Let’s get one thing out of the way: it’s not normal to stuff $100,000 in cash into a suitcase and then check said suitcase on to a domestic flight. It’s extremely weird, in fact, not something you’d expect a typical person to do in their lifetime. However, doing so is emphatically
Cops are just gangsters most people trust sadly. They are a protection racket that steals from you (taxes) and is actually not required to protect you at all.
TaXaTiOn iS tHeFt
tax bad
cops bad
corrupt military dictatorships good
What do you call taking someone’s money without their consent, using force/threat of violence?
Taxes pays my education and healthcare, it funds the military that makes russia think twice before invading my country, it builds and maintains all the roads and bridges I use every day to move around, it pays food and housing for the people that can’t afford that themselves.
I’m gladly paying taxes as long as it’s not all going to the pockets of corrupt politicans.
https://kbin.social/m/privacy@lemmy.ml/t/283970/Cops-still-take-more-stuff-from-people-than-burglars-do#entry-comment-1326204
Listen, I hate cops too, but if you’re taking part in and benefitting from modern society, you’re gonna have to chip in for that convenience. If you don’t like it, live off the grid.
Sure, but that wasn’t my point. My point is that you have no say, and therefore it isn’t voluntary, making it theft technically.
If you’re using definitions of a word that can not effectively differentiate between two very distinct things, you’re using the wrong definition or the wrong word.
Taxation is not theft. Piracy is not theft. Using definitions of theft that include them triggers George Orwell alarms in anyone who knows better.
How are they very distinct? If I am forced to pay someone money against my will, with threat of violence if I don’t, how is that not theft? Just because a state does it, does that make it different somehow?
If I didn’t vote for it, it is by definition against my will.
You are committing what is called an oversimplification fallacy. I’m assuming you’re an anarchist? If not, how is it very different, as you are opposing government’s right to run themselves just like an anarchist (do you see what an example of an oversimplification fallacy is?). If so, please understand that arguing definitions is not how you will convince the 99% of the world who think anarchism is nothing but puerile stupidity that it isn’t.
That said, you seem to have ignored half my point, that piracy isn’t theft. Or are you saying you think it is, as well? Was it theft before it was illegal?
Better than trying to pretend taxation is theft, you should probably just affirmatively attack taxation with real reasons.
You are committing what is called a fallacy fallacy, and do not address how they are different — you simply say that it is an oversimplification and call it a day. But arguing about definitions aside, taxation is not voluntary, at least not by default. And my opinion is that transactions should be voluntary.
I take it you refer to online piracy? It is in some ways a grey area. On one hand you are not taking anything away, you are just copying. But on the other hand, to cite yourself, that is of course an oversimplification. As you are stealing potential income. But it is virtually impossible to measure that “theft” in currency, since you don’t know if you would buy the good if you didn’t pirate it. A tax slip, on the other hand, is defined in dollars and cents.
With this thinking, getting paid for your work is theft for your employer.
It is called exchange of goods and services. Damn you guys really put the “ML” in lemmy.ml
no because those in power are always right: we must not question authority
It’s not a very good point. You do have a say: vote.
Though it can be reasonably argued that voting doesn’t work because of all the corruption, in which case all I can say is we need to stop the two party tyranny by ending FPTP voting and promote/enact ideas that reduce the influence that money can have on politics.
I would argue that voting doesn’t make it voluntary. Even if I don’t vote for a particular taxation, it might go through anyway if the majority wants it. Majority rule goes against the will of the minority.
The biggest and most successful gang.
If they were required to protect you, it would be better (not perfect, but better).
Alass, they have no duty to protect the people; Police Have No Duty to Protect the Public