Taxes are a form of Theft

[Nirvash Type TheEND]

Hey shroom d'ya read The Social Contract yet?

[Trotskylvania]

The social contract is prior to contract law.

Without the social contract, there is no state, no social system, no law, and no contracts. There is only the Hobbesian war of all against all, and the only agreements among men are pacts among wolves.

the law of contracts (even if you are just looking at Western contract law in the common law tradition) predates the conceptualisation of the so-called social contract, hence why the social contract is a misappropriation

Social contract theorists such as Hobbes did not invent the social contract. They described a natural social phenomenon that exists in all civilizations. Many would further apply ethics to the study to find a just social contract. Nothing was misappropriated; contracts are an agreement among persons, or in the case of the social contract, a people, describing rights and duties. Legal contracts are a subset of that idea.

So unless you want life to be nasty, brutish and short, you're stuck with the social contract. Obey the fucking rules.

[Infected Mushroom]

you enter into contracts because you want them to be enforceable by the law, otherwise the contracts have no practical force, it would just be an agreement

Not necessarily. Could be entirely an admin issue.

contract law exists exclusively for the benefit of the parties, to give legal effect/enforcement to an agreement

its entirely consent based

if both sides don't want the contract to continue, neither side would sue the other side and the government would simply not be involved. The government only gets involved in contract law when one party has a grievance against another or one party needs to facilitate something in a contract to give it more legal protection. Its never forced on innocent parties.

[Trotskylvania]

sure you did, as soon as you reached the age of legal self direction, you chose to remain in the same country you had been living in, thus agreeing to the contract your parents had you living under which every citizen is under. Your parents signed you up, you chose to keep using the service after the point you could legally opt put.
Your still free to leave at any time.
It is a unique problem caused by you being born into it, but there is plenty of president, if you stay in a hotel room beyond the initial agreed upon time you either pay with all the implied contracts or you get thrown out, (you don't even get to pick which). In the case of citizenship your presence beyond the agreed upon time is agreement with the contract, heck they even provide you with schooling so you can better understand the contract of citizenship.

You cannot ''sign someone up'' as a party to a contract.

Yeah you can.

See children, marriage, power of attorney, corporate entities.

[Ifreann]

I never consented to have the government enforce contract law on me. I never voluntarily agreed to be bound by contract law. Yet the government would employ overwhelming, irresistible force against me if I did not abide by these laws.

you enter into contracts because you want them to be enforceable by the law, otherwise the contracts have no practical force, it would just be an agreement

But contracts are just agreements. Then the government, without meeting with any of the parties to those agreements, decided what it will enforce and how and what it won't and built a system of bureaucracy around the whole thing.

[Infected Mushroom]

the law of contracts (even if you are just looking at Western contract law in the common law tradition) predates the conceptualisation of the so-called social contract, hence why the social contract is a misappropriation

Social contract theorists such as Hobbes did not invent the social contract. They described a natural social phenomenon that exists in all civilizations. Many would further apply ethics to the study to find a just social contract. Nothing was misappropriated; contracts are an agreement among persons, or in the case of the social contract, a people, describing rights and duties. Legal contracts are a subset of that idea.

So unless you want life to be nasty, brutish and short, you're stuck with the social contract. Obey the fucking rules.

There is a distinction between a contract (which is fundamentally a legal principle) and an agreement. A contract is a subset of an agreement (if an agreement is legally enforceable, its a contract... if not, then its just an agreement)

Any attempt to take the words contract to describe an agreement in general and without respect to the essential elements of a properly constituted contract (offer, acceptance, terms etc) is a misappropriation. Hobbes and Locke claimed to be wise men, but in fact their understanding of contract law was very poor. It makes sense since they weren't judges.

[Infected Mushroom]

you enter into contracts because you want them to be enforceable by the law, otherwise the contracts have no practical force, it would just be an agreement

But contracts are just agreements. Then the government, without meeting with any of the parties to those agreements, decided what it will enforce and how and what it won't and built a system of bureaucracy around the whole thing.

Agreements are worthless if they do not have an element of enforceability (especially in the commercial context between parties that don't entirely trust each other)

[Alvecia]

Not necessarily. Could be entirely an admin issue.

contract law exists exclusively for the benefit of the parties, to give legal effect/enforcement to an agreement

its entirely consent based

if both sides don't want the contract to continue, neither side would sue the other side and the government would simply not be involved. The government only gets involved in contract law when one party has a grievance against another or one party needs to facilitate something in a contract to give it more legal protection. Its never forced on innocent parties.

Out of curiosity, what would you accept as an alternative to the current system we have now?

[Sociobiology]

Most land is 'privately owned'* where the asterix is ,'but it really belongs to the government and they can take its from you or demand whatever they want from you'.

Wrong. It does not belong to the government. That someone else CAN do something does not magically mean that you have agreed to it. I CAN sexually assault you...that definitely doesn't mean you have consented. You CAN burn down my house...I definitely am not consenting to that. I CAN break into your residence and take things...and I'm heavily doubting you would approve.

of course whether you have a right is different than whether you want to have a right, as well.
You may want property rights but without a society enforcing them, you don't have property rights.
you don't own anything unless your society agrees that you do.

At least with modern states they have a contract of rights connected to citizenship, so you can agree to having defined and enforced rights and paying for them, or you can not pay and not have rights. (unless others choose to give them to you)

If I say it my house and you say it is yours, if there is no overarching legal structure defining and enforcing ownership, what I have a right to do IS whatever I CAN do.

[Infected Mushroom]

contract law exists exclusively for the benefit of the parties, to give legal effect/enforcement to an agreement

its entirely consent based

if both sides don't want the contract to continue, neither side would sue the other side and the government would simply not be involved. The government only gets involved in contract law when one party has a grievance against another or one party needs to facilitate something in a contract to give it more legal protection. Its never forced on innocent parties.

Out of curiosity, what would you accept as an alternative to the current system we have now?

a system without taxation based on voluntary donations, for-profit state enterprises, and cooperation between the state and private entities...

[Ifreann]

But contracts are just agreements. Then the government, without meeting with any of the parties to those agreements, decided what it will enforce and how and what it won't and built a system of bureaucracy around the whole thing.

Agreements are worthless if they do not have an element of enforceability (especially in the commercial context between parties that don't entirely trust each other)

If people want a third party to enforce their contracts then they will seek one out and make suitable arrangements with them. Voluntarily. Isn't that what you say is more moral? Nothing imposed on people by men with guns, just what they freely consented to themselves.

[Infected Mushroom]

Agreements are worthless if they do not have an element of enforceability (especially in the commercial context between parties that don't entirely trust each other)

If people want a third party to enforce their contracts then they will seek one out and make suitable arrangements with them. Voluntarily. Isn't that what you say is more moral? Nothing imposed on people by men with guns, just what they freely consented to themselves.

I am not sure where this is going...

[Alvecia]

Out of curiosity, what would you accept as an alternative to the current system we have now?

a system without taxation based on voluntary donations, for-profit state enterprises, and cooperation between the state and private entities...

That assumes quite an ideological view of peoples willingness to donate and private entities willingness to not put profit first.

[Islamic Republic e Jariri]

Taxes are pretty justified in Welfare states predominately located in Western Europe - without taxes countless individuals would be below the poverty line - this is for the greater good.

[Infected Mushroom]

a system without taxation based on voluntary donations, for-profit state enterprises, and cooperation between the state and private entities...

That assumes quite an ideological view of peoples willingness to donate and private entities willingness to not put profit first.

they can put profit first but it will for the most part facilitate free market efficiency

[Trotskylvania]

Social contract theorists such as Hobbes did not invent the social contract. They described a natural social phenomenon that exists in all civilizations. Many would further apply ethics to the study to find a just social contract. Nothing was misappropriated; contracts are an agreement among persons, or in the case of the social contract, a people, describing rights and duties. Legal contracts are a subset of that idea.

So unless you want life to be nasty, brutish and short, you're stuck with the social contract. Obey the fucking rules.

There is a distinction between a contract (which is fundamentally a legal principle) and an agreement. A contract is a subset of an agreement (if an agreement is legally enforceable, its a contract... if not, then its just an agreement)

Any attempt to take the words contract to describe an agreement in general and without respect to the essential elements of a properly constituted contract (offer, acceptance, terms etc) is a misappropriation. Hobbes and Locke claimed to be wise men, but in fact their understanding of contract law was very poor. It makes sense since they weren't judges.

False. Contract always has had a broader meaning than legal contracts. It comes from a Latin word meaning "to bring together,", in its original sense it broadly referred to any sort of bargain.

Which is why the only people who ever make the argument you're making are philosophically illiterate pedants such as yourself. NO ONE contemporaneous to Hobbes or Locke made any such objection to the use of the term contract in the same sense as social contract. It is after all, the people coming together and establishing a state and rule of law.

You're four hundred years too late buddy. You don't get to anachronistically complain about neologisms in philosophy anymore than in literature. Or are you going to criticize Shakespeare for coining a word like "eventful" because what it describes is not literally full of events?

[Sociobiology]

Fine, if you want to call it theft and not pay, just don't use any public services including roads, hospitals, emergency responders, public schools, etc.

The government itself doesn't even claim to say that paying your taxes is a pre-condition for most of those services; as such, even the state isn't in the business of pretending this is a voluntary contract.

Think about it, if someone were late in paying his taxes... does the police suddenly stop protecting him? Are not the police still obligated to answer his 911 calls?

There is no corresponding obligation between enjoying the services that the state chose to promise to give you (on its own accord) and your payment of taxes. They aren't even corresponding obligations.

sure there is it is just like a hotel, park, or convention, on these premises you get X, Y, and Z services.
as long as you are on these premises you must pay.

packages services are everywhere.

[Apollinis]

There is a distinction between a contract (which is fundamentally a legal principle) and an agreement. A contract is a subset of an agreement (if an agreement is legally enforceable, its a contract... if not, then its just an agreement)

Any attempt to take the words contract to describe an agreement in general and without respect to the essential elements of a properly constituted contract (offer, acceptance, terms etc) is a misappropriation. Hobbes and Locke claimed to be wise men, but in fact their understanding of contract law was very poor. It makes sense since they weren't judges.

False. Contract always has had a broader meaning than legal contracts. It comes from a Latin word meaning "to bring together,", in its original sense it broadly referred to any sort of bargain.

Which is why the only people who ever make the argument you're making are philosophically illiterate pedants such as yourself. NO ONE contemporaneous to Hobbes or Locke made any such objection to the use of the term contract in the same sense as social contract. It is after all, the people coming together and establishing a state and rule of law.

You're four hundred years too late buddy. You don't get to anachronistically complain about neologisms in philosophy anymore than in literature. Or are you going to criticize Shakespeare for coining a word like "eventful" because what it describes is not literally full of events?

You're talking to someone who considers Nietzsche's entire philosophical work invalid because he used metaphors.

[Galloism]

Stealing is defined as:



Since they have the legal right to exact taxation, it's not stealing. Since it's not stealing, it's not theft.

"to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force:"
"to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice"
"to take (something that you are not supposed to have) without asking for permission"
"to take (something that does not belong to you) in a way that is wrong or illegal"
"to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully "
" to take surreptitiously or without permission"
"To take (the property of another) without right or permission"

Thanks to Merriam-Webster, TheFreeDictionary, and Dictionary.com for those enlightening entries.

Here is the definition of a legal right:

a claim recognized and delimited by law for the purpose of securing it

b : the interest in a claim which is recognized by and protected by sanctions of law imposed by a state, which enables one to possess property or to engage in some transaction or course of conduct or to compel some other person to so engage or to refrain from some course of conduct under certain circumstances, and for the infringement of which claim the state provides a remedy in its courts of justice

Wrongful is defined, in legal contexts, as:

having no legal right; unlawful:
The court ruled it was a wrongful diversion of trust income.

The law recognizes that the state has the right to tax, therefore, not stealing.

So.....taking without permission.....that sure looks like a definition of stealing! Turns out, by definition, it IS stealing.....and thus theft.

It's not taking without permission. It's taking without permission without the right to do so. This is an important point. If I'm injured by your shitty driving, I can sue you. If I win, then I can force you to surrender property to satisfy that debt, even without your permission. Consent is not an absolutely necessary component of property transfer to be valid.

The government has that right to exercise taxation.

I didn't say you did, but it HAS lied abandoned at some point in the past while the government was in existence exerting these claims on behalf of the people. If the government existed at any point while the property was abandoned, and the government never explicitly repudiated those claims, the government still exercises them on behalf of the people it serves.

Has your land been continuously occupied for the entire time a government has exercised such authority over it plus some period before?

Prove it.

Don't need to prove it as it isn't relevant. The landowner (in this case me, not the government acting as a proxy for a group of people) has the right to set rent. Without a contract reserving that condition, you lose it when you sell off the property.

The 'contract' is in US code of federal regulations, and relevant state regulations, which you were aware of when you bought it.

If this applies equally to the government as it does to you, then the only way, under your logic, for your claim that the government has no right is that the property has been continuously owned by people since before the government exerted such rights.

Since the government has continuously exercised those rights even though it has changed owners many many times, it never ceased operating the land as rights holder.

No, it hasn't. The government gave away or sold the land. It is no longer the landowner.

It still maintains certain rights to the land it never sold, unless you can prove it sold them.

You don't seem to have a firm grasp of property rights or the transfer of those rights. I'm using YOUR logic to show why the government has every right to claim the property as its own. The fact that you can't see that is boggling to me.

No, you're using your 'logic' and falsely presenting it as mine.

Going with the 'nuh-uh' response, there, eh?

But their heirs do.

Wrong. When someone sells or gives away a property, their heirs don't get it.

Except it wasn't sold or given away. It was conquered. You just said you do not recognize the right of conquest, thus that conquering was invalid.

All subsequent sales are also invalid.

The heirs of the conquered own the land, since the conquered never sold it.

Land rights only cease if they are given up or seized. Unless you can show that those rights have been either given up or seized, then they have not. A good example is mineral rights, which are tied to the land.

If you sell me your mineral rights for a sum, I own those rights.

Even if you sell the land to a third party, who has never met me nor knows I hold the mineral rights, I STILL hold the mineral rights. Those rights are attached to the land. I hold those rights even though he doesn't know I hold those rights. It may not say anywhere in the contract I still hold those rights, but those rights are mine. I own them, and I never surrendered them.

You hold the mineral rights so long as the contract of sale states that you do. If it does not, then you do not.

Wrong. You do not have that right to terminate a third party's rights (namely mine, in this example) without my consent. Because you failed to include it in the contract when you sold the land does not terminate my rights which I have by value of the contract.

Now, the third party who bought the land could conceptually sue you, the original seller, for failing to disclose the mineral rights sale to a third party, in order to recover the value of those rights, but I, as the mineral rights holder, maintain my rights regardless.

It doesn't matter if I exercise those rights in 1 year, 5 years, 20 years, or my heirs exercise them in 200 years. I bought those rights. They are mine. Your actions cannot dissolve my rights.

The thing is, if the person who bought the land KNEW of the mineral rights being sold to a third party, they could not sue you for failing to include it in the contract, because no actual damage was done. You knew what you purchased even if the contract contained a flaw within the text.

[Alvecia]

That assumes quite an ideological view of peoples willingness to donate and private entities willingness to not put profit first.

they can put profit first but it will for the most part facilitate free market efficiency

It doesn't seem like a very stable system. At the first sign of a declining market, I would assume that donations will slow and private entities will look towards their own survival, leaving the government at a loss for funds.

[Infected Mushroom]

The government itself doesn't even claim to say that paying your taxes is a pre-condition for most of those services; as such, even the state isn't in the business of pretending this is a voluntary contract.

Think about it, if someone were late in paying his taxes... does the police suddenly stop protecting him? Are not the police still obligated to answer his 911 calls?

There is no corresponding obligation between enjoying the services that the state chose to promise to give you (on its own accord) and your payment of taxes. They aren't even corresponding obligations.

sure there is it is just like a hotel, park, or convention, on these premises you get X, Y, and Z services.
as long as you are on these premises you must pay.

packages services are everywhere.

the government doesn't run with that premise though

Lets say X didn't pay his taxes for a week. And then he wanders into a public park. Did he just commit a breach of contract? Is the state going to get him for breach of contract in addition to tax evasion?

No. The state doesn't view the public services it provides as part of a running contract.

Now consider in a private context. A and X have a contract where X agrees to pay monthly instalments to keep a membership (which he needs to visit this private park). Now if X stops paying for a week and then wanders unto the park what does A get him for? Breach of contract.

Does the state get you for breach of contract when you call the police but are late in filing taxes? No. Does the state get you for breach of contract if you continue to use the internet (supposedly paid by taxes in some places) if you are late or don't pay taxes? No.

The state isn't even engaged in the delusion that paying taxes is part of some contractual framework. I'm not sure why that angle is being advanced at all when the state doesn't even frame its laws and its operations like that. Look at the Canada Income Tax Act for example, there isn't a single word in there about how there's a voluntary contract. It simply tells you what to do. There isn't a word about terms or corresponding services.

[Galloism]

Does the state get you for breach of contract when you call the police but are late in filing taxes? No. Does the state get you for breach of contract if you continue to use the internet (supposedly paid by taxes in some places) if you are late or don't pay taxes? No.

Not per se, no - they take legal action against you including levies and leins.

Just like anyone else who failed to pay what they were required to pay to any company ever.

[Sociobiology]

Out of curiosity, what would you accept as an alternative to the current system we have now?

a system without taxation based on voluntary donations, for-profit state enterprises, and cooperation between the state and private entities...

have been tried and always fail because people never pay enough for the services they demand. Its also incredibly unfair because you end up with a lot of freeloaders, freeloaders who could easily afford to pay, mind. which creates a downward spiral of people refusing to pay, (why should I pay for them!)
until the system collapses.
for profit are great at many thing, just not monopolies and certain things trend strongly toward monopolies by there very nature, so we have states run those.

[Infected Mushroom]

they can put profit first but it will for the most part facilitate free market efficiency

It doesn't seem like a very stable system. At the first sign of a declining market, I would assume that donations will slow and private entities will look towards their own survival, leaving the government at a loss for funds.

which is why it would promote personal responsibility, entrepreneurship, community-self-organization and self-reliance... all good things for facilitating the creativity and progress of mankind

[Galloism]

a system without taxation based on voluntary donations, for-profit state enterprises, and cooperation between the state and private entities...

have been tried and always fail because people never pay enough for the services they demand. Its also incredibly unfair because you end up with a lot of freeloaders, freeloaders who could easily afford to pay, mind. which creates a downward spiral of people refusing to pay, (why should I pay for them!)
until the system collapses.
for profit are great at many thing, just not monopolies and certain things trend strongly toward monopolies by there very nature, so we have states run those.

Or, in the case of utilities which have a tendency towards monopoly status, we heavily regulate them including price controls. Price increases have to be justified by evidence.