Talk:Tax

Taxation is Theft/Coercion

"A tax is any fee imposed"...

Levied means imposed, and imposed means coerced, and is thus coercion, as attested by merriam-webster, thefreedictionary, vocabulary, google, dictionary.reference.com, thesaurus, dictionary.cambridge, and macmillandictionary.

by a government.

Whether Government Provides A Service

(Adding this split to test and see if the timelessness of the articles can extend to conversation by shortening each field to its referent parts. Is this nestable? No, but it's still a HUGE relief for my phone's ram! Ok, gone again. Was just here to test a pondering. somethingsea (talk) 05:34, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

"(excluding direct payments to the government for a service)."

No - government does not provide a service. somethingsea (talk) 11:55, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Police, schools, welfare, defence.... but, apart from that, what has the romans government ever done for us. Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 12:06, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

The police are, for instance, infamous for their police brutality, and inconsistent application of their social role.

Schools are little more than indoctrination camps, as they inherently and systematically promote statism, and are funded by taxation.

Welfare is the subsidization of poverty, which then creates an endless cycle of it.

State Defense is a misnomer, as you are being protected from "other gangs" by a gang, since if you refuse to pay taxes, you will be given a death threat if you offer resistance to the extortion. somethingsea (talk) 15:06, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

"Welfare is the subsidization of poverty, which then creates an endless cycle of it." - at which point you reveal your profound ignorance of economics, thus ruining whatever point you were trying to make. Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 15:08, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

The long haired hippie DMR of the late sixties, early seventies used to hate the "pigs" as symbols of a repressive state - and the miners strike of the eighties didn't help much either - but, who are you going to call when you get burgled? For all their faults and weaknesses what alternatives are available? Private armies. Not for me, thanks. Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 15:12, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

...and? So what if it is coercion? I, for one, am quite happy that people can't get out of their moral obligation to sustain society. It certainly isn't theft, as theft is defined in terms of unlawfulness and taxation is, well, the law. The best you could come up with is 'unfair', which would sound an adolescent tantrum. In any case, levied is the most correct term to use in context. Coerced as a synonym for imposed is a somewhat non-standard usage, and would make the lede less understandable if used here. Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 12:10, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

So that means it is involuntary - without consent.

If there is a moral obligation to sustain society, then government fails it by it's existence via taxation, which impoverishes society by means of inducing fear via death threats.

Theft is taking something that isn't yours - a transfer of energy that is involuntary; "yours" here is defined in two ways:

1. Temporary ownership of commonly owned items by means of use, which often has the lifespan of even seconds.

2. Permanent ownership of something via the embodiment of it, such as your body. Permanent is within the context of the confine of the lifespan of the embodiment.

The law is enforced through the police, who are funded by taxation, which is theft, which is one instance of many of the contradiction and conflation of taxation being voluntary.

Unfair doesn't even begin to address the fundamental problem. While it is indeed unfair, you are right that it amounts to an adolescent tantrum. How could it go further, since those 12 years of indoctrination has muddled the issue so effectively?

Most correct term. So, when something is imposed, it's consented to by the other? Imposed means forced, does it not? somethingsea (talk) 15:32, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

The government provides services and management structure. Taxation pays for that. It's no more theft than paying what you owe after you eat a meal. Taking services provided while not paying for it is theft right? -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 15:36, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

(EC)Much as murder is defined as the unlawful killing of a person, theft is the unlawful taking of property. If I pick up your wallet you drop to return it to you, e.g., it's not theft, even though I've taken your property.

In much the same way, this argument is completely stupid. Property doesn't exist outside of a legal construction that the government enforces, and serious inspection of multiple distinct societies without structured governments shows a relatively common behavior of not having a system of property, or contrarily, disputes of ownership that frequently blossomed into violence.

You are taking a government-centered idea, and attempting to use it to invalidate government as a concept, which is just uniquely dumb. Now I could give you the Aquinas or Locke ideas of property as a natural right, but both of those ideas came as secondary to other rights that needed protection more, a notion you're just pretending doesn't exist. Ikanreed (talk) 15:40, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Theft is the unlawful taking of property. Taxation, as instituted by government, can never be theft by definition. It's the law. It's lawful. It's not, and can never be, theft. 'Theft' has no meaning outside of a legal framework, a framework that requires the concept of government. I realise I'm just rehashing Ikanreed here, but I'm hoping that if we say it enough different way it will wink in. Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 16:13, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

And, of course, "can never" is extreme, because, to no sane person's surprise, there are laws establishing how taxes can be collected, and taking them a different way is theft. Ikanreed (talk) 16:20, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

That there are laws for how taxes are collected does not change the underlying lack of consent regarding the money being taken. If you were to chose who raped you - you don't want to have sex but you're going to because it's not an option not to, which is an imposition, which is coercion - would you call this sex? somethingsea (talk) 17:22, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

It is unfortunate for atheists that atheism is the rejection of God, since God obviously exists, and atheists are in denial of this reality. While this concept extends into many other words that are associated with the overall idea complex that atheists also irrationally contend, since God exists - which is silly of them, really (they just want an excuse to ignore God and sin) - and therefore they are using faulty logic. This is obviously intentionally triggering, to point out how the same applies to government, as you are probably able to tell. Unless, of course, you think that the two concepts are impossibly separation, whereupon the logic will be lost on you, and you will accuse me of psycho-babble. Because this site aims for debunking creationism, either possibility seems equally possible to me.

The first problem here is that law on here does not refer to any government-related definition, making the inclusion of it within government terms unfounded.

Since the law is dependent on the existence of government, it is thus also dependent on taxation, and therefore coercive. Since, additionally, police murder people and are not put in jail, but given paid leave, this is another instance of government being a privileged class within society.

If I drop my wallet and you pick it up for me and give it to me... I have my wallet. How have you taken my property if I possess it?

That the concept of property does not exist outside the state is a definite possibility, as anarchist Proudhon has put with "Property is Theft!": "He argued that the result of an individual's labor which is currently occupied or used is a legitimate form of property." This is the same concept that I use in regard to "lifespan" also on this page.

There is no rationalwiki for natural rights; there is, however, for natural law:

"Natural law is the concept that some form of law exists naturally and universally, beyond the laws created by governments and societies, and beyond the observable laws of physics and mathematics." This is an assertion; a speculation.

Wikipedia (which is based on mainstream consensus, which means that if the mainstream agreed that 2 + 2 was 5, that is what Wikipedia would present) has an article on natural law, which ultimately uses the government as the basis for rights:

• "Natural rights are those not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable (i.e., cannot be sold, transferred, or removed)."
• Inalienable: "In property law, alienation is the capacity for a piece of property or a property right to be sold or otherwise transferred from one party to another."
• Property law: "Property law is the area of law that governs the various forms of ownership and tenancy in real property (land as distinct from personal or movable possessions) and in personal property, within the common law legal system."
• Common law: "Common law (also known as case law or precedent) is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals that decide individual cases, as opposed to statutes adopted through the legislative process or regulations issued by the executive branch."
• Legal system: "The contemporary legal systems of the world are generally based on one of three basic systems: civil law, common law, and religious law – or combinations of these."
• Civil law: "Civil law (or civilian law, Roman law) is a legal system...whose most prevalent feature is that its core principles are codified into a referable system which serves as the primary source of law.

...

The purpose of codification is to provide all citizens with manners and written collection of the laws which apply to them and which judges must follow. ...

Where codes exist, the primary source of law is the law code, which is a systematic collection of interrelated articles,[7] arranged by subject matter in some pre-specified order,[8] and that explain the principles of law, rights and entitlements, and how basic legal mechanisms work. Law codes are simply laws enacted by a legislature, even if they are in general much longer than other laws."

Legislature: "A legislature is a state's internal decision-making organization, usually associated with national government, that has the power to enact, amend, and repeal public policy." somethingsea (talk) 17:20, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Ignoring for a moment your claim of something that you can neither see nor touch nor hear nor taste nor smell as "obvious" in its existence. (I acknowledge non-obvious things exist, so don't give me any lip because your own phrasing).

Okay, so you cite laws as to the definition of property, and in the same breath argue it's a natural(i.e. extralegal) right. Go all the way back to the establishment of it as a natural right. Go ahead. Deduce it from natural premises. I suspect you'll have problems with this, particularly with respect to original ownership the raw materials for things. Ikanreed (talk) 17:31, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

For the love of crap...is there ever a conversation about this subject that doesn't have ranting about conspiracies and anyone who disagrees with them is an evil atheist? It doesn't help the ideas, it just makes the person look like a mental patient. Ain't nobody got time to argue with a schizophrenic. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 17:49, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry that using the parallel to give an example of Begging the question triggered the basis of angst for irrationality/supposition that is the reason for this site. I am incredibly friendly to atheism, having rejected it only on the technicality of quantum mechanic's non-locality, and not in any sense for Jeebus. Since non-locality is considered quantum woo, it makes sense that any non-atheist position would be considered quack.

However, the reasoning supporting it is non-existent - "Concepts such as "non-locality" or "quantum probability waves" or "uncertainty principle" have become social memes of a kind where people inherently recognize that something "strange" is going on."

Problematically, the Observer effect essentially contends one of the foundational pillars of science and thus the scientific method:

"How to do science

Essentially, the following five steps make up the scientific method:

• Observe - Look at the world and find a result that seems curious. As Isaac Asimov put it, "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, 'Hmm... that's funny...'"
• Hypothesize - Come up with an explanation.
• Predict - The most important part of a hypothesis or theory is its ability to make predictions that have yet to be observed. A theory that makes no new predictions is scientifically worthless. Predictions must be falsifiable (thoretically, new evidence can show the prediction to be false) and specific (what is predicted must not be open to interpretation after the experiment begins, or else the only thing you're testing is your ability to reinterpret your incorrect theory).
• Experiment - Compare the predictions with new[5] empirical evidence (usually experimental evidence, often supported by mathematics). This step is the reason why a hypothesis or theory has to be falsifiable — if there's nothing falsify, then the experiment is pointless because it's guaranteed to tell you nothing new. Information from the experiment can disprove the original hypothesis, which might be refined into a better one.
• Reproduce - ensure the result is a true reflection of reality by verifying it with others." somethingsea (talk) 19:02, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ We know the scientific method, thanks. You don't need to remind us. You do need to finish your thought. Taking the quoted block as a simple phrase, it definetly seems like you just left off dead in the middle of making a point. Ikanreed (talk) 19:17, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Why would non-locality imply the existence of God? And yes, our observations of the world are restricted by the process of perceiving/measuring reality necessarily disrupting it, however slightly. Science has still made huge discoveries about the way the world works, despite this restriction. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 19:27, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't advise pursuing this line of reasoning. Whenever someone is citing quantum strangeness as the source of something it doesn't actually explain, even having a chance of resolving the debate requires walking back through all the experiments that actually established the principles of quantum physics and inquiring if that's the phenomenon they mean, chasing that line of reasoning through at least a half dozen paragraphs, and the best result you can really hope for is them going "Maybe the experiment to establish it hasn't happened yet." Ikanreed (talk) 19:34, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, yes, I don't expect him to have actually come to his conclusion through valid reasoning, but I'm still curious what his reasoning is. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 19:41, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Can't blame you for curiosity. Just prepare for a long slog before only kinda sorta slaking that curiosity. Ikanreed (talk) 19:45, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

(EC) Great, now quantum nonsense and a lecture that has no relation to anything about taxes. This is a damn train wreck. I wonder how people can spew this nonsense like a hummingbird on crank and not realize they look nuttier than squirrel poop. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 19:49, 28 January 2015 (UTC)