Do you disagree with what I said?Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Are you now a champion of freedom against the tyranny of the "moral majority" (whatever that happens to be at any given time). Or are you like most leftist fully wedded tot he idea of the government telling people how to live?
You mean trespassing or disagreements over contract terms? Because the latter get resolved in civil courts, where jail is rarely a possible punishment. The punishment for trespassing has more to do with the potential for violence than with the act of stepping on someone's property. Trespassing is also not a felony.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nessus
I invite/urge you to re-read this thread if you're still having difficulties with this :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
SighQuote:
Originally Posted by Loki
These all involve people holding fire-arms who are given money by a government, nyet?
You're conflating the role of the government as the arbiter of disputes and the role of the government of enforcing its own laws. The former involves contracts mutually agreed upon; the latter entails doling out punishment for a failure to obey the government. An analogy would the difference between an arbitrator ruling that you must give up your house based on a contract you signed with another party and a village elder forcing you to give up your house because you won't follow some custom.
If I am not strong enough to strangle the person who took my tooth paste, can I or can I not sick policemen to shoot at him? Assume I am American for this exercise. You may also further assume that the person who took my tooth paste at no point in time signed any agreement where they agreed the tooth paste was mine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Taxation is done at gunpoint in the same way and for the same reason that property is appropriated/acquired and defended at gunpoint. Scholars disagree on the relative justice/injustice of the two cases.
Repeating something won't make it true. A thief had a choice as to try to take someone else's property. If they didn't try to steal that property, which would incur absolutely no cost to them, they wouldn't be punished. The thief therefore gets punished for taking a positive act. You have no choice but to pay taxes. You cannot negotiate the terms of the taxes. You can't opt out. There's no one to negotiate with. It's a unilateral imposition of terms, and you get jailed for not following them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
It's equally unilateral that my boyfriend can't beat me unless I say otherwise, and I guess it's somewhat bilateral that my toothpaste is mine? I am withholding people of tooth paste the same way as the government is depriving them of 0.x of their pay-check, and it's the self-same guns that uphold the deprivation of tooth paste and pay-check. Which is the origin of the mockery here, the guns.
You'll have to open up exactly which axioms you're using here, as you seem perfectly happy in using some arbitrary definition of property to twist your panties in a bunch, but ostensibly you don't think Minx's girlfriend can turn around and claim him as property. Minx is able to ring up the Svedish police to point a gun at his girlfriend if she tries to use him for cotton-picking, and those are the same guns the Svedish government would turn on Minx if he tried to practice medicine without giving a protection fee to the Svedish government. To the Freeper mockery it is immaterial through which means the policemen and their guns are introduced into the situation; so long as that threat to life and limb via fire-arm exists, the exact same injustice is being performed. Why can't Minx's girl friend use him for cotton picking or sexual slavery? Who decided that? Not either of them, that's for sure. Did the thief and I agree the tooth paste was mine, not his? I haven't, to this day, signed a single paper about tooth paste ownership.
And it is perfectly possible to avoid taxation, the degree depends on how much free time and capital you have. Do you think Mittens has been held at gun-point lately? How much taxes do the aborigines in Brazil pay, given they're more or less kept in isolation from the rest of human civilization?
This entire exchange is an exercise in absurdity but I'm sure you'd be pleased keeping it up in perpetuity, lest anyone defame the high ideals of Free Republic :|
That's not true. There are several ways to avoid paying taxes, or opt-out. That includes property, income, consumption, and sales taxes. That means not owning real estate (or paying rent to a land-owner who pays RE taxes), not enrolling as an employee (but working under the table or in shadow economies), and not buying anything with a consumption or sales tax (in many states that includes essentials like food and clothing), or a gas tax (walking and riding a bicycle are free).Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
There are even ways to avoid paying inheritance, estate, or death taxes. "Income" is divided between labor and capital, where work is taxed higher than dividends, earned interest, capital gains. To pay even less in the latter categories, there are tax "shelters" and schemes, for those who can afford to pay a tax attorney well versed in international law. Even that expense is tax deductible for those who itemize.
That IS the essence of the problem, though. Those with enough money can negotiate and/or opt out of tax payments.....by hiring CPAs and attorneys to exploit the tax code. Legally.
What's your obsession with toothpaste? The case is long closed and justice was done.
Since you started the thread with certain deities in mind, would you prefer we discuss bald men and bears?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
No. You seem to have it backward, actually. But then, you'd already made your conclusions prior to posting this thread. :donkey:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
Cliff notes for Lewk: 'moral doctrine' doesn't have to serve, or originate from, any deity/religion or religious text. Freedom--as you use the term--is relative.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Nope, sounds wrong in both directions. There are many cases where religious and secular morality overlap. So whether those moral views come from a belief in a deity is not important. Whether one can reason objectively that a law is beneficial for the society and important enough to create a law is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
Thou shalt not kill (murder). There is a clear benefit to society to implement this law, and the consequences are important enough to warrant impeding the freedom to kill at will. It also happens to be a religious law.
No sex before marriage. No clear benefit to society, consequences not important enough to impeded the freedom to have sex before marriage.