), and second, you still never substantiated a natural right to property in an atheistic-anarchist world…which was my point.

2. You made some stupid recommendation about tax advice, first with an anti-Semitic epithet, and secondly, you recommended filing zeroes on all lines. If you file zeroes on all lines in the deduction section, you’ll pay the maximum amount under the law into the government. If you file zeroes on income, you are either (a) wealthy enough for tax havens, or (2) too poor to file. It’s clear you have no clue about the tax system.[/quote]

I was posting that there is a 2 sided coin to your argument and it’s nullified as easily as it is justified. Second, whats anti Semitic about hiring a Jewish accountant. Your one of the stupid spoon fed fools so theres not much to say to you. Thirdly i don;t have to know the tax law or tax codes, we have well paid accountants that handle all of it. And yes, all Jewish. And they know it’s a joke that they’re considered good at their job because theiy are Jewish. They laugh at it and find the steroetype amusing, somehow we all get along with a good laugh. Im fair game to be made fun of too, so it’s all good.

Sometimes it’s fun to play with stereotypes but youre too stiff to break out of the bounds of the spoon fed PC. I feel sorry for you.

[Alpha_F]

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Alpha F wrote:
Thors Spammer wrote:
Human nature does not work well with no rules.

Oh, but it flows effortlessly when it lives by principles.

When we live by principles we don’t need to follow rules.

You lead by example. ( The principled man/woman )
You don’t follow through submission - of your own authority, i.e one’s conscience guided by principles to another ( The lost subject/citizen of a Kingdom/Government )

Sloth caused a need for government. It is easier to pass the buck than to sharpen one’s own conscience and stand up and fight for what is right every day and in every way.

As it has been said by dhickey; “We are too lazy for Anarchy”

It takes strength and honor also to admit when we are wrong or have wronged someone. By voting and electing we can blame the puppets we surrender our power and wisdom to.

I have no idea how far our agreement would extend, but this is an outstanding post on it’s face. Voluntary consensus is the only possible foundation for long term stability. This is why “multiculturalism” is an oxymoronic impossibility. There can only be one set of standards for publicly relevant issues within a society or perpetual disorder and eventual collapse will result. When the preponderance of the citizens concur on that set of standards very little legal coercion is necessary. When they don’t, none will ever be enough as one man’s law is another man’s oppression.
[/quote]

Absolutely.
Yes, I agree. I think you speak of Unity X Uniformity.
The ideal is The United States of America, instead we have The Uniform States of America.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain: far from united ( and far from great imo ) but uniform and resentful of one another for it.
Uniformity requires coercion, which is served by a governmental structure set in place to enforce order.
Unity requires right action; physical, mental and emotional action( the opposite of sloth on all three levels ), which is the corollary of a well trained conscience, a well looked after body and self-mastery. Having gained mastery over one’s own authority the weight of order is effortlessly lifted - just like with body building: the more you train in the right way the more effortless it becomes to lift/handle the weight.
A properly exercised conscience able to handle the weight of order requires us to exert ourselves - that is where I think, as much as I am enamored of Anarchy I can’t see how we can get sloth out of the way and exert ourselves to be willing to live by principles.
A law is for slaves.
WILL is the possession of a a free people.
The law is being made obsolete by the proper exercise of our free will.

I can’t see that happening because there is absolutely no educational “program” towards it.
We are educated to temporary individual success and schooled to lasting collective failure.

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]Gregus wrote:

I was posting that there is a 2 sided coin to your argument and it’s nullified as easily as it is justified. [/quote]

It’s irrelevant to my point - if you can’t make a decent articulation that you have a unmodifiable right to your income, taxation can’t be theft. There is no “other side to the coin”, because you haven’t even established one side - that “taxation” is “theft”.

Second, whats anti Semitic about hiring a Jewish accountant. Your one of the stupid spoon fed fools so theres not much to say to you. Thirdly i don;t have to know the tax law or tax codes, we have well paid accountants that handle all of it. And yes, all Jewish. And they know it’s a joke that they’re considered good at their job because theiy are Jewish. They laugh at it and find the steroetype amusing, somehow we all get along with a good laugh. Im fair game to be made fun of too, so it’s all good.

You’re barely literate - if you are going to boast on the internet that you you have considerable wealth that your “Jewish accountants” are hiding for you, you’ll need to be better than the lobotomized writing…no one is buying it.

I feel sorry for you.

How could you possibly?

[Jeffe]

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Thors Spammer wrote:
Governments emerge out of fear of no government.

So the very first government to emerge was a result of fear of not having something that they did not understand the possibility of in the first place? Paradoxical.

No, more likely, the very first government was formed by the sacred order and power elite. It was a cooperative effort between those who could instill fear and those who could “control it”. Fear of “not having a government” had nothing to do with how government came to be. It has always been about controlling people and the struggle for the “right” to control people.[/quote]

It’s not really a difficult concept. The earliest governments were formed from a need for order. Whether the concept of “government” was understood at the time is irrelevant. Instead what was important is that a certain society at some point in history decided as a group that there needed to be someone in charge of the rest to correct some problem.

It could have been anything. Theft, hunger, disease, murder. Who knows? The bottom line stays the same. At some point the idea of a “Leader” morphed into a governmental structure that still exists today. You are absolutely right in saying that it boils down to controlling people, but think of how insane life would be if people were not controlled. There are people who just want the world to burn, and without a government with the support of the people, there will be nobody to stop them.

Anarchy is not a guaranteed point in a governmental life-cycle as so many people like to say.

It is far, far more likely that in a situation like ours in the U.S. we’ll see a gradual sliding of power away from the Senate/House towards the Supreme Court and the President. I’d imagine that further down the line we’ll see the Supreme Court take over all functions of the house as well. The instant this happens this country will no longer be a Republic, and the President (who appoints whoever he/she wishes to the court) will be the ultimate authority, and the American Empire will be born.

There will of course be rough patches, but I think the transition will be smooth, and much like we saw with Rome, I’d be willing to bet a fairly significant period of prosperity and success. I’ve always been a believer that any program, if followed to the letter, will be successful, and with no opposition the “President” can run things however they wish.

[Gregus]

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Gregus wrote:

I was posting that there is a 2 sided coin to your argument and it’s nullified as easily as it is justified.

It’s irrelevant to my point - if you can’t make a decent articulation that you have a unmodifiable right to your income, taxation can’t be theft. There is no “other side to the coin”, because you haven’t even established one side - that “taxation” is “theft”.

Second, whats anti Semitic about hiring a Jewish accountant. Your one of the stupid spoon fed fools so theres not much to say to you. Thirdly i don;t have to know the tax law or tax codes, we have well paid accountants that handle all of it. And yes, all Jewish. And they know it’s a joke that they’re considered good at their job because theiy are Jewish. They laugh at it and find the steroetype amusing, somehow we all get along with a good laugh. Im fair game to be made fun of too, so it’s all good.

You’re barely literate - if you are going to boast on the internet that you you have considerable wealth that your “Jewish accountants” are hiding for you, you’ll need to be better than the lobotomized writing…no one is buying it.

I feel sorry for you.

How could you possibly?[/quote]

My articulation is that the person doing the “taking”, still with me? Good, has to prove he or the entity has an unalienable “RIGHT” to take MY property. Your logic is ass backward.

I never boasted about wealth or income. Those are your delusions. I never posted anything about hiding income. Again, a product of your imagination. Having accountants is like having a lawyer. Everyone should have one, or at least everyone in business should have one of two. No big deal. I could care less whether im validated on the interned, lol.

Seriously your argument is ass backward. The person doing the taking has to justify how they have the right, not the other way around. What planet are you from, you friggin moron.

And filing 0’s means you didn’t take a paycheck. Nothing to do with hiding. Again you will spend your life working for other people so i do feel sorry for you.

[Dustin]

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

Yes, they do - or at least, communities will create an entity to enforce those rights against those who would otherwise murder, rape, and steal.

The moment you institute an institution to enforce “laws and rights”, you aren’t in an anarchic state anymore.
[/quote]

Voluntary / anarchic societies can and more than likely would have community sponsored (and hired) security forces, or something similar. This is totally different that state power enforcing random and arbitrary laws. State power, ultimately, doesn’t exist to protect you and I, it’s there to keep us in line.

No one said you couldn’t - but that doesn’t equate your ownership to a right, it merely reduces your ownership down to your ability to defend it yourself.

In a voluntary society, with an actual functioning free market (void of state control or meddling), how would private ownership not be acknowledged by the community? Voluntary societies are not Communist (Marxist) in that the state and the market have cease to exist.

The source of rights stems from the same social contract that has existed for thousands of years. Do you need to be told by the state not to rape or murder?

And you have made my point exactly for me - in this scenario, your rights aren’t natural, they are contingent upon the Contract, so if the Contract changes, your rights change along with them.

How are they not natural? Whether the scenario is an anarchic or totalitarian society, you and I still have the right to live and do as we please as long as we aren’t harming others. The “contract” I was alluding to is the same understanding that has existed between human beings before any government ever existed.

As such, your “right” to property is only a right if the parties to the Contract continue to think so. When they don’t, you have no claim on a property right as a natural right.

Why would this not exist in voluntary or anarchic societies?

[quote]
What “cheap shot” are you talking about?[/quote]

Well, perhaps not necessary is a better way to describe it. You said that I hoped no one would challenge me on my assertions. Your typical “banter”, no big deal.

[LIFTICVSMAXIMVS]

[quote]Jeffe wrote:
The earliest governments were formed from a need for order.[/quote]

How can this be so? Are not tribal/family knit communities a form of social order? How does government insert itself into these prehistoric structures voluntarily and become the state as it is known today?

Moreover, there could not have been a “need” for order because society is ordered by definition. Whenever individuals enter into the act of cooperation with each other order spontaneously ensues – we call that society. What results from the free and voluntary associations of individuals with each other are families, communities, agricultural coops, guilds, universities, industry, etc. – all without the dictate of a governing state.

You’re conclusion that governments were formed out of a “necessity for order” cannot be logically argued because order is a necessity to bring about government in the first place.

Order happens and requires nothing more than peaceful cooperation between free individuals.

[Alpha_F]

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

Order happens and requires nothing more than peaceful cooperation between free individuals.[/quote]

Indeed.

Peace is dynamic. Dynamic cooperation between individuals who are free to use their will to bring about the best outcome for all involved.

Peace is not passivism or passive resistance, that is sloth. When free individuals experience peace they become active contributors towards an orderly society.

Slaves are slothful in the sense they are happy to work hard and have their wages taken up by their masters. They even passively resist freedom if the opportunity would arise as they are used to their “condition” of having a master - they accept hierarchy.

The only “order” government ensures is hierarchical order.

Government is about mastery.
You cannot have a master without a servant.
When the servant works towards becoming his own master tyranny loses its power ( The British government is currently fascism masquerading as a democracy, as I experience ).

The more individuals achieve self-mastery the lesser the need for a governing “body” since every “body” will be self governed by principles. In such a state of self-mastery there is no lawlessness since self-mastery implies self-control, self-moderation, self-possession and self-surrender. More importantly is wisdom to discern - as opposed to knowledge to judge - when to self-possess and when to self-surrender.
If we all practiced our wills in alignment with the freedom offered by higher values ( principles of justice )we would not need an external body to govern our bodies.
Instead we surrender our will to align with the dependency ( slavery ) offered by a higher power ( laws of government ).
In this sense, The State is no longer The Government but it is The State of Freedom experienced by individuals who have conquered through self-mastery.
Freedom is a state not a position.
When one is in a state of freedom one experiences a position of power.
I wonder how that would affect our views of politics.

[Thors_Spammer]

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

Order happens and requires nothing more than peaceful cooperation between free individuals.[/quote]

Do you fail to realize that different individual goals/differences inherent in a person’s life make “peaceful” cooperation a very rare thing?

Why am I getting a strange parallel between your version of “anarchy” and Utopian Communism?

[LIFTICVSMAXIMVS]

[quote]Thors Spammer wrote:
Why am I getting a strange parallel between your version of “anarchy” and Utopian Communism?[/quote]
Because you lack understanding.

[LIFTICVSMAXIMVS]

[quote]Thors Spammer wrote:
Do you fail to realize that different individual goals/differences inherent in a person’s life make “peaceful” cooperation a very rare thing?

[/quote]

It isn’t realizable because it is not true.

I provided examples of cooperation that already exist all around you that are not possible with out peace. Even government requires peace in order to function.

So to say that government is required to make peace happen is precisely backward.

[Thors_Spammer]

Citing “some” examples of “peace” doesn’t prove that EVERYBODY is peaceful. What kind of diluded logic are you using?

I, and every other aware person on this planet, would agree that not everyone is capable of cooperation (through peace) with everyone else. I mean, hell, you exist - and you sure as hell aren’t very cooperative with anything.

[Thors_Spammer]

Here’s some food for thought: government’s only role in human society is to fill the need for hierarchy. As you seem like a very intelligent person LIFTICVSMAXIMVS, I can assume you believe in evolution. If so, I will assume that you wouldn’t disagree if I said that some form of hierachal need is inherent in humans, since they evolved from (and share common ancestors with) animals that clearly do have hierachal tendancies. Isn’t it fair to say that we can’t really avoid the creation of governments? Sure - it starts as tribes, they turn into societies, which turn into civilizations, etc… I contest that all these things are equivalent to government, as they are all forms of a hierarchy.

Since these things can only form when people interact with one another, the OBVIOUS solution to your qualms would be to make sure that no one ever came in contact with anyone else on, ever. Government is an inevitability LIFTICVSMAXIMVS. So yes you can disagree with it, and you can philosophize about how to things ought to be, but you are spending far too much time toiling in idealism rather than practicality.

[Alpha_F]

[quote]Thors Spammer wrote:
Here’s some food for thought: government’s only role in human society is to fill the need for hierarchy. As you seem like a very intelligent person LIFTICVSMAXIMVS, I can assume you believe in evolution. If so, I will assume that you wouldn’t disagree if I said that some form of hierachal need is inherent in humans, since they evolved from (and share common ancestors with) animals that clearly do have hierachal tendancies. Isn’t it fair to say that we can’t really avoid the creation of governments? Sure - it starts as tribes, they turn into societies, which turn into civilizations, etc… I contest that all these things are equivalent to government, as they are all forms of a hierarchy. Since these things can only form when people interact with one another, the OBVIOUS solution to your qualms would be to make sure that no one ever came in contact with anyone else on, ever. Government is an inevitability LIFTICVSMAXIMVS. So yes you can disagree with it, and you can philosophize about how to things ought to be, but you are spending far too much time toiling in idealism rather than practicality.[/quote]

You are completely ignoring whose role government is really filling in for and who/what sits at the top of that pyramid.

[Thors_Spammer]

[quote]Alpha F wrote:

You are completely ignoring whose role government is really filling in for and who/what sits at the top of that pyramid.

[/quote]

Why don’t you just explain your perfect solution for me then?