Violence

OK, there's not point beating a dead horse here. We'll agree that "something" happens. I think that something is violent and you think it's non-violent.

I think that income tax is more than unfair, it's immoral. It's not that I don't want to pay. I mean, I want to live with all the amenities we have. I just don't think taking someone's private property by force is immoral (and violent) and so we should think of alternative ways of achieving these goals that are not immoral. I'm happy to pay to use a road. To pay for upkeep. To pay for State road upkeep. I could do this through membership that I choose to be a part of. No membership. Then I have to pay more to drive on the road. How's that sound? We get a road, and usage on it is all voluntary.

Income tax was for most of human history considered exactly what it is: Theft.

It's not the same, but there are similarities.

People in KSA overwhelmingly think it's immoral not to wear the veil, that society is better for it, and woman should be escorted to Life in prison if they don't wear it.
They make the same argument. You want to be a part of this society and enjoy all it's wondrous sand-dunes. Leave OR wear your Allah damn veil OR go to prison.
People here overwhelmingly think it's immoral not to pay income tax. You want to be a part of this society and enjoy all it's wondrous pot-holes. Leave or pay your God damn income tax or go to prison.


Who knows, maybe in 500 years income tax will be a throwback to Statist iAge Mythology

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[Gods damn it, iAge, already a website.....]

OK but we do not need income tax for society to exist, it existed just fine without it. We had roads, schools, philosophy, jigsaw puzzles, medicine, commerce, etc.... all without income tax.


I understand there's a worry that some free-loader is going to get away with something. Yeah, that's what's happening right now, as we speak. A Banking cartel is essentially selling the labor of a generation through income tax - which is immoral. Why should the unborn be responsible for over $50,000 of debt on the day they're born? Just because some ass munch wanted to own 5 houses and mansion or build a bridge to nowhere? Surely you can see this is immoral. And then putting them in prison... for LIFE for not wanting to pay for something they never had a say in? That's just not moral.

We can and should do better.

 

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No, we won't agree that "something" happens. There is nothing inherently violent about the arrest procedure. Arresting someone is not a violent act unless the person being arrested refuses to cooperate, in which case the officer is allowed to use enough force to subdue them. And there is no reason to resist, because we have a system which guarantees you a trial and presumes your innocence until you are proven guilty. This is not a difficult concept, Michael.

If you have an actual beef with income tax and wish to have a legitimate discourse about it, I suggest you drop the "violence" bit, because it's absurd, and no one will take you seriously. You can make the argument without the need to pretend the word "violent" means something other than what it actually means.

If you say so.

No, there aren't. Not in any meaningful way.

I've already explained why this is an apples-to-oranges comparison, yet you present it again. At the core of these two institutions (forced veils, income tax) there are philosophies that could not be more different. You're talking about entirely superficial similarities that could be put on anything. For example:

People in the USA overwhelmingly believe it's immoral to murder someone, that society is the better without it, and people should be sentenced to life in prison for doing it.

They make the same argument: If you want to be a part of this society and all of its opportunities, settle disagreements without bloodshed or spend the rest of your days in prison.​

Would you call this similar to your statement? No, of course not, because you're not a moron or a sociopath. Because you realize that the concepts being discussed here are not similar at all.

Forcing someone to wear a veil is not the same as taxation. Even if taxation were theft, the comparison to a practice that subjugates the entire female population falls woefully short, so you can't win on this one.

So you didn't understand the point of my comment? Obviously not, otherwise you wouldn't have simply repeated yourself. Point was, income tax became a necessity due to our changing society. Could you imagine the country today based on a 1910 infrastructure? It wouldn't work. We had to grow.

I'm sure you're numbers here are entirely fabricated. No one is born in debt, they acquire debt. And the income tax has nothing to do with a rich person owning 5 houses. I don't know how you make the correlation there, but given your insistence that taxation is a violent act, it should not surprise me when you make wholly illogical claims.

Also, tax evasion does not come with a life sentence. I think a first offense is five years.

 

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michael do you think its immoral for Mcdonals to charge based on socioeconomic statice (they do this by geography, they work out the SES of an area and increase the price if its a low SES area)

 

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We always had taxes Michael.

We need taxes for our society to exist at all.

We gather those taxes through all sorts of means and the income tax is just one of many, but it is the most progressive of the tax methods and so it's the one that most people support.

You continually use the "road analogy" that why shouldn't you just pay to use it, but that doesn't get the road built Michael.

That takes HUGE amounts of money up front, for many years before the roads are even in use.

Which is just one of the reasons that taxes need to be collected to get the infrastructure built in the first place (don't know who is going to eventually use the roads do we?).

And then there is the concept of "use tax".

You say you want to pay just when you use it, but virtually everything you buy was made and shipped based on the road system.

So if every manufacturer had to pay a "road use tax" then you would simply add that to the price of everything you buy.

The end result would be much the same, EXCEPT this would be essentially collected as a SALES TAX, which is highly regressive.

Which is in essence your whole point, you apparently aren't so much against taxes as you are against a Progressive Tax structure like the Income tax.

Admit it Michael, you make a decent salary and you simply don't like paying a higher percent then people who make half your salary.

LOL

 

No, it's about creating a better more equitable society. Which may seem counterintuitive, until you realize how unequal it really is. The ultra upper class, which would have been an abomination to many of the founding members of this Union, is only accumulating ever more money and power.

I don't like the society we're creating and I think individualism, free-markets, property rights, volunteerism and a fair monetary system may make a better one.

Centralized power can never spend money as efficiently as the individual. In order to even do the half-arsed job it does do, it needs to treat the public like Cattle. The more herd-like and less individual-like the general public is, the easier they are to control and "provide services to".... aka: milk. Which IMO is why public school teach the way they do. It's not about challenging dogma or the power structure, it all about a socialization process that pumps out little worker drones.

Anyway, that's the real reason. I don't mind paying. I mean, yeah, I pay a bit more than I'd like in tax. But, so what? I also spend a bit of money donating and I've never asked for that money back on tax. I just sent a donation to a philosophy org that gives intellectual material away for free. It'd have been immoral to use their material and give nothing in return. I didn't need the government to learn that. I learned that in my family, particularly my grandmother on my mother's side.

No. Everyone knows McDonalds is low nutritional food. As a matter of fact, nearly the entire center of any grocery market is the same.

IOWs it's up to people to decide for themselves what they want to eat. I wouldn't know if McDs lowered their price or raised it. I eat there maybe only when I'm flying somewhere. The only fastfood I used to eat was Subway but now their food makes me sick (they're probably adding a lot of sugar?).

Get this, I spent a couple hours earlier this week making yogurt and cream cheese. Sure, it's not that hard, but, it took a couple hours all up (mainly sterilizing things). Then, last night, I spent 2 hours (weekend time mind you) preparing dough with the whey. Then I got up early and spent another 2 hours cranking out 20 bagels.

Anyone can do this. It's healthy, cheap, tasty. So why don't they? Why do they go to McDonalds? Because they'd rather spend their time watching sports or American idol drinking coke and stuffing their face with a Big Mac. That's their choice. I'm not their Nanny. They're adults and I can not and should not decide for them how to live their lives.

If that were the case, there'd be no televised sports. There'd be televised science shows with philosophical debates and TV stations would be for education, real education, not just entertainment. Some entertainment too - we do need balance. News would be dull and actually just news, no talking heads crapping turds into the ear of the general public. While I may think this is a good idea, most people wouldn't. My god, no Sports! They'd riot in a way they never do about anything actually important. So, we can only agree that the moral thing to do is let people make their own choices (that's called free-market) so long as it doesn't harm someone else.

How about we use the word: threaten?

My rational was that this idea "for the greater good" is exactly what they think when they threaten women to wear a veil and/or brainwash them into thinking God will smite them if they don't. While we may see this as Bronze Age silliness, it's serious business to them. The similarity is only in the fact that we all have ideas we're raised to think are "for the greater good".... this is, in fact, how we think about Income Tax now, but that wasn't the case before. In the past it would have been taught of as theft.

How else are we going to come to the new ideas needed to fix the society if we don't challenge our most basic beliefs? To continue doing the same and expecting a different result is insanity. Obama, Bush, Mitt, Clinton, Regan, ....they're all pretty much doing the same thing.

I agree we need roads, it's more a question of how those roads are made.

That was from: The US Debt Clock. All those roads, bridges, Departments of Propaganda... errr, Education, Freedom Fry Wars, ... they cost money.

$49,000+ per person in the USA. So, if you're born today, you owe that much.



If we can build mini-supercomputers with built in video phones and sell them so cheap even someone on welfare can afford one, well, that suggests we can do a lot of other things much much better than the government.

 

Thank you, so its not immoral to vary a cost on the basis of SES. Fact McDonalds increases cost is irrelivent, you have just answered that it is compleatly moral for those who can aford to pay, to pay a higher tax. A country is a club and tax is the fees to be part of that club, as you agree its moral to vary those fees you have just undermined your own argument. Its not in the least immoral to levy tax

 

That would be better, but still not accurate.

Okay, fine, but this should serve as a lesson in how not to debate. By invoking something so extreme as forced veiling, you immediately cloud the issue. It's like when one politician compares another to Hitler. Their argument may only be that the nation is headed toward socialism, but the imagery implies something else entirely.

I agree with this in principal, but if you're going to challenge something, come prepared with a sound argument against it. Claiming that taxation is a violent act while saying that "we didn't have it in 1910" isn't going to win anyone to your cause.

Not literally, Michael. That number is achieved by dividing the national debt by every citizen, but clearly we do not all owe $50,000.

If you're arguing the ineptitude of the government, you won't do well by holding as evidence innovations that the government does not make. Is there a government-made video phone that is somehow inferior to the one developed in the private sector?

See what I'm getting at?

 

A Few Ways to Look at the Question

A Few Ways to Look at the Question

The basic question: Is it moral to use violence against an innocent person?

Generally speaking, no.

An example raised: Two fish and income tax.

Part of the problem here is that money and fish are not the same. Currency is, ultimately, an organizational system. Anyone who disagrees is welcome to fold a five-dollar bill between two silver dollars and call it a sandwich. Bon appétit. Or you could take that seven dollars to a restaurant and buy a real sandwich, which is probably the better option, all things considered. Hell, you might even get some chips and a Coke with it.

Furthermore, the illustration overlooks the proposition that taxes do anything.

If I build a dock and a boat to make fishing easier and more productive, should I share it? Probably wouldn't hurt. But what if you make a boat, and want to put it at my dock when you're ashore?

If we on the island come together as a group and decide to contribute to building a dock, how is that different from taxes? I mean, sure, you might say something about bureaucracy, but the illustration would involve a bureaucracy of three.

To expand that, though, to consider a larger, functional society:

• Something like a road seems obvious enough, I would hope? Taxes build roads. Or perhaps you would like private roads, so that instead of paying taxes to a government rendered inefficient in part because it's a government and in large part because a noisome faction works very hard to make sure it's inefficient, you can pay fees to a private owner. And then it's not so much that your fees will go up in order to build another road, but because the private owner wants a beach house in Majorca. Would that be more appealing to you?

• But what about "intangible" things, like education and health? Would you rather pay for education, or the penal system? That is, you can either pay for 'em now, in school, or later, when they steal your damn car. And you can certainly pay up for public health, or pay later when the latest epidemic lays you low. Of course, there is a lower-cost solution: Just kill the sick and criminal. Conveniently, simply killing the undesirables also has the effect of dispensing with headaches like human and civil rights. I mean, it probably is more efficient than attempting democracy and freedom.​

The hyperbole: Analogy to the veil.

Seriously, give us a break. Are we to take you seriously, or are you just wasting your time?

An interesting consideration: 1910.

That was 1910. This is 2012. It's a bit different these days. Different demands, different conditions. I suppose it's better than some of the whack jobs out there that want to go back to the eighteenth century.

The WTF/oh, well, so that's it: End the Federal Reserve.

Okay, so ... we get rid of the Federal Reserve. What happens next? Magic? Everybody's standard of living goes up?

The rationale: For the greater good ....

You know, people who really like guns always tell me that just because someone can use a gun for a bad reason doesn't mean all guns are bad. This is true, as far as it goes.

Likewise, there are plenty in history who have used the greater good as an excuse for all sorts of insanity. Does that mean there is no legitimate greater good?

And as with guns, there are plenty who would argue the need for reasonable restrictions. So it goes with philosophy, too.

When it becomes obvious that you're missing the point: Video phones, the poor, &c.

You do realize those things are done for profit?

Look at the private sector's way: If management screws up and risks losing some of its profit, they fire the workers who didn't do anything wrong. If you can get away with lower quality, do so. If you can renege on your contract in order to save money, do so.

We already see the problem of things like health care for profit. And while I'm not opposed to the basic concept of private education—I went to a parochial high school, after all, receiving much benefit for having done so—I don't think society would benefit from a universal private education scheme. To the one, there are private institutions out there like Bob Jones University, or any number of low-quality religious elementary and high schools. There is always this starry-eyed myth about the private sector that if government would just go away, everyone would suddenly behave properly. It's completely bogus.

Seriously, housing for the poor? Health care for the poor? As soon as you figure out how to make a profit doing that, either start lecturing on the art of getting blood from stones, or hire a lawyer to defend you against charges of defrauding a government agency trying to "privatize" its services.

Coda: Something, something, Burt Ward.

It's easy to wail that taxes are violence because the state itself is a monopoly on violence. But you treat concepts so broadly that even currency itself becomes violence. That is, currency becomes a reason to deny people access to what they need to survive. Currency becomes a reason to increase human suffering.

What American libertarians and others in the Cult of the Individual fail to acknowledge is that they benefit from society. If this is all about individuals, then let's all strap on and start raping, pillaging, and playing king of the world. I'm fortunate enough to live in a society that has the luxury of keeping these miseries at arm's length. Well, okay, not so much on the raping count, but, you know what I mean.

There are plenty of serious questions about the natures of government and society, but taxation as violence isn't one of them.

 

Maybe I was misunderstood. I think it's totally up to McDonalds. They could raise the price in low SES or they could lower it. It's totally up to them - they own the busienss. NO ONE should force them to do anything. In a free market, someone will come in and offer a more competitive price if they don't which is what ultimately keeps prices down.

Which is interesting isn't it? It's not like McDonald's gives two craps about the community. However, in order to make any money, McDonald's must sell a product at a price and quality acceptable to the community. If they don't, someone else will.

See, this is where in the case of the McDonald's owner it really doesn't matter if they care or don't care. They may be a good person they may be a greedy twit. So long as there's a free-market they must treat their costumers with a smile and serve their demands.


Now, as to the moral argument for taxation. You're thinking in terms of zero sum gain. IOWs, if someone gets rich, someone else must be a bit poorer. In a free market this should NOT be the case. You may think it's moral for the wealthy person to pay more, but, while you think so, maybe they don't. It's not up to you to steal their money because you think they should pay more of it. Stealing is not only immoral, it's illegal (or should be). Sure, this wealthy person could be seen by the greater community as a greedy SOB, but, so what?

Think of the McDonald's owner. Suppose he's the richest person in town. Why should he pay more? Just because he's successful at making burgers? Suddenly the burden is on him to give up his personal wealth? That doesn't seem moral? Our parents taught us stealing is wrong. As if you'd steal a fish from a person who's happened to land three because you only landed one? No way.



That aside, we've tried the "tax the rich" scheme and it's been a huge failure. We've tried the whole "communism" thing - also, total failure. Why not try to create a society where stealing (yes, even as taxation) is not acceptable? What things will we have to change so that we don't break our "no stealing law" and yet are still able to do all the things we want for ourselves, community and society? Maybe we could have competing currencies. That way there's money around IF there's value in that currency. The State could have a currency, but, so could YOU. You could make your own. So could your community. As long as you managed your community's money responsibly (or a bank did) you may be able to build all sorts of things. The responsibility would be with those people who were a part of that community.

I'm sure there's other ideas out there, but tax and spend seems like a simple one, that (like Communism) doesn't work well.

OR we could continue down the same road we're on - if you think that's working, vote Kevin Fudd :shrug:

 

I'll have to come back to this tomorrow....

 

What if the guy stole the net? What if he is squatting on someone else's island? Does he have fishing rights there to begin with? If you are going to argue the tyranny of force, then what assigns moral validity to his right to be on the island and fishing with his net?

 

Let's say the three persons destroyed the world, and only had an island left to live on.
Lets say the fish were all inedible, because of toxins created by the three persons.

Then nobody but the low intellect, looking for dumb analogies and superfluous heroes, would care about the level of inventiveness, the level of morals, or the level of violence.
If those who exploit the world cannot live in it, directly because of that exploitation, and because no amount of accumulated advantage could buy them out of a failed scenario, then they get what they deserve.

 

And your inane solution is to do away with the PROGRESSIVE tax system and install a VERY REGRESSIVE one in it's place.

Not likely to work.

 

1) Free markets are very difficult and expensive to set up - in a modern industrial world the political sophistication involved pretty much presumes a very high level of education throughout the relevant society, for starters. Far beyond what poor people can pay for.

2) Free markets are sometimes impossible. Some things simply cannot be well set up as free markets - child care, health care, roads and some utilities, education, among them. The difficulty is often that the either the benefits or the costs do not, or will not, accrue to either party in the exchange.

 

The island isn't owned by anyone and there's no fishing regulation.

The right to fish would be a natural right :shrug:

What do you mean exploit the world? In a free society you're free to leave and go somewhere else.

We've obviously gone so far away from what it means to live in a free-market that I'm not sure just how quickly we'd be able to get back.

Why not start with volunteerism? Think about other relationships we engage in. When we date, we don't use force. It's voluntary. When we buy food, we're not forced to eat A and not B, we choose. Why should we use for when it comes to tax? Surely we can arrange a system where this is not the case.

It seems to me that capitalistic societies are so successful people forget they're living in one because there's enough wealth to maintain a bloated Ruling Class with enough scraps left over to keep the "working poor" happy with bread and circus.

All the information in the world is on the Internet for free. Which is a free-market. Google even tried to put ALL books online for free. Google's a business, yet, here they are putting stuff on the internet for free. NOT to be a good guy, but to make a buck. YET, it's doing all of use a huge service.

I think it's more a case of people "couldn't be bothered". I was talking to a friend of mine, just prior to the housing downturn, and we were talking about economics, his eyes glazed over and he said (I quote): "I really couldn't be f*cked". He then sued his bank to get a loan (they didn't want to lend but somehow he ended up getting $500K). Man, he was telling all about the sweet vacation he was going to take with the equity in his home (I'm dead serious, he was already spending the money). Three months later his house dropped about $10% in value. It's still dropping.

Anyway, it's not that he didn't have the information. He just doesn't care. Most people are intellectually lazy.

Free markets are just a free exchange between parties. Why couldn't education be a free market? Child care in an oxymoron. Child Supervision is a free market. Health care is a free market. You choose your doctor. It's a skewed market due to the who Medical School scam, but, it's still has overtones of a free market.

Roads.... while you are stuck using the road you need. As a society it could be possible to have a pay-as-you go usage. I mean, think about your car. You NEED a car, but, you have to pay for gasoline. Why? Why isn't gasoline free? It's a pay as you go situation. Why couldn't roads be similar? If you don't use a road, you don't pay for it's upkeep. If you do use it, then you help pay for it's upkeep.

That way bridges to nowhere are not built.


I think public schools are horrid. If I had children and a choice to send me kids to public school or private, I'd choose a private school. It's pretty sad that all the wealthy people send their kids to private and all the poor are forced to send their children to public school. Yet, all these poor are able to buy an iPhone mini-supercomputer. Perhaps, with private free-market, poor people could send their kids to good schools?


Lastly, just one thing about the medical profession. I know a neurosurgeon (in Australia) who screens his patients based on how much money he can make. If the numbers don't add up, he claims he doesn't have the "expertise" and pushes them off onto other neurosurgeons who simply will not push away a patient. They all hate him - as he's an ass. Though he does a good job at what he does do. Which isn't much. He dives a Ferrari around town. Anyway, I believe in a private free market, people like him will go bust. BUT in the government controlled market we have. He thrives. They simply restrict the number of neurosurgeons who enter the colleges. So, there's your "free" medicine.

See, there's so many regulations out there, hidden, you'd just never know about. So, you don't really realize who shit things actually are. There's really no other country to compare with. It's like we're living in North Korea (in a sense). So, we don't know how good life COULD be.





Nobody here would suggest a personal relationship should NOT be voluntary. Actually, the only way it's going to work out is if it IS voluntary. Yet, we turn right around and think the economy is different somehow. And that we must use force. That's not logically consistent.

 

Actually, fish would be the currency on that island. If you don't think so try living on an island and trade your paper USD for a fish when your hungry. See how quickly your paper is worthless.

I'm not sure of your point. Taxes do "do" something. Assuming what's taxed is "fish" then fish tax is simply one person taking away some fish from one person and giving it to another person/ paying them someone to "do" something. That "do" is the "doing" something. The question is (now) can you morally threaten to use force to take one person's hard fished fish away? I don't think so.

If it's voluntary then yes, that's fine. But, if you force someone to do something, then no, that's not moral.
- You don't force someone into a relationship with you.
- You don't steal from your neighbors.
- Why is it suddenly "OK" to force money from your neighbor? Just because you paid some monkey's in clown suites to do the forcing, doesn't make it moral.

Well, you should see how many tunnels work in the city (namely Sydney). The private tunnel is built and the price it too high and so people go around it. The same thing happened in Brisbane. So, the price had to be lowered. What the city tried to do was force people into the tunnel. The city also forces people to live..... you guessed it: In the City. It's classic. The people didn't want to use the tunnel, the price was too high and the people should have lost their investment, and the State tried to step in and use tax money to subsidize the wealthy people investment.

Anyway.... we don't live in a free market we live in a crony capitalistic market so it's impossible to know what the future could hold.

Think of it like this. Suppose 200 years ago I made the case for not using force against people (namely Slavery). You tell me it's always been the case. Humans have always used slaves. Who'll pick the cotton? I tell you that 100 years in the future a single person will use "satellites" in space and machines driven on dinosaurs-juice will do the work with NO humans at all. You'd tell me I'm crazy.

So, this is what you're doing. You're telling me I'm crazy. See here:

Oh, what, no Slavery?!?!? Who'll pick the cotton!?! We've always had slaves, since the dawn of Civilization!!! What, just like magic the cotton gonna git picked?!?!

Can you see where I'm coming from? No, I don't have the answer. I'm simply telling you that using force is immoral. Stealing is immoral. We should think about how to reorganize society in such a way so as we don't use force and we not acting immoral. I fail to see why you're so frightened of this? Is change, even entertaining the thought, THAT scary?




You may think the income tax is there to help you. It's not. It's used to bailout the rich. A few crumbs are tossed your way, which inflation eats up. All you're left with is poor public eduction, over priced medical care. Way over priced University fees.

You're being Farmed. I don't have a problem with a person being rich. I have a problem with the government stealing and giving MORE to the rich. Which is how most of these mega-rich got so rich. It's all about working the system. You know how Ross Perot got so rich? Not running a successful business. It was selling overpriced "services" to the State. Over and over again, you'll see this to be the case. Which is why society is slowly degrading with the haves having more and the have-nots have much less.

We'll see how that ends. History suggest 1) cannon fodder of have-nots 2) the heads of the haves 3) slow decent into hell.

How about we set this limit? No threat of force? Can we do that? No stealing private property.

What's your point. Workers do not need to work at that company. In a free society they can leave and start their own company.

Sadly, the public school system has brainwashed a once can-do America into a slavish worker-drone Cattle ranch.

We've gone pretty far down the hole, I'm not suggesting we turn hard right. But, we will need to go in that direction economically. Or, continue to go down the gurgler.

I don't acknowledge that and I don't follow a cult. Also, so what? Slaves benefited in some manner from society. So? You're argument is what? They should shut up and accept it?

Why don't we start with no force, no threat and free volunteerism and work up from there? Or is that asking to much from society? Maybe you have little to no faith in the society you live in? That says something doesn't it? Do you want to keep going down this road?

(Note: Liberal Progressives are just as Cult of Obama as Conservative Twits are Cult or Bush).

Again, your friendships and relationships are based on non-violence, no threats, free volunteerism. They seem to work. Why do you suddenly go crazy when thinking about society in general?

And raping? How is that non-violent? DO you really need the State to teach you not to steal or rape? Surely your mother and father and community can do that much for you?

OK, replace "violence" with force.​

 

In spite of your idelogy idiocy taxes are compleagly vollentry. If you don't want to pay them that's fine, but you don't get to stay in the club which is the USA or Australia or any other country

 

That's immoral. It's like saying:

Sorry Aisha, you were born into Sudia Arabian society, if you don't want to wear your veil, that's fine, just leave your friends, family, nation; .... go somewhere and die.

Sorry Kim, you were born into North Korean society, if you don't want to live on a commune farm as a worker drone, that's fine, just leave your friends, family, nation; .... go somewhere and die.



NO one has a choice in where they are born. They're born. At that point the best social arrangement should be one where force and threats isn't incumbent in living "in society".

What's sort of shocking is how violent people are, naturally, in this society. They're so quick to resort to violence. Right or Left. Conservative or Progressive. Seems they can agree on one thing, threat, cohesion, violence, force are perfectly fine in creating a so-called "better" society.

Interesting.

 

What did we talk about, Michael? You are once again not comparing like to like, and by invoking North Korea and forced veiling, you're implying that taxes are a similar violation of human rights.

So someone shouldn't be "forced and threatened" to pay their electric bill, then?

Who are you talking about? What violence are you talking about?

 

The problem Michael, is your argument is flawed from the start.
The Wealthy pay FAR more tax than do the Poor or Lower Middle class and the lower you are on the income scale the more benefit you get, all the way to the lowest paying no taxes and getting benefits.

In fact the top 1% of income earners pay just under 30% of the taxes.
The top 10% pay over 50% of the taxes.
On the other hand, the lowest 40% pay less than 5% of the Federal taxes.

So indeed, the flow of Tax money is 180 degrees different than your claim.

http://158.219.33.254/publications/collections/tax/2009/tax_liability_shares.pdf

Which of course you have provided NO EVIDENCE that this is the general case.

No it's not.
That's total BS.
Most of them came up with revolutionary ideas/products and created companies to make and sell the products.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/

More BS.
Ross Perot got rich by creating a very successful software and services company called EDS (Electronic Data Systems) and later by a company called Perot Systems which he eventually sold to Dell for nearly $4 Billion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Perot

I'd respond to more of your post but it's clear you don't care about anyone's input.

You just spew and spew and spew the same tired dogma and clearly don't pay any attention to the many people who are taking the time to point out how wrong you are.