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If taxation was kept down to an appropriate level, you'd have far fewer people complaining and/or noticing that taxation is, at its core, theft.
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People will complain about taxation every time they perceive tax money is being used to support a person or an idea they don't like.
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Exactly! Keeping taxation low implies keeping spending low, and if you support fewer ideas/people, there is less likelihood that those ideas/people will be offensive.
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And the more taxes are reduced the more the complaining shifts from "too much taxation" to "lack of services".
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True, but most of that is due to brainwashing the populace that if you look up "government" in the dictionary, it says "See
babysitter". The sooner we can correct that, the better off we'll all be.
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I have a problem with the characterization of taxation as "at its core, theft". Given the human societal need for some level of governance [...and...] Given that our government is "of the people" the characterization is even more unjust.
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I'm not saying taxation is an evil that must be abolished. I explicitly said that taxation is a necessary evil, and that was for the very reasons that you cite.
That notwithstanding, it is still theft. What is theft? Taking of another's goods without their consent. If taxation were not theft, we could run the government strictly on donations, because most everyone would consent to give amounts comparable to what they currently pay. How many people do you know who would willingly give a quarter or more of their gross income to the government if they had the (unpunishable) option of not doing so?
As I said, liberty1776 is completly correct on a Theoretical level. But you are correct on a practical level; zero taxation is not a workable approach.
It is a wonderful idea, and admittedly the way things Should be, but not achievable in the real world. Ideally, we could get by with the voluntary groups you espouse supported by voluntary donations towards the common good, but it's human nature that even if you could start out with a sufficiently responsible starting population, enough individuals would try to cut back or eliminate their donations such that in comparatively short order you'd end up either with mandatory taxes to force people to pay their fair share or having that society effectively destroyed by outside forces able to overrun the insufficient defenses funded by the insufficient donations.
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Even if it is, why would we strive for anything less?
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Because while it Is better in theory, it's a recipe for disaster in real life. Communism works Great on paper, why shouldn't we strive for That utopia?