Taxation is theft and thoughts on the state and other ideas on liberty and freedom
This may seem somewhat unconventional but instead of building up to how we fund the state, will start first on my views of how the state is funded and then give short thoughts on other views and ideas of state and non state views. Simply put, the way we fund the state is basically extortion, you are property of the state for being born here and you must pay dues or else. Extortion is a form of theft and therefore taxation is theft. The social contract gets brought up frequently as an excuse for the state to rob you without recourse. The fundamentals of this idea is still based on the perceived notion that the government has this profound right and they get this right to rob us from us. Later on I talk about the superstitious belief in the myth and illusion of authority. Stealing from one group or person and giving back some of the money to them doesn’t magically make it not theft. Taking something from someone without their consent. I know people will give all kinds of examples on how we “consent” but my opinion is that you can’t consent lawfully to a contract when there’s a threat of violence that comes with it. The threat of violence is from the state. They will take your home and any and all assets that they deem sufficient payment for their so called “protection”.
The government is a reformed and what some called a necessary evil and what I’d called just another gang or mafia organization.As bastiat states “Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else”. Another great quote from bastiat about taxation is “Legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways; hence, there are an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, bonuses, subsidies, incentives, the progressive income tax, free education, the right to employment, the right to profit, the right to wages, the right to relief, the right to the tools of production, interest free credit, etc., etc. And it the aggregate of all these plans, in respect to what they have in common, legal plunder, that goes under the name of socialism.”. Bastiat refers to tax being theft when using the term “legal plunder”. Lysander spooner put it down really good by saying “If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized.
ANTI–STATE AND PRO-STATE
A common misconception from the anti state collective is that we can’t have a free society because of an oppressive state but at the same time they think the collective should rule and that individuals liberty may have to be sacrificed for the price of what they feel is freedom.These groups are typically of the anarcho communist system.
A common misconception from the statist collective is that we can’t have a free society without a collective force and or group of people that limit or individual freedoms as a price we must pay to achieve freedom for the overall of society. This would coincide with what I think most citizens from democracies, republics, and constitutional societies.
Both have a point but they are very limited in aspects of true freedom and liberty. Cognitive dissonance has to be prevalent throughout these cultures and it’s achieved through propaganda.With this propaganda achieving a nationalist attitude from the citizens , followers, members, etc. give the owners and controllers a almost unfettered access to dominate every aspect of the land and its contents.The definition of Nationalism: loyalty and devotion to a nation; especially : a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.
As you can tell, nowhere in these viewpoints is the individual and his/her personal liberty the number priority. It’s always the rights of the collective that trump the rights of the individual. WIthout the individual then you have no collective but to them you have no individual and you have only the collective. That leads us to the natural step of all life and it’s hierarchy. That’s a bad word to communist and anarchist in general.
Hierarchy will lead you to believe that we must have a domino of power to achieve freedom. If we have this though then it will become oppressive and eventually dominate to the point of where liberty will cease for the individual. What I am suggesting is that hierarchy is natural and we must embrace it. There will be a leader, master hunter, expert, a figure of wisdom that people will refer to and that is a hierarchy. The elder is the holder of knowledge and passes it own to those that are willing to learn and so and so forth. That is the hierarchy that is natural to humans and it’s NOT a system based on force and coercion like the hierarchies of government and rulers.
The perceived “authority” of governments, rulers, kings, dictators, etc. use hierarchies to their advantage admittedly.That is a problem we as people must deal with and point out at the problem. These regimes of control have self appointed themselves as our leaders and we can’t blame the natural construction of hierarchy but we must blame ultimately our susceptibility to the belief in “authority”. The authority that I am defining is the belief that someone or group of people have the ULTIMATE power to control all that is known.
Larken rose has wrote a great book named “the most dangerous superstition” that explains the premise of the illusion of authority and its power to deceive. The idea of authority is the NUMBER ONE problem for freedom. The belief in authority has gave way to EVERY single regime that has EVER EXISTED. No we are not talking about authority as in the ability the parent has over their children. Not the authority a manager has over his employees. We are talking about the authority that governments, dictators, kings, etc. claim they have. Owning oneself and deciding how you want to live is the ultimate authority and when anyone intrudes on that then they are in violation of your personal liberty and freedom. This is exactly what a state or any regime that claims the right to rule is essentially doing. No one but yourself has the right to rule you but yourself. An important thing to remember is that if you do not have the right to delegate someone else’s freedom then you not have the right to give someone else the power to delegate for you. As in the relationship of democracy and voting. If we the people do not have the power to steal from someone lawfully then how can we give someone else the “authority” to steal from others?
This brings me to the idea of our united states government. Essentially the people haven’t the right to steal but through the magic of voting, we give a small group of people that very right to do! If men can’t govern themselves then how is it logical to elect men to govern men? “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.
The constitution of united states was a great idea in principle but it falls short. From day one the constitution was already failing its mission to provide protection for all men. Famous philosopher lysander spooner who was born in 1808 was alive in the beginnings of the constitution and his essay “no treason: the constitution of no authority” he tears apart the constitution and the idea of authority. At the time anarchism wasn’t a big idea but he was essentially an anarcho capitalist. He tried to compete with federal government in the postal business and of course he lost. That event opened his eyes to the fallacy of authority and pieces of paper and documents that were supposed to do things such as protect freedom. He learned it’s the individual’s responsibility for attaining and maintaining freedom. His most influential opinion to me was his thoughts on the united states constitution. It goes “But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”