Well, I just spent a couple hours researching the issue. It seems that you are correct.

However, I still feel that a fair tax would be much more effecient and productive.

__________________
Wear the grudge like a crown of negativity.
Calculate what we will or will not tolerate.
Desperate to control all and everything.
Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen.
--Tool, The Grudge

I completely disagree. Do we not attempt to elect representatives of our urges, feelings, and morals? Are they not supposed to represent what you want from our government?

__________________
Wear the grudge like a crown of negativity.
Calculate what we will or will not tolerate.
Desperate to control all and everything.
Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen.
--Tool, The Grudge

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.

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.

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.

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?

__________________
Today's forecast: Government corruption.

Tomorrow's forecast: 100% chance of more 'politics as usual'

Maybe it's finally time to vote Libertarian

"Without their consent"? By consenting to live in a society humans consent to being governed. In a democracy of course the consent to government and taxation is explicit. So there is no "taking of another's goods without their consent".

__________________
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

Im pretty sure its bad debate form to claim a win. Only your opponent can concede. You cant claim something is fact because you said so. Now if you want to give up trying to convince us, thats fine. Im not even sure what you are arguing for.

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

I'm sorry you have been taken in by this fraud. The fair tax idea itself is a crackbrained scheme. Here is a link to a short and easy to read article pointing out how ridiculous the whole idea is. Here is another link pointing out that the fairtax people are lying when they claim it's a 23% tax.

Think about it for a minute. It's called the "fair" tax. If it has to be advertised like that it already makes me suspicious. The fair tax bible is written by a rabid right wing radio commentator. Even if you like what they say, these guys carry a "strictly for entertainment purposes" warning label. And consider the implications of the fact that these fair tax advocates claim a 23% tax that's really 30%. That kind of lying right up front about the most important aspect of the tax should tell you all you need to know about it.

__________________
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

Maybe you do. But when I espouse an opinion (or cast a vote) I try to back it up with some kind of reasonable argument. Expecting the mere statement "I want" to sway anyone is infantile. And that's exactly what the poster I was responding to was doing.

__________________
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

There is much content in the links that "bears on this subject." All four of these men are anarcho-capitalists. Not all of their article are going to be titled, "Let's Get Rid of the State!" No, this is too much to cover in one article. Instead, they argue for the privitatzation of one thing in an article. Maybe roads, maybe defense. This is in addition to the other things they write in which the conclusion that the state is bad is implicit.

www.hans-hoppe.com
WalterBlock.com free enterprise, capitalism, laissez faire, free markets, private property, law and economics, environmentalism, economics and religion, freedom index, minimum wage, rent control, unions, discrimination, Murray Rothbard, Lew Rockwell,
Roger Garrison - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Roger Garrison)
Roderick T. Long's Home Page

On Block's, Hoppe's and Long's sites, they state they are anarchists. While the wiki article does not say this explitly about Garrison, it does say he is an Austrian Economist. The Austrian School believes that the state always screws things up, thus it is implicit that Garrison is an anarcho-capitalist.

Here are three sites that are basicly devoted to free-market anarchism:
Ludwig von Mises Institute Home
LewRockwell.com
Molinari Society

On the Mises site, look up some of Murray Rothbard's stuff and we can discuss it on another thread.


In other words, you are seriously incorrect in you assertion that there is no serious scholarship on the subject. Your refusal to accept this does not make it any less true and is only indicative on you unwillingness to learn.

__________________
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address

There is much content in the links that "bears on this subject." All four of these men are anarcho-capitalists. Not all of their article are going to be titled, "Let's Get Rid of the State!" No, this is too much to cover in one article. Instead, they argue for the privitatzation of one thing in an article. Maybe roads, maybe defense. This is in addition to the other things they write in which the conclusion that the state is bad is implicit.

www.hans-hoppe.com
WalterBlock.com free enterprise, capitalism, laissez faire, free markets, private property, law and economics, environmentalism, economics and religion, freedom index, minimum wage, rent control, unions, discrimination, Murray Rothbard, Lew Rockwell,
Roger Garrison - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Roger Garrison)
Roderick T. Long's Home Page

On Block's, Hoppe's and Long's sites, they state they are anarchists. While the wiki article does not say this explitly about Garrison, it does say he is an Austrian Economist. The Austrian School believes that the state always screws things up, thus it is implicit that Garrison is an anarcho-capitalist.

Here are three sites that are basicly devoted to free-market anarchism:
Ludwig von Mises Institute Home
LewRockwell.com
Molinari Society

On the Mises site, look up some of Murray Rothbard's stuff and we can discuss it on another thread.


In other words, you are seriously incorrect in you assertion that there is no serious scholarship on the subject. Your refusal to accept this does not make it any less true and is only indicative on you unwillingness to learn.

__________________
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address

Perhaps you should read more than one thing that I posted as I have suggested. I am not going to make the same exact argument multiple times to multiple people on the same thread.

Read what I wrote!

__________________
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address

I've read everything you've written. I've responded to all of it. None of it passes the laugh test for reasons I've already expressed.

__________________
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

Geez. We are arguing facts here, and the fact is you have not responded to what I wrote. I will paste it here again, and may be you can give it another shot.

What makes an action wrong? Is an action wrong because it is against moral law, or is an action wrong because some people say it is?

What I gather from your post is that you believe that things are wrong because they have been forbidden by a group of people, namely the government. According to this idea of right and wrong, nothing is wrong unless the gov't says it is. So, if gov't didn't makes laws against theft, theft would not be wrong. Taking this one step further, if gov't says that it can steal, then that is not wrong. After all, gov't decides what is right and what is wrong. If gov't says that it can steal, the the action of the gov't stealing is not wrong.

This is, of course, insane. But this is the conclusion that is implicit in your argument. If it is wrong for a private indivdual to steal, it is wrong for a group of private indivduals to steal, and it is wrong for a group of private indivduals to get other people to steal for them.

While taxation is not against statutory law, it is against moral law. The only just use of statutory law is to codify moral law. Governments cannot legitimatly "make law", they can only codify existing, moral law.

So, I ask you, what makes government different from private indivduals? How do you reconcile your views with Jefferson when he wrote that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed? Or do you disagree with this argument that Jefferson makes?

If you agree with it, and continue to maintain that my living in America is the same as giving my consent, how can you justify the American Revolution? Weren't the colonists simply giving their consent by living in an English territory? And, it was much more simple for them to get what they wanted than it is for me to get what I wanted. All they had to do was move to England and they would have had the same rights as every other Englishman.

__________________
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address

I did answer that. I said there is no right or wrong as it applies to groups. Right and wrong is an individual idea. The group application comes into being as law, and at that point yes, whatever the law saw is right or wrong is right or wrong. Simply put, I dont beleive in morality or moral law. That is a language term made up to represent our feeling of what is positive to an individual, or in our best interest as we determine it.

How about be get back to the fair tax. We are off topic.

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

Stating a man's political preference and a listing of his published works is not the same as "serious scholarship" arguing for ending government. As for von mises, there is a differnce between free market economic theory and "end government". Rockwell writes for the worldnutdaily. Not a bastion of "serious scholarship".

Please don't supply any more links. The "arguments" which you have actually presented here (state violates "moral" law, taxation is "theft", "end government", "I do not want to be governed and I do not want any government services") are childish and without basis in reason.

__________________
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

Why are they with out basis? You have told me this again and again, but have not provided any reason for this.

I never said Mises was an ararchist. In fact, he was appaled by the anarchist tendencies of Rothbard, his number one student.

As for serious schorlarship, what would you like me to do. Pick out every article that has to do with privitizing something? I gave you the CVs of four people who are tenured professors at major four year schools. One is even an endowed chair. While there is much more written on why we need more government, this does not change the fact that there is serious schoralship written on anarchy.

By the way, what is your definition of "serious scholarship?"

__________________
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address