HeavenlyPossumTaxation is theft.
Rents are a form of tax.
Voron@HeavenlyPossum if taxation is theft, then no roads for anyone 🤷‍♂️
I’m not sure why we’d need taxes to fund roads, since roads existed before taxes.
@HeavenlyPossum really? You would have to go all the way back before feudal times 🤔 no even further, so yeah there were tracks made by cart wheels that were called roads before taxes, those awesome Roman roads were even paid for by taxes
- Roads predate states. States are much older than either the Roman state or the medieval period. We don’t need taxes to have roads.
- States don’t tax to fund spending.
- Coercion is bad. If people have to be coerced into doing something, it’s probably not worth doing. If it is worth doing, then people will probably do it without being coerced.
- The usefulness of coercion to you is not a good justification for coercion.
@HeavenlyPossum even those Mayans & Aztecs taxed to make their roads you have to go waaaaaay back to find roads not funded by taxes and those roads sucked
Taxes don’t fund road construction, but even if they did, the existence of a benefit for you does not justify theft.
That roads many thousands of years ago were not designed for modern SUVs does not obviate the point that people in stateless societies still have roads.
@HeavenlyPossum 🤔 strange since I’ve sat in on budget committee meetings and gone over road funding in Wisconsin since potholes are a weirdly big issue.
I have been a part of tracking funding in close detail because of shitting nepotism
I have been a part of tracking funding in close detail because of shitting nepotism
Super excited to get to introduce this to you:
@HeavenlyPossum ok that’s a theory, you said empirical, I asked for evidence by way of a specific example. I’ll read the rest of the link now
RDThe idea that taxes fund things is also theoretical unless you can demonstrate it empirically. The reason MMT even exists is because you can't.
@HeavenlyPossum @RD4Anarchy this is a very entertaining conversation, and I get we’re you folks are coming from, but it breaks down with the lack of functional current examples of alternatives that fit your ideals, I’d love to champion such a system but with out a concrete system other than a commune I’m not sure I could rally much support
The existence of an alternative does not really having any bearing on whether taxes are theft or not.
@HeavenlyPossum @RD4Anarchy we can talk about social contract about members of a society country, but I’ve been down this road if you will pardon the pun, and I prefer to work on fixing shit, give me something better and I’ll put my shoulder behind it and push
Freedom from coercion is better. Not sure why you have such a hard time either getting behind this idea, or admitting that you believe human beings need to be coerced by a separate ruling class in order to thrive.
@HeavenlyPossum @RD4Anarchy You are trying to fit me into your mental framework rather than listening which is ok, it’s what humans tend to do
You either believe the coercion is justified or you don't. How do you not fit into one of those categories?
@HeavenlyPossum @RD4Anarchy well you either believe in supporting right wing rhetoric at a time when fascism is on the rise like “taxation is theft” or you don’t which is it?
See how dumb that game is?
See how dumb that game is?
Saying that our society is built on coercion is not rhetoric. Deciding which side you're on is not a "dumb game".
Hilariously, he has blocked me.
He followed an anarchist communist and then threw a tantrum when I wrote anarchist communist things.
Me too. Too bad, I was just about to give in and spill the whole secret anarchist System Of Everything in minute detail. The new improved extra-compelling version.
Oh well.