Quote:
Originally Posted by Evil_inKarlate
So then you'd be fine with somebody stopping by your place and saying "Take off your clothes and lie on the bed, or I will variously destroy your property, burn down your house, and/or do worse things to you than I had originally planned," assuming it was an honest presentation of your choices?
No, theft is something taken without consent. The society we live in dictates that I'm not allowed to kill you for disagreeing with me. Taking away that freedom is not theft, as I both didn't want it in the first place and also gladly trade it for a similar protection from you if it were needed. I similarly consent to give up my freedom to steal others' property, violate their persons, and abdicate contractual agreements, as do most people in our society.
If all laws were stricken tomorrow, and/or liberty1776 succeeded in eliminating the state, would most people suddenly become homocidal, or otherwise violate the basic rights I listed above? No, because such restrictions are consentual. Would most people continue to pay their tax bills in full? I expect very few (if any) would, including me. Why not? Because taxes are taken without true consent.
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There is a continuum of "consent" to laws from the nearly universal agreement not to murder all the way to the nearly universal flouting of the speeding laws. The fact that people are happier to obey some laws than others is irrelevant if those laws have been passed according to the rules of this democratic republic (or whatever it is). So taxes are no more a "theft" of money than laws against murder are a "theft" of your freedom to kill.
I have no doubt there are people in this world who are more willing to pay taxes than they are to refrain from killing someone. If we let your personal preference determine what is theft then why not the murderer's?