Today is tax day observed. That’s right — the U.S. government granted its subjects an extra two days to pay their taxes because the holy holiday April 15, fell on a Sunday.
Regardless of the day, people hate paying taxes. But if anyone suggests we shouldn’t have to pay them, they immediately shout:
“TAXATION IS THE PRICE YOU PAY TO LIVE IN A CIVILIZED SOCIETY!”
But this common justification for taxation is unavoidably confusing. By “civilized” are they referring to…
- The perpetual warfare and interventionist state that kills children, arms and empowers terrorists, and throws away trillions of dollars on these failures while leaving veterans mired in homelessness and suicide?
Or the epidemic of police violence by cops (funded by tax dollars) who often use military gear from the Pentagon, which purchased that gear with tax dollars?
Maybe they’re talking about the suppression of protests that fall out of line with two-party ruling class narratives…
- Or the government’s efforts to orchestrate fake terror attacks in order to manipulate the tax paying public into supporting controversial policies …
From "Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba," a 1962 CIA document.
Perhaps they mean decades of overthrowing democratically elected leaders in the name of democracy...
Could be mass incarceration and throwing people in cages for nonviolently ingesting plants, even if it’s for medical use...
Or funding sexual harassment payouts on Capitol Hill because the politicians who “represent us” can’t keep it in their pants...
Or our trustworthy justice system that routinely leaves innocent people no choice but to plead guilty...
No, the peak of civilization has got to be our centrally planned banking system devised by powerful bankers over a hundred years ago that has only served to empower them more...
And the corporate welfare we fund despite their corruption, violence, and destruction to environmental and human health...
Or invasions of privacy and codified sexual harassment for ‘muh safety’ even though the perpetrators of these violations never seem to be able to catch terrorists…
- It could, of course, be the ordinances in cities across the country banning good samaritans people from feeding the homeless…
- Maybe by civilized, the proud taxpayers are referring to the level of national discourse, which has been reduced to screaming at each other in the streets, calling each other cruel names, and harboring total contempt for each other’s humanity.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
Even if the government weren’t perpetually carrying out these cruel, violent, immoral policies and were actually perfectly enacting any given taxpayer’s utopian vision of society (this would undoubtedly mean disappointing another tax cow’s fantasies while making them pay for someone else’s), taxation at its core is violent and, consequently, immoral.
None of us are given a choice about what we fund or whether we want to participate in the system at all — and if we don’t pay up our hard earned money, we will be thrown in a cage. If we refuse to be thrown in that cage, we will have violence used against us until we submit or die.
Though society thoroughly accepts that it is wrong for an individual to kill or steal — that we do not have the right to do these things — a moral exception applies to government; their immoral activity is categorically excusable, if not admirable. Yet to reference the inimitable @LarkenRose, it is impossible to delegate a right we do not have to someone else.
This. System. Is. Not. “Civilized.” — no matter how compassionate or reasonable a taxpayer thinks their favored policies may be. Consent actually matters, it doesn’t just apply to sex, and it isn’t granted by simply being born in a country.
Yet none of us alive today consented to the constitution, written hundreds of years ago — hell, few people back then even consented, least not women and black people.
In fact, politics and government are the least civilized elements of our society, as we’re seeing proven around the country as the level of national discourse deteriorates and political parties and their willing adherents grapple for control in an ever-increasing frenzy.
Why submit to that when we can support activities and organizations that act voluntarily? The Cajun Navy rescues victims of natural disasters and does a far better job than FEMA. Planned Parenthood has thrived off of voluntary donations (imagine how much more supporters could contribute to organizations they like if they weren’t paying tithes to the state to fund indiscriminate war and their own oppression!). People are planting community gardens to escape state-sponsored big agriculture, they’re discovering alternative medical treatments to escape state-subsidized big pharma, and they’re purchasing in alternate healthcare plans. They’re adopting privacy-conscious forms of communication to escape the mass surveillance apparatus, and they’re using cryptocurrency to escape the state-sponsored banking cartel.
And no one is forcing anyone to do these things.
“But who will build the roads without the violent extraction of nonviolent people’s money?” some may ask, as I once did.
If a service is that vital, most people will be willing to pay for it without having their money stolen to provide it (aside from that, U.S. roads are in such disrepair that anarchists around the country are starting to fix them).
Regardless, if roads and other forcibly enacted programs are the justification for accepting injustice, violence, oppression, and being a tax slave, perhaps it’s time for taxpayers to rethink their priorities.
Happy Extortion Day!
P.S. The answer is people. People will build the roads.
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I love how you've addressed bunches of logical fallacies here. I know this article will be a huge resource for me as I pronounce taxation as theft to our slumbering brothers & sisters. Thanks, Carry. You always bring much value to me as a TRUTH warrior by filling my quiver with fiery darts with which to burn down the lies our fellow man has been filled with.
Happy Government Theft Day everyone!
upvoted resteemed and commented
Keep fighting Carey.
Germans have to wait 15 weeks more for this day.
Taxation is the price paid by the middle class to appease the really really rich so they keep fattening up
When I lived in Detroit, there was no city snowplow service. So each block had to round up the funds to pay a private plowing company. Most people on my block paid up willingly, but there were of course one or two that didn't, and flatly refused to contribute. Their street still got plowed, because everybody else paid for it. I'm not taking the piss, here, I'm genuinely interested in your solution to that problem.
Social pressure. Sounds like the roads still got plowed
Believe me, the entire block put social pressure on these people. They were not poor or anything, they just refused to participate. So the rest of us had to pick up their slack. If your answer is to shrug your shoulders, then you're missing the point of my question.
Hopefully human nature doesn't screw this up for us again. Remember America used to be free, and then we stopped getting along as much.
Curated for #informationwar (by @wakeupnd)
Relevance: Sharing the truth.
The saddest thing about that argument is that, our taxes do not go to pay for our govern-cement. All the money sent to the Infernal Revolting Syndicate is literally thrown into a furnace.
The money is created out of thin air, and back to thin air it goes.
Our current govern-cement is funded by borrowing more money into existence.
I've heard someone say, "taxes aren't the price we pay to live in a civilized country, it's the price we pay because we can't live in a civilized society"