Income Taxes: Are They Theft?

[Distruzio]

If income taxes are theft then using public services should be theft as well seeing as you didn't pay for them.

Are gov'ts owned?

[Death Metal]

All taxes are theft.

Wrong, because the government has legal right. Theft is doing so without legal right. Case closed.

[Distruzio]

All taxes are theft.

Wrong, because the government has legal right. Theft is doing so without legal right. Case closed.

When did I grant that right?

[Sibirsky]

It shows the pre 1990 revision rate. And the new suggested rate, which most of the time would show slightly lower inflation than current.
Who? The data is published by the BLS. Obviously it would be them, who is manipulating the data.

How? I addressed it. Hedonics, substitution, geometric weighting.

That rate is still only half of what you claimed. Thank you for finally at least saying where the graph came from. And what are those methods and how are they falsification?

Inflation is supposed to measure the cost of a constant standard of living.

Hedonics, reduces inflation by some amount, by claiming that a product is better. And it applies to all products. When your car gets better mileage because it uses a more efficient engine, it has negative inflation because it's better.

Substitution is when the BLS assumes that consumers will substitute one item, for another. For example, say butter goes up in price significantly. The BLS claims that consumers will switch to margarine, which did not go up as much. They adjust their hypothetical basket of goods to reflect this.

Geometric weighting is similar to substitution. It assumes that consumers will buy more of the goods that are going down in price, and less of the ones that are going up in price. They adjust the size (weighting) of the items, so the ones going down in price, or rising slower, have more weight than the ones rising fastest.

Consumers may react like that to price changes. However, the BLS does not know to what degree, and more importantly, this does not measure the true rate of inflation. The basket of goods should be constant.

Finally, it hurts those on fixed incomes. Which is the main purpose. Not to hurt them, but to save money, which hurts them.

[Conserative Morality]

When did I grant that right?

Who said you had to grant it?

[Revolutopia]

Austrian School reality. It's an entire school of economics devoted to "I reject your reality and substitute my own."

Made "legitimate" by giving Nobel Prizes to people who agree with it. Truly a Monty Burns Award For Excellence In The Field Of Excellence.

While, I don't agree with the Austrians they don't give out the Nobels that is the Swedish, not the most Austrian(economics) people in the world.

[New Conglomerate]

Wrong, because the government has legal right. Theft is doing so without legal right. Case closed.

When did I grant that right?

We aren't a voluntarist society. You grant that right by not renouncing your citizenship and going elsewhere.

[Sibirsky]

Don't give him privatized hospitals, actually. not until he finds a viable answer to the blaring hole in his logic should all hospitals become privatized. Don't even give him roads until he plugs the obvious hole in that that I pointed out should roads become fully privatized.

Yeah i don't know enough how those would work to provide a viable response.

Competition, an insurance model, serve then collect.

Not sure what the question is.

[United Dependencies]

All taxes are theft.

As I have noted, the very definition of theft negates that.

theft: the act or instance of stealing
-Webster's II dictionary(third edition)

Steal: To take property without permission or right
-same as above

to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force
-dictionary.com

1.Take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it
-google definition

1: to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice
-merriam webster online

Guess what, the government has the legal right to tax. It's not theft.

[Mad Monarch]

geometric weighting- doesn't exist in any online dictionary

It's the element that transforms a Classical Heist into a Fat Chalet.

So his argument makes even less sense then I gave him credit for?

Let me rephrase my counterargument to his post: Onomatopoeia, zombie fucking, genies!

[Sibirsky]

No, it isn't.

A written statement, with his signature, on a legal document is not legally binding?

Um... no.

The fucking constitution is not legally binding apparently.

[United Dependencies]

Wrong, because the government has legal right. Theft is doing so without legal right. Case closed.

When did I grant that right?

I suppose if you want to be technical about it, you didn't.

[Death Metal]

Wrong, because the government has legal right. Theft is doing so without legal right. Case closed.

When did I grant that right?

You may have not. But that doesn't matter.

In the USA's case (again, USA's case, edit where appropriate), it was granted to the government by elected representatives in a representative democracy when the Constitution was drafted. The vox populi therefore granted that right.

[Sibirsky]

A written statement, with his signature, on a legal document is not legally binding?

Not in the Libertarian World.

The real fucking world. It's in the real world where a constitutional lawyer and professor, which you likely voted for, rapes the document every single day.

[Mad Monarch]

Yeah i don't know enough how those would work to provide a viable response.

Competition, an insurance model, serve then collect.

Not sure what the question is.

Ya, we already debated both the insurance model and the competition idea. I also very recently shoved a sharp lance up the ass of the idea of "serve and collect".

Go to page 10 and read all my posts up to page 16 if you want to see my arguments against privatizing roads. Read all my posts since I came to this thread to see my arguments against privatizing hospitals and the fire department.

[Distruzio]

When did I grant that right?

We aren't a voluntarist society. You grant that right by not renouncing your citizenship and going elsewhere.

When did I ask for citizenship?

[Yootwopia]

Consumers may react like that to price changes. However, the BLS does not know to what degree, and more importantly, this does not measure the true rate of inflation.

Err yes it does, though. The problem is that a shitty model has been created. This is the problem that almost all of economics has in almost every area.

The basket of goods should be constant.

Is yours when you go to the shops?

[Jinos]

Wrong, because the government has legal right. Theft is doing so without legal right. Case closed.

When did I grant that right?

When you made the conscious choice to continue living wherever it is you are living.

If you're going to live there, your membership fee is called a tax.

When did I ask for citizenship?

Irrelevant. The real question is why do you keep it?

Besides which, you'd be incapable of asking for or understanding the implications of accepting it as a child.

[Yootwopia]

It's the element that transforms a Classical Heist into a Fat Chalet.

So his argument makes even less sense then I gave him credit for?

Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocyZ4NnPreQ

[Death Metal]

Not in the Libertarian World.

It's in the real world where a constitutional lawyer and professor, which you likely voted for, rapes the document every single day.

That's not the real world at all. That's the InfoWars and Lew Rockwell version of the world, which is about as true to the real world as Candy Land is.

[Sibirsky]

I have to admit that the first part of my post is a little bit on the social contract side, but if you read the rest I think you'll note that it really relate to that argument.

Welcome to being a minority in a republic. What do you want me to tell you?

You know what, you're right. My argument is one that stems from a social contract argument. I don't play the social contract game either, so allow me to revise my argument to this one:

Taxes are not theft:
1.By virtue of their definitions in the english language
2.Because of their necessity in any well ordered society.

Taxes are not theft:
1. Because the thieves set the definitions of theft.
2. Because it's necessary.

So in my previous example, when I needed to steal to survive, that was not theft either. Cool, thanks.

[Distruzio]

All taxes are theft.

As I have noted, the very definition of theft negates that.

Guess what, the government has the legal right to tax. It's not theft.

Which legal system?

[Death Metal]

We aren't a voluntarist society. You grant that right by not renouncing your citizenship and going elsewhere.

When did I ask for citizenship?

Passive agreement by not renouncing said citizenship.

[Distruzio]

Besides which, you'd be incapable of asking for or understanding the implications of accepting it as a child.

Then at no point is the assumption that citizenship must be, somehow, revoked, a legitimate defense of theft.

[Sibirsky]

I told you why it is in error to use the "legal right" definition (George is right because George says he's right).
Argument from necessity does not make it "not theft."

"It's theft because I say it's theft"

You got that backwards.

"Taxes are not theft, because I say they are not theft." Your government. "Now pay up, bitch."