Philosophy Discussion Forums

Scott wrote: ↑May 12th, 2021, 4:23 pm

Robert66 wrote: ↑May 6th, 2021, 4:45 pm 'I'd literally rather see my money ripped up and literally flushed down a toilet than go to the United States federal government for the horrendous violent things it does with the robbed tax-dollars.'

The ripped up money would literally flow through tax dollar funded pipes to a tax dollar funded treatment plant.

It's interesting that you assume I don't have a septic tank, and it is worth noting the United States federal government is not the organization funding or providing pipes to me. However, neither issue nor your comment are relevant to the topic at hand, as far as I can tell.

If a bank robber gives me a cupcake in exchange for the money he takes from me against my will at gun point, whether or not I choose to eat the cupcake in no way changes whether the interaction was consensual, or violent. It also doesn't matter how incredibly delicious the cupcake turns out to be.

So, please, let's stay on topic.

I quote the OP:

Scott wrote:With those important clarifications in mind, do you agree that taxation by big non-local governments is violent robbery?

If not, please specify which of the following statements are the ones with which you disagree and which are the ones with which you agree:

1. Taxation is non-consensual.

2. Taxation is violent.

3. If a pacifist with children in the USA making slightly below the median income in the USA refuses to pay taxes to the federal USA government, armed agents will go with guns to the pacifist's house, forcefully break down the door if needed, and put the pacifist in prison.

4. Taxation predates the invention of paper money.

5. The suppliers and/or owners of a currency can fund their organization and services without taxes and without non-defensive violence simply by printing more of the currency and keeping the extra for themselves.

If you disagree that taxation by big non-local governments is violent robbery, please specify clearly which of the 5 numbered statements are the ones with which you agree and the ones with which you disagree.

Septic tanks are part of the massive problem I referred to.

But fair enough, let's return to the delicious cupcake sorry the topic.

1. Taxation is consensual.
2. Taxation is not violent.
3. I doubt it.
4. You tell me.
5. Nonsense.

Robert66 wrote: ↑May 12th, 2021, 5:26 pm

Scott wrote:With those important clarifications in mind, do you agree that taxation by big non-local governments is violent robbery?

If not, please specify which of the following statements are the ones with which you disagree and which are the ones with which you agree:

1. Taxation is non-consensual.

2. Taxation is violent.

1. Taxation is consensual.

I know that is false since I never consented to paying taxes to the United States government.

Robert66 wrote: ↑May 12th, 2021, 5:26 pm 2. Taxation is not violent.

Are you denying that people are in prison for refusing to pay taxes to the United States government?

Or are you denying that imprisoning peaceful people against their will is violent?

Scott wrote: ↑May 13th, 2021, 4:08 pm

Robert66 wrote: ↑May 12th, 2021, 5:26 pm

Scott wrote:With those important clarifications in mind, do you agree that taxation by big non-local governments is violent robbery?

If not, please specify which of the following statements are the ones with which you disagree and which are the ones with which you agree:

1. Taxation is non-consensual.

2. Taxation is violent.

1. Taxation is consensual.

I know that is false since I never consented to paying taxes to the United States government.

Robert66 wrote: ↑May 12th, 2021, 5:26 pm 2. Taxation is not violent.

Are you denying that people are in prison for refusing to pay taxes to the United States government?

Or are you denying that imprisoning peaceful people against their will is violent?

Ok let's go around again. You are a member of a society, and as such you receive benefits, and are required to pay taxes. By remaining in your society, you give your consent to the arrangement. Taxation is not violent, but refusing to pay it will ultimately lead to action against you. This is no different to committing other crimes.

You might argue that you lack the means to be a dissenter - you cannot simply "up and leave" the U.S., or wherever you find yourself in vehement disagreement with an evil state. You might quote David Hume (‘Of the original contract’, Essays, 1748): ‘Can we seriously say that a poor peasant or artisan has a free choice to leave his country, when he knows no foreign language or manners, and lives, from day to day, by the small wages which he acquires? We may as well assert that a man, by remaining in a vessel, freely consents to the dominion of the master; though he was carried on board while asleep, and must leap into the ocean and perish, the moment he leaves her.’

Of course such a "walk the plank" analogy is a drastic simplification, given that soon after your birth a Certificate was signed ( a Birth Certificate kept by yet another branch of the Hydra-like, evil, bureaucratic state, The Connecticut Department of Public Health’s State Vital Records Office) which conferred considerable rights and advantages upon you, albeit without your consent, and that if you seek to deny such rights and advantages you would have an uphill battle ahead of you to say the least. You may not have freely consented to the dominion of the master, however your parent's saw it fit to do so on your behalf, and it would be hard to reasonably find any fault in them for having done so.

But let's say fair enough, Hume makes a good point, and come at the issue from a different direction.

It is unfair, arguably a form of violence, if people aren’t paying for benefits they receive, if their enjoyment of those benefits is secured by the payments of others. If too many such free-riders exist in a society, it will be impossible for sufficient benefits to be provided to all who need them, and the most needy are likely to miss out.

Scott wrote: ↑May 13th, 2021, 4:08 pm

Robert66 wrote: ↑May 12th, 2021, 5:26 pm 2. Taxation is not violent.

Are you denying that people are in prison for refusing to pay taxes to the United States government?

Or are you denying that imprisoning peaceful people against their will is violent?

Please describe a contractual agreement that does not have consequences for breach of contract.

Maybe taxation is non-violent for those who agree about the existence of a social contract, and it is violence for those who can't see/appreciate their social contract.

I think that those who see their social contract are just inventing it in their own minds for some strategical reason and some may even think that it's the normal or better thing to think even if it is devoid of truth.

I am certain that those who impose tax on you do not themselves see their actions as violent and neither do many citicens in general.

And so if you get robbed and claim that the harvested property rightfully belongs to the strongest who took it, (and who manages it in part for you) it means there was no theft, no violence. It's like some birds take the fish of some other bird species less skilled in flying with a fish as they try to reach shore to eat it. It's not violence; it's just the way things are with individuals pulling their own way for resources. The more the little bird tries to hold on to their little fish the harder will the better flying bird need to be on him to get it. Whether fighting over control of resources is or isn't violent is another question.

My concern is that taxation seem to help different classes of society to form where one is dominant and where many others develops systematically inferiority complexes, depression.

Empiricist-Bruno wrote: ↑May 16th, 2021, 3:14 pm
I think that those who see their social contract are just inventing it in their own minds for some strategical reason and some may even think that it's the normal or better thing to think even if it is devoid of truth.

No I haven't just invented it. It goes back at least as far as Socrates. As for strategy, what is yours and how would it improve on the social contract we mostly accept?

If I am a serial killer is arrest and conviction just violent robbery of my freedom by the police and courts?

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑May 16th, 2021, 5:48 pm If I am a serial killer is arrest and conviction just violent robbery of my freedom by the police and courts?

Under the stipulated definitions of this thread: yes.

LuckyR wrote: ↑May 17th, 2021, 1:20 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑May 16th, 2021, 5:48 pm If I am a serial killer is arrest and conviction just violent robbery of my freedom by the police and courts?

Under the stipulated definitions of this thread: yes.

Urumph!! How unfair!

Scott wrote:Your question, I think, is when a private landowner evicts a non-paying tenet who absolutely refuses to leave, is it (sometimes) violent robbery?

No. My question was about the surcharge that you say is levied on property purchases in Manchester CT to fund public services like schools and police. I don't think such a surcharge, as you've described it, is like paying rent or like the other examples you mention. It is, it seems to me, a tax.

Presumably, the most violent it would legally get is if the squatters was arrested for trespassing, but could that be construed as violent robbery; I don't know. If the squatters aren't already wanted by the police for some other crime, or otherwise illegally carrying pot or something, my best guess is that the evicting cops would probably offer the squatter a ride to the homeless shelter or something. I have no idea what would happen, how it would play out, and whether in the most exceptional of imaginable cases it could be reasonably construed as violent robbery.

But you are sure about what happens when people don't pay their taxes? You've said what happens before: Armed police come to your house and violently throw you in jail. I've never known that to happen myself, but I guess it does. So it seems reasonable to assume that, although we've never seen it happen, that must be what happens when people don't pay this surcharge thing?

Scott wrote:In this forum topic, for philosophical simplicity, I am isolating my comments to taxation by big non-local governments.

OK. So I guess you'd regard any comments about anything other than taxation by big non-local governments as off-topic? If so, I guess that would mean my comments about the surcharge on property used to fund schools and police being taxation are off-topic?

If the answer to those questions is "yes" I'd say that it's not really possible to debate an issue if the criteria for deciding what is on or off topic are set too narrowly.

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑May 17th, 2021, 5:33 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑May 17th, 2021, 1:20 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑May 16th, 2021, 5:48 pm If I am a serial killer is arrest and conviction just violent robbery of my freedom by the police and courts?

Under the stipulated definitions of this thread: yes.

Urumph!! How unfair!

It's just a labeling issue. If I call a cat, a dog, we all still know what a cat is.

LuckyR wrote: ↑May 18th, 2021, 1:08 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑May 17th, 2021, 5:33 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑May 17th, 2021, 1:20 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑May 16th, 2021, 5:48 pm If I am a serial killer is arrest and conviction just violent robbery of my freedom by the police and courts?

Under the stipulated definitions of this thread: yes.

Urumph!! How unfair!

It's just a labeling issue. If I call a cat, a dog, we all still know what a cat is.

They are both mammalian carnivora.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑May 17th, 2021, 10:48 am

Scott wrote:Your question, I think, is when a private landowner evicts a non-paying tenet who absolutely refuses to leave, is it (sometimes) violent robbery?

No. My question was about the surcharge that you say is levied on property purchases in Manchester CT to fund public services like schools and police. I don't think such a surcharge, as you've described it, is like paying rent or like the other examples you mention. It is, it seems to me, a tax.

It may be. And OJ may be a murderer.

My question isn't about those overly specific debatable things that may or may not be the case.

Instead, my question is about whether taxation by big non-local governments violent robbery. My understanding is that we both agree it is violent robbery.

Presumably, the most violent it would legally get is if the squatters was arrested for trespassing, but could that be construed as violent robbery; I don't know. If the squatters aren't already wanted by the police for some other crime, or otherwise illegally carrying pot or something, my best guess is that the evicting cops would probably offer the squatter a ride to the homeless shelter or something. I have no idea what would happen, how it would play out, and whether in the most exceptional of imaginable cases it could be reasonably construed as violent robbery.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑May 17th, 2021, 10:48 am So it seems reasonable to assume that, although we've never seen it happen, that must be what happens when people don't pay this surcharge thing?

No, I don't think it is reasonable to assume in either case. There are thousands of people in prison right now explicitly for not paying taxes to the USA Federal Government. That's a verifiable statistical fact, not an assumption.

Moreover, in the United States at least, there is an important significant difference between civil liabilities dealt with in civil court and required payments that are directly and explicitly enforced criminally by prison sentences for non-payment. It's generally not a criminal crime to not pay a contractual debt to a condo community where one lives. You won't go to jail simply for not paying that debt. Similarly, you won't go to jail just for refusing to pay your credit card bills because it is not illegal. You may lose your house and land in civil court, and you may eventually get evicted from where you live, but you won't go to jail just for not paying the debts.

There are thousands of people in prison right now for refusing to pay taxes to the United States governments. There is not a single person in prison right now simply for refusing to pay the town of Manchester.

We don't just need to hope to happen to see it with our own eyes (or rely on mere assumption). It's both de facto and de jure. Here is the codified federal law: I.R.C. § 7201. They aren't hiding it. It's not a secret.

There is no corresponding local law where I live.

There is no codified legal basis for putting a person in prison for refusing to pay money to Manchester, CT or refusing to pay their condo fees if they live in a condo community.

It's not the same, and thus the comparisons are (I believe) utterly inaccurate, but that's also all moot to the titular topic.

Even if you--or deep time-consuming research--convinced me that at the small local level the township of Manchester is engaging in violent robbery, that would be a moot point because I am not arguing that such violent robbery does not occur on a small local level. It would make as much as sense to argue about whether Joe Shmoe from Idaho is a violent robber. If that specific person or township is also engaging in violent robbery, then it doesn't change the fact that we agree on the answer to the titular question. If that specific person or township happens to not be engaging in violent robbery, then it doesn't change the fact that on the answer to the titular question. Manchester's guilt wouldn't absolve the USA Federal Government. It's not moot simply because I say it's moot; it's moot because it's actually moot and irrelevant to the question: Is taxation by big non-local governments violent robbery?

It wouldn't be moot if I instead had asked: "Is only taxation by big non-local governments violent robbery?" But I didn't ask that. I do not disagree with the claim that violent robbery also occurs at small local levels including by small local governments, so if that's your point then consider it happily conceded. We agree on that too.

Of course, violent robbery also occurs on small local levels. My argument in no way entails, slightly suggests, or let alone relies on the idea that violent robbery doesn't also occur on small local levels. My argument in no way entails, slightly suggests that small local townships cannot commit violent robbery.

Much like arguing about OJ's guilt, we could spend years arguing about whether a certain small local organization in any one of ~20,000 townships in the USA is also engaging in violent robbery. It's moot. It has no affect on our answer to the titular question: Is taxation by big non-local governments violent robbery?

It seems to me the bottom line is we agree:

Taxation by big non-local governments is violent robbery.