From: mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian myths.
Date: 15 Sep 1992 20:41:31 GMT
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.2.36

In article <1992Sep15.003900.27104@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> adams@bistro.berkeley.edu (Adam L. Schwartz) writes:
>Response to article <192vihINN4da@armory.centerline.com> mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben):
>>
>>Here's another allusion to the most prevalent libertarian myth: that the
>>government is out to coerce you by force into paying taxes.  This myth
>>totally ignores the contractual nature of the relationship between citizen
>>and state.  The contract is published: read the laws.  If you want to
>>terminate the contract, take citizenship in another country.
>>
>>For example, if you were born in an apartment with an indefinite lease, and
>>when you were grown, your parents moved out leaving you as sole occupant,
>>you wouldn't expect to live there for free, would you?  A landlord would kick
>>you out: the US government hasn't that choice (it would be unconstitutional)
>>and thus needs other ways of collecting.
>
>I didn't sign this social contract.

You don't sign a contract when you enter a restaurant and consume a meal.
Yet you are expected to pay for services rendered.  Even if you don't like
the meal.  Go ahead, try to persuade us that you really didn't know you
were expected to pay taxes.  I'm already inclined to think you're that stupid.

My parents explicitly signed this social contract when they immigrated to
this country.

>The underlying assumption of
>Mike's argument is that the government is my landlord. 

It's obvious that you cannot recognize an analogy if it bites you in the ass.
The government provides services that you consume.  If you have some sort of
kneejerk reaction to a landlord comparison, consider instead that you are a
condo owner.  You are still responsable (by contract) for fees to the
condominium owners association for the services provided.

>In other words, rather than the government being responsible 
>to the people the people should be responsible to the government.

It is the nature of a contract that BOTH parties are responsible to
uphold their ends.  It is a typical libertarian misrepresentation to
pretend that we owe nothing to the government by ignoring the services
that we receive and the government is responsible for.

>I am grateful to live in this country which,
>even with it's flaws, seems like the best place in the world to live.

Yea,  I love mom and apple pie too.

>This does not imply that I should sit back and accept being tax at an
>unreasonably high level.  

Even after taxes, we live the richest, most luxurious life humans have ever
known, but you want to whine because you want to pay less for it.
Poor baby.  I would be happy to pay higher taxes to achieve certain social
goals that other nations have demonstrated are not only possible, but can
coexist with strong economic growth.

>The government is in fact coercing me into paying taxes because I don't agree
>with how the money is being spent (I think it's being flushed down the toilet) 
>and I don't believe that the government is acting in the best interest of the
>citizens of this country.

The government enforces the contract that you agree to by residence.
Hey, if I don't like how Adoplh Coors spends his money, does that mean I
don't have to pay for his beer, that I can just take it?  Or that if I
don't think his product is in my best interests I can just take it?

>The government spends according to political 
>convenience (using the porkbarrel method). 

Government spending is by definition politically directed.  The libertarian
myth is that porkbarrel is the only method.  The GAO would probably disagree.

>But, I shouldn't be forced to leave this country just because the government
>sucks.  The government should leave.

Nobody can force you to leave this country: they can only make you want to.
In this respect you are even better off with government than business, 
since a business needn't do business with you.

>This is my country not the government's.

Sorry, but this country belongs to more people than just you.  The government
is how we negotiate and decide what we want: it is not soem reified enemy
entity.  This is where libertarianism displays its religious nature: the
government is the great satan of libertarian theology.

It amazes me how libertarianism seems to color all the perceptions of its
adherents.  In that respect, it's almost exactly like fundamentalist
Christians and Marxists.  The same selective perception, the same rote
repetition of arguments from sacred texts, the same demonization of
"enemies", and the same brand of "logic" by assertion.

Mike Huben


Strephon: "Have you the heart to apply the prosaic rules of evidence to a
	   case brimming with such poetical emotion?"
Chancellor: "Distinctly."
	From "Iolanthe", by Gilbert and Sullivan.