Well said.
To be honest, I haven't been an adult for long yet. I'm 21 and, thanks to steemit, I now have to pay taxes for the first time. And I already know why people say it's "theft", why should I give my hard-earned money to the state?
And then I remember that my whole bachelor degree cost me about 1600€ in fees, total. I remember that I can see my doctor whenever, that the streets here are fixed and clean, the police comes when called and actually does their job and I'll be receiving money from the state when I finish my degree and can't immediately find a job.
So I grit my teeth, declare every cent I earned and pay up.
Maybe that's one problem in many other countries: the taxes aren't used in an appropriate way. Especially in the USA! The stories about how you're basically in debt for life after school, how cities like Detroit just fall apart and so on, they paint a picture of taxes not well spent.
And I'm not sure if I'd be willing to to pay any there myself.
Under such circumstances, it'd probably really be better to get rid of taxation and rely on people helping each other voluntarily. Because it's already happening anyway. People start fundraisers to pay their student loans, they give food to food banks,...
The world isn't ideal, it never will be. And everything is just so damn hard, because there is always someone who messes everything up. Be it an individual or the state.
I'm one of the more reasonable libertarians (if you can even call me one). I believe that calling taxation theft is unproductive. I think one of the big pitfalls of mainstream libertarianism is the failure to understand the definition of government.
Government can be defined in layman's terms as the practice of pointing guns at people, taking their money, and using it to do things. We want to build a society where that doesn't happen, not one where corporations and criminals, absent the "legitimate" government to control them, end up holding those guns instead.
This is our last chance to get it right... we are building the next oligarchs, the last ones... here today. Who we choose to support and the technologies we embrace are critical.