Nonlibertarians can be perplexed by some libertarian beliefs. A great example is: “Taxation is theft!” Let me, as someone who came from the left and had to work through it myself, share with you the logic.

But, apologies beforehand: our perspective, while rational and consistent, can be a bit jarring. So, take a deep breath, and hold onto your britches!

Have you ever noticed that:

– The difference between rape and sex is … consent.

– The difference between employment and slavery is … consent.

– The difference between theft and trade is … consent.

Taxation is without consent. It is without voluntary agreement. It is based on threats of violence.

You are charged for “services”

– which you never ordered,

– most of which you do not want,

– many of which are so abhorrent to you that you would actually pay to discontinue.

… if you had a choice,

… which you most decidedly do not.

All of these “services” are over-priced, inefficient, wasteful, destructive, counterproductive, and poorly implemented — yet they are forced on you with an FU attitude as though the service provider is doing you a great favor, bestowing upon you — out of the goodness of his heart, — his fantastic, “free” service.

The real beneficiaries are the buddies of the people who take your money:

big juicy contracts to do little work;

giant benefits packages and pensions worth more than you will ever make;

violently enforced monopolies to keep out competitors;

and, the power to force you to pay for their product or service.

And to earn this benefit, the cronies need only kick back a small portion of the money, which was stolen from you in the first place, back to their buddy, your ruler.

No matter how much you dislike these “services,” you can’t cancel them. You are permitted no alternative. They care not whether you use them or not.

You are told that you “authorized” the service by “voting” in an election, an election whose candidates were chosen by those very same cronies well before you got to vote, an election in which you never had a smidgen of a chance to affect the outcome, an election that gave you no opportunity to impact any of these “services” that are so “valuable” that they have to force you to pay for them. In government Catch-22 style, if you ask whether you could avoid their “services” if you do not vote, you are told, “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.”

And you must pay your bill, for otherwise your home, bank accounts, and assets will be seized.

If you resist, you will be visited by armed men who will kidnap you and cage you.

(BTW, the cage is one of the services that you paid for, and well designed to terrify you in that you will likely be beaten and raped there.)

If you resist the cage, the men with guns (each of whom you are charged for) will beat you, or maim you, or even kill you, depending on how determined is your resistance.

Most of the charges, though, are hidden from you, so you never even realize how much these “free services” really are costing you:

Taxes on “businesses” and “the rich”: These hidden charges are simply passed on to you — via lower wages, fewer jobs, fewer promotions, higher prices, lower innovation, lower quality products, fewer start-ups, fewer product choices, bigger corporations, and more cronyism.

These hidden charges are simply passed on to you — via lower wages, fewer jobs, fewer promotions, higher prices, lower innovation, lower quality products, fewer start-ups, fewer product choices, bigger corporations, and more cronyism. Inflation: These hidden charges are invisibly sucked out of your money, as it sits in your bank account.

These hidden charges are invisibly sucked out of your money, as it sits in your bank account. Debt: These hidden charges are borne not just by you, but by your children and your children’s children. Humans who are not even born today, who certainly can not give their consent to anything, who are not even participating in the unwanted “services.” Your rulers sell your unborn into future tax slavery through intergenerational debt. And your off-spring will face violence from their rulers should they refuse to pay for all these unwanted, expensive, bloated “services” that they never even saw.

From our libertarian perspective of judging rulers as we would judge any other human, their “taxation” of us isn’t just theft: it’s extortion; it’s bullying; it’s strong-arming; it’s cruel; it’s child abuse.

And no number of fancy parchments, shiny badges, expensive pageantry, 5th grade civics platitudes parrotted by government teachers, somber rituals, pledges of allegiance, or flyovers by F15s can change its inherent immorality.

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