Re: Final Challenge to Socialists

Michael Lorrey (mike@lorrey.com)
Fri, 11 Dec 1998 10:02:29 -0500

Eric Ruud wrote:

> >
> >Tax = theft.
> >
> > Avoiding taxes has the same moral value as avoiding theft.
> >
> >EvMick
> >
>
> That is assuming that you gain nothing from the particular government under
> which you live. Unless you're prepared to remove yourself from the system (a
> la Thoreau) you can't make this claim.

  1. if you can't remove yourself from this system to a different system that offers the type of government you want then it is coercion.
  2. if you have no choice as to your particular grab bag of services you want, then you are being coerced.
  3. even if you gain something from the no choice transaction, it is still theft, since you had no choice to buy it or not. If someone else who wasn't an IRS employee did that to you here, they would face RICO charges and spend a long time in jail. Why is the government exempt from its own laws? The concept of Equal Justice Under the Law is false when a government isn't subject to its own laws, and is nothing but tyranny.
  4. try do the same transaction in reverse. Give the government somthing and try to force them to pay for it. If you can't do it then it is theft. A fair economic transaction is one where either party is comfortable to be on either side of the transaction. Anything less is theft.

Mike Lorrey