Unpopular opinion (on here):
I'm glad I live in a place without absolute poverty and I don't mind paying taxes and/or making large donations to charities, to acheive that.
Discussion
I get what you are saying but if people where I live had to pay more taxes they'd be more impoverished.
I think everyone can see that
more taxes β less poverty
and that, at some tipping point
more taxes = more poverty.
I doubt the sentiment of wanting to help your local community would be that unpopular.
I believe the problem is that state taxation is the least effective and most destructive way of helping those in need.
donation != tax
donation - voluntary, and for a specific field or cause
tax - unvoluntary, broad
Taxation cant be controlled. You cannot decide to what you give it for. You cant decide to give it to someone else. So there is no competition for the money, so there is no motivation for quality or improvement.
My 2 sats π€ Correct me if I am wrong.
Yes all that and much more.
Donations do not disincentivise productive work as taxation does. Donations can bring you closer to the cause you are helping. You feel personally connected to it and more often get to see its effects. It builds community. Charities have to compete in a free market for who provides the most value. And they know if they do not perform they can't just steal more money from people. The people accepting the charity realise that this was a gift from an individual not just from the unlimited resources of the government. Fosters gratitude rather than entitlement... and the list goes on.
Yeah, that's why the secularists reformers took over and financed everything social with taxes, to make sure that the charities couldn't pick or choose who received the charity.
I'm fine with either, and with personally funding either. Christians who read the Bible and attend services every week pay up disproportionately high, under either system.
For clarity, I am absolutely okay with the Church running everything again. Don't threaten me with a good time.
Should we bring back inquisitions too?
We never got rid of them. Thankfully.
Ah, I see. You're a religious nutjob.
I'm the only person in this discussion who is completely sane.
Lol, ok.
you liked about liking to pay taxes tho, i have heard plenty about how you don't like what the government is doing and your taxes empower that
i'm right now pondering maybe i will skip getting a license and just save for a bit and get a super long range capable high powered electric scooter for getting around, i've seen ones that claim over 100km range and if it has regenerative brakes it might actually come close to enabling me to travel all the way to Funchal on a charge
There is a lot of space between minarchy and anarchy. I'd like to starve the government and force it to be more efficient with its resources, not completely abolish it.
i think minarchism is a pipe dream and central to the myths surrounding the formation of the federation of the USA, which was as dramatically revealed by Musk's DOGE to be absolutely endemic to the entire bureaucracy
the prescription in the bible that you can read about in Samuel is precisely a polycentric law system and absolutely no kings or anything similar to kings, and modern liberal democracy and monarchy both share a lot of basic principles
i want to be answerable only to the people who are my neighbours, the inevitable and repeated story of empires over the last 2000 years has shown that as soon as you start delegating your rights to the hands of "representatives" who you never get to talk to is tyranny
People with those beliefs don't believe people who don't have the same imaginary friend are deserving of being treated like humans.
If you kill me for being a heathen you've taken away later opportunities for me to convert. Not just a murder but eternal damnation based on your human judgement of me. The hubris to think that is your job when you believe your god is all knowing and all powerful. Doesn't that mean it is gods will I'm here and you've undermined him?
Taxation under the current economic system serves as a control over inflation.
Taxes get destroyed, all state and federal spending is new money printed by the centre bank.
Local city taxes get spent in the way that people think taxes work but state and federal taxes are destroyed to reduce the amount of money that exists.
It's been like this since the 1970s when the economic system was changed from gold/silver etc. backed currency to debt backed currency.
Pfft. No. WTF are you smoking?
Poverty is unnatural.
It's a symptom of power structures.
To create poverty you have to seperate people from the land. Otherwise people can just grow their own food and medicine.
They created poverty during the industrial revolution, forcing people off the land, removing access to the commons.
In order to force people to move into urban centres to work in factories.
Outside of environmental disasters and times of war poverty really didn't exist before the industrial revolution.
Paying taxes won't solve poverty. The entire economic and political system needs to change.
Capitalism relies on the existence of poverty to function.
You can't exploit poor people if poor people don't exist.
That said I'm glad a tiny portion of the taxes I pay goes towards social programs and infrastructure and things that genuinely benefits humanity.
Poverty is the most natural thing. It's the default state for any creature. That's why we have instincts that motivate us to fight against the natural state of doing nothing and its consequences (poverty and ultimately death).
That's not to say that poverty isn't engineered among men. It certainly is.
To correct myself, that's why humans have the ability to reason. Animals rely upon instincts. I don't have an inate instinct to survive. I had to learn skills and choose to apply them to survive. Prosperity doesn't just happen. We have to manipulate our world to suit our needs. That doesn't just happen. Food doesn't just appear on my table.
Put me into the natural environment and I will build my own home and grow my own food(assuming I know how to)
Poverty is created through the seperation of man from nature.
Instincts against a natural state is an oxymoron.
We have instincts to work, to create, to connect with other human beings, to share, to fight(within reason the fear of dying is another natural instinct that regulates some of the others)
We're social creatures that work together to benefit ourselves collectively.
A handful of people are straight up parasites and add nothing, produce no value, but instead extract the value and wealth from others. That's where poverty comes from.
The industrial revolution created poverty in the same way that the agricultural revolution created slavery.
A hunter gather or forest gardener tribe could have kept slaves but the slaves would have been useless to them.
An agricultural society can have one guy watching over 50 people chained together working in a field.
A non industrial society can have times of poverty caused by a drought or natural disaster, but an industrial society can sustain a whole segment of society living in constant prolonged poverty.
Humans didn't just come into existence knowing how to build houses and grow food. It's completely natural for a human to just sit there and die if he doesn't use his mind to survive. Birds don't do that. That's why we have a term that separates us from animals. We aren't the same.
dogs are very close to us in this way, they seek outside validation for everything, and compete for the right to be the one making the rules and issuing the commands
this is the downside of being intelligent, you have to form a model in your brain for everything in order to interact with it, it's not preordained in your DNA
Yes, poverty is the Natural state of Man. That's why the Father, in His wisdom, gave men private property, so that they could provide for themselves and their families, and maybe eventually produce a surplus, and drag them and theirs out of poverty. If the surplus was large enough, they could drag entire communities out of poverty, even.
Simply giving men property doesn't end poverty, is the thing, as it's his industrious and clever application of the property, that ends his poverty. And people differ in their industriousness and cleverness.
That's why Communism is a modern heresy: it denies men the Natural Right to private property, steadily destroys property through inefficiency, and drags entire communities into poverty and even mass-starvation.
One of my favorite economic passages is from Rerum Novarum, and it wraps up my opinion on this succinctly.
"That right to property, therefore, which has been proved to belong naturally to individual persons, must in like wise belong to a man in his capacity of head of a family; nay, that right is all the stronger in proportion as the human person receives a wider extension in the family group. It is a most sacred law of nature that a father should provide food and all necessaries for those whom he has begotten; and, similarly, it is natural that he should wish that his children, who carry on, so to speak, and continue his personality, should be by him provided with all that is needful to enable them to keep themselves decently from want and misery amid the uncertainties of this mortal life. Now, in no other way can a father effect this except by the ownership of productive property, which he can transmit to his children by inheritance. A family, no less than a State, is, as We have said, a true society, governed by an authority peculiar to itself, that is to say, by the authority of the father. Provided, therefore, the limits which are prescribed by the very purposes for which it exists be not transgressed, the family has at least equal rights with the State in the choice and pursuit of the things needful to its preservation and its just liberty. We say, "at least equal rights"; for, inasmuch as the domestic household is antecedent, as well in idea as in fact, to the gathering of men into a community, the family must necessarily have rights and duties which are prior to those of the community, and founded more immediately in nature. If the citizens, if the families on entering into association and fellowship, were to experience hindrance in a commonwealth instead of help, and were to find their rights attacked instead of being upheld, society would rightly be an object of detestation rather than of desire. "
Uh, no.
Capitalism can only function if people accept that private property rights are the de-facto standard.
Gubment social programs are money laundering schemes.
Kayne said they created poverty during the industrial revolution by denying access to the commons. This is absolutely right. But they did this by demanding taxes paid in currency.
They didn't create poverty. They suckered people into working in cities by offering wages and "wonders" in the cities.
And yes, taxation played a very important role in that.
They did. Peasants were self sufficient in their communities and they were creating surplus. Only that they paid taxes by their surplus. But to send them to the cities to stay in small dirty houses to work for many hours and low wages in factories, they demanded currency for the taxes, which the peasants didn't have. Then they stole the commons by privatisation and fences appeared in the land and the peasants became poor. That is the story.
I don't mind charity. I do mind charity at the barrel of a gun. I think the decay that results from such a society far outweighs the relatively minor poverty it would experience under maximum freedom. Too many evils are fair game once you allow some people to be robbed for the sake of others.
I love that you want others to have what they need to live though. I think most people want a lot of the same things, even if we disagree on how to achieve them.
Maximum freedom would create a gift economy. Pretty much just straight up communism where we all look after our community and our community looks after us.
That isn't what communism is.
What is communism for you?
The basis of communism is a centrally-planned state economy that coopts all private property.
Private citizens willingly sharing amongst themselves, so that nobody suffers abject poverty, is just the normality of a functional, cohesive community. Such as the Early Church.
Unexpected answer. I like that definition. I doubt if i would like it in practice.
Not voluntarism. It's the exact opposite. No one owns anything to volunteer, except the chosen few that always result in communist countries.
So Kayne gave a correct definition in theory and you gave a correct definition in practice. Nice...
No.
In which part you disagree?
The definition is the state having the power to take and redistribute anything it pleases (the absence or property rights). That's the theory. The practice is a gun to your head. There is no voluntarism involved theoretically or practically.
I also don't agree with separating theory from practice. It's a weak philosophical parlor trick that attempts to evade the reality of one's ideals. "I'm right and good in theory, but..." No, you're just wrong and the results are bad.
For me it is necessary to distinguish theory and practice. To our example, what you have in the end is state capitalism. There is no private property but there are classes (nomenclature). I think it is necessary because you can't define what went wrong otherwise. Many times the theory is right but the effort not
If the theory and practice always and everywhere diverge, then it is fair to ask you to reexamine the theory.
Of course. That is another reason to distinguish them.
The original point was that the theory of communism is voluntary. It isn't. It isn't just that the practice is wrong. I wasn't just defining it in practice, and he in theory. I was defining the outcome as consistent with the theory. They aren't separate in the context of our discussion. In philosophy, this is almost always a technique of evasion. We aren't talking about a scientific theory that needs a proper experiment to be proven. We are talking about the idea that humans can somehow prosper without private property rights. There is no practice in which that theory is good or correct.
If it was so then that should exist in communist theory. Also as i said before who voluntered for capitalism? Moreover the same can be said from the communist side. They were hunting them. Were they not under a barrel of a gun? How many millions died because of capitalist profits?
Communism and capitalism are just the sides of the same shitcoin
you didn't volunteer to be part of a society, and a society has a market, you can't opt out of being part of society, however, if society is accepting tyranny you are obliged by God to resist it, and you don't even need to believe in God to understand this, because human authority is always subordinate to the laws of nature, which is what I mean when i say God if you don't like that word
communism is trying to sell you the idea that you can opt out of the market and let Big Brother tell you everything and that nothing is your property and all liability goes to the state, it's literally just a synonym for totalitarianism,, absolute rule over all of our lives
in no way whatsoever does freedom come into the equation, or privacy, under communism you are supposed to just submit to everyone with a badge issued by the state
Yeah ok, so no big difference from capitalism. The only difference is who owns the property.
ok, so if you don't believe in property what gives you the right to own a computer or a phone and express your opinion? whose body is that? you don't think it's yours?
by whose authority is the claim of ownership of your body?
what makes you think that a market economy means you don't own yourself?
do you not want to own yourself?
your head is full of bullshit mate
I had to be a communist to nake these questions to me you know... You are talking to a person that exists in fantasy while speaking with me
You don't have to volunteer for capitalism. You are totally free to do nothing and die. What you don't get to do is force me to do the same or keep you alive.
Then why communists were hunted?
Again the same can be told from the communist side.
Because they shot people who didn't want to be slaves. Why the fuck wouldn't that cause a war with people who refuse to go along? I'm not going to do it. By contrast, I will not shoot you for choosing to starve to death. Be my guest. Don't work. But I will if you try to force me to into slavery. That's the difference. I'm more than happy to let you and the communists voluntarily be communists together. But communism can't exist when people can just choose to leave. That's not communism. It's never voluntary. It will fail if it is and it will fail if it isn't. That's the whole debate here. It's a trash idea and I've said all I have to say on the matter.
They shot people who didn't want to be slaves and that is why for example communists were hunted in USA (didn't even say Chile)? What are you talking about?
Capitalist history is full of forced exploitation. And we still talk about freedom of choice?
And it's kind of hilarious that a capitalist system leaves you free to start a commune with other people who want to be slaves (communism doesn't). You just have to own the property and can't force the rest of us to be slaves when your utopia fails. So go out and do it right. Show us all how it's done perfectly.
Everything in true capitalism is voluntary. Of course there are no real capitalistic societies today.
The whole point of capitalism is voluntarism. You socialize with who you wish. You do business with who you wish. You individually negotiate and only transact if the transaction is agreeable to both parties. In capitalism, nobody can force anyone else to do or not do something they don't want other than everyone having to keep their word and fulfill their promises when an agreement is made.
Ok. So that is in theory. Like the fairy tail that markets can regulate themshelves. Like in there is no real communism applied to any country yet and like Lenin said that that the state will vanish and give its place to a classless society without poverty etc. He forgot to tell us how the priviledged class in the bureaucratic state will give its place to equality π. In theory capitalism and communism sound good, but in practice things are different.
Tale not tail π
The US used to be very close to a true capitalistic society, that is why the US became so successful. Then those in power started putting in regulations, making the system less and less capitalistic, which reduced the wealth, prosperity, and freedom in the US. Now there is almost no resemblance with capitalism.
One thing people don't like about capitalism is that although everyone has equal opportunity, some people will make more of that opportunity, so people don't have equal outcomes. Some people work harder. Some people have more game changing ideas. Some people have better skills or intelligence. At the same time, people in general do so much better than all other economic systems.
Because capitalism is the most prosperous system, it allows those who are successful to help those who are hurting, especially those who are hurting through no fault of their own, i.e. health problems, learning disabilities, disaster, etc. When a person gives out of their own personal generosity, they feel good about helping. When a person is helped by another out care, the receiver is grateful for what they received. Everyone benefits. When government forcefully takes from those who worked for it those people resent the theft and when they give it to those in need the recipients feel entitled and have no gratefulness that someone worked to support them. Everyone resents the other and there is division. All of this also doesn't count the massive waste caused by the bureaucracy that maintains the taxing and the disbursement. Therefore the government ends up taking much of what could benefit the other two parties.
Most countries start out capitalistic because they're sort of empty and there's lots or opportunity and work to do. But if they're successful, then they attract more and more people and sort of fill up and opportunity declines, and you start having to adjust.
Germany in the Wirtschaftswunder, after WWII, was also a quite economically-liberal place, but economies burn out, just like governments do.
Also, meritocracy eventually peters out, as more and more of the best stay at the top and the structure ossifies.
Usually need currency reform or a big war, to get restarted. Ukraine will be the new Wild West, I suppose. Like East Germany was and then Eastern Europe was. It's a cycle.
I think most Americans don't realize that the places they think of as socialist are just slightly ahead of them, in the same economic/governmental cycle. We all had a Settler/Pioneer Phase, too.
Prime example is Australia, Hong Kong, or Argentina.
80 years ago, this village was missing a third of the pre-war population and consisted mostly of starving children and rubble, and now every two-room shack sells for half a mil. Just had to stay here, for one or two generations, in the same house, and not drink away the milk money, and you ended up winning.
I had seen a german documentary about the what you call wirtschaftswunder. The narrative was different... It was saying that you were lucky there was the war in Korea and you had tools left because of world war two to provide weapons, also some other things. Maybe i can find that documentary. Are you interested? (maybe i cannot find it though...)
Also i think east Germans seem not so happy eventually. In fact they complain for exploitation i heard.
Ludwig Erhard was Kanzler. That was the main thing, as he was a classical liberal and removed price controls. Argentina is trying some of his tricks, at the moment, and they're working, exactly as predicted.
I am confused about Argentina. I am reading contradicting reports. So far i think that overall the tricks are working to a point, something i was expecting myself also, but what comes next might not be as these tricks intend. We'll see... Also i don't have so good sources for this so far π€·.
I'm interested, but I have no idea when I would find the time to watch it.
I found it!!! Didn't expect to find it tbh.
Thanks!
And some people having wealthier parentsβ¦
Yeah, the key to winning at capitalism is being born into and/or marrying into the right family, fr.
The USA had made a remarkable beginning with Linkoln, that still echoes till today even though not loud anymore, but only after the Russians saved them with their ships in 1863 π.
I don't know if people in capitalism have equal opportunity even in theory, but even so, when we see big the differences to outcomes, that is not because people individually (i emphasize individually) work harder or having gaming change ideas or better skills and intelligence. These big differences come from theft, corruption etc or luck. Unless we believe that for example Elon Musk works so hard etc. No one complained because someone who worked harder has something more (i think). About the rest, similar things can be heared by a communist "social institution will provide healthcare, no one will be homeless" etc.
When we put all that to the test, other factors pollute the soup π.
Btw i think that because you are a nice person (i believe this), you try to project this to your ideas and capitalism. It is you that are good, not capitalism (or communism).
You can't have capitalism without private property rights.
There is no effort that would make the theory of communism not what it always becomes. You can't be a human without property rights. The entire theory of communism reduces us to disposable animals. No amount of mental gymnastics or dishonest philosophical tricks will change that.
Communism is state ownership of people. That's ultimately all it is. That's the theory. You can dress it up in a million different ways and say the effort just wasn't there to match the theory, but the truth is that the theory is so rotten that it's always going to end the same way.
This.
The main charachteristic of capitalism is that the society is divided in economic classes. Also who voluntered for capitalism? I mean there is no black and white in such matters i think. Both capitalism and communism are awful (in practice).
And you are talking about marx's communism, there are others too. You cannot dismiss everything because that failed. Btw i agree that there is a bug (rather more) in Marx's theory.
The main characteristic of capitalism is property rights and the right to live free of coercion. You aren't tied to an economic class structure like pre-capitalist systems.
The main charachteristic of communism is a classless society (in theory of course).
If all have the same property rights, we have communism. So, the main characteristic of capitalism is economic classes.
Jesus said that the poor will always be with us. If nothing else, people will always be making themselves or other people relatively poorer, through wickedness, indifference, or other counterproductive behavior, regardless of overall abundance. Poverty is often the result of some spiritual poverty, on the part of the poor or the rich, or often both.
But still, as the late Pope Francis quoted, in his message to commemorate the fifth Day of the Poor,
βIn this context, we do well to recall the words of Saint John Chrysostom: βThose who are generous should not ask for an account of the poorβs conduct, but only improve their condition of poverty and satisfy their need. The poor have only one plea: their poverty and the condition of need in which they find themselves. Do not ask anything else of them; but even if they are the most wicked persons in the world, if they lack the necessary nourishment, let us free them from hunger. ... The merciful are like a harbour for those in need: the harbour welcomes and frees from danger all those who are shipwrecked; whether they are evildoers, good persons, or whatever they may be, the harbour shelters them within its inlet. You, too, therefore, when you see on land a man or a woman who has suffered the shipwreck of poverty, do not judge, do not ask for an account of their conduct, but deliver them from their misfortuneβ (Discourses on the Poor Man Lazarus, II, 5).β
The problem is when you see your country on the path of the absolute poverty because of taxes and the lack of freedom.
It kills me when a politician uses the word "investment" instead of money waste. #Canada
Yes, poor stewardship of public funds is particularly egregious, since we're forced to pay. And there's definitely a point where social efforts become so generous that they crush the contributing population and ultimately destroy their own financial basis.
You still live in a mostly culturally homogenous area where things like that can work for a while. Getting government involved in trying to fix the poverty that they create is never going to work, especially when "multiculturalism" is being ushered in.
Charity is for everyone, regardless of where they have come from. Charity being too generous is a separate topic.
I don't think government can fix poverty. I don't think poverty can be fixed; only alleviated.
I was going to fix poverty, I tried several experiments, but everybody I helped out just stayed where they were and didn't do anything for themselves.
I'm massively condensing a concerted 5 year project to a TL;DR, but essentially I've come to the conclusion to help motivated people that are struggling to make the next rung in the ladder.
Why did you think you could fix poverty?
many people are brainwashed to think this is possible or desirable
just like many people are brainwashed to think that the government is here to protect us and that they won't spend our tax money on murdering us, both of which are false
Really?
I've never met anybody else that thought they could do this.
Is the brainwashing you refer to hypothetical within societies reach, or do you know of any individual or group that claim they are able to do this?
That's an even bigger Tl;DR, but essentially, the same reason Steve Jobs thought he could build a better computer or Elon Musk thinks he can colonise mars.
I have a global view created by my father and built a multi decade plan on how to achieve this. I expected it to be completed after my lifetime, but I knew it was possible.
The factor I hadn't anticipated was ironically this post below.
I may write a long form article on it someday, but I'm now revising my plan for a version 2, which is as yet unclear.
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no need, Ludwig von Mises already wrote 900 pages about how markets work to make people less poor
poverty is always the product of violence
abolishing government is the main thing you need to do, along with teaching people that markets can provide security against crime and violence
Interesting, the it can't be done because somebody wrote an article explaining why.
This works perfectly until somebody doesn't bother to read the article and just does it anyway π
Seriously, you know this, right?
you want me to read an article after i already read a book written in 1953 that explains how government violence causes poverty?
i think the onus is on you to read Human Action not me to read some hipster dumbass lefty shit
The onus on me is to not read any previous enlightened thought, because nobody knows anything until you actually succeed and do the thing that everybody tells you can't be done.
You do understand that, don't you?
Also, why are you assuming I have a political hegemony or am a person of bad character?
That normally means your loosing an argument and is the last refuge.
But surely you want to loose the argument. If you do, world poverty is solved and while I hear plenty of arguments about how difficult this is or why it can't be done, you alone would be unique in thinking this is a bad thing.
That's so true Mike, many times getting some mini trauma is enough to wake you from your stupor and change and adjust path, but have seen many now still ride it til the bitter end rather than change. I guess there is comfort in things staying the same and the pain of changing your beliefs and admitting you were wrong is not always forcing change depending where your ego is.
I think this is true for many, but also many others relish change. I presume most Bitcoiners fall into the seeking change category and the HFSP's will be dragged along at some point because the pain of not doing so is worse.
I've had a smart phone since 2003, my wife knew I was a nerd, so just assumed it was me being nerdy. She resisted getting a smart phone until I bought her one around 2010.
I now have trouble convincing her to look up and appreciate the real world.
I still remember when the mainstream didn't use internet on their phones, it was just us trailblazers and before that I remember showing my Dad YouTube when it first came out... He asked how do you use it? LOL π type in a song you like and hit enter...
Poverty will be fixed. Eventually. But not likely by humans as we currently stand. Though, that's not to say that we Christians aren't supposed to start here and now.
lies detected:
you would prefer to not pay taxes if the government was misusing your money
when exactly are they not misusing your money?
Charities also misuse my money. Any organised effort will suffer more or less inefficiency and corruption, but they are generally still more effective than everyone working alone. Attrition is sometimes the price paid for getting things done, at all. I'm too experienced in charitable efforts to think otherwise.
The misuse of public funds has reached an unsustainable and frustrating high, and has made paying taxes onerous and diaheartening, but I have never heard a convincing argument against all taxation, per se. Places with some minimum of taxation tend to be less-miserable than places without it, and that is the Real World Test.
No, "all taxation is theft" is not a convincing argument. I am not the intended audience for such rhetoric, any more than I will respond well to "all marital sex is rape" or "religion is the opium of the masses", or other cereal box pseudo-intellectualism attempting to make unequal things equivalent.
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Some more charity advice.
I see thanks I just started it it will need more donations to make it work out
are you going to claim that an obligatory payment that if you don't pay it they claim the right to put you in a cage is a market transaction, as a charity is?
it's extortion, it's not about the rhetoric, the law term for demanding payment without obligation is "extortion" E X T O R T I O N
it's also technically a breach of Trust in equity law, and prior to the modern liberal SECULAR democratic government system there was decentralized courts and even your padre could be your intermediary in a conflict of claims, the entire system of government now is fraudulent and the simple fact that we now pay effectiveyl upwards of 50% of our income to that corrupt organisation says that it's a scam and that "i pay my taxes" shows you really are swallowing this idea that modern liberal democracies achieve any kind of efficiency at promoting the welfare of people
it doesn't, and it's designed not to, it's designed to enrich the ruling class who hide behind your "representatives" while the representatives tae "donations" to redirect YOUR money to THEIR interests
it doesn't matter whether we are talking about eastern europe or western asia or africa or france or the UK
all governments are mafias, and i don't owe them shit and i will find every way i can to not contribute to their ongoing domination and cruelty to the people, even if the people don't appreciate that, it matters to me
I think governments can obligate you to pay dues, like any organisation you can join, and this is not necessarily and always an injustice, so long as you are free to ask or agitate for redress, or to simply leave, and thereby refuse their governing.
Governments, like all organisations, also face market pressures to reform and maintain attractiveness. They are not outside of, or above, the market. They are simply usually the largest and most-powerful participant within a particular region. The more important thing for me is that governments should be many, small in scope and size, adhere to the principle of subsidiarity, and be focused on protecting the natural rights of the citizenry who finance and support their upkeep.
You donβt join a government
according to their perspective, we are their employees, if you see what the technical name for government laws it is "statutes" and these are the rules governing the employees of a corporation
and all governments are registered corporations, the Queensland government, for example, is registered as the Brigalow Corporation.
their enforcement officers, the police, assume that you are what essentially amounts to being an employee of the state except they don't pay you, i mean, how much more obvious can it be that they consider us their slaves, and that they are a plutocracy?
You join, automatically, under certain conditions.
Otherwise, there could never be a citizenry, as there would be nothing making them distinct from everyone else on the planet.
Citizenry given automatically must then be purposefully renounced, in order to unjoin.
uh, no
i joined the human race, not the Brigalow Corporation
you want to employ me, pay me, or all that i do and not do according to your requests is MY prerogative and i'm not going to accept anything else because i'm not licking boots, i came here, to do my best as a human being, and chew bubblegum
and i'm all outta bubblegum
i never signed up to be a servant of the government. i am sovereign and i will never concede any authority over me beyond that which can be proven in a court to be my liability, and the reality is that i'm already doing my best to do right by my peers, so, in the absence of proof of culpability i refuse to accept this slave role to people who consider themselves to be above me
they are not, they are servants of an organisation that claims it is there to protect me
so if they don't protect me, the whole deal is off, tyvm don't come around to my door i'm not interested in your religion of god-men
People rant at me about it, on here, all the time, and it just makes me more convinced that they are wrong.
Wer schreit, hat Unrecht.
I like the idea of that my electricity works, the infrastructure gets fixed and I am not really subject to armed individuals police or otherwise
Interesting. I'm in a place that is seeing significant decline. Taxation and public programs have achieved little.
"Large donations to charities" I can understand.