Taxation is theft

My opening paragraph was a response to your assertion that we agree on the importance of taxes. I do not agree, I acknowledge that they MAY be unavoidable. I then clearly stated that this is off topic as we are discussing the morality of taxes, not the logistics of avoiding them. An interesting topic for another debate. I will not be providing alternatives to taxes in this debate as that is off the topic. If you would like to have a separate discussion on alternatives to taxation I would be more than happy to at some other time. We seem to agree that the government must ultimately have violence at their disposal if they are to enforce the laws they write. However this in no way contradicts my argument. The fact that violence is necessary does not make the use of that force moral. Morality is not derived from necessity. If I am fixing my roof and need more lumber, which I can't afford to purchase, my need does not make stealing the lumbar moral. Similarly, the government's need for violent tactics to enforce taxation does not make that violence (or threat of violence) moral. I am sure you would not argue that any action that is "necessary" is by default moral. "You are probably going to argue that such action is immoral, which in some cases is, but a person who has gotten to that point has violated a law which they are required to follow in the country in which they live. They simply are not complying with law. Instead of complaining about what the government does when you violate their laws, why don"t you follow the laws? No harm no foul." Well, I see you agree that the government's use of violence is sometimes immoral. A person may be required by law to pay taxes, but that is a legal requirement, not a moral requirement. We have already been over the incredibly important difference between something legal and something moral. One describes the rules set out by a governing body, the other describes what is right and wrong. You said yourself that sometimes the government's use of force and violence is immoral. Does it not follow that what is lawful is not necessarily moral? Yes, as a citizen of a country you are legally obligated to follow the laws and pay taxes. But again, that is not a moral obligation, it is a legal one. The fact that it has been that way for thousands of years equally has no bearing on its morality. To say so would be an appeal to tradition (argumentum ad antiquitatem) a logical fallacy. Would you say that killing is moral? We, humans, have been killing even longer than we have been taxing each other, a great deal of that killing has been well within the bounds of the law, is it moral to kill so long as the killing is sanctioned by a government? Whether taxes are a problem or not, is not the topic of discussion. What is being discussed is the morality of taxes, regardless of whether they are necessary or not. Why does this land belong to Canada? Did it not belong to a great many native Americans long before Canada ever existed? Is it not only through the monopolization of force that Canada retains control over this geography? Certainly is was the use of force that obtained the land now called Canada from the native Americans who were here long before. There is no moral claim that any human can make on any piece of land. It was here long before us and will be here long after. The land does not below to anyone, nation or individual. "No one is arguing that government is exempt from morality" Now you say the government is not exempt from morality. Earlier you said that me forcing you to pay me $1000.00 would be immoral but stated my example was a false equivalent; because I am not a government. We agreed that it is immoral for me to take money from you by force, even if I use that money, in part, to improve your life. Now you say that a government is not exempt from the moral standards of you or I. Which is it? Why is it immoral for an individual to take money by force (regardless of use) and yet moral for a government to do that same thing. Rent is an interesting issue, and many people would certainly claim that rent is theft. I am not among them, as a building had some cost to its construction, and may, therefore, be rightly claimed as property. Unlike land, the house was built and the builder or the person who paid them now owns it. But what gives the government its claim on the landmass on which we live. It would seem to be nothing more than force. We already discussed how it was certainly force that obtained the land in the first place. Further, when you agree to rent a house which someone built, the agreement is voluntary and consensual. The basis of any moral interaction. Governments claim on an entire landmass, where people have lived far longer than said government has existed, is an entirely different story. We have seen how morality is not tied to the law, and it is clearly not tied to need. Both the law and need are strong drivers of human actions, but they have no bearing on whether an action is moral. We agreed that it is immoral for an individual to take money or property by force, regardless of whether that money is used to improve the life of the person from whom it was taken. You stated that governments are not exempt from morality. We still have no reason that an immoral action, when undertaken by an individual, should be moral when undertaken by a government. Perhaps you might claim that taxation is moral due to the democratic process. This would be nearly as dangerous an idea as governments turning the immoral moral by virtue of being a government. If a majority can turn the immoral moral, we have the same problem. If nineteen out of twenty people believe that the twentieth is a witch and must be burned at the stake, the burning is certainly not moral. You conclude that taxation is not theft, yet we have failed to uncover a single variable which would give a government the moral exemption to make that so. I do not dispute that our current government spends a significant amount of the money it collects through taxation on programs and services that we use. However, we discussed earlier how without consent, the taking of money or property by force must still be theft; regardless of what the law says, how badly the money is needed by the person or persons doing the steeling, and whether or not the money is used in part to improve the life of the person from whom it was taken. "but it is in no way immoral for the government to use force when you are proving to not comply and fulfil your duties as a citizen." Would you stand by this statement if the government you follow decreed that part of your duties as a citizen included rounding up Jews, or homosexuals, or Muslims? What if it included segregation or fighting in an unjust war? Do you truly feel it is the case that any action is moral so long as it is untaken as part of your "Duty as a citizen" Taxation today may not be a problem, it may not be a bad thing, it may even be a force for the improvement of all our lives; it also may not be. Whatever our stance of the outcome of taxation, in the modern western world, we should be aware of moral principles, so as to help avoid traps. Traps such as "It's your duty as a citizen" or "it's moral because the government said so" or even "It's the right thing to do for the greater good" these are the very lines of thought that led to the examples I have used throughout this discussion; from the Nazis to the Hutu to Stalin and Mao and so many more.