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comment by shiranaihito
shiranaihito  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Deep State America

#2 is a premise, an axiom. An organization threatening you with <NOPE> to get money from you matches both extortion and "taxation".





tehstone  ·  3398 days ago  ·  link  ·  

No see it's like this. The mob comes to you and says, "we're gonna make things rough on you. the only way out is to pay us off." The government on the other hand, determines that certain things (services, infrastructure, defense, etc) are vital to a functioning society and asks that its citizens pay a portion of their income, purchases, property value etc towards funding those things. Some citizens decide they'd rather not, so the government has to enact incentives (generally negative) to encourage people to pay.

shiranaihito  ·  3398 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    asks that its citizens pay

You know "ask" is not the right word, right? I bet you also understand that your argument is based on that.. shall we say, mistake?

("encourage" is wrong too)

tehstone  ·  3398 days ago  ·  link  ·  

So in your world the government would collect no taxes? Sounds great. I'm sure that will go well. You can call it whatever you want but the fact remains that in order to have a functioning society, some costs must be collectivized and borne by all of the people, for the benefit of (ideally) all the people.

shiranaihito  ·  3398 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    the fact remains that in order to have a functioning society, some costs must be collectivized and borne by all of the people, for the benefit of (ideally) all the people

Somehow you failed to mention why "costs must be collectivized", and what the "costs" even are, and to whom?

Also, politicians just keep showing us, with their actions, that they're not working towards our interests, but their own (and their cronies). Why would you still insist otherwise?