“It is said, mostly by Libertarians, that ‘taxation is theft.’ Theft is too mild a word. Typically, a thief strikes only once, and doesn’t pretend that his robbery is legitimate. Taxation is actually slavery.”
– Rick Tompkins
Attorney
Source: Quoted In Ohio Libertarian, October-November, 1995. http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Rick.Tompkins.Quote.AEF2
Wonder how well the traffic lights would work if taxes to run them were ‘voluntary/’ Wonder how many ‘libertarians’ would threaten gun violence if their daughters were killed in an accident because the traffic lights weren’t working?
Anonymous, the growing aversion to higher taxation isn’t because responsible Americans reject financing basic government services; we’re sick and tired of Uncle Sam, figuratively and often times literally putting a gun to our head, shaking us down so Government can fund the birth of anchor babies, hand money over to despotic third world Muslim nations that despise us, or pay for studies that examine the mating habits of the golden cheeked warbler.
“Why is it some people think the only way to make rules or raise money is by pointing a gun at everyone’s head?”…often times literally putting a gun to our head,”
You must be getting your talking points from the same Tea Party outlet mall. Name one time either one of you’ve paid taxes with a gun at (y)our head. I doubt if either of you make enough to pay taxes.
We were talking about the imaginary gun at your head, keith. It appears that you libertarians don’t really mind the idea of taxation per se, you just object to a few particular ways the money is being spent. You don’t really think of taxation as thievery, you’re just invoking the selfish, petty traits that characterize armchair libertarians.
No Anthony I’m not a Libertarian, although I agree with many of their domestic positions. I’m a conservative, and I believe in small, as least as intrusive as possible, government. I’ve seen neighborhoods, Anthony, inhabited by 4th generation welfare recipients that have never in their life seen someone in their nuclear or extended family get up and go to work. The food, water, and shelter beneath which these inhabitants live is totally subsidized by the 50% of this country actually paying taxes. If the taxpayers ever turned off the lights, quit paying the bills in these areas they would go totally 3rd world. And folks like you think we should pay more.
I’m all for paying for infrastructure and basic necessities needed to sustain our civilization. I deeply resent our government demanding more of my money so they can literally give it away. I think the progressive tax is antiquated and outright communist. Your side constantly demands more from the “rich†yet you ignore the half of this country who isn’t paying anything. Your side prefers to punish success and reward the shiftless. How’s 40 years of government subsidies worked out for the country Anthony?
I’m a better judge of how to spend my own money than some weasel in congress like Anthony Weiner.
I judge your party by it’s leadership. I could go on and on about leading Democrats and cabinet members that have problems paying their taxes while demanding more from me, but let’s just look at the head of your party leading by example. While Obama whines that he had to extend the Bush tax cuts, his own illegal alien aunt lives off the taxpayer with no visible support from nephew Barry, who earned several million last year.
Anthony if you really think you’re not being coerced, with a gun to your head, skip paying your taxes for a couple of years, and then get back to us.
Keith, you mistake me for a Democrat. You make the standard, vaguely racist case against welfare cheats that’s been going around for decades, when all I was really commenting on was the cheesy hypocrisy of the ‘gun to the head’ whine that you and Trey both invoked. I’ve got no use for welfare cheats, but at least their pathology is understandable given the history of overt racism in this country, The unearned support they get pales in comparison to the billions the investing classes suck out of the economy. When a few hundred bankers and financial services CEOs are worth more than the bottom 90% of the population, its pretty clear where the unearned riches are really going.
Anonymous, Keith’s point regarding welfare recipients mentions nothing about “cheats.” As for the idiotic claim that he is being racist, that is the standard “progressive” attempt at moral blackmail. Excuse me, but explain to me how five decades of Great Society programs have helped create anything but a dependent population which now feels entitled to yet more handouts. Please explain how these same programs DID NOT contribute to the extraordinarily high percentage of single mother births among some populations. And please offer that explanation without falling back on the lame claim of racism. The number speak for themselves. Yes, there are many otherwise compassionate people who find the Great Society programs abject failure and a waste of money. ” Progressives” continue to yammer about helping those who do not have. Yet, they themselves do little to personally help those who have not. (Read “Who Really Cares?” by Arthur C. Brooks)
Like many others I am sick and tired of hearing the cry of racism every time someone criticizes how the government purports to help the “unfortunate.” And the whine about the wealthy vs. the “bottom 90%” is just that a smelly whine. No matter where you are on the economic scale there is always someone below you who will envy you. There is no end to class envy. Get over it.
Keith’s point regarding welfare recipients mentions nothing about “cheats.â€
So, what are you saying – that welfare is ok as long as it’s ‘deserved?” Everyone needs a helping hand now and then – if you’ve never been down on your luck, good for you. It’s the ones who cheat the system, exploit its flaws that give it a bad name, not the ones who genuinely need help. It’s not envy when you’re hungry, its basic human need. Maybe its whining to you, but as you say, you need to get over it, cause its going to get a lot worse.
What I am saying, is that welfare has created an enormous population of dependent people who also feel entitled to what belongs to others. The cheats don’t give welfare a bad name, they are simply, well cheats, petty thieves. The system itself is discredited. Far from being a system which gives people a hand up when they are down, it encourages and promotes dependency. To paint the system as some philanthropic endeavor is either willful ignorance or dishonesty. That it will get worse is likely as long as people continue to fall for the absurd moral blackmail that “progressives” love to play. So, spare us the hear rending tales of the masses of poor starving in the streets. I don’t think we need to spend more on keeping an underclass in their place. Let them soar or fail on their own.
I can see it now – Keith, Trey and Frank all hunkered down and mavericky with their guns and their gold coins, shootin’ them illegal aliens and welfare cheats and giving the finger to the man. You guys are a real inspiration to us all.
Typical Anon, you were the one who keeps going on about welfare cheats, not me. I simply don’t like supporting generations of welfare recipients in the name of giving someone a hand up. One doesn’t have to cheat to be a recipient of government largess.
You might try to rebut what was actually said rather than trotting out your straw men repeatedly. That, of course, would require more thought that is common in your cleverless replies.
You are frothing Anon. You are bouncing all over the place trying to find a cogent argument and have abandoned the original premise.
I do agree that banks and financial services should be allowed to fail. So should car companies, as well as Fannie and Freddie. Unions should also be made to stand on their own without help from their friends in Congress.
The threat of imprisonment for not paying taxes is indeed a gun to the head.
i’m basically a libertarian but am not so naive as to think that we can eradicate taxation.
i would like to, however, be able to specify EXACTLY what my tax dollars go.
our founding fathers were libertarians.
if you don’t think that’s true, you need another history class.
Anonymous, like any Leftist, you spew a half truth. Some of our founding fathers owned slaves, not all of them as your statement implies. The institution of slavery was not an American concept, it was inherited from the British.
Even the founding fathers predicted the future problems that slavery would bring the country.
Some of our FF were flawed, but their vision was bigger than them as mere mortals, as the constitution they authored gave equality to all men ( and women) and created a country that has offered more promise to mankind than any country in the history of the world.
I realize the above post sounds corny and simplistic. I deeply believe no better country has existed in the history of the world than the United States of America.
“Yes, the US has offered promise to mankind, but it doesn’t come cheap”
The U.S. has done a better job of delivering on promise to more people than nearly any other country. “Doesn’t come cheap?” No, it doesn’t, but the costs are not what you likely mean.
The costs are exactly what I mean – the staggering costs of two ongoing, preemptive wars that everyone to the right of Dennis Kucinich demanded, the cost of exotic weaponry, the cost of the perpetual policing of the middle east, the cost of mollycoddling Israel and its enemies, the cost of bailing out the ponzi-scheming creeps in the banking and financial services industries. Sure, the US has done some some decent, humanitarian things, but we’ve squandered trillions and the bills are due. the time for your your pathetic “taxation is slavery” expored while you were cheerleading for holy war against the Muslims. You want perpetual war? Stop whining like some spoiled child and pay for it.
Wrong. The cost is hard work mixed with a little risk. The cost is vigilance to make sure we keep the rights guaranteed by our constitution. I am not talking about war. You are. This thread started with a discussion on taxes. You are the one obsessing about war and it’s continuation. I said nothing about continuing a war. Nor am I whining about paying for it. I agree with the position that taxation happens under the threat of the gun, but I also believe that there are some basic things we must pay for, protection from our enemies, courts to mediate our disputes and a handful of other things that we may agree upon. Redistribution of wealth is not one of them.
BTW You are frothing again.
You are frothing again, Anon. I do pay my taxes, FICA, Medicare, Income taxes, property taxes and sales taxes, not to mention the various taxes paid to hotels, car rental companies and a myriad of other hidden taxes. If I didn’t pay my Federal taxes, I would be prosecuted and, likely, jailed. Thus, the government has power over my life. Crudely put, it’s a gun to the head. That would be a metaphor, Anon.
I love it when you tell people to shut up and start spewing scatologies. It’s a true indication that your pathetic arguments have run out.
“It is said, mostly by Libertarians, that ‘taxation is theft.’ Theft is too mild a word. Typically, a thief strikes only once, and doesn’t pretend that his robbery is legitimate. Taxation is actually slavery.”
– Rick Tompkins
Attorney
Source: Quoted In Ohio Libertarian, October-November, 1995.
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Rick.Tompkins.Quote.AEF2
Wonder how well the traffic lights would work if taxes to run them were ‘voluntary/’ Wonder how many ‘libertarians’ would threaten gun violence if their daughters were killed in an accident because the traffic lights weren’t working?
Why is it some people think the only way to make rules or raise money is by pointing a gun at everyone’s head?
Such failed imaginations. Must be government schooling.
You’re the one with the gun fetish, Garrison.
Anonymous, the growing aversion to higher taxation isn’t because responsible Americans reject financing basic government services; we’re sick and tired of Uncle Sam, figuratively and often times literally putting a gun to our head, shaking us down so Government can fund the birth of anchor babies, hand money over to despotic third world Muslim nations that despise us, or pay for studies that examine the mating habits of the golden cheeked warbler.
“Why is it some people think the only way to make rules or raise money is by pointing a gun at everyone’s head?”…often times literally putting a gun to our head,”
You must be getting your talking points from the same Tea Party outlet mall. Name one time either one of you’ve paid taxes with a gun at (y)our head. I doubt if either of you make enough to pay taxes.
Ask Wesley Snipes what happens when one doesn’t pay their taxes….
We were talking about the imaginary gun at your head, keith. It appears that you libertarians don’t really mind the idea of taxation per se, you just object to a few particular ways the money is being spent. You don’t really think of taxation as thievery, you’re just invoking the selfish, petty traits that characterize armchair libertarians.
No Anthony I’m not a Libertarian, although I agree with many of their domestic positions. I’m a conservative, and I believe in small, as least as intrusive as possible, government. I’ve seen neighborhoods, Anthony, inhabited by 4th generation welfare recipients that have never in their life seen someone in their nuclear or extended family get up and go to work. The food, water, and shelter beneath which these inhabitants live is totally subsidized by the 50% of this country actually paying taxes. If the taxpayers ever turned off the lights, quit paying the bills in these areas they would go totally 3rd world. And folks like you think we should pay more.
I’m all for paying for infrastructure and basic necessities needed to sustain our civilization. I deeply resent our government demanding more of my money so they can literally give it away. I think the progressive tax is antiquated and outright communist. Your side constantly demands more from the “rich†yet you ignore the half of this country who isn’t paying anything. Your side prefers to punish success and reward the shiftless. How’s 40 years of government subsidies worked out for the country Anthony?
I’m a better judge of how to spend my own money than some weasel in congress like Anthony Weiner.
I judge your party by it’s leadership. I could go on and on about leading Democrats and cabinet members that have problems paying their taxes while demanding more from me, but let’s just look at the head of your party leading by example. While Obama whines that he had to extend the Bush tax cuts, his own illegal alien aunt lives off the taxpayer with no visible support from nephew Barry, who earned several million last year.
Anthony if you really think you’re not being coerced, with a gun to your head, skip paying your taxes for a couple of years, and then get back to us.
For some reason in my little dissertation above, I call anonymous Anthony.
Keith, you mistake me for a Democrat. You make the standard, vaguely racist case against welfare cheats that’s been going around for decades, when all I was really commenting on was the cheesy hypocrisy of the ‘gun to the head’ whine that you and Trey both invoked. I’ve got no use for welfare cheats, but at least their pathology is understandable given the history of overt racism in this country, The unearned support they get pales in comparison to the billions the investing classes suck out of the economy. When a few hundred bankers and financial services CEOs are worth more than the bottom 90% of the population, its pretty clear where the unearned riches are really going.
Anonymous, Keith’s point regarding welfare recipients mentions nothing about “cheats.” As for the idiotic claim that he is being racist, that is the standard “progressive” attempt at moral blackmail. Excuse me, but explain to me how five decades of Great Society programs have helped create anything but a dependent population which now feels entitled to yet more handouts. Please explain how these same programs DID NOT contribute to the extraordinarily high percentage of single mother births among some populations. And please offer that explanation without falling back on the lame claim of racism. The number speak for themselves. Yes, there are many otherwise compassionate people who find the Great Society programs abject failure and a waste of money. ” Progressives” continue to yammer about helping those who do not have. Yet, they themselves do little to personally help those who have not. (Read “Who Really Cares?” by Arthur C. Brooks)
Like many others I am sick and tired of hearing the cry of racism every time someone criticizes how the government purports to help the “unfortunate.” And the whine about the wealthy vs. the “bottom 90%” is just that a smelly whine. No matter where you are on the economic scale there is always someone below you who will envy you. There is no end to class envy. Get over it.
Keith’s point regarding welfare recipients mentions nothing about “cheats.â€
So, what are you saying – that welfare is ok as long as it’s ‘deserved?” Everyone needs a helping hand now and then – if you’ve never been down on your luck, good for you. It’s the ones who cheat the system, exploit its flaws that give it a bad name, not the ones who genuinely need help. It’s not envy when you’re hungry, its basic human need. Maybe its whining to you, but as you say, you need to get over it, cause its going to get a lot worse.
What I am saying, is that welfare has created an enormous population of dependent people who also feel entitled to what belongs to others. The cheats don’t give welfare a bad name, they are simply, well cheats, petty thieves. The system itself is discredited. Far from being a system which gives people a hand up when they are down, it encourages and promotes dependency. To paint the system as some philanthropic endeavor is either willful ignorance or dishonesty. That it will get worse is likely as long as people continue to fall for the absurd moral blackmail that “progressives” love to play. So, spare us the hear rending tales of the masses of poor starving in the streets. I don’t think we need to spend more on keeping an underclass in their place. Let them soar or fail on their own.
I can see it now – Keith, Trey and Frank all hunkered down and mavericky with their guns and their gold coins, shootin’ them illegal aliens and welfare cheats and giving the finger to the man. You guys are a real inspiration to us all.
Typical Anon, you were the one who keeps going on about welfare cheats, not me. I simply don’t like supporting generations of welfare recipients in the name of giving someone a hand up. One doesn’t have to cheat to be a recipient of government largess.
You might try to rebut what was actually said rather than trotting out your straw men repeatedly. That, of course, would require more thought that is common in your cleverless replies.
Stop paying your taxes – no one has a gun to your head. Speaking of cheats, when are you going to repay all the unearned largesse you’ve received?
“Let them soar or fail on their own.” That applies to banks and financial services squids too. Let those vultures fail and see what happens.
You are frothing Anon. You are bouncing all over the place trying to find a cogent argument and have abandoned the original premise.
I do agree that banks and financial services should be allowed to fail. So should car companies, as well as Fannie and Freddie. Unions should also be made to stand on their own without help from their friends in Congress.
The threat of imprisonment for not paying taxes is indeed a gun to the head.
i’m basically a libertarian but am not so naive as to think that we can eradicate taxation.
i would like to, however, be able to specify EXACTLY what my tax dollars go.
our founding fathers were libertarians.
if you don’t think that’s true, you need another history class.
Anonymous, like any Leftist, you spew a half truth. Some of our founding fathers owned slaves, not all of them as your statement implies. The institution of slavery was not an American concept, it was inherited from the British.
Even the founding fathers predicted the future problems that slavery would bring the country.
Some of our FF were flawed, but their vision was bigger than them as mere mortals, as the constitution they authored gave equality to all men ( and women) and created a country that has offered more promise to mankind than any country in the history of the world.
I realize the above post sounds corny and simplistic. I deeply believe no better country has existed in the history of the world than the United States of America.
“Whining that taxes are theft/slavery is particularly stupid in this context.” Anonymous
Excessive taxation is theft/slavery.
“Yes, the US has offered promise to mankind, but it doesn’t come cheap”
The U.S. has done a better job of delivering on promise to more people than nearly any other country. “Doesn’t come cheap?” No, it doesn’t, but the costs are not what you likely mean.
The costs are exactly what I mean – the staggering costs of two ongoing, preemptive wars that everyone to the right of Dennis Kucinich demanded, the cost of exotic weaponry, the cost of the perpetual policing of the middle east, the cost of mollycoddling Israel and its enemies, the cost of bailing out the ponzi-scheming creeps in the banking and financial services industries. Sure, the US has done some some decent, humanitarian things, but we’ve squandered trillions and the bills are due. the time for your your pathetic “taxation is slavery” expored while you were cheerleading for holy war against the Muslims. You want perpetual war? Stop whining like some spoiled child and pay for it.
Wrong. The cost is hard work mixed with a little risk. The cost is vigilance to make sure we keep the rights guaranteed by our constitution. I am not talking about war. You are. This thread started with a discussion on taxes. You are the one obsessing about war and it’s continuation. I said nothing about continuing a war. Nor am I whining about paying for it. I agree with the position that taxation happens under the threat of the gun, but I also believe that there are some basic things we must pay for, protection from our enemies, courts to mediate our disputes and a handful of other things that we may agree upon. Redistribution of wealth is not one of them.
BTW You are frothing again.
Pay your FICA taxes and shut the fuck up.
You are frothing again, Anon. I do pay my taxes, FICA, Medicare, Income taxes, property taxes and sales taxes, not to mention the various taxes paid to hotels, car rental companies and a myriad of other hidden taxes. If I didn’t pay my Federal taxes, I would be prosecuted and, likely, jailed. Thus, the government has power over my life. Crudely put, it’s a gun to the head. That would be a metaphor, Anon.
I love it when you tell people to shut up and start spewing scatologies. It’s a true indication that your pathetic arguments have run out.
But truthfully put, the moment a decent argument is put before me I will gladly debate until then I couldn’t care less.