Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Ecurb,

Thank you for your reply!

Nobody is forcing him to own a store. He is aware before he owns the store of his legal obligations (and his legal protections). Therefore he consents to follow the law.

I don't believe the third sentence follows from the preceding two.

Being aware that you will be violently forced to do something against your will is different than consenting to it.

I might be aware that living in a neighborhood with an active mafia protection racket means aggressively violent mobsters will come to my house and rob me at gunpoint (and claim its for my own good because they are going to give me their protection services whether I like or not). That does not mean I consent to it.

I might be aware that if I wear a short dress I'll get raped, but that doesn't mean I consent to it. Yes, I'm very pretty and easy on the eyes, but that doesn't mean I consent to it.

I might be aware that if I smoke marijuana and post pictures of it on social media that violent men with guns will come to my house, kick down my door, and drag me to prison. That doesn't mean I consent to it.

When a mugger points a knife at me and says "give me your wallet or I'll stab you" (i.e. issues a law against me), it doesn't mean I consent to being stabbed when I refuse to give my wallet (i.e. break the mugger's law). And that's still true even if I knew there was a mugger there and went to that neighborhood anyway knowing I would get mugged like that.

Being aware of a coercive threat/law doesn't mean you consent to it.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested 29 times. He was put in jail repeatedly. I don't think he consented to being put in jail. Do you? That's not rhetorical question. I'm genuinely interested to know your answer and reasoning for that answer.

" Consent: Permission for something to happen or agreement to do something."

Clearly, consent can be coerced.

That is utterly inconsistent to how I use the term 'consent'. In my anecdotal experience, I use the term 'consent' the same way most people do. (Granted, words tend to have different meanings in different regions and cultures, so it could merely be a regional and/or a cultural discrepancy.)

In the way I (and I believe most people) use the terms, if there is a woman who doesn't want to have sex, and an ugly man puts a gun to that woman's head and says, "Give me permission to have sex with you, or I will shoot you," then the ensuing sex is not consensual, and the sex is thus rape. Even if he forces her at gunpoint to sign a contract or say on camera that she wants the sex and gives permission or such, it's still totally not consensual, and it's still rape; that is, at least, how I use the terms.

Are you sure that's not how you use the word 'consent'?

Not many rapists force their victims to sign consent forms at gunpoint. I'll concede that if they did the form would have no legal standing.

But that's not comparable to a store owner paying taxes.

I wasn't saying the example of the paperwork-obsessed rapist was comparable to the store issue we talked about before. I was just doing my best to understand how you use the word "coercive"/"coercion".

As I use the terms, to say "consent can be coerced" is an oxymoronic contradiction. In other words, as I use the terms, it's false by definition. Totally and completely. My example of the paperwork-obsessed rapist was meant to exemplify and illustrate that, not anything about the store thing we were talking about earlier.

So I am not still sure what you mean by the term 'coerced' when you use it, as it doesn't seem to match at all what I mean by it, since I use it roughly as an interchangeable synonym for non-consensual.

In any case, to circle back to the titular question, am I correct in understanding that we agree that taxation by big non-local governments is not consensual?


Thank you,
Scott

[Ecurb]

Hi, Ecurb,

Thank you for your reply!

Nobody is forcing him to own a store. He is aware before he owns the store of his legal obligations (and his legal protections). Therefore he consents to follow the law.

I don't believe the third sentence follows from the preceding two.

Being aware that you will be violently forced to do something against your will is different than consenting to it.

I might be aware that living in a neighborhood with an active mafia protection racket means aggressively violent mobsters will come to my house and rob me at gunpoint (and claim its for my own good because they are going to give me their protection services whether I like or not). That does not mean I consent to it.

I might be aware that if I wear a short dress I'll get raped, but that doesn't mean I consent to it. Yes, I'm very pretty and easy on the eyes, but that doesn't mean I consent to it.

I might be aware that if I smoke marijuana and post pictures of it on social media that violent men with guns will come to my house, kick down my door, and drag me to prison. That doesn't mean I consent to it.

When a mugger points a knife at me and says "give me your wallet or I'll stab you" (i.e. issues a law against me), it doesn't mean I consent to being stabbed when I refuse to give my wallet (i.e. break the mugger's law). And that's still true even if I knew there was a mugger there and went to that neighborhood anyway knowing I would get mugged like that.

Being aware of a coercive threat/law doesn't mean you consent to it.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested 29 times. He was put in jail repeatedly. I don't think he consented to being put in jail. Do you? That's not rhetorical question. I'm genuinely interested to know your answer and reasoning for that answer.

" Consent: Permission for something to happen or agreement to do something."

Clearly, consent can be coerced.

That is utterly inconsistent to how I use the term 'consent'. In my anecdotal experience, I use the term 'consent' the same way most people do. (Granted, words tend to have different meanings in different regions and cultures, so it could merely be a regional and/or a cultural discrepancy.)

In the way I (and I believe most people) use the terms, if there is a woman who doesn't want to have sex, and an ugly man puts a gun to that woman's head and says, "Give me permission to have sex with you, or I will shoot you," then the ensuing sex is not consensual, and the sex is thus rape. Even if he forces her at gunpoint to sign a contract or say on camera that she wants the sex and gives permission or such, it's still totally not consensual, and it's still rape; that is, at least, how I use the terms.

Are you sure that's not how you use the word 'consent'?

Not many rapists force their victims to sign consent forms at gunpoint. I'll concede that if they did the form would have no legal standing.

But that's not comparable to a store owner paying taxes.

I wasn't saying the example of the paperwork-obsessed rapist was comparable to the store issue we talked about before. I was just doing my best to understand how you use the word "coercive"/"coercion".

As I use the terms, to say "consent can be coerced" is an oxymoronic contradiction. In other words, as I use the terms, it's false by definition. Totally and completely. My example of the paperwork-obsessed rapist was meant to exemplify and illustrate that, not anything about the store thing we were talking about earlier.

So I am not still sure what you mean by the term 'coerced' when you use it, as it doesn't seem to match at all what I mean by it, since I use it roughly as an interchangeable synonym for non-consensual.

In any case, to circle back to the titular question, am I correct in understanding that we agree that taxation by big non-local governments is not consensual?


Thank you,
Scott

All contracts are enforced through violent coercion. If you agree to pay someone, and sign a legal contract to that effect, if you don't pay him he can call the police who will force you to pay him.

Property rights are also enforced through violent coercion. Ownership confers the right to coercively control other people vis a vis the property. Why should it not also confer obligations? Neither is a natural consequence of a relation between a person and an inanimate object. Both are determined by custom and law.

Like anyone who signs a contract, the store owner is aware of his legal rights and obligations when he buys the store. Therefore, none of your examples are apt. Violent coercion to enforce contracts (or the law) differs from illegal coercion. Contracts are consensual, although, of course, some people want to change their consent after the fact. Hence the corecion.

Anarchism is an honorable political philosophy. Since laws are enforced with violent coercion, if violent coercion is a bad thing, utopia must be an anarchy. But property law already relies on violent coercion. So taxes are (or can be) non consensual, but they are not uniquely so. They are no more non consensual than the rest of property law.

Clearly, laws prohibiting rape, murder, and theft are also coercive. So any implication that taxation is uniquely coercive is incorrect. Nonetheless, I'll agree that it is often non consensual.

[Good_Egg]

@Scott

I think you're right that consent is best described as a spectrum. What do the two ends look like ?

At one end, total consent looks like a whole-hearted embrace of the proposed action, such that it makes no effective difference which party proposed the action and which consented to it.

At the other end, some flavours of Christianity (and other ideologies) are into martyrdom. They advocate that their followers should have total non-consent to denying the faith / the cause, even to the point of death.

In between are all the different levels of reluctance and duress.

Actions undertaken at gunpoint, in order to preserve one's life, involve the tiniest measure of consent. Right up against the non-consensual end of the scale but not quite at the end.

Conversely, if you have doubts about the proposed action, but participate under the tiniest amount of pressure ("I'll be a little disappointed if you don't") then consent is not quite total, but nearly so.

The question is then - where on that scale do taxes fall ?

If you imagine a wild west town beset by bandits, and someone suggests that all the townsfolk pay a small amount each and hire a sheriff that could be pretty near the consensual end of the scale.

Which is I suspect why you specified big non-local government.

Can we agree that it is harder to generate the same level of consent when government is bigger and less local ?

But in my country and yours, tax isn't at the other end either. Few people put their life on the line to evade taxes. Maybe there are a few survivalist types who'll engage in gun fights with the FBI rather than pay up. But I didn't think Connecticut was that sort of place...

[Sculptor1]

Taxation is through the social contract by consent.
If you do not like it, you can contribute to the political process to change it, or you can seek another country with a better social code, or turn to criminal activities where you do not pay tax.
So plenty of choices.

But there are no grounds for complaint. Money does not belong to you. It is issued and controlled by the state, and you simply hold an allocation based on your ability to acquire it. If you acquire too much, judged by the state, then there are mechanisms to control access to those tokens.

The health of the economy and the creation of vital infrastructure such as roads, schools, police, defence.. ad infinitem requires taxation.
In other words the very means by which you are able to "make your money" requires the fabric of society made possible by that taxation.

So bleating about paying tax like a red-neck, straw chewing, moonshine swigging carrot cruncher is most entertaining, but when you drive on a road, or benefit from the safety regs of the food you eat and the aspirin you pop, the school that taught you how to hate your government, you are consenting to the taxation that paid for all that stuff.

[GE Morton]

Taxation is through the social contract by consent.

There is no such thing as a "social contract." Nor does everyone taxed consent to the taxes.

But there are no grounds for complaint.

If you are forced to pay for something from which you derive no benefit you certainly do have grounds for complaint. It doesn't matter whether the thief is the government or a mugger demanding you pay for his dope.

Money does not belong to you. It is issued and controlled by the state, and you simply hold an allocation based on your ability to acquire it.

Oh, my. You are in desperate need of a course in economics. The currency and coins printed and minted by the State are merely tokens for money, which is wealth. Wealth --- goods and services having some economic value --- belongs to the persons who produce it, not to the State.

If you acquire too much, judged by the state, then there are mechanisms to control access to those tokens.

The judgments of the State on such questions carry no more moral or factual weight than those of Joe Sixpack or Elmer Fudd.

The health of the economy and the creation of vital infrastructure such as roads, schools, police, defence.. ad infinitem requires taxation.
In other words the very means by which you are able to "make your money" requires the fabric of society made possible by that taxation.

That is correct. You have an obligation to pay for government services from which you benefit. But not for free lunches delivered to constituents of some politician in exchange for their votes.

[Good_Egg]

PS: imagine an opinion poll that asks people if they think the government should spend more on defence. And one of the response options is to say that one doesn't think government should spend any money on defence at all.

What proportion of the population do you think would tick that last option ?

As a pure guess, I imagine there may be something around 2% of people who are committed pacifists who would tick that box. Another 1% of anarchists who don't
believe in government at all. And something less than 1% of libertarians with well-thought out ideas of alternative means by which defence spending should be funded.

Leaving something north of 95% of the population who will the end (government spending on defence) even if they can't quite bring themselves to will the means (taxes).

And that situation is somewhere in the middle between the two poles of 100% consenting and 100% non-consenting.

Of course, this perspective interprets the question (are taxes consensual?) as being about how far people in our society do actually agree to being taxed. Rather than as being about whether a formal process of consent has been gone through. The example of the paperwork-obsessed rapist should be enough to make the difference clear...

[Ecurb]

That is correct. You have an obligation to pay for government services from which you benefit. But not for free lunches delivered to constituents of some politician in exchange for their votes.

Fine. We'll use 100% of your taxes for defense, police, roads and other infrastructure of which you approve, and 100% of mine on welfare, food stamps, and education. The total amount of money collected will remain the same; the expenditures will remain the same. Problem solved!

As good egg points out, we'll never get 100% approval for any expenditure, yet we have to figure out how much to collect and how to spend it. Fortunately, no reasonable person thinks GE's notions (which would also eliminate public education) represent a solution.

[Sculptor1]

That is correct. You have an obligation to pay for government services from which you benefit. But not for free lunches delivered to constituents of some politician in exchange for their votes.

Fine. We'll use 100% of your taxes for defense, police, roads and other infrastructure of which you approve, and 100% of mine on welfare, food stamps, and education. The total amount of money collected will remain the same; the expenditures will remain the same. Problem solved!

As good egg points out, we'll never get 100% approval for any expenditure, yet we have to figure out how much to collect and how to spend it. Fortunately, no reasonable person thinks GE's notions (which would also eliminate public education) represent a solution.

Good point.

We all benefit from welfare programs since those that are helped are less likely to take what they need by invading your home.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Determining what actually happened in a situation isn't always black-and-white, not because consent is philosophically complicated (it's not) but because people lie and multiple different scenarios can match the same generic description. In analogy, imagine you ask me, "A man and a woman had sex last night, but today the man says he didn't consent; was it consensual?" I can say it's not black-and-white, but really it's not that philosophically it isn't black-and-white, but rather simply an aspect of the fact that people lie, that not all details can be known, and that either the description provided is insufficient.

Scott

I think you're right that consent is best described as a spectrum. What do the two ends look like ?

Sorry, I think I wasn't clear.

Relatively speaking, I do think consent tends to be nearly black and white. You either consent to something or you don't. If two people have sex, it was either consensual or not. If one person receives money from a second person (or labor or business services of some kind, including work as a porn star or prostitute), it was either a consensual transaction or not. Philosophically, it's not really very complicated, and it is relatively black-and-white.

What I mean by the quote above was that our knowledge as outsiders of the specific details specific situation is not black-and-white due to our own ignorance. The most common example is a so-called he-said-she-said situation involves sex that one party alleges was consensual and the other part . Generally, one of them is lying, or at least objectively incorrect. The truth is black-and-white, but we just don't know what the exact truth is in many situations.

With that clarification in mind, I politely ask again: Do you think taxation by big non-local governments non-consensual or consensual? Yes or no?

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Taxation is through the social contract by consent.

I have never signed a "social contract", and as I use the terms if it isn't signed, it isn't a contract.

Regardless, for me to understand the context of your other comments, please answer this question:

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested 29 times; Do you believe he was in jail consensually? Do you believe he consented to being arrested and put in jail?

That is not a rhetorical question. I am very curious to know your answer, and I believe your answer will allow me to understand what you mean by the rest of your comments.

martin-luther-king-jr-montgomery-arrest-1958.jpg (59.23 KiB) Viewed 1344 times

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

PS: imagine an opinion poll that asks people if they think the government should spend more on defence. And one of the response options is to say that one doesn't think government should spend any money on defence at all.

Personally, I don't believe in 'shoulds' or 'oughts' (i.e. moral superstitions) at all, so I would probably refuse to vote in such a poll personally. Regardless, the question of this topic is not about 'shoulds' or 'oughts' at all. Neither the word "should" nor the word "ought" appear in the Original Post (OP) at all.

Moreover, it seems like the analogy is a non-sequitur anyway.

We could hold a poll about asking the question "should some guy named Robert Fakeman be raped and murdered", and 80% of the population could vote yes; it in no remotely at all means the rape or murder would be consensual.

Just because the attackers outnumber the non-consenting victims doesn't make the interaction any less consensual.



---
For more on my disbelief in 'shoulds' and 'oughts' and all moralizing and superstitious judgementalism, please see:

• An elaboration on how judgemental moralizing and the superstition of 'moral law' infringes on free-spirited inner peace
• What the word "evil" means to me, and why I believe evil (as I use the term) does not exist.
• If they knew better, they would do better. For anyone and anything, say, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."
• There is no "Is-Ought Problem" because there is no 'ought'.
• Concepts of preference only make sense when it comes to your choices (i.e. what's in your control).
• I lovingly and deeply pity those who think unchangeable reality "ought" to be different than it unchangeably is.
• Page 160: There is great power in peacefulness and acceptance because there is great waste in restlessness, resentment, and unforgiveness.
• All the do-gooders are troublemakers: A plague of virtuous people | A perfectly pestiferous mass of a million saints
• Man Is Not Fit to Govern Man: My Philosophy of Non-Violence, Self-Government, Self-Discipline, and Spiritual Freedom
• Don't should on me. If you are going to should on anyone, go should on yourself.
• How Unassertiveness Leads to Aggression and the Illusion of 'Shoulds' and 'Oughts'
• The artistically creative diversity of spiritual freedom ("Content free-spirited creativity emerges in the absence of enslaving moral law and other false idols. Nothing must be done that isn't done.")

[Ecurb]

Taxation is through the social contract by consent.

I have never signed a "social contract", and as I use the terms if it isn't signed, it isn't a contract.

I suggest there can be implicit contracts. If, for example, you believe that people have a "right to life", then you have implicitly contracted not to kill people. If you believe in property rights, you implicitly contract not to steal. If you object to non- defensive violence, you contract not to punch someone for no reason.

This may be complicated by your objection to "oughts", We ought to honor our contractual obligatins - or so most people think.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

We'll use 100% of your [would-be taxes] for defense, police, roads and other infrastructure of which you approve, and 100% of mine on welfare, food stamps, and education.

I am happy to donate voluntarily to the charities of my choice (and only those)!

I do a lot of voluntarily charitable donations myself.

I am also happy to be declined services I refuse to pay for. For example, if I drop a letter in the mailbox without buying a postage stamp and putting that postage stamp on it, I am happy to see that it does not get mailed, and only gets mailed if I buy the postage stamp.

I am happy when reasonable mobsters come to my house to persuade me to sign up to their mafia's protection racket services that it turns out the only penalty for refusing is that I don't get their services.

Likewise, I think it would totally make sense that if I refuse to help pay for a pizza that gets ordered a party, but everyone else chips in, that they say I can't have a slice then.

Likewise, I love the idea of--instead of hearing people impotently chant about "#DefundPolice"--they could just refuse to buy services from that particular pseudo-protection racket, meaning when they call 911 they can only get ambulances and firefighters but no police assistance.

That's a cool thing about consent: If you don't want to donate money to Pakistan's gender studies, you don't have to, but if you do, you can. In contrast, one could go to your house, point a gun at you, and threaten to do violence to you if you don't give them money to "donate" to Pakistan gender studies, then that would probably be more accurately referred to as a "tax" than a "donation".

When it comes to consensual transactions one can fund and defund (i.e. stop funding or not find) whoever and whatever they want (as long as it's all consensual). That's the beauty and peacefulness of freedom and voluntariness. If one person prefers to donate to cancer charity and another to helping feed starving kids, each can donate to their preferred charity instead of the other. If one person wants a subscription to Netflix but not Hulu, and another wants Hulu but not Netflix, each can get what they want and only what they want.

Consent is simple.

Fortunately, no reasonable person thinks GE's notions (which would also eliminate public education) represent a solution.

This appears to be off-topic, since (at least where I live) public schools are primarily by locally, not via taxes taken away from the locality by big non-local governments.

For example, it would take several days to drive my kids to school in Washington D.C. where the millionaires in Congress who run this oligarchic plutocracy to do their bidding for the wealthy special interests for who they work, since I live maybe about 1,000 miles from it. Money that leaves our town and goes to Washington D.C. is money taken away from anything local (e.g. our kids' schools, local police, local firefighters). When it comes to our local stuff (e.g. our local fire department) we have to make do with what's left after the rich thieves in Washington take from us the money that makes them and their cronies rich.

So let's all be sure to stay on topic. We're not talking about people at a party chipping in to pay for a pizza, or people in a town chipping in to pay for a school or fire department. This topic is about big non-local governments. The Original Post (OP) contains very specific objective criteria for defining "big" and "non-local" to help make sure we are all on the same page and not accidentally committing mutual fallacies of equivocation.

If one wants specific illustrative examples, then please think of the Roman Empire at its peak. Or think of the British and Spanish monarchies at the peak of colonialism and the lang-grabbing genocide of the natives America. Or think of Germany around the time Hitler got elected, or the Soviet Union. Those are some real-life examples of big non-local governments that funded themselves through taxation and such.

In regard to the quote above, I'm not sure what the would-be problem is that the word "solution" is meant to be about, but this topic isn't really about any kind of would-be 'problem' or "solution". Matters of problems and solutions seem subjective since one person's problem is another person's non-problem, in the same way one person's trash is another person's treasure.

This topic is not about anything so subjective or prescriptive, but rather this topic is simply a matter-of-fact, descriptive, non-prescriptive discussion about the objective nature of taxation by big non-local governments: Is taxation by big non-local governments consensual or not consensual?

I think taxation by big non-local governments is very clearly not consensual. How else could one explain pacifists being in prison for refusing to pay taxes? What do you think? Do you agree that taxation by big non-local governments is clearly not consensual?

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Ecurb,

Thank you for your latest reply!

I have never signed a "social contract", and as I use the terms if it isn't signed, it isn't a contract.

I suggest there can be implicit contracts.

Different people can use the same words to mean very different things.

As I use the word, there absolutely are not "implicit contracts".

As I use the terms, even a very explicit handshake agreement is absolutely not a contract, let alone some kind of merely implicit thing.

Even a piece of paper in which one party has written down their understanding of the agreement and shown it to other who themselves read it in full is not a contract, even though it is in writing and has been read by both parties. One could call it a "draft contract" while waiting for parties to sign it.

If, for example, you believe that people have a "right to life", then you have implicitly contracted not to kill people. If you believe in property rights, you implicitly contract not to steal. If you object to non- defensive violence, , you contract not to punch someone for no reason.

I don't know what you mean exactly by the words I've highlighted in red font, but if believing in those things means believing I've "implicitly contracted" (an oxymoron as I use the terms), then ipso facto I cannot believe in those things whatever they are.

In other words, to me, it reads like the following:

If, for example, you believe that people have a "right to life", then you agree married bachelors exist. If you believe in property rights, you agree married bachelors exist. If you object to non- defensive violence, you believe married bachelors exist./quote]

I don't know what the red parts even mean, but I know married bachelors don't exist because the term "married bachelor" is an oxymoron, just like "implicit contract".


Thank you,
Scott

[Ecurb]

Two points:

First, if taxation is non-consensual (as it clearly is in many cases), it is equally so whether it is local or non-local. If you want to argue for localized government, there must be some other rationale.

The bit about rights highlighted in your last post was directed at GE, who is obsessed with rights. The point is that all rights are nothing more than obligations on the part of other people (the right to life obliges others not to kill you, and that's the only thing it does). Contracts also obligate other people (legally and morally) to do what they have contracted to do . If a "social contract" obliges people to honor rights (to refrain from stealing, for example), then it is similar to other, signed contracts.

I have no recollection of writing the married bachelors line you quoted. What I meant to write is that if you object to non-defensive violence, I don't see how you can say you don't believe in "oughts".

(I'm away from home, typing on my phone, and sometimes auto correct does strange things to my otherwise impeccable prose.)