Post by Gipper on Dec 6, 2013 13:25:25 GMT
What is so inherently evil about taxation?
The basic evil of taxation is that it degrades the individual by flouting his natural rights. In essence, taxation establishes a legal right in the part of the gov't to your property and the product of your labor, and the gov't's "right" trumps your own. The gov't's claim of right, however, extends to all of your property, not just what it actually takes. Otherwise the gov't would not be able to raise taxes whenever it chooses.
In this light, consider the text of the 16th amendment passed in 1913: "the congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without appointment among the several states, and without regard to any census enumeration."
Clearly- and unlike the original constitution- there are no constitutional restrictions on what congress may take. Thus whatever portion of your own property the gov't declines to take is simply whatever it, in all of its professed infinite wisdom and charity, decides you may keep. With this, our income is no longer a right, and our retained income is but a privilege granted by gov't. This arrangement illustrates one of the fundamental legal precepts of socialism: the gov't decides what it will take from you and what you may keep.
The system of taxation is also the strictest form of legal positivism: if the gov't can say when our natural rights protect us from aggression and when they do not, there can be no such thing as natural rights. This tenuous subjective nature of our rights is reflected in the distinction between taxation and theft. Theft does not mean a taking of your property, but whatever the gov't determines to be an unlawful taking of your property. Thus, the contemporary understanding of theft is based not on the natural law or any ethical principle but on what lawmakers say.
The basic evil of taxation is that it degrades the individual by flouting his natural rights. In essence, taxation establishes a legal right in the part of the gov't to your property and the product of your labor, and the gov't's "right" trumps your own. The gov't's claim of right, however, extends to all of your property, not just what it actually takes. Otherwise the gov't would not be able to raise taxes whenever it chooses.
In this light, consider the text of the 16th amendment passed in 1913: "the congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without appointment among the several states, and without regard to any census enumeration."
Clearly- and unlike the original constitution- there are no constitutional restrictions on what congress may take. Thus whatever portion of your own property the gov't declines to take is simply whatever it, in all of its professed infinite wisdom and charity, decides you may keep. With this, our income is no longer a right, and our retained income is but a privilege granted by gov't. This arrangement illustrates one of the fundamental legal precepts of socialism: the gov't decides what it will take from you and what you may keep.
The system of taxation is also the strictest form of legal positivism: if the gov't can say when our natural rights protect us from aggression and when they do not, there can be no such thing as natural rights. This tenuous subjective nature of our rights is reflected in the distinction between taxation and theft. Theft does not mean a taking of your property, but whatever the gov't determines to be an unlawful taking of your property. Thus, the contemporary understanding of theft is based not on the natural law or any ethical principle but on what lawmakers say.