EAllusion wrote:I view all taxes as a form of property seizure.
We agree.
I view it as a necessary evil at times, but often I am concerned about people who don't think through the idea that what the government does with that wealth has to justify the evil of seizing it.
We agree.
The idea that the property was the public's to take in the first place, as some liberal arguments go, is appalling to me.
We agree.
But, since we reasonably think of theft as improper taking of property, I don't regard all taxes as theft since I do think some of that is proper.
I follow Bastiat on this. Taxation becomes theft when it reaches:
1. Certain levels.
2. Is used, not to fund the legitimate functions of the state, but as a gratuity from the state to certain dependent classes from certain other preemptively indemnified classes. That is, when the state takes by force from those to whom money belongs and transfers it to other citizens (not necessarily legitimate government agencies and their employees) to whom it does not belong. He termed this "legal plunder," which, by modern standards, is uniquely applicable.
Since Droopy isn't an anarcho-capitalist and advocates for things like a 2 trillion or so dollar military,
Huh?
he clearly is fine with the government engaging in "theft" even if he calls it that.
Where have I ever, anywhere, defined all taxation as "theft?"
I also think it's hard to charge someone with hypocrisy for taking advantage of government services that they politically oppose. The government's intrusion into the matter naturally limits their choices and puts them at a competitive disadvantage otherwise. So when someone who opposes government owned and operated roads is told to drive on their own roads then, it misses the idea that the government's seizing of that economic sector largely crowds out that option.
We agree again (you'd better sit down, E., before you pass out face first and end up with a knot on your forehead).
Plus, the government's taking your property and giving you that option. If you say "No Thanks" to that service, you don't get your property back. It's Ok to work inside of a system you oppose. So I don't fault someone for accepting welfare even if they oppose the program anymore than I fault myself for listening to NPR even though I oppose government funded public media.
We agree again. Can someone bake a cake...
The fact that Droopy is a relatively poor person constantly ragging on the "taker" class that he clearly is a part of with sweeping, mean-spirited generalizations, is a basis for ample ragging on him, though.
Now it begins to deteriorate. An emotion-based statement that imposes value judgements on critical argument and observations of the social milieu rather than meeting rational argument with rational argument. The "takers" are known to exist, and they have existed for a long time as a growing and permanent demographic. That demographic now extends well into the middle class and increasingly, into the politically connected corporate world. This has nothing to do with the legitimacy of taxation
qua taxation, but everything to do with the uses to which taxation is bent and to the proper size, scope, and prerogatives of the state.
Ironically, Droopy is an archtypical example of the stereotype of the older, working-class, white male fed on a steady diet of conservative propaganda funded by wealthy interests that cause him to adopt attitudes that are hateful to the very group he is a part of. Droopy, you moocher, you.
Its always fascinated me how someone who claims to be a libertarian can lurch, in a single post, from standard libertarian ideas to stuff that could have come out of the New School for Social Research, a standard critical theory textbook, Dennis Kucinich, or a political activist manning a kiosk at an Occupy rally.
Way, way out, man.