Tax Payers' Money is NOT 'Treasure'

[JCMach1]

The fast and loose use of the language distorts the real meaning of what is being discussed... i.e. billions more in money that belongs to you, I, our children, and grandchildren.

Ugghhh heard this one too many times from Repugs and Dems... Sorry, hearing it one more time on MTP today made me want to scream!

[kentuck]

1. No, it's Dubya's piggy bank..

at least, that's the impression he gives.

[JCMach1]

2. That's the point isn't it... it's some abstract concept

that applies to pirates and monarchs... it's something that's found, not earned... it obscures the origin of said moneys...

[Clevenger]

4. Government doesn't produce, it only spends, and takes what it wants...

...by threat of force. In my book, that's criminal.

[Deja Q]

5. Dunno about threat of force, but otherwise

I agree - it spends and takes what it wants.

Not always a bad thing, but not always a good thing either.

[Clevenger]

6. Try not paying your taxes. Feds with guns will eventually show up at your door. n/t

[Deja Q]

8. I'll try not to.

I will pay my taxes. I work with people, even if I don't always like it.

Tell that to the big businesses who often pay nothing and/or get 'refunds' for money they never paid. :D

I think all citizens should become corporations, and we can reap the same benefits too. :7

[Donald Ian Rankin]

9. I think you need to think about a) what the word criminal means, and b) what would happen otherwise.

The only sense in which a government's actions can be criminal is if they violate international law or some other form of higher law. Taxation in general clearly doesn't. If you want to, you can argue that it *ought* to be criminal, or that it's immoral, but I think you'd be daft to do so.

As to "government doesn't produce", while that is technically true (most forms of labour in a services-orientated economy don't), the government *does* employ people to produce. Government taxes and spends by consent of the majority, because there are many things that can be achieved far more efficiently by collective endeavour than by individual spending - having everyone make private arrangements for the upkeep of those sections of roads they use simply wouldn't work.

I've never accused anyone of trolling on this forum before, but your very short post espousing a view - that all taxation is criminal - very common in the far right and very rare everywhere else, especially among DUers - makes me suspect that you are probably doing so, I'm afraid.

[Deja Q]

10. Seconded.

However, a service is merely a different form of manufacturing.

[Clevenger]

12. As you say, taxation is not "criminal" in the sense that it doesn't violate the law...

...as written by those who collect taxes. But I do find it to be "criminal" in the sense that it violates a higher law: that it is morally wrong to take from others by force. If it is wrong for me to take from you by force, why should it be right for men who work for the government to do so?
One needn't be a right-winger to be sensitive to that point.

You're correct in that things like roads, sidewalks, police, fire, military, etc. can only be funded in a practical way through taxation; this is a fact of life. However, I don't think it does us any harm to be aware of the process behind taxation, which can be quite brutal -- especially on those in the middle class who find themselves in a tax-related bind, and can't afford accountants and lawyers.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

13. While one needn't be a rightwinger to make that mistake, it is in itself rightwing.

It is not invariably wrong for you to take from me by force - if, for example, I have stolen something from you, you have a moral case for doing so.

The things society, via the medium of the government, taxes - money, property rights, etc - only have value because the government gives it to them. Money only has any value because the government creates and endorses it, and prevents people forging it; a property right is only worthwhile if society respects it.

If you go and live on a desert island somewhere, or in the wilderness without contact with humans, without reference to government, then you won't have to pay taxes.

There's an old saw that "property is theft". That isn't true, and "taxation is theft" is untrue for exactly the same reason.

Your last sentence has nothing whatsoever to do with anything else you've said. You switch suddenly, and without apparent awareness that it's a non-sequitur, from claiming that all taxation is wrong in principle (which I think is silly) to arguing that in some specific cases the process of tax-gathering is flawed (which is probably true, although almost certainly not to the extent that you believe, but isn't in any way supporting evidence for your prior claims).



While it's not the case that everyone who shares your (in my view deeply mistaken) beliefs on this issue is a rightwinger, it *is* true that a) it is in itself a (very) rightwing belief, and b) that nearly everyone who shares them also holds rightwing positions on other issues.

[Clevenger]

14. I guess I'm in that gray area between Left and Right on some issues...

If I thought my taxes weren't being squandered (in Iraq, on corporate welfare/crony deals, schools that don't teach, etc.) I might not feel so badly about it.

[Deja Q]

3. If you were suicidal, what would you do?

Give away one's possessions?

Spend like there's no tomorrow?

Act recklessly?

To make a long story short, our children (and forget grandchildren) will have precious little to be. :shrug:

But that's just the defeatist in me. Totally disparate from reality.

[fishnfla]

7. I like the term

it is used for expediency, but I like it because it implies something more than just money, unestimable things like trust and reputation
and alot more valauble things, like life itself

[TahitiNut]

11. Knowing the price of everything and the cost of nothing proves we've lost our 'treasure.'

:shrug: