Debate: Is a government absent of corruption possible?
Side: yes

1. In debate, there is already the tacit understanding that you do provide justification for claims made. If you're going to post a conclusion without justification then I'm going to call you on it by pointing out the lack of justification. Themz the rulez.2. That's quite a purile comment. Worse, it's false. I have a great many opinions on a wide range of topics. If someone expresses an opinion which I share, I still expect them to have a good justification for it. If they don't have one then I wonder whether I have a good justification. If I don't have one then I reaslise that I've made the common thinking error of holding an opinion without good justification. I would only be further compounding the blunder if I simply told others "You wouldn't need a good justification if you already agreed with me".3. That's the adversarial model of debate which you might find if you study e.g. law. My background is in sciences where the collaborative model is preferred. The object in this model isn't to 'win' but to come to a fuller and more accurate understanding. When I first read Bohemian's statement, I took it as something obviously true but realised I couldn't come up with any good justifications for being so confident that it is an impossibility. So I thought I'd get you guys to help if you want to. I'd disagree that posting an argument would be a waste of your time as you may find that once it's written down that you yourself find a glaring hole in it. Or there may be a glich in it that you've overlooked but someone else spots and draws your attention to it. It's worth going through this process even where the opinion is widely held. In the past, there was a widely held belief in fairies but that didn't make them real. It just boils down to this: do you care whether your beliefs and opinions are true?And then, after point #3, you go on to an actual justification. Ok. Let's see...Government is based on taxation.False. Taxation is one of the fund raising options available to a government. Other options include issuing treasury bonds, exporting resources or invading a neighbour and selling all of their resources. I'm sure you can think of many more options.Taxation is the coercive extraction of funding for government monopolized services.False. No part of using taxation as a fund raising method then limits the use of those funds to providing monopolised services. The funds may be used to provide services which are not monopolised and non-government alternatives are availabe, they could be used to build a new palace for a king, or they could be used to find families for all of the orphans in the nation.If government services were optimal, then there would be no need to threaten people with kidnapping and death for not paying taxes because people willingly pay for optimal services.Wrong. If people chose goods and services because they are optimal then advertising campaigns would not be as helpful as they are to the bottom line. There's a little more to why people choose the things they choose than mere optimality.Also, I'm wondering what regime you're referring to. I'm not sure when the last time a person was sentenced to death for not paying taxes. Maybe you can find the most recent case. I wont limit you to the US. You can check in Canada, UK or anywhere in western Europe but I am going to have to limit you to peacetime cases as being uncooperative during wartime can be considered treason and that is a different matter entirely.Finally, it is true that taxes are legally compelled but that's no different to you compelling someone to pay rent. If a friend came to stay with you for a few days and then it later became clear that he may need to stay longer term then you would be reasonable in expecting that he pay rent, contribute to bills, contribute to maintenance, do chores and buy his own food. You wouldn't be too impressed if they refused this and instead replied "It's a free country! You can't make me do anything. I didn't make you build your house but since it's here I'll go raid the fridge."Therefore, government services are NOT optimal as they require both forced payments and the monopolization of the industry to be sustained.The premises have been disposed of so the conclusion stands unsupported. However, 'optimal' has yet to be defined.If government requires coercive payment to be sustained, then it is corrupt.This statement does not follow from the preceding argument given. It's function here is to create the sense that the preceding argument is somehow relevant to the main question by equivocating on the word "corruption". To clarify, corruption here means political corruption which is "the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain". Refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_(political) ) for further clarification.